Apple's Fruitful Future 204
Apple's 30th Anniversary is prompting retrospective looks at the company's last three decades. C|Net grounds their look back in the here and now, commenting on lawsuits and competition. ZDNet complains that Apple still isn't in the workplace. The BBC looks at the company's world-changing aspects in a more upbeat story. Nick Irelan wrote in to mention a Forbes piece entitled Apple's Biggest Duds, so you can image what what side that article comes down on. CNN puts the whole thing in perspective, with a balanced look at the company's good and bad points. Finally, if you want some rumourmongering, 192939495969798999 writes "Industry sources have leaked that tomorrow, on the 30th Anniversary of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs will announce that the new intel-based Mac laptops will support dual-booting Windows XP and OS X 10.4."
The first Dud (Score:4, Insightful)
From the Forbes article: The Lisa
WTF? How many years ago was that? Was the Lisa actually a bad thing at the time? Nothing compared to it, with the sole exception of the "system which came after it" the Mac.
Enough about the Lisa thanks. Apple had a go and they got it right in the end.
Dual booting not mentioned in the article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dual booting is a good way to get to the workpl (Score:3, Insightful)
And double the per-seat cost of support? At the end of the day, hardware is a minor cost for enterprise users. The support/patching/security issues of a machine that logs in on OSX one day and XP the next would be prohibitive. Maybe for specialized cases (web dev etc...), but certainly not enterprise-wide. And in those cases, the workers probably already have two machines on their desk.
marketshare vs. creating new markets (Score:4, Insightful)
What about: jump into new market and grow that market from a 10-100m to a multi-billion dollar market and keep majority share of that market?
How about: making tons of money selling stuff that people want (or perhaps even need)?
Market share only makes sense if you're concerned about innovating and creating new markets. The bottom line is that Apple is making money hand over fist, the old fashioned American way: innovating. I'd like to see HP, Microsoft, and Sony say they've done that in the past 5 years.
The Lisa and Windows 1.0, 2.0... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft produces Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 and everyone says "Got to admire Microsoft, they stick to it until they get it right."
Re:Xen (Score:3, Insightful)
(Of course, times and perceptions have changed, and Apple might be able to pull it off. Maybe.)
Re:The Lisa and Windows 1.0, 2.0... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dual booting is a good way to get to the workpl (Score:5, Insightful)
Dual booting may be a good solution, but Virtual PC for Mac/Intel running Windows at near-native speeds will be a better one.
And by the way, the comment about Apple releasing a dual booting laptop themselves is nonsense.
Re:Apple has no place in any responsible business (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has no business in the workplace until it opens up it's[sic] hardware to competition.
That is just not going to happen. You see, Apple is complete vertical chain for a reason. That reason is Microsoft. Jobs realized a long time ago that having a closed ecosystem was a problem and he did something about it. He founded NextStep. Then they were killed by MS's monopoly. Sure they had better hardware and better software, but unless you can get your software pre-installed and get developers to work on it you won't reach more than a tiny minority of the market. No hardware company will pre-install OS X, because MS will just raise the price of Windows for them and suddenly they can't compete in the mainstream market. That leaves them stuck completely reliant upon Apple, and competing with them at the same time, which is a terrible place to be. So you might think, "well Apple could fix that if they ditched the hardware business." Yeah, now you go to the board of director's of the second most profitable computer retailer and tell them you want to stop selling computers and focus on the part of your business that makes only 10% of your money.
The truth is, unless the government does its job and breaks MS up into two or more OS companies and/or enforces open standards there is no way Apple can safely move into that market.
Linux, on the other hand, may be able to walk in and save the day for big business. Linux is not a company. It is a OS supported by many companies and is ideally customizable for large corporate environments. Every large organization should be looking at it. If Linux grabs just 20% of the desktop through business and Apple grabs 20% of the home market, things will really start to change. Cross-platform will be an important characteristic and real standards might be followed.
Basically, I agree with you, but it will not happen because Apple would go out of business.
Re:Sorry Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF are ou talking about?
get any iBook, MacBook, mac mini, iMac and compare to equavelent items from Dell or your local PC store. You will find that once you count in hardware, software and build quality Apple are actually quite reasonable. Alienware (Delaware?) aren't exactly cheap either but people still buy them.
Re:Sorry Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but not everyone needs the Cadillac of computers, some just want a Chevy. Fact is, Apple's cheapest computer right now is $599, and it comes without a screen, keyboard, or mouse. You can buy an entire PC system for half the cost.