Apple partners with Unisys to reach enterprise, government clients

13

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 61
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by c-ray View Post


    Go back farther, back to the 1950s and 1960s. Go back to Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and the Eniac. Go back to Sperry Gyroscope, Remington Rand, and Univac. Sperry-Univac was once a competitor to IBM in the 'big iron' market. IBM was so big in those days, they were referred to as 'IBM and the seven dwarfs' (Univac being one of them, along with RCA, NCR, Honeywell, CDC, Burroughs and GE).



    Like many of those companies, they got side-swipped by the PC revolution (which was launched by Apple and IBM and a few lesser companies).



    I still remember the RCA "Octoputer" back in the late '60's I think it was.
  • Reply 42 of 61
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by squareback View Post


    This is the first I can remember, since the return of Mr. Jobs, that Apple has partnered with any one like this. I would also imagine that Unisys has some interesting patents developed over the years. I also believe that Apple has developed some technology for its new data center, and that technology would be of interest to other enterprises.



    This is a major turnaround. Right after Jobs took control of Apple, in 1997, he was asked, in an interview, about Apple's plans forbig businesses, seeing as how they had a big presence in advanced tech companies before the debacle of Christmas 1995.



    His answer was:



    "Enterprise is not our customer."



    It's determined everything he's done since - until now.
  • Reply 43 of 61
    Want to bomb a terrorist base in Afghanistan with a tap of your finger? Corner illegal immigrants from Mexico with a swipe of your thumb? Pinch-and-zoom to spy on a citizen taking out the trash?



    There's now just *one* app for that.



    By Unisys. Our motto is, "We iPwn you."
  • Reply 44 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    Hmmm... Apple could buy these guys out with pocket change. Maybe Apple is just testing the water. If things go well then maybe a buyout could be in order.



    Keeping da powder dry... For something like this.



    Apple Enterprise®

    "Playtime's over"
  • Reply 45 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    This is a major turnaround. Right after Jobs took control of Apple, in 1997, he was asked, in an interview, about Apple's plans forbig businesses, seeing as how they had a big presence in advanced tech companies before the debacle of Christmas 1995.



    His answer was:



    "Enterprise is not our customer."



    It's determined everything he's done since - until now.



    Very interesting. Is Jobs becoming more "realistic", or is his influence waning?
  • Reply 46 of 61
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    They're not really an outsourcing company, though they do a bit of it. EDS makes most of its income from that. They're more in the integrator/support business.



    And a real shame they got gobbled up by HP. People get snarky about 'service delivery' from the likes of (ex)EDS, IBM and so on, but by selling to HP, EDS have now also inherited the widget flogging mentality. I'm not so confident it will end that well for EDS.



    Glad I left when I did.
  • Reply 47 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    This is a major turnaround. Right after Jobs took control of Apple, in 1997, he was asked, in an interview, about Apple's plans forbig businesses, seeing as how they had a big presence in advanced tech companies before the debacle of Christmas 1995.



    His answer was:



    "Enterprise is not our customer."



    It's determined everything he's done since - until now.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Very interesting. Is Jobs becoming more "realistic", or is his influence waning?



    This is not about Jobs getting realistic - this is about Jobs realizing that targeting Enterprise would have been a pointless exercise back in 1997. No Enterprise would talk to Apple back then - remember people were expecting Apple to burn up anytime soon.



    This is more about Jobs realizing "the PC wars are over - Microsoft won", and changing the battlefield completely. In this new battlefield, Apple is winning hand over fist - and it is success in this battlefield that is opening new doors for Apple.



    Come to think of it - Apple could gradually move all their consumer offerings to an iOS derived OS - focussing purely on functionality, and user experience - and change regular Mac OS to a business focussed OS. Basically iOS for consumption, and Mac OS 11 for Production.



    With a proper focus, Apple should be able to get very good traction in Enterprise - Mac OS is easily the most robust and secure OS in the market. With its Unix foundations, and with initiatives like Grand Central Dispatch, it should be easy to add scalablity, and performance. I imagine Apple will continue to develop Grand Central Dispatch into a load balancing, high availablity, clustering type of solution - there is no reason Grand Central should be restricted to just a single machine.



    Enterprise today is geared to using Linux - so Apple should target Linux as its competition - in terms of features, price, etc. At the Enterprise level, Linux is actually quite an expensive option, more expensive than Apple's Snow Leopard Server.
  • Reply 48 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rhyde View Post


    They weren't a "patent troll". They actually developed the algorithm themselves and used it in their own products to their advantage over their competitors. If you're going to accept software patents as legitimate, Unisys' patent was a good example of someone doing software patents right.



    The fact that somebody developed PKZip using the LZW algorithm and the stupid software industry standardized on LZW rather than developing something better (which isn't hard to do) is not Unisys' fault; they just benefited from the fact that people standardized on it before they realized "Oh, this is patented, we can't just use it in our code without paying for a license for it."



    Dude, get your facts straight!



    The GIF image format was developed with LZW, which was the best compression algorithm known at the time, and GIF's adoption as the standard for Internet graphics was what led to all the trouble. The trouble, incidentally was due to someone publishing the algorithm in a popular programmer's magazine without saying it was patented. Unisys then bought the patent years later after it was in common use and started slapping patent suits on people - buying algorithms you didn't develop and then suing people for it sounds pretty troll-like to me, but I digress from the main point, which is:



    PKZip was developed Phil Katz (PK - get it?) as an open source alternative to LZW, along with the PNG image format, which uses PKZip. PKZip is more commonly known as GZip or ZIP, as in "ZIP Archive", as in the most popular and common free lossless compression standard on the planet. It's used everywhere by everyone (web pages and CSS/JS assets, PNG images, Java JAR files, Microsoft DOCX files, etc) and Phil makes essentially nothing from it because he gave it away for the benefit of the mankind.



    You just confused the saviour of free web graphics and compression with the guy who caused the problem in the first place - I think you owe Phil Katz an apology.



    Edit: Darn, turns out Phil's dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz - A sorry end for a great man, RIP.
  • Reply 49 of 61
    ivan.rnn01ivan.rnn01 Posts: 1,822member
    That may clue about the use of the Center in North Carolina, too.



    Ummm. Would Apple consider a buy-out? They may be cheap now, but it doesn't look like they have any future ahead.
  • Reply 50 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Socrates View Post


    Dude, get your facts straight!



    The GIF image format was developed with LZW, which was the best compression algorithm known at the time, and GIF's adoption as the standard for Internet graphics was what led to all the trouble. The trouble, incidentally was due to someone publishing the algorithm in a popular programmer's magazine without saying it was patented. Unisys then bought the patent years later after it was in common use and started slapping patent suits on people - buying algorithms you didn't develop and then suing people for it sounds pretty troll-like to me, but I digress from the main point, which is:



    PKZip was developed Phil Katz (PK - get it?) as an open source alternative to LZW, along with the PNG image format, which uses PKZip. PKZip is more commonly known as GZip or ZIP, as in "ZIP Archive", as in the most popular and common free lossless compression standard on the planet. It's used everywhere by everyone (web pages and CSS/JS assets, PNG images, Java JAR files, Microsoft DOCX files, etc) and Phil makes essentially nothing from it because he gave it away for the benefit of the mankind.



    You just confused the saviour of free web graphics and compression with the guy who caused the problem in the first place - I think you owe Phil Katz an apology.



    Edit: Darn, turns out Phil's dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz - A sorry end for a great man, RIP.



    The PKZip file format supports several different compression algorithms, one of which (deflate) is also shared in common with the Gnu Zip utility. But the GNU Zip file format on its own is not a replacement for the PKZip file format, because of GNU Zip file format's limit of a 1:1 ratio of input files to output files. GNU Zip requires a helper applicaiton, such as tar, to pack multiple input files into one compressed archive.



    But I digress...



    One of the earliest compression algorithms incorporated into PKZip was the "shrink" algorithm. "Shrink" violated Unisys' LZW patent, and when the community was notified of this violation, most implementors removed support for this method from subsequent versions of their Zip-compatible programs. Fortunately, the file format allowed for the use of an extensible list of different algorithms, several of which have turned out to be better than the LZW-based "shrink" algorithm, so the file format itself could still be salvaged.



    So, it is historically accurate to include PKZip in the list of file formats affected by Unisys' LZW patent. But GIF definitely is a much more visible example.
  • Reply 51 of 61
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rhyde View Post


    They weren't a "patent troll". They actually developed the algorithm themselves and used it in their own products to their advantage over their competitors. If you're going to accept software patents as legitimate, Unisys' patent was a good example of someone doing software patents right.



    The fact that somebody developed PKZip using the LZW algorithm and the stupid software industry standardized on LZW rather than developing something better (which isn't hard to do) is not Unisys' fault; they just benefited from the fact that people standardized on it before they realized "Oh, this is patented, we can't just use it in our code without paying for a license for it."



    I think you've got a very selective memory here. Gif was a BBS and web standard for over a decade before UniSys suddenly "remembered" they had the compression patented and started charging everyone. If they'd priced the technology fairly up-front GIF wouldn't have caught on and they'd have gotten almost nothing. It's not your standard patent troll but it's a pretty egregious use of patents against an industry.
  • Reply 52 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lfmorrison View Post


    One of the earliest compression algorithms incorporated into PKZip was the "shrink" algorithm. "Shrink" violated Unisys' LZW patent, and when the community was notified of this violation, most implementors removed support for this method from subsequent versions of their Zip-compatible programs. Fortunately, the file format allowed for the use of an extensible list of different algorithms, several of which have turned out to be better than the LZW-based "shrink" algorithm, so the file format itself could still be salvaged.



    So, it is historically accurate to include PKZip in the list of file formats affected by Unisys' LZW patent. But GIF definitely is a much more visible example.



    I did shorten the explanation a little for concision, and yes PKZip did originally support Shrink, but its more important function was as the first archiving tool that used the Deflate algorithm, also created by Phil Katz, explicitly with the purpose of freeing everyone from the shackle of the LZW patent:



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFLATE



    I'll accept that PKZip may have been (slightly) impacted by the LZW patent due to its Shrink support, but the original assertion that PKZip was the root cause of the widespread use of LZW is in fact the exact opposite of the truth.
  • Reply 53 of 61
    Huge drop in Unisys stock today. Apparently, the usual band of AAPL shorts must've heard about the tie-up and decided a little stock manipulation was all in a day's work. Down about 22% as of this posting.
  • Reply 54 of 61
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Booga View Post




    And Unisys will always be the "LZW patent troll" company to me, so I'm hoping Apple steers clear.



    If I had a nickel for every GIF file...
  • Reply 55 of 61
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    They also had a patent for storing information on a CD-ROM. I don't know if they ever collected any licensing on that one or not.
  • Reply 56 of 61
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Keeping da powder dry... For something like this.



    Apple Enterprise®

    "Playtime's over"



    Actually, it be more like Let playtime begin



    It would be a breath of fresh air, that's for sure!
  • Reply 57 of 61
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by djsherly View Post


    I'm not so confident it will end that well for EDS.



    Nope. It didn't help DEC any



    Quote:

    Glad I left when I did.



    I'll bet you are and I don't blame you.
  • Reply 58 of 61
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Very interesting. Is Jobs becoming more "realistic", or is his influence waning?



    I think he sees that big business is becoming interested in Apple's products, so far, on Apple's terms. If that's the case, a good businessman would want to take advantage of that. This is the fourth systems integrator Apple has deals with, and the second new one in a short time.



    There's a feedback effect. People buy Windows machines for home, because they use them at work. But now, companies are allowing, and sometimes even encouraging people to bring their own machines to work, and are supporting them. The way to complete the circle for Apple is to sell in a bigger way to corporations (and government of course) and get that work to home effect that MS has had. It's a needed move. Apple now has enough mass to make big companies comfortable that they won't go away.



    Who knows, we may even see that headless mini tower some day.
  • Reply 59 of 61
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macarena View Post


    This is not about Jobs getting realistic - this is about Jobs realizing that targeting Enterprise would have been a pointless exercise back in 1997. No Enterprise would talk to Apple back then - remember people were expecting Apple to burn up anytime soon.



    This is more about Jobs realizing "the PC wars are over - Microsoft won", and changing the battlefield completely. In this new battlefield, Apple is winning hand over fist - and it is success in this battlefield that is opening new doors for Apple.



    Come to think of it - Apple could gradually move all their consumer offerings to an iOS derived OS - focussing purely on functionality, and user experience - and change regular Mac OS to a business focussed OS. Basically iOS for consumption, and Mac OS 11 for Production.



    With a proper focus, Apple should be able to get very good traction in Enterprise - Mac OS is easily the most robust and secure OS in the market. With its Unix foundations, and with initiatives like Grand Central Dispatch, it should be easy to add scalablity, and performance. I imagine Apple will continue to develop Grand Central Dispatch into a load balancing, high availablity, clustering type of solution - there is no reason Grand Central should be restricted to just a single machine.



    Enterprise today is geared to using Linux - so Apple should target Linux as its competition - in terms of features, price, etc. At the Enterprise level, Linux is actually quite an expensive option, more expensive than Apple's Snow Leopard Server.



    I agree with much of what you've said, except for two things.



    The first is that the "PC wars are over". That's really a very interesting question. At the time Jobs came back to Apple, the PC wars were over. But things change. Technology, and the use of it evolves.



    What is a PC? A personal computer. And what is that? Well, we knew what it was. It was a desk bound machine in 1997, mostly. No one ever thought that large, heavy, weakly performing laptops would ever become popular. But they did. And Apple is doing very well there.



    No one ever expected that smartphones would ever sell in the quantities they are now, much less in what they will be selling in a few years.



    And, no one ever thought that tablets would ever work, much less become popular, except Bill gates, but those weren't tablets, they were convertibles.



    It's very interesting, but in the second decade of the 21st century, Apple could win the PC wars after all, and I think Jobs knows it!



    Secondly, the business community doesn't live on linux. While it does very well in data centers, where Apple doesn't exist, and in web servers; ditto, 95% of business desktops are Windows machines. Linux users keep claiming that "THIS year will be the year of the Linux desktop.", but that will never happen. Several years ago, IBM tried to get their many users onto Linux, but it failed big time. And MS is even kicking Linux out of web serving. I used to consider Linux to be an OS X rival, but not any more. Too many well known Linux users have moved to OS X.



    Like it or not, it's a Windows/OS X world. But it may become a uOS/Android world. uOS standing for Universal Operating System, which is where I'm convinced Apple is going with OS X and iOS.
  • Reply 60 of 61
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    I think he sees that big business is becoming interested in Apple's products, so far, on Apple's terms. If that's the case, a good businessman would want to take advantage of that. This is the fourth systems integrator Apple has deals with, and the second new one in a short time.



    There's a feedback effect. People buy Windows machines for home, because they use them at work. But now, companies are allowing, and sometimes even encouraging people to bring their own machines to work, and are supporting them. The way to complete the circle for Apple is to sell in a bigger way to corporations (and government of course) and get that work to home effect that MS has had. It's a needed move. Apple now has enough mass to make big companies comfortable that they won't go away.



    Who knows, we may even see that headless mini tower some day.



    I assume that the attractions of a headless mini tower (middi?) are cost and expandability.



    What form would expansion (cards?) take?



    .
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