As to some of microsoft tactics being illegal, yeah sure but that shows microsoft adapts. At first they were small and could not enforce their will, as they got bigger, they were able to enforce their will. If you think apple does not admire that, then you are not paying attention. Apple is doing same thing with Ipod. In fact, Apple is doing exactly what microsoft would have done with the Ipod. I think Steve Jobs has learned his lesson.
In business, no one cares if you are mother theresa. As a stockholder, i could care less if Steve wants to be fair, I want him to crush the competition. Finally, Jobs has seen the light. Business is about competition. No company gets points for being nice. The only reason apple fans harp on that is because apple lost. No current apple fan seems to have a problem with the way apple is treating the competition with the Ipod. I don't see any of you losing sleep over this. Where are the people shouting "apple, be fair!!". The losers always complain. Apple had more market share than microsoft at one point. That they allowed a company with less market share to bully them to a 5% market share is pathetic, don't you think?
I almost agreed with you until this point. I'm sure Enron, the Chinese Communist Party and the Watergate cronies join you in your convictions and they know something about "convictions."
You don't have to be Mother Theresa to follow the law and no amount of success can take away a crime. Steve was dumb to give Bill the GUI. But Bill was criminal in using monopolistic tactics after he became a monopoly. Apple is not commiting a crime with its iPod agreements. Those are contracts written very specifically with the recording industry.
Going from dominant to 5% is pathetic and relates to Steve's ego, but it ain't criminal.
One would think by now with the state of the world, that even the most die-hard pro-business capitalist would realize that ethics do count. Then again we see plenty of hypocrasy at all levels so I guess the sheep will follow.
Apple took a great computer lab GUI idea and made it into a great consumer computer GUI. MS took a great consumer GUI and turned it into a mediocre consumer GUI. Who is the smart one. MS just negociated the best contract (w/IBM), not the best product and only a lawyer would praise them for that. As a consumer I won't.
I almost agreed with you until this point. I'm sure Enron, the Chinese Communist Party and the Watergate cronies join you in your convictions and they know something about "convictions."
You don't have to be Mother Theresa to follow the law and no amount of success can take away a crime. Steve was dumb to give Bill the GUI. But Bill was criminal in using monopolistic tactics after he became a monopoly. Apple is not commiting a crime with its iPod agreements. Those are contracts written very specifically with the recording industry.
Going from dominant to 5% is pathetic and relates to Steve's ego, but it ain't criminal.
One would think by now with the state of the world, that even the most die-hard pro-business capitalist would realize that ethics do count. Then again we see plenty of hypocrasy at all levels so I guess the sheep will follow.
Apple took a great computer lab GUI idea and made it into a great consumer computer GUI. MS took a great consumer GUI and turned it into a mediocre consumer GUI. Who is the smart one. MS just negociated the best contract (w/IBM), not the best product and only a lawyer would praise them for that. As a consumer I won't.
Hmm, you must have missed the original post. GeekDreams stated that Microsoft was dumb. Maybe they were criminal but calling a multibillion company dumb is audacious, don't you think?. Calling someone who went from nothing to richest man in the world dumb is a little presumptous. You can spin whatever you want. Ok, you say microsoft made a mediocre GUI, yet over 90% of the world uses that GUI. If apple was that smart, how come their GUI is not the dominant?. Microsoft may have twisted PC makers arm and illegally forced them to sell windows but they couldn't twist apple arm now, could they?. In the beginning, Apple did not depend on Microsoft. Apple made the machine and the Operating system so Microsoft could not dictate terms to them. Microsoft did not tell best buy, circuit city, etc not to sell apple computers, did they?. Microsoft crushed alternatives to it on the intel platform, not on the powerpc platform. Apple was free to sell their computers as they see fit and have always been. So, how come 90% of the world chose microsoft if they had the crappy GUI? The difference between microsoft and apple was that microsoft was run by a business man, apple by a geek. As usual, geeks tend to think if they can break down a computer and put it together and the business man can't, he's dumber than them (i know, i am a geek, it's easy to fall into this trap). I think that is what happened to apple. They were so busy creating cool that they didn't notice no one cared, that no one gived a shit. You know the story. The jocks get all the girls, the geeks get the good grades. Apple gets all the design praise, microsoft gets all the cash and marketshare. That is also how Dell defeated Gateway and all other pc manufacturers (and they didn't even have to be an illegal monopoly like microsoft). While they were all concentrating on cool, Dell was concentrating on business. While they were all over themselves on who was the coolest geek, Dell was like, how do we capture market share, how do we service the majority of customers who could give a rat ass about cool. I have a friend who i have tried persuading for over two years to go to mac.. wanna guess what she eventually bought?.. yep a dell, even though i bad mouthed Dell. Perplexed me until i finally listened to her. As far as she was concerned, Dell did all she wanted to do and it was cheaper. So what if she didn't have ilife? or garageband?.. big deal!. So what if apple had less virus?, so what if the GUI was superior?.
The problem is that microsoft has always been good enough for a lot of people. Not great but good enough. A lot of my friends (including one who is a network administrator) have told me point blank that apple could shove it's superior GUI up it's arse (if you get my drift). The Ipod is the only time i can recall where Apple finally got it right in terms of consumers. It's cool but it also pays attention to consumer needs. It is a consumer gadget that is dictated by consumer needs, not the cool factor.
i want to point out though that a lot of what goes into apple and mac os, let's just take the software side for example, is a lot better adherence to GOOD interactive media, user interface, and software engineering principles.
microsoft lost me at the whole "Answer Wizard" thing in microsoft office. i was just like, waaait a minute, something is not jiving here...
this stupid paper clip gives me no joy whatsoever, does nothing to enhance my user experience, and is just wasting precious CPU and RAM
1. Which company, despite being small was able to steal windows from larger company with better lawyers
A. IBM
B. Microsoft.
2. Which company, despite being more innovative, failed to patent it's user interface thus allowing it's competitor to reduce it to near irrelevance
A. Microsoft
B. Apple.
3. Who was the C.E.O of the company that was dumb enough not to patent his company revolutionary GUI.
A. Bill Gates
B. Steven P Jobs.
4. Which company destroyed Visalcac and Wordperfect
A. Apple
B. Microsoft.
5. Which company has destroyed numerous competitors by being ruthless and taking no prisoners
A. Apple
B. Microsoft
6. Which company you cannot absolutely dismiss if that company decides to enter your product space
A. Apple
B. Microsoft.
7. Which company has had the most failures
A. Microsoft (Microsoft Bob, missing the internet, missing importance of search, missing music business)
B. Apple (the cube, Copeland, Failing to allow clones thus consigning themselves to be nearly irrelevant, Newton, Missing enterprise market, Apple Lisa).
If you answered A to any of the questions above, give yourself a 0. If you answer B to any question above, give yourself a score of 1. If your score is 7. You are a genius, a regular einstein.
In fact, i am willing to bet microsoft has more failures than apple. Sometimes, more failures indicates more aggressiveness. Microsoft has more failures than I do in business. They have numerous, i have 0. They are a multibillion company, I have 0 revenues. It's always cute to list microsoft failures without realizing that they were at least trying things. They were doers, not thinkers. The more things you try, the more things you fail at. Listing microsoft failures is really irrelevant because so what?. For every area they failed to forsee, they managed to dominate. Less innovative does not equate to being dumb. Besides, there is no prize for being first to market. Being first to market did not help apple, did it? (GUI, newton, etc)
And don't be smug about itunes 4.9. Apple did not invent podcasting and they sure as hell did not forsee it. They are stealing the idea themselves. So what if microsoft will implement it later? Should we give apple a cookie for stealing the idea first?. As to some of microsoft tactics being illegal, yeah sure but that shows microsoft adapts. At first they were small and could not enforce their will, as they got bigger, they were able to enforce their will. If you think apple does not admire that, then you are not paying attention. Apple is doing same thing with Ipod. In fact, Apple is doing exactly what microsoft would have done with the Ipod. I think Steve Jobs has learned his lesson.
In business, no one cares if you are mother theresa. As a stockholder, i could care less if Steve wants to be fair, I want him to crush the competition. Finally, Jobs has seen the light. Business is about competition. No company gets points for being nice. The only reason apple fans harp on that is because apple lost. No current apple fan seems to have a problem with the way apple is treating the competition with the Ipod. I don't see any of you losing sleep over this. Where are the people shouting "apple, be fair!!". The losers always complain. Apple had more market share than microsoft at one point. That they allowed a company with less market share to bully them to a 5% market share is pathetic, don't you think?
Apple did protect their IP and sued MS for stealing it. It was the famous, "look and feel cases."
The rest of your post doesn't make any sense, sorry.
So much for the topic, but my point wasn't about MS being stupid or smart. Anyone in any business who is honest will say it is mostly about hard work and luck - right time right place. We could go into all of the other os's beyond Apple's and MS's that IBM could have used and how they never left their academic ivory towers, but too much history there.
My simple point was to your simple point. I don't care who won the os wars. I don't care who makes the BEST os...until I need to use it. I care about who breaks the feaking law and who perpetuates the culture of greed and unsustainable business practices. Sure MS has won and will win for a few more decades, but nature will take care of all monopolies with viruses or thermodynamics. Unfortunately in the mean time unethical behavior breeds more unethical behavior and unless and until consumers learn the difference or learn to care, the free market system will not achieve the potential that it could.
MS wasn't dumb, but neither was it smart, it was clever and paranoid at the same time. And though successful, it isn't laudable. We all need to get beyond sophomoric business 101 attitudes in regards to what business's role in our lives is. As far as your friend going for the Dell, that's fine and all. I like simple and cheap too. I just feel bad that that is the attitude of 95% of the population...a better world would have Dell and Apple closer to 25% each. And Dell isn't THAT much smarter than everyone else.
I guess my final point it that the comparative successes of Apple vs Dell are more of a commentary on our society and its values, than it is on the business model of either. I care more for society than for either Apple or Dell stockholders. And people who say, "You can't argue with the success of MS" just remind me that our society is increasingly taking very shallow views of success.
Maybe someday it will be as stable as Winblows XP on a Dell!
BTW, I really, really, REALLY hate the Spinning Beachball of Death (SBD), that type of experience absolutely NEVER happens under Winblows XP. From my experience, the Winblows GUI is much more responsive then the OS Hex GUI, and sometimes I really, really, REALLY need to get something done in a hurry! Yes, the overall OS Hex experience is much better than the Winblows XP experience (and boy, do I hate the XP desktop color scheme), Apple just needs to sent the SBD to that gulag in Gitmo!
Whew, THAT was a long wizz.
Sadly I use XP at work, my experience is quite different. Getting something done quickly is faster on the PM G5. I have not seen a kernel panic since 10.2.7. No spinning balls of death too. The XP locks up 3-8 times a day. Some times I can Ctl-Alt-Delete out and kill the process but then the system is unstable so I have to reboot soon after that anyway. Illustrator is almost useless when it's the only app open and says out of memory on a 768mb ram machine. To get real Illustrator work done I have to go back to W98. Augh!! I hope the the whole creative dept gets Mac's. G5 or MacIntel whatever.
All this talk about if Microsoft is Dumb or not... please.
You're taking his original thought and taking it horribly out of context. I too think that yes. Microsoft is dumb at the moment. One can be intelligent and dumb at the same time.
The haven't added anything to realm of OS development to the end-user really since windows 98 and directx. I can't think of much in windows xp thats added to the end-user for a long while.
Added to that the fact they really are only developing technologies to keep them in place but not ahead. What with licensing schemes, working against working everyone else. Its just the sad fact of when a monopoly is in place they feel nothing needs to be done because they think YOU don't need options.
As for the fact of Dells being sucky yes they suck with hardware problems but that only happens on their cheap machines... I work with many clients some with only 4 machines some with 2,000 they break.. what dell is good at is keeping their promise and continuing to fix them. Just like Apple.
I for one don't mind OS X on anything else than a mac. You know if Apple reached 20% of marketshare there would be no way logistically they could do the business. You can't let brand image be the reigns of your business strategy.
Comments
Originally posted by wnurse
As to some of microsoft tactics being illegal, yeah sure but that shows microsoft adapts. At first they were small and could not enforce their will, as they got bigger, they were able to enforce their will. If you think apple does not admire that, then you are not paying attention. Apple is doing same thing with Ipod. In fact, Apple is doing exactly what microsoft would have done with the Ipod. I think Steve Jobs has learned his lesson.
In business, no one cares if you are mother theresa. As a stockholder, i could care less if Steve wants to be fair, I want him to crush the competition. Finally, Jobs has seen the light. Business is about competition. No company gets points for being nice. The only reason apple fans harp on that is because apple lost. No current apple fan seems to have a problem with the way apple is treating the competition with the Ipod. I don't see any of you losing sleep over this. Where are the people shouting "apple, be fair!!". The losers always complain. Apple had more market share than microsoft at one point. That they allowed a company with less market share to bully them to a 5% market share is pathetic, don't you think?
I almost agreed with you until this point. I'm sure Enron, the Chinese Communist Party and the Watergate cronies join you in your convictions and they know something about "convictions."
You don't have to be Mother Theresa to follow the law and no amount of success can take away a crime. Steve was dumb to give Bill the GUI. But Bill was criminal in using monopolistic tactics after he became a monopoly. Apple is not commiting a crime with its iPod agreements. Those are contracts written very specifically with the recording industry.
Going from dominant to 5% is pathetic and relates to Steve's ego, but it ain't criminal.
One would think by now with the state of the world, that even the most die-hard pro-business capitalist would realize that ethics do count. Then again we see plenty of hypocrasy at all levels so I guess the sheep will follow.
Apple took a great computer lab GUI idea and made it into a great consumer computer GUI. MS took a great consumer GUI and turned it into a mediocre consumer GUI. Who is the smart one. MS just negociated the best contract (w/IBM), not the best product and only a lawyer would praise them for that. As a consumer I won't.
Originally posted by MacGregor
I almost agreed with you until this point. I'm sure Enron, the Chinese Communist Party and the Watergate cronies join you in your convictions and they know something about "convictions."
You don't have to be Mother Theresa to follow the law and no amount of success can take away a crime. Steve was dumb to give Bill the GUI. But Bill was criminal in using monopolistic tactics after he became a monopoly. Apple is not commiting a crime with its iPod agreements. Those are contracts written very specifically with the recording industry.
Going from dominant to 5% is pathetic and relates to Steve's ego, but it ain't criminal.
One would think by now with the state of the world, that even the most die-hard pro-business capitalist would realize that ethics do count. Then again we see plenty of hypocrasy at all levels so I guess the sheep will follow.
Apple took a great computer lab GUI idea and made it into a great consumer computer GUI. MS took a great consumer GUI and turned it into a mediocre consumer GUI. Who is the smart one. MS just negociated the best contract (w/IBM), not the best product and only a lawyer would praise them for that. As a consumer I won't.
Hmm, you must have missed the original post. GeekDreams stated that Microsoft was dumb. Maybe they were criminal but calling a multibillion company dumb is audacious, don't you think?. Calling someone who went from nothing to richest man in the world dumb is a little presumptous. You can spin whatever you want. Ok, you say microsoft made a mediocre GUI, yet over 90% of the world uses that GUI. If apple was that smart, how come their GUI is not the dominant?. Microsoft may have twisted PC makers arm and illegally forced them to sell windows but they couldn't twist apple arm now, could they?. In the beginning, Apple did not depend on Microsoft. Apple made the machine and the Operating system so Microsoft could not dictate terms to them. Microsoft did not tell best buy, circuit city, etc not to sell apple computers, did they?. Microsoft crushed alternatives to it on the intel platform, not on the powerpc platform. Apple was free to sell their computers as they see fit and have always been. So, how come 90% of the world chose microsoft if they had the crappy GUI? The difference between microsoft and apple was that microsoft was run by a business man, apple by a geek. As usual, geeks tend to think if they can break down a computer and put it together and the business man can't, he's dumber than them (i know, i am a geek, it's easy to fall into this trap). I think that is what happened to apple. They were so busy creating cool that they didn't notice no one cared, that no one gived a shit. You know the story. The jocks get all the girls, the geeks get the good grades. Apple gets all the design praise, microsoft gets all the cash and marketshare. That is also how Dell defeated Gateway and all other pc manufacturers (and they didn't even have to be an illegal monopoly like microsoft). While they were all concentrating on cool, Dell was concentrating on business. While they were all over themselves on who was the coolest geek, Dell was like, how do we capture market share, how do we service the majority of customers who could give a rat ass about cool. I have a friend who i have tried persuading for over two years to go to mac.. wanna guess what she eventually bought?.. yep a dell, even though i bad mouthed Dell. Perplexed me until i finally listened to her. As far as she was concerned, Dell did all she wanted to do and it was cheaper. So what if she didn't have ilife? or garageband?.. big deal!. So what if apple had less virus?, so what if the GUI was superior?.
The problem is that microsoft has always been good enough for a lot of people. Not great but good enough. A lot of my friends (including one who is a network administrator) have told me point blank that apple could shove it's superior GUI up it's arse (if you get my drift). The Ipod is the only time i can recall where Apple finally got it right in terms of consumers. It's cool but it also pays attention to consumer needs. It is a consumer gadget that is dictated by consumer needs, not the cool factor.
i want to point out though that a lot of what goes into apple and mac os, let's just take the software side for example, is a lot better adherence to GOOD interactive media, user interface, and software engineering principles.
microsoft lost me at the whole "Answer Wizard" thing in microsoft office. i was just like, waaait a minute, something is not jiving here...
this stupid paper clip gives me no joy whatsoever, does nothing to enhance my user experience, and is just wasting precious CPU and RAM
Originally posted by wnurse
Hmm.. lets see
Pop quiz.
1. Which company, despite being small was able to steal windows from larger company with better lawyers
A. IBM
B. Microsoft.
2. Which company, despite being more innovative, failed to patent it's user interface thus allowing it's competitor to reduce it to near irrelevance
A. Microsoft
B. Apple.
3. Who was the C.E.O of the company that was dumb enough not to patent his company revolutionary GUI.
A. Bill Gates
B. Steven P Jobs.
4. Which company destroyed Visalcac and Wordperfect
A. Apple
B. Microsoft.
5. Which company has destroyed numerous competitors by being ruthless and taking no prisoners
A. Apple
B. Microsoft
6. Which company you cannot absolutely dismiss if that company decides to enter your product space
A. Apple
B. Microsoft.
7. Which company has had the most failures
A. Microsoft (Microsoft Bob, missing the internet, missing importance of search, missing music business)
B. Apple (the cube, Copeland, Failing to allow clones thus consigning themselves to be nearly irrelevant, Newton, Missing enterprise market, Apple Lisa).
If you answered A to any of the questions above, give yourself a 0. If you answer B to any question above, give yourself a score of 1. If your score is 7. You are a genius, a regular einstein.
In fact, i am willing to bet microsoft has more failures than apple. Sometimes, more failures indicates more aggressiveness. Microsoft has more failures than I do in business. They have numerous, i have 0. They are a multibillion company, I have 0 revenues. It's always cute to list microsoft failures without realizing that they were at least trying things. They were doers, not thinkers. The more things you try, the more things you fail at. Listing microsoft failures is really irrelevant because so what?. For every area they failed to forsee, they managed to dominate. Less innovative does not equate to being dumb. Besides, there is no prize for being first to market. Being first to market did not help apple, did it? (GUI, newton, etc)
And don't be smug about itunes 4.9. Apple did not invent podcasting and they sure as hell did not forsee it. They are stealing the idea themselves. So what if microsoft will implement it later? Should we give apple a cookie for stealing the idea first?. As to some of microsoft tactics being illegal, yeah sure but that shows microsoft adapts. At first they were small and could not enforce their will, as they got bigger, they were able to enforce their will. If you think apple does not admire that, then you are not paying attention. Apple is doing same thing with Ipod. In fact, Apple is doing exactly what microsoft would have done with the Ipod. I think Steve Jobs has learned his lesson.
In business, no one cares if you are mother theresa. As a stockholder, i could care less if Steve wants to be fair, I want him to crush the competition. Finally, Jobs has seen the light. Business is about competition. No company gets points for being nice. The only reason apple fans harp on that is because apple lost. No current apple fan seems to have a problem with the way apple is treating the competition with the Ipod. I don't see any of you losing sleep over this. Where are the people shouting "apple, be fair!!". The losers always complain. Apple had more market share than microsoft at one point. That they allowed a company with less market share to bully them to a 5% market share is pathetic, don't you think?
Apple did protect their IP and sued MS for stealing it. It was the famous, "look and feel cases."
The rest of your post doesn't make any sense, sorry.
So much for the topic, but my point wasn't about MS being stupid or smart. Anyone in any business who is honest will say it is mostly about hard work and luck - right time right place. We could go into all of the other os's beyond Apple's and MS's that IBM could have used and how they never left their academic ivory towers, but too much history there.
My simple point was to your simple point. I don't care who won the os wars. I don't care who makes the BEST os...until I need to use it. I care about who breaks the feaking law and who perpetuates the culture of greed and unsustainable business practices. Sure MS has won and will win for a few more decades, but nature will take care of all monopolies with viruses or thermodynamics. Unfortunately in the mean time unethical behavior breeds more unethical behavior and unless and until consumers learn the difference or learn to care, the free market system will not achieve the potential that it could.
MS wasn't dumb, but neither was it smart, it was clever and paranoid at the same time. And though successful, it isn't laudable. We all need to get beyond sophomoric business 101 attitudes in regards to what business's role in our lives is. As far as your friend going for the Dell, that's fine and all. I like simple and cheap too. I just feel bad that that is the attitude of 95% of the population...a better world would have Dell and Apple closer to 25% each. And Dell isn't THAT much smarter than everyone else.
I guess my final point it that the comparative successes of Apple vs Dell are more of a commentary on our society and its values, than it is on the business model of either. I care more for society than for either Apple or Dell stockholders. And people who say, "You can't argue with the success of MS" just remind me that our society is increasingly taking very shallow views of success.
Originally posted by MACchine
Hey somebody that knows where the shift key Is GOOD FOR YOU !!!
I believe the basic principles of discourse are:
- shout loudly
- keep shouting
- if all else fails, call them "liberals" or "Democrats"
That will generally win the argument, or at least make your opponents run away and hide-- right?
Originally posted by BWhaler
Apple did protect their IP and sued MS for stealing it. It was the famous, "look and feel cases."
The rest of your post doesn't make any sense, sorry.
Did they win?. I thought suing was enforcing, not protecting. Protecting is getting a patent.
As to the rest of my post not making sense, since you didn't tell me what confused you, i'll dismiss your criticism.
Originally posted by franksargent
WOW, a pissing contest!
My turn?
Maybe someday it will be as stable as Winblows XP on a Dell!
BTW, I really, really, REALLY hate the Spinning Beachball of Death (SBD), that type of experience absolutely NEVER happens under Winblows XP. From my experience, the Winblows GUI is much more responsive then the OS Hex GUI, and sometimes I really, really, REALLY need to get something done in a hurry! Yes, the overall OS Hex experience is much better than the Winblows XP experience (and boy, do I hate the XP desktop color scheme), Apple just needs to sent the SBD to that gulag in Gitmo!
Whew, THAT was a long wizz.
Sadly I use XP at work, my experience is quite different. Getting something done quickly is faster on the PM G5. I have not seen a kernel panic since 10.2.7. No spinning balls of death too. The XP locks up 3-8 times a day. Some times I can Ctl-Alt-Delete out and kill the process but then the system is unstable so I have to reboot soon after that anyway. Illustrator is almost useless when it's the only app open and says out of memory on a 768mb ram machine. To get real Illustrator work done I have to go back to W98. Augh!! I hope the the whole creative dept gets Mac's. G5 or MacIntel whatever.
You're taking his original thought and taking it horribly out of context. I too think that yes. Microsoft is dumb at the moment. One can be intelligent and dumb at the same time.
The haven't added anything to realm of OS development to the end-user really since windows 98 and directx. I can't think of much in windows xp thats added to the end-user for a long while.
Added to that the fact they really are only developing technologies to keep them in place but not ahead. What with licensing schemes, working against working everyone else. Its just the sad fact of when a monopoly is in place they feel nothing needs to be done because they think YOU don't need options.
As for the fact of Dells being sucky yes they suck with hardware problems but that only happens on their cheap machines... I work with many clients some with only 4 machines some with 2,000 they break.. what dell is good at is keeping their promise and continuing to fix them. Just like Apple.
I for one don't mind OS X on anything else than a mac. You know if Apple reached 20% of marketshare there would be no way logistically they could do the business. You can't let brand image be the reigns of your business strategy.
Originally posted by wnurse
It is a consumer gadget that is dictated by consumer needs, not the cool factor.
Was with most of what you said until the end. I don't need an iPod. It sure is cool to have one though. I need a sandwich.