Apple plans mystery "product transition" before September's end - Page 11

If the going gets tough... do we hide in a corner under a blankee?

Linux has had little impact because "no one wants Linux TM".
People *do* want OS X.

HP cannot sell a PC without Windows because no one would buy a PC with no OS. That would be crazy. If only there were an ALTERNATIVE TO WINDOWS, the monopoly could be dismantled.

C.

Let's flash back to 2005
http://www.tuaw.com/2005/06/16/dell-would-sell-os-x/

And CK is wrong about the drivers.

apple needs to hurry. the suspense is causing e-arguments.

exactly.

Carniphage sounds like he is less interested in apple succeeding and more interested in microsoft being destroyed.

That's just not the way business works. Capitalism isn't about putting everyone else out of business, it's about making your business successful.

Hardly anyone even knows what Linux is and similarly, what Mac OS X is. Licensing the Apple OS won't magically untie Windows from PCs. So, it'd be similar to adding yet another Linux distro to the list of optional operating systems that aren't advertised or even available when configuring a Dell or HP online.

Carniphage, I think you commented on my statement which I then further expanded on. So, here's the rest of my argument that you might have missed:

Neither Dell or HP can really sell their hardware outside of Microsoft thanks to these third party hardware vendors signing exclusive anti-competitive, anti-consumer OEM licensing deals with Microsoft. That's the real reason Linux has made no serious inroads into the Microsoft monopoly and Carniphage, that's why Apple has no interest in licensing its OS to third parties.

Apple has a symbiotic relationship with the open source community. Mac OS X is the biggest and most popular Unix distribution in the world and often leverages work already done by the open source community to better its offerings without having to spend time and money on R&D. Apple doesn't need to sell its OS to the PC bargain bin when nearly free Linux distros can do the job much better. That puts pressure on Microsoft from two sides: Apple on the profitable high-end and consumer markets, Linux on the low end, leaving Microsoft with its stagnating base of beige-box Windows PCs.

Not at all.
There is a huge fat revenue stream out there. It is created because every computer sold, is bundled with an OS. Microsoft has *all* of that revenue to themselves because no one is offering any competition.

The best part of capitalism is competition. Because excellence is encouraged.

Apple has a more-excellent OS. To not sell it is a lost opportunity.
Not only does Apple lose out on all that revenue. But I honestly believe that the world is a worse place for Microsoft dominance.

C.

You don't put pressure on Microsoft by rolling over and playing dead.

Apple is not competing with Microsoft, because Apple is not selling an OS. It only sells computers.

Microsoft maintains a staggering 90% OS share by not selling any computers at all. Instead it out-earns Apple with an almost invisible OEM tax on every computer sold. This tax is paid so that hardware vendors are allowed to ship Vista; A truly terrible product.

So long as Apple refuses to licence OS X, it relegates the worlds best computer operating system to a minor role.

C.

PS. I quite like Microsoft when they make good stuff. The 360 is a pretty good product!

Let's get real here -- Microsoft's Surface announcements were nothing but a weak attempt to grab media attention away from the iPhone. For most applications conventional touch-screen technology is completely adequate, including restaurants, kiosks, museums, etc. The idea that Surface will generate $10 billion in business is ludicrous.

How is Apple rolling over and playing dead by licensing out its OS to a dead market? Apple is a business, and a smart one. What do businesses want? To be successful and MAKE MONEY!!! There's no MONEY to be made in a DYING MARKET.


You did not just say Microsoft and Apple are not competing with each other, did you?

While Microsoft's OEM tax is hidden in the cost of third party hardware, that hidden price becomes more and more visible as the price of the PC it's being bundled with is. Swap out that Windows license out with Linux, which can be offered virtually free, and you get an even less expensive computer. Apple WILL NOT give away their OS for free. There's no money in giving it away. But Linux can, thanks to its funding by the open source community and...one of its biggest and most powerful supporters...APPLE!!!!


That's pretty inaccurate. While they can't hope to make a dent in Microsoft's 97% global market share of Windows PCs, Apple's computers are already dominant in the media creation field, doing well in higher education (and increasingly, K-12), science and medical fields, and they have a good 10-20% of the consumer market. But of course, you must know that OS X is not only sold with every new Mac, it's the operating system the....iPhone uses! The iPhone has already displaced all but RIM's established BlackBerry in the smart phone market and it's hardly been out a year. Not only that, the slow-growth juggernaut that is the AppleTV also runs...Mac OS X!!

I think your argument is based on the assumption that Apple is going to expand the overall market share of OS X by selling it independent of their computers. I disagree and I think history supports that conclusion.

Back in the 90s, Apple did just that and they were going up against a total abomination called Windows 95 (you think Vista is bad, well ...). It turned out that they didn't expand Mac OS market share at all but instead only shrunk their computer business. It almost ruined the company.

Next example: OS/2 was far superior to Windows 95 but IBM (a huge company with unlimited resources) couldn't get any traction and abandoned the effort.

Next example: NeXT's OpenStep was far superior to anything Microsoft had in operating systems. It went nowhere.

Next example: BeOS.

Today's world: Linux is essentially free and it's barely made any inroad at all beyond the server segment (where it's strong but heavily supported by IT departments).

So, it begs the question... what evidence exists that OS X has a profitable future apart from Apple computers? Anyone who wants OS X is free to go to their nearest Apple store, Best Buy, MicroCenter, etc. and buy an Apple computer (not to mention Apple's website). In fact, there are far more option available to most people to buy an Apple computer as opposed to a Dell computer.

Mmm, Dell already sells PCs with Ubuntu pre-installed.

And they cost more than the same and better-spec'd Windows model equivalents. But what Dell does offer, is that the laptop/desktop will work OOB with Ubuntu, as also provides support.

Yet, Dell is a bigger player than say, System76, and still doesn't sell that many Linux PCs...Linux is OK on the desktop, but you'd still have to fairly tech-savy, and willing to deal with vendor issues or devices simply not working, because companies don't work with the open-source community. I don't see most Mac or Windows users being tech-savy or willing to deal devices not working OOB.

Simply put, Linux isn't a competitor to Microsoft or Apple in the desktop arena ATM - it's good, but not something that can just be tossed on a machine, and everything get picked up.

And Apple already tried selling the Mac OS to clone makers. It went nowhere, and ended up huring Apple in the short term, as the clone makers were more aggressive on the pricing, and hurting Apple's bottomline. I still remember UMAX and Motorola selling better spec'd machines than Apple, for less ATM.

This is Argument 1: Cannibalization


If Apple's business is hardware. As it was in the 90s - It is really really important that the hardware be commercially competetive. But back then it was not.

In the 90s, the *only* reason to buy a Mac - was Mac OS.

Which was why it was profoundly dumb to licence the OS to clone makers. They were selling Mac clones which were CHEAPER AND FASTER than Apple's own product. Cannibalization was inevitable.

But that was then and this is now. Has anyone noticed that Apple's hardware stopped sucking a while back?
Once the suckage stops, licensing is a win win!

C.

Footnotes....

Macintosh OS from the 90s never did go up against Windows, Apple OS ran on PowerPC hardware, while Windows 95 ran on Intel. They were never in the ring together.

You forgot to mention that Microsoft created OS/2. And after the trial run, went on to create OS/3 which became Windows NT.

You forgot to mention that NEXTSTEP's failure might have been because it was TIED TO OVERPRICED HARDWARE for most of its existence. Remember the Magnesium Cube? The hardware requirements of NextStep meant that it did not compete with Windows until it was much too late. Fortunately NextStep was salvaged.

BeOS was very clever but very not finished.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant :-)

That's a good question!

The answer is this. Apple only makes a handful of computer lines.
A pro workstation, an all-in-one, a microbox and a couple of laptops.

There are products that people want to buy which Apple will not make for them
Some people want netbooks,
Some people want cheap headless boxes with upgradable hardware.
Some idiots even want tablets.

Apple does not make those products. Apple loses the sale - and Microsoft get the cash and retains the market share.

Leopard OEM would turn that loss into $80 pure profit. Add in iLife and iWork bundle and its closer to $200. That's the same profit as Mac Mini, or a laptop hardware sale.

C.

I'm all for lower priced, high volume sales, but few can argue Apple's niche is really the high ground. My hope: an all-new 27" (or 24") Quad-Core iMac with Blu-Ray! No doubt, Apple would sell a ton of those!

At this point your arguments just seem absurd. I mean, really, you are saying that this is the best time to focus on selling software because the hardware is so great? What the...

I mean basically you are saying that it's ok for apple to license osx to other vendors cause their own hardware is really great and competitive, and therefore will win out against the 3rd party vendors. So what's the point of licensing osx to them in the first place?

I mean it's gotta be one or the other. Either you sell computers (or other devices, say, blackberry or playstation) with your own OS as a complete package or you make just the OS and license it to everyone else. You can't compete with yourself. It may seem like covering yourself on all fronts, but it's just shooting yourself in the foot.

I am not going to return to all of the other arguments for now. But I will touch on cannibalization. The truth is, that it would happen. The 3rd parties would of course offer computers that are slightly cheaper, and are slightly better spec'd out. In reality these will be lower quality products (as where the clones in the 90s) at the cost of lower price and higher specs. At first people would buy into it, screwing up apples hardware sales, and eventually re creating what happened 13 years ago.

The more I argue with you, the more I realize how unlikely what you are saying is.

I wouldn't be surprised if the transition is iMac-related.

What if Apple were to standardize on an LED-backlit 1920x1080 22" 24-bit panel
and quad-core CPU? Using these components would reduce Apple's
margins, and leap ahead of All-In-One competitors.

Another reason FOR OSX on other hardware - my old company was not allowed to consider OSX because they didn't have multiple options for buying their hardware.

And a big reason against it - Apple has the flexibility to evolve the hardware and software together as well as make leaps. Whereas Microsoft can ask hardware makers to take a risk, they may or may not do so, and are unlikely to do it with their whole hardware range.

To bring it back to the mystery new product and (or is it or?) product transition - Apple structure makes putting a touch screen in its iMacs/Laptops/Displays a risk it could get behind. Or owning the OS and hardware means it can redefine tablet computer hardware and OS, rather than treat the OS and the way it's accessed as independent problems.

(I'm not saying a separate OS and hardware company can't do it - just that there is an advantage in having them in one company)


I've often wished for OSX on other hardware, mainly because I'm a real believer in competition. If a single company gets too much power then the advantages to competition are lost. I'd also like to see iTunes buying from other music stores, or my Nokia phone synchronising playlists with iTunes etc.

As a general rule, you either need a single company with serving people as their main goal, or many companies with making money as their goal... but a single company (or even 2 or 3 companies) with making money as the goal is bad news requiring government involvement and messy goals.

true, it is possible ... but why overhaul iMac while all the statistics points out Laptops are outselling desktops?

to goto QuadCore, iMac requires significant design (motherboard and casing) which not gonna happen (when intel is closing the performance gap between laptop and desktop CPUs as day passes by)

I would like to see an apple e-book reader.

1) Like the Ipod apple would not be first to offer such a device but hopefully Apple will improve on it by offering a superior product in style and performance. The Kindle is nice but it definitely has room for improvement in both looks an usability. I would love to see how Apple would improve on such a device.

2) If I remember correctly Steve Jobs already criticized the viability of e-book readers which obviously means Apple is already working on such a product.

3) It will add to Apples growing side business model of being a distributor of media content via the itunes store.

guinness,

Not sure if you've been following, but I've been arguing against, not for the licensing of Apple's OS to third parties the whole time. Also, while I don't expect anyone to go back and read through pages and pages of posts, if you had gone back to the post that I was referencing, you would have seen I said the following:

The bolded part of my comment is what you probably missed. I agree with everything you said of course.

I would love to see this, too. Ever since that "Nobody reads any more" comment that SJ got raked over the coals for, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop: "Because they didn't have this...."

Hopefully it won't be some proprietary format, just PDF, .txt, HTML, and, dare I hope? DjVu!

While I don't think the new product transition will have anything to do with Apple licensing their OS to anyone else I do think that this will happen someday soon.

I can certainly see a split within Apple soon into two separate organizations, Apple Home computing and entertainment Inc, and Apple Software Inc. The hardware guys would themselves have to license the OS from the software company and that would also leave the software company to license to other vendors.

In order to stop cannibalization the hardware company would have to compete more heavily. But any cannibalization would actually be countered by the huge increase of shipments of OSX, the real profit center of the group. And Cannibalization is not going to happen in a large way anyway, the new consumers apple want are the people buying iPods and iPhones now, they do not buy Mac's because of OSX, they will by Mac's because they are Apple Macs. But there are plenty of people out there who would buy a Dell with OSX who would never have dreamed of buying a Mac before. If these people were going to buy a Mac they would do already, most of them don't even know what OSX is. But if Dell started selling it they would start getting an interest, and who knows, when these new consumers buy their next computer they will know what OSX is and may even buy a Mac next time.

This is a business model that cannot possibly fail. It is a no brainer actually.

If people really cannot see that there is certainly a chance for this model in the future then I am sorry but you are just blind as to what Apple has been doing for the last few years. This I would imagine was one of the drivers for the move to Intel, the Safari for windows and more effort to ensure Apples consumer products are far more easily bought by traditional windows users.

If there ever was a time to try this again it is now.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with any previous attempts at this, Apple is a totally different company, the products are different, the market is different the climate is different.

If you truly believe this is BS then you need to give better reasons that this has been done before and failed because that has no relevance to this at all.

You know, I was thinking that maybe this is what the transition is about. Apple would have to lower their prices if they did do this and I think they said they are going to lower prices in the future.

Exactly, you got it.

Apple's hardware is reliable, competitive and has unique features. It also has gread brand awareness and good customer loyalty.

Apple hardware no longer needs mommy's hand to cross the road. The hardware business is good enough to grow at an organic rate. It is growing, it can't grow much faster than it is doing already.

But Apple software side *is* being held back.
Software uptake can grow at a geometric rate. Much faster than hardware can. The weakness of Vista at this precise moment in time means that the road is clear. 92% of computers not running OS X. Which means a massive potential for rapid growth.

Apple has to be quick, and it is hard to be quick if you tie your legs together.

C.

Ok, well it may seem like it makes perfect sense to you, but it's perfect nonsense to me.


Can you name one company that has sold hardware/software packages and additionally sold the OS/software to 3rd parties and did it successfully? I'm sorry, but I can't think of one example. I think Sega at one point started licensing some of it's own games out to other platforms, but we all know what a failure that company was.

I mean, Apple till this day has not sold any software for non-mac computers. No iwork, no pro apps, nothing. How do you expect them to port their entire operating system when they are even reluctant to sell a few applications outside of their own ecosystem. iTunes and QT don't count because they are free and very necessary for compatibility. Safari is also free, but I actually think it was a mistake to offer that on Windows.

licensing out OS X would be a mistake.
What if Apple did get a good portion or the majority of the market to adopt OS X, people would start trying to make malicious viruses for it because the majority use it.

Apple aren't trying to compete with microsoft

Good grief!

Apple's OS does not need any "porting". It runs, in case you had not noticed, on bog-standard PC hardware. Any modern PC capable of running Windows will run OS X. The only issue to overcome is that bog-standard PCs do not come with EFI. "Made for OS X" PCs would.

Kids with a bit of Unix knowledge are already out there are installing OS X on everything from tablets to desktops. Were you not aware of this?



We have a new one.
Argument Number 4: "No one messes with the Redmond. It's never been done."

Microsoft achieves its 90% OS share by not worring about hardware sales. It just sells the OS. It can do this without fear because it tramples the market unchallenged. None dare challenge the authority of the Bill.

Microsoft's engineers sleep soundly at night, because no one shouts "Cannibalization" at them.

Occasional nightmares about OS X kicking their ass are brushed away, because when they wake-up, they remember that OS X stays safely corralled-up in far-away cave chained to some hardware.

Some people may notice that Apple makes it's business out of doing stuff that other people have not done.

C.

I didn't say that no one ever challenged big bad microsoft. I said no one ever sold products that conflicted with each other. selling software for hardware that competes with your own hardware is just stupid.

You just don't sell two different products that compete with each other. So Apple will either continue to sell hardware or they will change their strategy and only license their OS to other hardware manufacturers. The way I see it, Apple is sticking to selling computers.

Carniphage, just about all of Apple's software (if not all) has been ported to Cocoa and all of it can be easily made to run under Windows. Without doubt, OS X is the one piece of software that would be the most risky to let "out of the house". What's your take on why Apple hasn't attempted to sell any revenue-generating software other than WebObjects (half-heartedly) to the Windows world? Secondly, would you expect Apple to first test the waters with Final Cut Pro, Aperature, etc. before making the bolder move with OS X?

You clearly do not have a clue what you are talking about.

This happens all the time in business, especially in the software business. I know, my own company not only provides software to other hardware vendors but we also have a product that directly competes with them! We are not alone.


"You just don't sell two different products that compete with each other"

More coverage, more ownership of different brands which compete against each other means more market share and although the gross margin suffers through competition the increased sales more than make up for it.

Don't believe me? Ask Coca Cola, Cadbury's Swcheppes, Proctor and Gamble, do I need to go on?

If they are going to do this then now is the time. Perfect time in fact.

Anyone wondering why Microsoft have now decided to start with the anti-Apple marketing campaign? Maybe they sense it too.

Does HTC count?

Maybe not selling software to 3rd parties but certainly selling it's hardware.

From Wikipedia..

That is just rebranding.

The other shoe dropping would be to admit what utter nonsense the statement was in the first place.

Not that I wouldn't buy an Apple reader of some description.....

FWIW, this wouldn't be pure profit because there is a support burden to be paid. Especially if non-Apple hardware is to be supported.

You'd also likely see a low iLife/iWork bundling rate because hardware OEMs don't like to pay for the software that goes on their machines... they are going for the lowest price possible. The cheapest parts go into the machines and they live on much much thinner margins than Apple does. I don't see how you can say that cannibalization wouldn't happen when licensed OEMs start selling apparently equivalent hardware for 30% less than Apple. Would tech savvy users buy the cheap junk without the software bundle? No, probably not. But many users in Apple's market are not savvy which is why they are attracted to Apple in the first place... the promise of a better and simpler solution. And then another vendor says "look, cheap Macs!" and people flock to them.

I can see licensing happening in a very controlled way for business 2nd and 3rd sourcing, but other than that I think Jobs will keep the Apple software/hardware ecosystem intact and I believe he's correct in doing so.

Apple failed the last time they licensed their OS, and likely the same thing would happen now, in that a competitor would come out with a cheaper, faster, perhaps bigger OSX machine, and undercut Apple.

Hardware is hardware, but the only thing that makes sense for Apple is to keep OSX tied to Apple's expensive hardware and designs, because someone could load it on a cheaper box, (within a limited set of accepted hardware), if the OS was up license.

Other companies would have none of the hangups about building a mythical xMac that Apple is refusing to do, or using more off-the-shelf desktop parts (LGA 775 mobos and CPUs for example, DDR3, etc), and likely more BTO options and faster refreshes. it would be all over for Macs.

As someone posted much earlier in this massive thread, I too believe that Jobs and Op. are reading through these and laughing their asses off at all of these.

"Oooh, close. Try again."
"Hey...that's a good idea. Save it for next quarter."
"He believes we'll do WHAT?"

Personally, regardless of what others have said so far, I'm personally waiting for Macbook/Pro line to be combined. All alumnimum casing and feel of the Air, with option to throw in a SSD drive into any of them. Don't see touch screens taking off on the Macbook line YET.

While I do see some merit to the 'make all iPods touch', I like my clickwheel, and for my mother-in-law, that's about as simple as you can get for her. I may not like it at all, but I do see it eventually happening.

The Security Through Obscurity Myth is just that, a myth. While smaller market share does reduce the number of potential attackers, systems are infected because they have flaws, not because an operating system hits some magic number of installed users.

/off-topic

No, they DON'T. They don't just sell the OS. Microsoft only sells Windows in any major capacity by illegally bundling it with PCs. Windows market share is where it is due to some luck and breaking the law.

The fatal flaw in your reasoning is your assumption that Apple can just do the same thing: bundle their operating system with new PCs. They CAN'T. That is ILLEGAL. The DoJ didn't give a damn back then and now they can't do a thing about Microsoft's OS monopoly. They sure as hell WOULD stop Apple, Linux, or any other company that tried the same thing today.


Carniphage, just a reminder, you're in an Apple forum. We all know that Apple's products are both great and competitive; you're preaching to the choir. Sorry to disappoint you, but if we are all in agreement about this, repeating it, ad nauseam, doesn't make your assertions any more right than the rest of ours.

If OSX ran on any hardware the cannibalization argument wont be theoretical. Apple hardware would sell about as well as all the other Workstations, AIOs and SFF computers: poorly.

The cost/performance delta is huge and you can pretty much just write off Apple's entire desktop line and they'd sell as much hardware as Sony.

Notice the lack of Sony in the Top 5 lists?


Large numbers of those computers will continue to run XP/Vista because the software they need are Windows only. Everything from business apps to games.

The number of folks willing to dual boot is tiny. So, the infrastructure to capture that 92% share isn't present and a good chunk of it (MS Office) will get pulled as soon as MS can.

Your massive potential is illusory.

There are a lot of people who want tablets not just idiots. England huh? I guess that makes you an expert of all markets globally.....NOT!