Mike Dell :"Confirmed: Apple is Outta Buisness" - Page 4

When Belle said he works for one time "enemy" of Apple I thought it was M$

[quote]Originally posted by Leonis:
<strong>Comic web site

My new online portfolio
</strong><hr></blockquote>

I know this ain't the place, but dude your shit rocks! Man really nice....

Belle wrote:

[quote]<strong>The general perception is that the "enterprise" market is full of companies running Microsoft Office on Windows PCs sitting on networks served by huge banks of Windows servers (, I know there's Sun, Linux, etc. but it comes down to the same thing).

However the truth is that most big enterprises (Insurance companies, banks, call centers, support services, etc.) run bespoke software applications. Admittedly these are generally written on top of generic databases like Oracle, but these companies have typically invested huge amounts of money in software development and maintenance, licenses, hardware, and support. If a company made the decision to switch to Mac, chances are the software developer (which also maintains the applications and offers support) doesn't develop for Mac. They're typically Windows-only outfits (and still quite often DOS!). So the code would have to be handed over to a Mac development outfit (if you can find one) and either ported or completely rewritten. Neither option is cheap.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Believe me, I know about vertical market DOS apps. I'm writing a replacement for one as we speak. And that's part of what inspired my thought: At some point, the platform (or app) becomes enough of an albatross that it's worth the investment to leap over to something else. That frustration is what's buying my food right now.

Oracle has already ported most of their apps to the Mac. Basically, all that's left is the database itself, and as of 9i it can run on a cluster of workgroup servers just as well as on a hunk of big iron. So even if Apple doesn't get into the minicomputer market Mac OS X could become a sensible target platform for Oracle.

As for the rest, the best Apple can do is make it really easy to create new vertical market apps (which they have done, in spades - FileMaker, Cocoa, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc.) and be there when someone gets frustrated - whether by DOS apps or horrible responsiveness or latency from a terminal/server arrangement or fear of Microsoft. It won't sweep the enterprise world by storm, but then there's no sane way to imagine that Apple could.

[quote]<strong>The alternative is for Apple to just offer back office hardware - servers which are often Sun or Linux systems with a Windows network running off them. Trouble is, Microsoft have made it too easy to choose servers running Microsoft server products unless you operate an intranet or use Sun workstations (Whatever happened to thin clients?).</strong><hr></blockquote>

Thin clients? Two words: "Dickless workstation."
The only people who were excited by thin clients were reps from companies like *ahem* IBM who wanted to push sales of big iron. They don't really make any sense from a user's perspective: In any distributed system, the first, no-brainer optimization is caching. That's what the memory and HD in a "heavy client" are in a networked environment. But then, if you have heavy clients, you don't need big (and wildly profitable) mainframes (like the one in Atlanta that Home Depot buried in concrete because it cost less to buy a new one then it would have to haul the giant beast out of its basement home), and you can get by with 10-Base T because network traffic is relatively low.

But I digress. Mac OS X can communicate with UNIX servers natively, and Windows as well, so it's attractive to corporations looking to wean themselves off the Microsoft teat. Virtual PC can take care of laggard apps.

[quote]<strong>And if you require Intel/AMD based hardware to run Windows out in the office, Dell will make you an offer you can't refuse if you also buy its server products for the back office.</strong><hr></blockquote>

And if you don't require them...

[quote]<strong>There certainly aren't any guarantees, and without a solid foothold in one market, it's incredibly dangerous (almost foolish) to attempt to corner another.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That's why Apple is building up their enterprise services in education. By the time their hardware platform goes 64 bit and OS X has had its rough spots ironed out, they should have built up some real experience handling and supporting big installations. The smart vertical-market and enterprise software vendors will take note of this. It doesn't take long at all to get up to speed in Cocoa, as you well know.

[quote]<strong>And we've got some serious processing power here that'll make the Athlon look like an abacus with missing beads.*

* Should be shipping sometime around 2015-2020.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Typical IBM: Compare the competition's offerings to something you'll deliver years from now.

Wasn't OpenStep/WebObjects big in financial circles? Obviously, that has slipped since the merger with Apple, but alas, financials are, after all, the slowest to move.

Yes it was, and it still is to some extent, although other solutions have caught up or surpassed it.

Nevertheless, I don't think it's going away. It's just sticking out a little oddly until Apple gets some other divisions up to speed.

[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>Believe me, I know about vertical market DOS apps. I'm writing a replacement for one as we speak. And that's part of what inspired my thought: At some point, the platform (or app) becomes enough of an albatross that it's worth the investment to leap over to something else. That frustration is what's buying my food right now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You and many, many others. It's a topic of conversation over many meals, usually accompanied by vicious assaults on VB.

Out of interest, what tools are you using to write this replacement? I take it it's going to Windows?
[quote]<strong>Oracle has already ported most of their apps to the Mac. Basically, all that's left is the database itself, and as of 9i it can run on a cluster of workgroup servers just as well as on a hunk of big iron. So even if Apple doesn't get into the minicomputer market Mac OS X could become a sensible target platform for Oracle.

As for the rest, the best Apple can do is make it really easy to create new vertical market apps (which they have done, in spades - FileMaker, Cocoa, Python, Tcl/Tk, etc.) and be there when someone gets frustrated - whether by DOS apps or horrible responsiveness or latency from a terminal/server arrangement or fear of Microsoft. It won't sweep the enterprise world by storm, but then there's no sane way to imagine that Apple could.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
This may be the problem. Considering the investment required to put Apple in a position to make a viable attempt at capturing some of the enterprise market, it'll need to take it by storm. It's not so much getting the hardware and software up to spec, it's more the related support and services.

It costs a phenomenal amount to set up and maintain the kind of support and services required for the enterprise market. Sun, Microsoft, Dell et al have huge divisions taking care of this stuff.

Meanwhile, Apple announced in its financial report that it's shedding "administrative" jobs, so if this is going to happen, it'll be some time a long way off.
[quote]<strong>Thin clients? Two words: "Dickless workstation."
The only people who were excited by thin clients were reps from companies like *ahem* IBM who wanted to push sales of big iron. They don't really make any sense from a user's perspective: In any distributed system, the first, no-brainer optimization is caching. That's what the memory and HD in a "heavy client" are in a networked environment. But then, if you have heavy clients, you don't need big (and wildly profitable) mainframes (like the one in Atlanta that Home Depot buried in concrete because it cost less to buy a new one then it would have to haul the giant beast out of its basement home), and you can get by with 10-Base T because network traffic is relatively low.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, don't knock Big Blue. Okay, so thin clients were a passing phase (for everyone except Larry Ellison), but IBM is doing some amazing work, particularly in storage technologies, and they've got some *incredibly* smart, intelligent, and dare I say beautiful people working on new processing technologies. And besides, the 1GB MicroDrive in my camera kicks ass.
[quote]<strong>But I digress. Mac OS X can communicate with UNIX servers natively, and Windows as well, so it's attractive to corporations looking to wean themselves off the Microsoft teat. Virtual PC can take care of laggard apps.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is another problem. If there is even the slightest hint that less people may be sucking on Microsoft's teats (Did you have to? I have this horrible image of Bill Gates breastfeeding) it'll pull out all the stops to prevent that from happening. And it has large scope for price reductions.
[quote]<strong>And if you don't require them...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ah, uh, um. Can't argue with that.
[quote]<strong>That's why Apple is building up their enterprise services in education. By the time their hardware platform goes 64 bit and OS X has had its rough spots ironed out, they should have built up some real experience handling and supporting big installations. The smart vertical-market and enterprise software vendors will take note of this. It doesn't take long at all to get up to speed in Cocoa, as you well know.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm, I'm still sceptical about just how much impact a 64-bit platform and the G5 will make. It's going to take a heck of a lot to persuade enterprises to switch, even if Apple does have all the pieces in place. And I'm not certain Apple has the necessary capital or expertise to get the service and support in place. There's certainly no indication such a plan to enter the enterprise market is currently in progress - I suspect there'd have been some fairly high profile new additions to Apple's board and workforce.

A word of advice though - if you truly believe Apple will do this, and make some sort of success out of it, start your own Cocoa-based development company now. You'll be able to retire within a couple of years.
[quote]<strong>Typical IBM: Compare the competition's offerings to something you'll deliver years from now.<hr></blockquote></strong>
Ouchie. Well, I made the comparison to the "competition", so I deserved that. However, as far as I'm aware, there are only three labs around the world working on this stuff, and two are universities. We have a slight advantage. And it won't matter how many GHz Intel can achieve by then.

&lt;apple ad&gt;

"Dude, you're getting a lobotomy..."

&lt;/apple ad&gt;

[quote]Originally posted by alcimedes:
<strong>hey belle, just off chance, which dell config did you come up with that was less than the new iMac in price w/a DVD burner?

i tried a few but didn't find any.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Since I checked yesterday, things have changed. No free printer now, but free shipping, and the price of the DVD+RW drive has been reduced. Here we go:

Dell Dimension 4400 Series
Dimension® 4400 Series,Pentium® 4 Processor at 1.8 GHz

Price: $1,577.00

Pentium® 4 Processor at 1.8 GHz
256MB DDR SDRAM\tÂ*\t256M
Dell® Enhanced Quiet Key Keyboard
17 in (15.9 in viewable,.27dp) E771 Monitor\tÂ*\t
64MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 4X AGP Graphics Card with TV-Out
40GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
3.5 in Floppy Drive
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition\tÂ*\t
MS IntelliMouse®
10/100 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
56K PCI Data Fax Modem for Windows
DVD+RW/CD-RW Combo Drive
SB Live! Digital Sound Card
Harman Kardon Speakers
Microsoft® Works Suite 2002 with Money 2002 Standard
Norton Antivirus® 2002, 90-day introductory offer
Dell Jukebox powered by MusicMatch 6.0 for XP
Image Expert®2000 for XP, Dell Edition\tÂ*\t
1Yr Ltd. Warranty- 1Yr At-Home Service + 1Yr Phone Support
Months of DellNet® by MSN Internet Access Included
APC SURGESTATION
Standard Dell Movie Studio Bundle for Windows XP

Which leaves you $222 to spend on a better monitor and hard disk, and still have enough left over for Sonic's MyDVD and a few DVD-Rs before you reach $1799.

I notice Dell doesn't currently have a 15in LCD display available, though I suspect that'll appear quite soon.

I'd still prefer an iMac, but there are many who'll go with Dell.

Jeez, one reason not to go with Dell - it forces you to buy a surge protector for $38. I can't remove it from the order?!

The one year limited warranty, "At Home" service and phone support will appeal to many also.

[ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Belle ]</p>

Changing over to the enterprise market would require ALOT of preparation by Apple, not to mention a bit o' philosophy change. And what is more, it would have to be big, visible boardmember, marketed in your face change by Apple. Apple would have to invest so much money in people and infrastructure to deal with problems. Also enterprise wouldn't like to have to always wait for MWNY's to know whether they were getting new computers or not.

What I just keep wondering is ... what is the $4 billion going to be used for? I assume it has been held to support the retail stores and buy a few small companies once in awhile, but if the store turn a profit like is being expected, then Jobs has that cash available for something else. The iMac may not be making 30% for awhile, but they aren't going to lose money on it and I bet by next year they will still have a healthy margin of 25% or so.

Apple to get into enterprise would best partner with someone ... like IBM ... with whom it isn't competing in quite the same market, but from whom it could buy lots of processors!?!?

Belle wrote:

[quote]<strong>You and many, many others. It's a topic of conversation over many meals, usually accompanied by vicious assaults on VB.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Of which there cannot be too many.

We'd count ourselves lucky to have to wrestle with VB, though. We're dealing with FoxPro.

FoxPro. In 2002. The mind boggles.

[quote]<strong>Out of interest, what tools are you using to write this replacement? I take it it's going to Windows?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Borland C++ Builder. Initial target is Windows, because we have a big hairy deadline and that's are current platform. But we're writing as much as possible in ANSI C++ and isolating the GUI code so that we can port quickly and easily. The GUI will be described in XML and built dynamically rather than hardcoded.

Then we'll port to OS X and Linux (classic MacOS is unlikely, just because nobody in our field has Macs now, and if they bought Macs they'd come with OS X), because supporting Windows is a costly, bug-ridden, time-sucking PITA consisting of a multitude of platforms that seem always to be just different enough to give us a constant stream of grief, and as a non-profit we can't really afford that.

[quote]<strong>This may be the problem. Considering the investment required to put Apple in a position to make a viable attempt at capturing some of the enterprise market, it'll need to take it by storm. It's not so much getting the hardware and software up to spec, it's more the related support and services.

It costs a phenomenal amount to set up and maintain the kind of support and services required for the enterprise market.</strong><hr></blockquote>

And that's exactly why Apple is targeting the education market first. They have time to build and test that infrastructure, and then they can go to enterprise customers and say, "look, we set up a wireless network of 75,000 CPUs and we've had them running smoothly for a year now. We can do the same for you."

That was the point of my post at badflamingo: If I'm reading this right, Apple is setting themselves up so that by the time their platform is enterprise ready, they'll have built up the services - which, as you note, are the most important part - and they'll be able to point to several large installations and a seasoned crew. They can take education by storm by treating school districts like enterprise customers, and then enter the business-enterprise market from that base of strength.

[quote]<strong>Meanwhile, Apple announced in its financial report that it's shedding "administrative" jobs, so if this is going to happen, it'll be some time a long way off.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Certainly. I'm thinking this will happen over a period of a few years.

[quote]<strong>Hey, don't knock Big Blue.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Try and stop me.

[quote]<strong>they've got some *incredibly* smart, intelligent, and dare I say beautiful people working on new processing technologies.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I'll grant that they have at least one person matching that description.

I'm not dissing IBM in toto. They do some great work, especially in research where all the stunningly beautiful, impossibly intelligent people are. But there is a particularly well-known part of IBM that really should have been extincted by a certain meteorite a few million years ago.

[quote]<strong>This is another problem. If there is even the slightest hint that less people may be sucking on Microsoft's teats (Did you have to? I have this horrible image of Bill Gates breastfeeding) it'll pull out all the stops to prevent that from happening. And it has large scope for price reductions.</strong><hr></blockquote>

And a government that will look the other way if they decide to start "competing" really aggressively. That's really the biggest problem: flying under Microsoft's radar.

But if Apple "passively" grows enterprise market share by clearing their throats in the direction of corporations who are sick of Microsoft's licensing policies, what's Bill going to do? He's powerful, but there are companies that are as big or bigger than Microsoft is, or at least big enough to put the hurt on him if they wanted to.

Don't short Apple's aggressiveness, either, by the way. They attack bids like wolverines. Henrico County got millions of dollars in software for free - big software, too, not AppleWorks.

[quote]<strong>Hmm, I'm still sceptical about just how much impact a 64-bit platform and the G5 will make.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Those are just icing: The last obstacles to adoption as an enterprise platform for some customers (some 3D, big databases like Oracle, mid- to heavy-duty server work). The cornerstone will be Apple's demonstrated ability to design, deploy and maintain large installations of machines, and that's what they're working on now. OS X running on 64- and 32-bit hardware, with highly compatible networking and several different RAD options, will just make the deal sweeter.

[quote]<strong>It's going to take a heck of a lot to persuade enterprises to switch, even if Apple does have all the pieces in place. And I'm not certain Apple has the necessary capital or expertise to get the service and support in place.</strong><hr></blockquote>

A lot depends on factors outside of Apple, of course, including Microsoft. But Apple can't worry about that. What they can do is look as pretty as possible when they have all the pieces in place.


[quote]<strong>There's certainly no indication such a plan to enter the enterprise market is currently in progress - I suspect there'd have been some fairly high profile new additions to Apple's board and workforce.</strong><hr></blockquote>

There's no point to their entering now. I consider their activity in education to be laying the groundwork for an eventual push into that market.

[quote]<strong>A word of advice though - if you truly believe Apple will do this, and make some sort of success out of it, start your own Cocoa-based development company now. You'll be able to retire within a couple of years.</strong><hr></blockquote>

True. Time to start burning the midnight oil in earnest.

[quote]quote:Typical IBM: Compare the competition's offerings to something you'll deliver years from now.

<strong>Ouchie. &lt;http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/smile.gif&gt; Well, I made the comparison to the "competition", so I deserved that.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Never underestimate the power of corporate culture.

[quote]<strong>However, as far as I'm aware, there are only three labs around the world working on this stuff, and two are universities. We have a slight advantage. And it won't matter how many GHz Intel can achieve by then.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Cool! Look forward to seeing it someday.

I suppose it's far too late for me to point out to myself that this whole thread has nothing to do with Future Hardware. Bad mod! No cookie!

[ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>

Who's Michael Dell? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

I know who Steve Jobs is, he's the dude who created the whole desktop computer thing and he wins Oscars too.

But who's Michael Dell?!

Wasn't he in Monty Python?

According to reports from independent sources the new iMac has a larger number of pre-orders than the original iMac did. That doesn't ensure success, but it will keep Apple in the game for a few more years.

Also the Register is giving an objective opinion about the speed bumped PowerMacs as being very competitive workstations, and they don't give praise lightly....
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/23851.html" target="_blank">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/23851.html</a>

I think again this means that Apple's business model will be successful at keeping it profitable and all. It looks to me that there will have to be fundamental change within the industry as a whole before Apple will be able to expand its market percentage though.

For example, <a href="http://www.infosatellite.com/news/2001/11/h301101intel_boasts_usb.html" target="_blank">http://www.infosatellite.com/news/2001/11/h301101intel_boasts_usb.html</a>
This is partially Intel marketing, but as long as the Wintel monopoly stays in existence and both companies give unfair advantage to each other, Apple may only be able to exist as it is now.

The PC industry is in more than an economic downturn, it is in the stage of the sheepherders verses the cattlemen. Barbed wire is being laid down all over the PC range and people's choices are slowly and not in a suble way being reduced to the level of a McDonald's menu. Lots of stuff that looks like a choice, but all tastes the same.

I am hoping that Apple can thrive long enough to still be around when the free market and true innovation again drives the industry and not the other way around.

As just pointed out, iMac pre-orders are very heavy. I can't remember when I've felt more ready to spend money on Apple, and apparently that's happening all over, despite disappointments of the faithful about G5's or MX4
cards, etc. Since the iPod release in November, I've bought an iPod for myself and two for family members, a new iMac for my wife, and I'm about to order a 933 PM for myself. My son has ordered a new iMac for himself, and his Windows-using fiancee decided she wanted an iMac once she saw one at the Apple Store, so they're ordering another one.

We weren't computer-poor before doing this. All of us had good computers that still had some life in them. We don't make a habit of changing computers every so often just to keep up.

I know that a lot of people are waiting for bigger and better, but there must be plenty of us out there who feel the strong appeal of what Apple is offering now. My Windows-using work friends and extended family (many of whom own Dells) all think of computers in terms of what's the cheapest box that they can get away with buying. They've been conditioned by Dell to think that way, and that's not good for Dell in the long run.

Apple isn't aimed at that low-end market, even though they like to say they want that business (the other 95%). They really want (and need) people who will pay for the R&D. All the business model discussion in this thread aside, I think that most Apple users
know that they pay more for that, and the current orders on the iMac show that lots of people are willing to do just that.

[ 01-30-2002: Message edited by: Barvow ]

[ 01-30-2002: Message edited by: Barvow ]</p>