Steve Ballmer: Safari a 'rounding error,' Mac losing market share - Page 5

Originally Posted by sdbryan

Really? Most of the "elegant" animation I see on the web reminds me of the mind-numbingly stupid animation you see on local TV newscasts and commercials. Text that expands slightly, moves across the screen, etc. Unfortunately it is often written by people who seem to be less than impressive in their grasp of subjects I know well, which undermines my faith in the presence of actual intelligence. Don't misunderstand, I enjoy good animation but I don't equate it with user experience.

Originally Posted by star-fish

Quite a few large companies have. Including HSBC. Hasn't really made any difference.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Mac sales are down this year. Maybe one day Apple will pull out altogether and stick to phones and media players

Originally Posted by sprockkets

Ballmer is so dumb. He brags about netbooks selling all the while knowing that he is making less money selling XP on them and Win7 will not help that either, because he will sell a cut version of it. Kinda hard to hide the OEM Windows Tax when netbooks cost around $350, isn't Ballmer.

OEMs don't make much off of netbooks either, nor do they make much of anything on $399 laptops. You and your OEMs can have your bottom feeder market Ballmer.

Originally Posted by stokessd

1) There are lots of government agencies that use Macs. NASA has had a long history of mac usership. Nobody is only macs because macs don't have certain mission critical software. There is no hardcore CAD/CAM for the mac. There is no credible PCB layout for the MAC. the list goes on and on.

2) Windows is software, and so much of a computing experience is interactions with the hardware. Apple makes nice hardware that I want to use. I end up running both XP and snow leopard on it to get work done. Regardless of what people say, windows does work and can work very well. I spend 8 hours a day on it at work and am very productive.

3) I find it ironic that the mac hardware designs are done on Windows machines.

Sheldon

Originally Posted by jiminmissouri

I'm afraid I don't understand.

If Apple's market share is "statistically insignificant", why then did Microsoft finally decide to pump millions of dollars into an ad campaign targeting people who might consider buying Apple computers?

For that matter, why are reporters even bothering to raise the issue?

Hmmm.

Originally Posted by mr O



this Ballmer guy is a first class stand up comedian!

Originally Posted by sprockkets

Never going to happen. Apple not putting flash on the iphone is retribution to Microsoft for bundling Flash in IE back in the mid 90s to kill Quicktime.

Payback's a bitch!

Originally Posted by GrumbleGus

Balmer has become the post turtle of the computer industry.

"When you're driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle. You know he didn't get up there by himself and he can only see in the direction he has been turned. He doesn't belong there; he can't get anything done while he's up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down."

Originally Posted by GrumbleGus

Balmer has become the post turtle of the computer industry.

"When you're driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle. You know he didn't get up there by himself and he can only see in the direction he has been turned. He doesn't belong there; he can't get anything done while he's up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down."

Originally Posted by rooket

I'm amazed this news makes it up on an Apple forum. But it just shows that this forum is totally unbiased I am guessing.

Why is it that whenever I try to access emails on hotmail.com, I can't actually open the emails but only list them? The comment on Safari in this article is vague but realistically that browser does not seem to work very well if it can't open a simple hotmail message. Idc if apple hates microsoft or vice versa, but why put out a product that can't do something that freaking simple? That is just nonsense.

Apple's gotta do a lot better to hook me in to their products...

Originally Posted by zoetmb

All I know is that at home, I was able to use my Mac G4 Tower for seven years before giving it up. It still works perfectly, I just can't edit video with precision or edit super large Photoshop files with a little delay, so I finally bought a new laptop.

At work, I go through a PC laptop every year or two. Even if the laptop is still usable, it generally has to be reformatted to make it work and it requires hours of work from a tech or from myself. I'm also on my second desktop at work and I don't think they ever got my old one working again, even after reformatting.

The Mac requires almost no support.

When I had Vista on the Lenovo laptop, in spite of adding more memory, the machine took about 20 minutes to boot up. Before going to a client for a meeting, I'd have to boot up the machine and put it in sleep or standby or we'd be 20 minutes into the meeting before I could demo our product.

I'm sure there was a way to configure Vista so it wasn't so annoying and lackluster as a performer, but I really don't feel I should have to read a 600 page book to get it to work. The Mac just works.

Every Mac OS update has worked perfectly. About two weeks ago, Microsoft sent down an update that caused every NT machine in our offices not to work until you unplugged the network cable and rebooted (rebooting without unplugging the network cable didn't work), but it took us a while to figure that out. Things were so bad, we thought we were seriously infected with a bad virus.

So yes, you can buy a Dell or a Lenovo for relatively little money as compared with a Mac and they'll even have equivalent memory, hard disk space and screen size.

But in the long run and especially in terms of productivity, the Mac costs far less. But I don't want the Mac to achieve mass scale anyway. Haven't we learned by now that when you produce something for the masses, it's usually crap? I'm perfectly happy letting the masses eat in McDonald's, watch bad reality shows and use PCs. The Mac truly is "for the rest of us" and I would hope it stays that way. I'm not looking for Apple to be Ford, I'm looking for them to remain BMW.

It's not that Apple does everything right. And there is still a bit of arrogance in the organization. But they get it right most of the time and the majority of my annoyances with the Mac are actually Microsoft Office based.

Originally Posted by xwiredtva

Nice rant... People in India are people too though. However the People Mac users speak to aren't reading out of the same manual or Help file you just read hours ago. They are actually thinking.

Originally Posted by Smurfman

And why is Microsoft still selling Office for Mac??

Originally Posted by Shunnabunich

That's not quite the point of what they're doing. Apple's overall strategy, as far as anyone can tell, seems to be to level the playing field so that their already kickass products will sell on their own merits, instead of being unfairly squashed by an inferior product that got a free pass early on. To accomplish this larger goal, they're willing to help others achieve smaller ones.

An example of where this is already working is in the smartphone market, where the iPhone is quickly becoming the dominant player, not because Apple used illegal and predatory practices to prevent competition from taking place, but because the iPhone competed successfully.

On the Web, the main problem is that "rich" content (i.e. more than just words and pictures) is mostly tied to Flash right now, which is a completely proprietary browser plugin controlled by one company alone, and which is not interoperable with other parts of the Web. (I think it's only within the last year that I even heard murmurs about making Flash content searchable by search engines. This is after over a decade of sitting pretty thanks to Microsoft's "leg up".) Essentially, Adobe makes Flash especially for Windows — nobody can argue that the Mac version of the plugin isn't horribly crippled in performance, and Adobe doesn't appear to want to improve that situation. (Much like their other desktop software, come to think of it.)

Apple could:
a) plead with Adobe to develop a Flash plugin capable of running on the iPhone platform, hope they someday decide to deliver, and from then on be slaves to Adobe's whims as far as web content goes, OR...
b) work to undermine Adobe's stranglehold on rich Web media and applications by pushing open standards that anyone can use, using a cross-platform browser (Safari) and engine (WebKit, now being adopted by myriad other browsers as well) that stay on the cutting edge of such standards to make them more attractive.

They've obviously gone with Option B, and you can see new developments in WebKit all the time that gradually make bits and pieces of Flash seem redundant. JavaScript that performs fast. CSS that now lets you do animation and 3D effects with anything on the page, even retaining text's ability to be selected and copied without requiring any extra developer legwork. Support for HTML5 stuff like video tags, gradually (through adoption) obviating the need to use Flash just to deliver video.

By pushing (and helping to develop) these standards, Apple is trying to make the web a platform where everyone with the know-how, not just those who've shelled out for a Flash license, can create and deliver interactive web-based media and applications that compete on their own merits. And competing on their own merits is something Apple happens to be good at. I'm sure you can draw the parallels to the situation between Apple and Microsoft without too much trouble.



THIS. I LOVE THIS.

Or one could take their Dell laptop and use Norton Ghost to back up a complete image of it and when there's a major issue, just restore the image. Then again, Windows has a feature built in where when you go in safe mode, you can choose a restore point to roll back to. I haven't used it much but when i did use it, it worked well. I'm always learning new things.

Apple to remain bmw? Have you seen what kind of a car you get for 40 grand from BMW? no thanks! lol and plus the maintenance on those things is absurd. A ford lasts just as long (probably longer) than a BMW. Ford is going to be the number one manufacturer by 2012 anyways. BMW will never be that high. I guess it is a fair comparison then since it appears that Apple with their high prices wants to always be the under dog.

Originally Posted by teckstud

May Apple enable flash on iPhone's Safari so I can actually use it consistently.

Originally Posted by rooket

Ford is going to be the number one manufacturer by 2012 anyways.

Originally Posted by jiminmissouri

I'm afraid I don't understand.

If Apple's market share is "statistically insignificant", why then did Microsoft finally decide to pump millions of dollars into an ad campaign targeting people who might consider buying Apple computers?

For that matter, why are reporters even bothering to raise the issue?

Hmmm.

Originally Posted by rooket

I'm amazed this news makes it up on an Apple forum. But it just shows that this forum is totally unbiased I am guessing.

Why is it that whenever I try to access emails on hotmail.com, I can't actually open the emails but only list them? The comment on Safari in this article is vague but realistically that browser does not seem to work very well if it can't open a simple hotmail message. Idc if apple hates microsoft or vice versa, but why put out a product that can't do something that freaking simple? That is just nonsense.

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

The Steve Ballmer Delusion Tour:

Ballmer: Apple wont dominate the smartphone market - September 25, 2009

Microsoft CEO Ballmer gets $25,000 raise as company profit plummets 17% - September 19, 2009

Ballmer grabs Apple iPhone from Microsoft employee and stomps it into ground - September 11, 2009

Steve Ballmer calls Apples Mac market share growth a rounding error - July 31, 2009

In a roomful of Macs, Ballmer promises really amazing non-Apple PC hardware coming this Christmas - July 30, 2009

Ballmer attempts to laugh off Googles Chrome OS challenge - July 14, 2009

Originally Posted by jiminmissouri

I'm afraid I don't understand.

If Apple's market share is "statistically insignificant", why then did Microsoft finally decide to pump millions of dollars into an ad campaign targeting people who might consider buying Apple computers?

For that matter, why are reporters even bothering to raise the issue?

Hmmm.

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

That sounds bizarre. I can open emails from my old hotmail account just fine, images and all. For example, I used to play EVE Online. I've cancelled my accounts long ago but I still get the newlsetter. I can open the entire e-mail in hotmail via Safari, and the newsletter - graphics and all, appears inline.

Then again, if you're the type that projects their anecdotal problems onto the entire market then you can't be helped. I'm going to assume that isn't the case.

Safari works just fine with Hotmail/Windows Live Mail. I do all my banking through Safari as well.

Originally Posted by canadianjeepguy30

Are you kidding? Relegated to tech support? Listening to him give you directions or try to solve your problem would be like listening to the ramblings of a mental patient. On second thought, it might be good for a few laughs.

Originally Posted by BertP

I'll probably get a lot of static for saying this but I don't think personal computers in terms of value are expensive. You can buy a good Apple computer between 2 and 3 thousand dollars. You can buy a good quality automobile for 25 to 40 thousand dollars.

A quality computer with a quality OS is worth saving for just as an automobile with high reliability and low maintenance is worth saving for.

Penny wise and pound foolish, I say, regarding less expensive computers. Furthermore, Steve Ballmer is a sales guy, and I would deal with him as such.

Originally Posted by TBell

Despite appearances, Ballmer isn't stupid.

Originally Posted by rooket

Or one could take their Dell laptop and use Norton Ghost to back up a complete image of it and when there's a major issue, just restore the image. Then again, Windows has a feature built in where when you go in safe mode, you can choose a restore point to roll back to. I haven't used it much but when i did use it, it worked well. I'm always learning new things.

Apple to remain bmw? Have you seen what kind of a car you get for 40 grand from BMW? no thanks! lol and plus the maintenance on those things is absurd. A ford lasts just as long (probably longer) than a BMW. Ford is going to be the number one manufacturer by 2012 anyways. BMW will never be that high. I guess it is a fair comparison then since it appears that Apple with their high prices wants to always be the under dog.

But then yeah at least an apple is affordable so those who want to toss their money at it can. I guess it comes down to whether or not u think aesthetics are worth several hundreds of dollars for a piece of equipment that does exactly the same thing as anything any other vendor offers.

Originally Posted by rooket

I'm amazed this news makes it up on an Apple forum. But it just shows that this forum is totally unbiased I am guessing.

Why is it that whenever I try to access emails on hotmail.com, I can't actually open the emails but only list them? The comment on Safari in this article is vague but realistically that browser does not seem to work very well if it can't open a simple hotmail message. Idc if apple hates microsoft or vice versa, but why put out a product that can't do something that freaking simple? That is just nonsense.

Apple's gotta do a lot better to hook me in to their products. Their laptops seem ok but they cost about 2x as much as a PC vendor can make (using very similar hardware, come on Apple uses Hynix ram and Fujitsu hard drives both of which are extremely cheap as well as I read they switched vendors from Intel to Nvidia to cut costs on main boards inside macbooks). So all I see Apple doing is cutting costs and maybe lowering prices a touch but keeping them up high and basically price gouging the consumer for 'aesthetics' and a few little bells and whistles such as the neodynium magnets holding the power supply onto the macbook, light weight portability, and maybe a couple other things I can't think of.

When I bought my laptop, it would have cost me $600 more for a macbook with all of the same features, down to the processor core, graphics chip, same exact brand of RAM too and now these days the type of laptop I have costs even less and apple's offering costs about double what I can buy one for. Now it is starting to look like Fujitsu possibly makes one of the best quality laptops, I knew someone with one of those and it worked exceptionally well.

I think if Apple wants to make it really worth spending the extra bucks on a macbook, they should use a brand name ram (Hynix? come on guys.. spending $1800 for a low end laptop and popping open the chassis to find this is just disgraceful on your part but then again, the ram works...) and plus you can buy a high end gaming laptop with SLI these days for around that much or maybe even less. I've seen them go on sale for less than that, but it is rare.

The only other thing that'd get me to buy one is if they priced it according to what other vendors price their systems with equivalent hardware at. After all, a Macbook is just an Intel laptop that looks different and possibly is lighter than everyone else's laptop.

The reason why people still buy these things is because somehow Apple brainwashed society into thinking that if you put an apple logo on anything, it automatically makes it not crash. And this is not true because there is absolutely no such thing as a computer that never crashes and also again these are basically the same equipment as other vendors provide for retail sale. Then again I can recall in the distant past where whenever I let an iMAC idle and tried to type or use the mouse the whole computer was froze including the mouse cursor. That...just didn't set in well with me for the product.

..and don't get me started on ipod shuffles. $80 for 2 gigs of storage?

But anyway Apple will continue going on the way they are I'm sure while the rest of us will bargain hunt. After all even Apple themselve said the typical lifespan of a computer is 3 years and when you calculate it out, you can probably buy 3 PC laptops for the price of one 17" macbook pro which has specs that aren't very impressive. So I'm talking 9 years versus 3. Do the math.

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Internet Explorer \t 66.97%
Firefox \t 22.98%
Safari \t 4.07%
Chrome \t 2.84%
Opera \t 2.04%

Source: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/brow...e.aspx?qprid=0

And, more to cause Steve's head to explode: http://kottke.org/09/09/kottkeorg-vi...and-statistics

Originally Posted by mosqueda

Back in the 50's and 60's people thought the Japanese built little junk cars and brushed them away as insignificant. We all know how that turned out. Of course, thankfully, American carmakers are making a comeback, but it's been decades.

Ballmer appears to have the arrogance of Henry Ford II, past GM Chairmen and other American industrialists. Of course Microsoft isn't sitting still, but they need to be a little more humble and recognize the growth and appreciate the serious competition they are facing.

Imagine if just one government agency switches to OSX, just one. Or maybe one large company. Then the dominos begin to fall.

Originally Posted by al_bundy

Hondas and Toyotas are still cheaper than the big three cars. Mac's are twice as expensive as a PC with similar performance

Originally Posted by gmcalpin

Interesting. At my webcomic's site (hardly a scientific sampling), I see:
\t
Firefox – 63.01%\t
Internet Explorer – 15.68%\t
Safari – 12.28%\t
Chrome – 6.12%\t
Opera – 2.03%

Does that mean my readers are smarter than the average internet user?

Originally Posted by Smurfman

And why is Microsoft still selling Office for Mac??

Originally Posted by GrumbleGus

Balmer has become the post turtle of the computer industry.

"When you're driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle. You know he didn't get up there by himself and he can only see in the direction he has been turned. He doesn't belong there; he can't get anything done while he's up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down."