[quote]The 970 must be good. It turned Lemon Bon Bon into a true Apple lover! <hr></blockquote>
Check my signature buddy.
It was never in doubt. (Not in my minds, least ways. The last Apple kit cost my 10K in yer finest dollars. And I own 2K of Apple shares.)
I got rid of my Tower under duress. It was like putting the knife in my back as she left. The way I felt about my Mac was obscene. (Don't tell my wife...)
But the Tower was too old. It was like treacle compared to the Athlon box I run.
And Apple under the Motorola leash couldn't offer me what I wanted. A competitive box. And a compelling performance arguement. Trust me, it has been a hollow experience sneering at the sluggish progress of Motorola's G4...while I remain marooned on this speedy but 'souless' Athlon Tower. Watching Apple's pieces slowly but surely falling into place. Open Gl. Great design. 'X'. Competitive graphic cards. Their own software. Watching and waiting for the 'kit' that finally brings Apple and my good self 'home'.
The 970 is around the corner. Compelling. It promises much. Will it be competitive? I may not care. I'll probably crack as soon as it is announced.
Then that would be the case now with VPC. It's not so your arguement isn't valid. You'd still need to buy windows and you'd still need to buy the apps if you don't have them. Just because you'd be able run windows better then VPC doesn't mean developers would change.
If the Macs could run Windows apps "flawlessly" it could kill development of Mac exclusive apps IMHO. Apple seems to be working on developing MORE apps now as the iApps and Safari can attest.
The key is in market expansion. How do you get people to switch to achieve that? a box that screams and runs OS X and the cool Apple apps. All we need is the killer processor. We know the Apple industrial design team will do their part.
If the 970 is the killer processor for Apple, then rest assured Apple will come up with an awesome new case design and a very aggressive marketing campaign touting the "next generation" PowerMac or Xtreme Macs(or something like that).
Then that would be the case now with VPC.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It was, to some extent. "Just run it in VPC" was a refrain.
It wasn't as common as it could have been because you'd have to buy VPC, and there were performance issues and compatibility issues, etc.
If Apple makes it out-of-the-box easy to run Windows apps, and if they run well, developers have that much less incentive to bother with a native Mac version. The argument that competition will spur sales to someone who does doesn't wash, because there's rarely any competition for (to pick on app from the "run it in VPC" camp) tracking UPS shipments. Fortunately, that's done on the web now - which is another way for UPS to only have to support one version of the software.
But if it can't reasonably run as a web app? After all, why do you think Apple's just now improving X11? Because they tried to say "just write a new Aqua interface! it's easy!" and no-one did. Developers, and in particular commercial developers, often have to cut corners just to keep the expense of developing apps from going too far over budget. If they can cut out support for a whole platform, they will. And there's no guarantee that you'll be left with an acceptable alternative, because software development is time-consuming, expensive, and difficult.
<strong>Yeah, IBM pulled the press release... seems someone wasn't happy with that information getting out... nor the fairly hires screenshot of the blade server. Hint: if you still have it, try looking at it very closely.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Looks like someone burned up a few components by the CPU(s) to me...I guess that would explain why it's sitting on A) either someone's chair, or a static-loving burlap sack! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
If it runs Windows at a very acceptable rate I believe that many developers would stop producing Mac apps.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You seem to be forgetting something called "market forces". If the demand is there, developers will supply it. Those who won't will find themselves replaced by those who will. Apple may be only 3-5% overall, but in key markets they're more like 70-80%. I don't think Adobe would drop its Mac version of Photoshop over this, for example. It would pull some Windows PS users over, who would then want the huge speed boost of AltiVec optimization from the native Mac version. As long as there is money to be made in Mac-native software, the developers will be there.
<strong>What if IBM rushes back into the high-end PC box business, as before? What if MS ports XP to this box, along with IBM's Linux?
OOPS. Didn't mean to dampen all this giddy optimism.</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM is pushing back at the lowend servers that are starting to take sales away from the high end market. MS might port to the PowerPC again, but so what? It means more money and incentive for IBM, and would push the development of the 980 and beyond...We need this chip to succeed, the more units sold the more successfull the chip is.
<strong>All we need is the killer processor. We know the Apple industrial design team will do their part.
If the 970 is the killer processor for Apple, then rest assured Apple will come up with an awesome new case design and a very aggressive marketing campaign touting the "next generation" PowerMac or Xtreme Macs(or something like that).
Apple needs software that is compatable with the "standards" that are in the marketplace. They need Microsoft Word, or a program that "flawlessly" opens and saves Word files. The same with the most standardized file formats for each profession that Apple wants to attract customers in. It woulndt hurt to have a really spectacular game developed for Apple, and initially released for the Mac platform.
IBM is pushing back at the lowend servers that are starting to take sales away from the high end market. MS might port to the PowerPC again, but so what? It means more money and incentive for IBM, and would push the development of the 980 and beyond...We need this chip to succeed, the more units sold the more successfull the chip is. <hr></blockquote>
A good point. If you ever used NT on PowerPC you'd know it was crap, though. Same with its Alpha kin. We had a few of these boxes and just couldn't wait to get rid of them, unfortunately we couldn't get anyone to take them off our hands and they were way too expensive for us to just dispose of them. regardless, I think MS will have its hands too full trying to deal with the encroachment of open source in the intel platform to worry about exanding onto yet another processor.
Then that would be the case now with VPC. It's not so your arguement isn't valid. You'd still need to buy windows and you'd still need to buy the apps if you don't have them. Just because you'd be able run windows better then VPC doesn't mean developers would change.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Here's a question - if Apple suddenly reversed course and released Yellow Box for Windows, would people stop writing Windows programs? If not, why not? Does the same thing apply to the Mac market?
Here's a question - if Apple suddenly reversed course and released Yellow Box for Windows, would people stop writing Windows programs? If not, why not? Does the same thing apply to the Mac market?</strong><hr></blockquote>
They might. Not right away of course. If Apple can keep MS from dropping mac support in retaliation, I think it might be a worthwhile endevor.
Here's a question - if Apple suddenly reversed course and released Yellow Box for Windows, would people stop writing Windows programs? If not, why not? Does the same thing apply to the Mac market?</strong><hr></blockquote>
ObVious: No, because Windows owns 90+% of the market, and there are whole areas of software development that have legacy Windows codebases, are developed on Windows (corporate policy: x86 on the desktop, period) , and deployed on Windows (corporate policy again).
If the number of all Mac shops was anywhere near the number of all Windows shops, you might have a point.
However, what Yellow Box might do, and the reason I've been quietly hoping that Apple would bring it back, is that it would make Apple that much more attractive as a development platform, regardless of the target. Targeting developers, rather than end users, is much more likely to get you Mac applications. Especially if deploying a Mac version is simple.
As to the "market forces" argument: What market forces, and how long are you willing to wait for the few there actually are to kick in? How long did we have to wait for a decent web browser again? And what market is there for all the millions of little vertical market apps that industry runs on? If someone's little special-purpose business app runs on Windows, you're running Windows. Alternatives? Where? And what guarantee is there that the alternatives won't suck in the same or different ways? We ended up rolling our own cancer data collection application after years of frustration with the stuff that's out there. It cost us a mint (especially since we're a non-profit), sucked up our development staff for a solid year, and we've been cleaning up after the (necessarily) abrupt release and transition since then - not to mention picking up all the projects we had to drop to concentrate on this. Guess which platform all the other apps runs on? Guess which one ours runs on? Guess what market pressure there is for a Mac version? None. Zip. Nada. Zero. As it was, the suckage of the other applications had to reach crisis levels before we felt compelled to roll our own, and we cut out as many costly options as we possibly could to get the thing out there and working. Sad as it may seem, this scenario is not unusual for software development.
I have been busy lately and have not gotten a chance to post in a while. I have a few questions about the IBM press release, mainly information I missed in my absence.
first, Does anyone have that picture of the 970 Blade server posted on IBMs site? If so please email it to me at [email protected].
Second, Does anyone have additional information about the time frame for the 970 PowerMac release?
Third, I believe that apple will not pursue the Marklar idea, or any variation thereof. What apple needs to do to sell computers is to keep doing everything they are now with the added benefit of more performance verse price. They need kick ass 970 computers that look at hot as (insert your favorite chicks name), and don't cost much more money than a comparable PC. Sure some people will just never care to get rid of their windows PC, but I think that if apple does these things it will be enough to get their 10% market share.
However, what Yellow Box might do, and the reason I've been quietly hoping that Apple would bring it back, is that it would make Apple that much more attractive as a development platform, regardless of the target. Targeting developers, rather than end users, is much more likely to get you Mac applications. Especially if deploying a Mac version is simple.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, this does seem like the better option. This type of strategy seems to have worked quite well for Quicktime....
[quote]<strong>Or to the developers: "no need to develop Mac versions of your apps - the Windows versions run flawlessly on Macs" </strong><hr></blockquote>
Quite the opposite actually. Think about it, if you had a Mac/PC all in one, which OS would you buy software for? I'd say it's a no brain'er, the Mac of course. Now, how many people with this set up do you think would be screaming for more apps for the Mac OS? The more people with a Mac/PC the more the apps will be ported over to the Mac OS.
The fastest way to get a chunk of the other 95% is to get into their camp. "Look, you can now buy a Mac and run all you window's apps just as if you had bought a Dell." The Mac would become another PC. Haaaa but wait, here's the unsuspecting surprise by most of the PC users, once you use OS X, how many do you think would want to mess with Windows? Fact is most have never used a Mac.
The problem: People want to use what is "standard." This is a fact. Not what is better, but what is "STANDARD!" Windows, right or wrong is the Standard.
If Apple can actually get Windows to run flawlessly on Macs, only a stupid CEO would pass up on this opportunity.
My question is, can Apple legally do this and is it actually technically possible? :eek:
Comments
Check my signature buddy.
It was never in doubt. (Not in my minds, least ways. The last Apple kit cost my 10K in yer finest dollars. And I own 2K of Apple shares.)
I got rid of my Tower under duress. It was like putting the knife in my back as she left. The way I felt about my Mac was obscene. (Don't tell my wife...)
But the Tower was too old. It was like treacle compared to the Athlon box I run.
And Apple under the Motorola leash couldn't offer me what I wanted. A competitive box. And a compelling performance arguement. Trust me, it has been a hollow experience sneering at the sluggish progress of Motorola's G4...while I remain marooned on this speedy but 'souless' Athlon Tower. Watching Apple's pieces slowly but surely falling into place. Open Gl. Great design. 'X'. Competitive graphic cards. Their own software. Watching and waiting for the 'kit' that finally brings Apple and my good self 'home'.
The 970 is around the corner. Compelling. It promises much. Will it be competitive? I may not care. I'll probably crack as soon as it is announced.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Lemon Bon Bon
[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
<strong>
Or to the developers: "no need to develop Mac versions of your apps - the Windows versions run flawlessly on Macs"
[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Then that would be the case now with VPC. It's not so your arguement isn't valid. You'd still need to buy windows and you'd still need to buy the apps if you don't have them. Just because you'd be able run windows better then VPC doesn't mean developers would change.
<strong>
Just because you'd be able run windows better then VPC doesn't mean developers would change.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If it runs Windows at a very acceptable rate I believe that many developers would stop producing Mac apps.
The key is in market expansion. How do you get people to switch to achieve that? a box that screams and runs OS X and the cool Apple apps. All we need is the killer processor. We know the Apple industrial design team will do their part.
If the 970 is the killer processor for Apple, then rest assured Apple will come up with an awesome new case design and a very aggressive marketing campaign touting the "next generation" PowerMac or Xtreme Macs(or something like that).
[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: Gilsch ]</p>
<strong>
Then that would be the case now with VPC.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It was, to some extent. "Just run it in VPC" was a refrain.
It wasn't as common as it could have been because you'd have to buy VPC, and there were performance issues and compatibility issues, etc.
If Apple makes it out-of-the-box easy to run Windows apps, and if they run well, developers have that much less incentive to bother with a native Mac version. The argument that competition will spur sales to someone who does doesn't wash, because there's rarely any competition for (to pick on app from the "run it in VPC" camp) tracking UPS shipments. Fortunately, that's done on the web now - which is another way for UPS to only have to support one version of the software.
But if it can't reasonably run as a web app? After all, why do you think Apple's just now improving X11? Because they tried to say "just write a new Aqua interface! it's easy!" and no-one did. Developers, and in particular commercial developers, often have to cut corners just to keep the expense of developing apps from going too far over budget. If they can cut out support for a whole platform, they will. And there's no guarantee that you'll be left with an acceptable alternative, because software development is time-consuming, expensive, and difficult.
<strong>Yeah, IBM pulled the press release... seems someone wasn't happy with that information getting out... nor the fairly hires screenshot of the blade server. Hint: if you still have it, try looking at it very closely.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Looks like someone burned up a few components by the CPU(s) to me...I guess that would explain why it's sitting on A) either someone's chair, or
[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: Rhumgod ]</p>
<strong>
If it runs Windows at a very acceptable rate I believe that many developers would stop producing Mac apps.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You seem to be forgetting something called "market forces". If the demand is there, developers will supply it. Those who won't will find themselves replaced by those who will. Apple may be only 3-5% overall, but in key markets they're more like 70-80%. I don't think Adobe would drop its Mac version of Photoshop over this, for example. It would pull some Windows PS users over, who would then want the huge speed boost of AltiVec optimization from the native Mac version. As long as there is money to be made in Mac-native software, the developers will be there.
OOPS. Didn't mean to dampen all this giddy optimism.
<strong>What if IBM rushes back into the high-end PC box business, as before? What if MS ports XP to this box, along with IBM's Linux?
OOPS. Didn't mean to dampen all this giddy optimism.</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM is pushing back at the lowend servers that are starting to take sales away from the high end market. MS might port to the PowerPC again, but so what? It means more money and incentive for IBM, and would push the development of the 980 and beyond...We need this chip to succeed, the more units sold the more successfull the chip is.
<strong>All we need is the killer processor. We know the Apple industrial design team will do their part.
If the 970 is the killer processor for Apple, then rest assured Apple will come up with an awesome new case design and a very aggressive marketing campaign touting the "next generation" PowerMac or Xtreme Macs(or something like that).
[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: Gilsch ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple needs software that is compatable with the "standards" that are in the marketplace. They need Microsoft Word, or a program that "flawlessly" opens and saves Word files. The same with the most standardized file formats for each profession that Apple wants to attract customers in. It woulndt hurt to have a really spectacular game developed for Apple, and initially released for the Mac platform.
IBM is pushing back at the lowend servers that are starting to take sales away from the high end market. MS might port to the PowerPC again, but so what? It means more money and incentive for IBM, and would push the development of the 980 and beyond...We need this chip to succeed, the more units sold the more successfull the chip is. <hr></blockquote>
A good point. If you ever used NT on PowerPC you'd know it was crap, though. Same with its Alpha kin. We had a few of these boxes and just couldn't wait to get rid of them, unfortunately we couldn't get anyone to take them off our hands and they were way too expensive for us to just dispose of them. regardless, I think MS will have its hands too full trying to deal with the encroachment of open source in the intel platform to worry about exanding onto yet another processor.
<strong>
Then that would be the case now with VPC. It's not so your arguement isn't valid. You'd still need to buy windows and you'd still need to buy the apps if you don't have them. Just because you'd be able run windows better then VPC doesn't mean developers would change.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Here's a question - if Apple suddenly reversed course and released Yellow Box for Windows, would people stop writing Windows programs? If not, why not? Does the same thing apply to the Mac market?
--
Ed M.
<strong>
Here's a question - if Apple suddenly reversed course and released Yellow Box for Windows, would people stop writing Windows programs? If not, why not? Does the same thing apply to the Mac market?</strong><hr></blockquote>
They might. Not right away of course. If Apple can keep MS from dropping mac support in retaliation, I think it might be a worthwhile endevor.
<strong>
Here's a question - if Apple suddenly reversed course and released Yellow Box for Windows, would people stop writing Windows programs? If not, why not? Does the same thing apply to the Mac market?</strong><hr></blockquote>
ObVious: No, because Windows owns 90+% of the market, and there are whole areas of software development that have legacy Windows codebases, are developed on Windows (corporate policy: x86 on the desktop, period) , and deployed on Windows (corporate policy again).
If the number of all Mac shops was anywhere near the number of all Windows shops, you might have a point.
However, what Yellow Box might do, and the reason I've been quietly hoping that Apple would bring it back, is that it would make Apple that much more attractive as a development platform, regardless of the target. Targeting developers, rather than end users, is much more likely to get you Mac applications. Especially if deploying a Mac version is simple.
As to the "market forces" argument: What market forces, and how long are you willing to wait for the few there actually are to kick in? How long did we have to wait for a decent web browser again? And what market is there for all the millions of little vertical market apps that industry runs on? If someone's little special-purpose business app runs on Windows, you're running Windows. Alternatives? Where? And what guarantee is there that the alternatives won't suck in the same or different ways? We ended up rolling our own cancer data collection application after years of frustration with the stuff that's out there. It cost us a mint (especially since we're a non-profit), sucked up our development staff for a solid year, and we've been cleaning up after the (necessarily) abrupt release and transition since then - not to mention picking up all the projects we had to drop to concentrate on this. Guess which platform all the other apps runs on? Guess which one ours runs on? Guess what market pressure there is for a Mac version? None. Zip. Nada. Zero. As it was, the suckage of the other applications had to reach crisis levels before we felt compelled to roll our own, and we cut out as many costly options as we possibly could to get the thing out there and working. Sad as it may seem, this scenario is not unusual for software development.
[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>Regarding the mobo.. Did anyone pickup on the words "ThinkPad" on it? Was that covered already? If so I apologize :-)
Ed M.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, I brought that up, but someone was kind enough to tell me that it is because of the super-slim profile of the blade configurations.
So using laptop HD and SODIMMs does make some sense I guess.
first, Does anyone have that picture of the 970 Blade server posted on IBMs site? If so please email it to me at [email protected].
Second, Does anyone have additional information about the time frame for the 970 PowerMac release?
Third, I believe that apple will not pursue the Marklar idea, or any variation thereof. What apple needs to do to sell computers is to keep doing everything they are now with the added benefit of more performance verse price. They need kick ass 970 computers that look at hot as (insert your favorite chicks name), and don't cost much more money than a comparable PC. Sure some people will just never care to get rid of their windows PC, but I think that if apple does these things it will be enough to get their 10% market share.
<strong>
However, what Yellow Box might do, and the reason I've been quietly hoping that Apple would bring it back, is that it would make Apple that much more attractive as a development platform, regardless of the target. Targeting developers, rather than end users, is much more likely to get you Mac applications. Especially if deploying a Mac version is simple.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, this does seem like the better option. This type of strategy seems to have worked quite well for Quicktime....
Quite the opposite actually. Think about it, if you had a Mac/PC all in one, which OS would you buy software for? I'd say it's a no brain'er, the Mac of course. Now, how many people with this set up do you think would be screaming for more apps for the Mac OS? The more people with a Mac/PC the more the apps will be ported over to the Mac OS.
The fastest way to get a chunk of the other 95% is to get into their camp. "Look, you can now buy a Mac and run all you window's apps just as if you had bought a Dell." The Mac would become another PC. Haaaa but wait, here's the unsuspecting surprise
The problem: People want to use what is "standard." This is a fact. Not what is better, but what is "STANDARD!" Windows, right or wrong is the Standard.
If Apple can actually get Windows to run flawlessly on Macs, only a stupid CEO would pass up on this opportunity.
My question is, can Apple legally do this and is it actually technically possible? :eek: