French Soldier: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
.....
French Soldier: You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.
....
French Soldier: You don't frighten us with your silly knees-bent running around advancing behavior!
King Arthur: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
French Soldier: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he will be very keen. Uh, he's already got one, you see.
You gotta love Americans (and I'm not even French).
1) It's not a RAID as in "policemen and SWAT teams screaming and knocking doors down". It was a quiet office search, under a warrant, and with the presence of an attorney to ensure all is going ok. <span style="line-height:1.231;">The same kind of thing happens ALL the time in the US, when FBI investigates some company.</span>
I blame the article title first, the quick to jump to idiotic conclusions readers second.
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18.1953125px;">Did you even UNDERSTOOD the reason for this incident? If anything it's the fucking opposite. It was made to ENSURE competiveness (that is, against alleged anti-competitive practices by Apple).</span>
<span style="line-height:18.1953125px;">It's not like a typical American, that is characterised by 3 things:</span>
<span style="line-height:18.1953125px;">1) Only speaks English</span>
<span style="line-height:18.1953125px;">2) Only watches American movies and reads (if anything) mostly American and/or British books.</span>
<span style="line-height:18.1953125px;">3) Only has any direct experience with a 2 party system that alternates in power for more than half a century.</span>
4) Rarely follows World News, and when he does is only related to the interests of his country (e.g media
covering some regime the US doesn't like or are about to invade, a few human interest stories from the Third
World, etc).
even understands European politics or what "socialism" is.
Some even consider ...the Democrats as socialists. <span style="line-height:1.231;">Others conflate the ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe with western europe's welfare states and socialist</span>
parties, unaware of a 80+ year split. Some even believe "social-democrat" parties are doubly ...socialist (in fact, <span style="line-height:1.231;">it's a name give to right-of-centre parties akin to the Republican party in the US).</span>
<span style="line-height:1.231;">It's like talking politics with a 12 year old.</span>
1. Learning a second language is compulsory in secondary education in many regions of the United States. The most popular second language is Spanish rather than French for obvious reasons. For obvious reasons there is little incentive to learn several languages in the United States. English has, for better or worse, become the de facto international language as English is the language of business.
2. There is little to no advertising or marketing of foreign films in the United States. There are many English remakes of foreign films, however, for which I hope the owners are properly compensated.
3. There are more than two parties although the other parities lack significant power. There are many reasons for this issue. Perhaps we need to rethink aspects of the American Political System. Personally, I favor authoritarianism as long as I am the authority.
4. World News is simply not available in a convenient format in the United States. I do not, personally, understand the demise of international reporting but I suspect the result is profit driven. This is very sad but true. Shamefully, CNN International is often not available to American citizens in America. BBC World News is no longer shown on BBC America. Personally, I now watch Sky News on my AppleTV as I am a "cord cutter."
You seem to judge all Americans on the basis of a small sample which isn't necessarily representative of the entire population. Should Americans judge all French by attitudes in The Vendée?
It is not about Apple Stores competing fairly with Premium resellers and still having the preference of customers. It is not about an unnamed computer store failing miserably beacause it operates a few blocks away from a brand new Apple store either.
It is about Apple coercing its partners to conform to costly specifications (size of the showfloor, type of furnitures, shelving layout etc.) in order to get the "Apple premium reseller" tag, then fucking with them by supplying only its own Stores with the latests products.
In Europe, Apple sales were really bad in the 1990s (marketshare was half the US one) and if not for enthusiast Apple resellers like eBizcuss at that time, Apple would have not had much places to sell the iMac when the first one hit the shelves%u2026
eBizcuss wasn't a small store, it covered dozens of Apple Premium Resellers in both France and Belgium. Nor was it the only reseller to ask for someone to have a look in Apple practices.
Apple wants to do business in EU. They have to conform to EU laws. That's it. If EU citizens money is good enough for Apple, they should stop fucking with our laws
French Apple Stores aren't paying taxes: Apple built an Apple Store EU subsidiary which buys product from Apple US, at retail price. Because french Apple stores bear payroll charges too (which are quite high in France), they are losing money and avoid any taxes on profit by doing so.
I admire Apple for their products and their commitment to quality and innovation but as a company, when they do business outside of US, they tend to behave like bastards%u2026
They do the same thing in the USA. When a product is hot, independent resellers cannot get the item. I have had many sales scooped by Apple in the past where the order was placed with me while I already had the product ordered from Apple. Apple then does not deliver for weeks while it's stores do. The customer gets fed up with waiting and orders direct from Apple and gets THAT order before mine.
Call me a hypocrite but I own Apple stock and have made more money on the stock then I did selling Apple products. The sad thing was about half of my sales were 'conversion' sales where I got a Windows user to switch to Apple. We stopped selling Apple and stopped converting Windows users to Apple.
Do I support raiding? No. Apple can run things the way they see fit, and if they want to turn off a small army of sellers who will touch people their ads could never get to that is their choice. Most of the sellers who are good will find other (more) profitable things to do. Do I think they could alter their approach to allow small sellers to get them more desktop sales and a broader market penatration.... sure. They could make more money overall but the stores would make a little less and the main business would make more. Apple could also benefit from caring more about the server side then they do now as it creates synergies that would sell more high profit desktops.
Apple is quickly approaching the same situation Microsoft had in the 90s. The major difference is that Microsoft acted arrogant and hostile when it gained its level of dominance Apple is using their position to make friends rather than enemies, which is a far smarter approach. Spreading the wealth will not draw as much ire as hoarding it. There is now a giant economy around iOS where multiple companies depend on iOS products to exists and there are other companies partnering with Apple to make their own products better.
The problem is that partnerships alone do not always beat the competition, and it is almost impossible for any company to make a move against a competitor once they reach a certain level of market share. Any aggressive action will be deemed "monopolistic" or "anti-competitive" by some government somewhere in the world.
Unless a major shift occurs, the EU will almost certainly implement restrictions on Apple. Count on it. The FTC never did anything of consequence to Microsoft in the US, but the EU implemented far more restrictions. Microsoft only grew stronger as they were forced to make changes to their products. It's all a joke really. The EU seems to believe people will always make a choices if given an option, and that isn't always the case . It wasn't until Apple introduced the iPad and iPhone that Microsoft was vulnerable. The biggest threat to a company always is and always will be its competitors. Microsoft proves you can look huge and invulnerable but you never are. The right product at the right time can end dominance no matter your level of influence.
I still haven't seen evidence that monopolies exists in the software / computer / mobile device industry. So far the only thing I've ever seen slow down a tech company that was deemed a "monopoly" was a competitor beating them. The thing that led to every major downfall in every tech "monopoly" has been complacency. It always seems impossible until it happens. In the years before the iPhone, no one would have expected Apple to be the leading PC maker in less than a decade.
Apple's dominance won't end due to some government mandate but when some tech company down the road does what Apple did this go round: sees a future no one else has envisioned yet.
My former life was heavily involved with the reseller world. The claims that this French reseller is valid but there isn't much you can about it. The smart resellers adapt and get more into consulting and differentiate themselves from Apple. The resellers who don't close up shop and complain how horrible Apple is.
What they don't realize is if it wasn't for Apple in the first place they would have never had a business. There is more money than ever to be made in the Apple world, but it isn't in Apple hardware sales.
Most resellers don't add enough value to attract customers away from them going direct to an Apple Store. The only way guys like Mac Mall, etc. compete is by giving a little discount and maybe having more third party products in stock at a local store. It's a tough business which is why the computer resellers aren't doing that well.
Remember a little while back how some Frenchy minister was bashing Apple, because Apple had dared to remove some French app from the app store that was violating the rules? Do rules not apply to Frenchies?
And now we have the French "competition authority" raiding Apple's headquarters! "Competition authority", haha, that is hilarious. A bunch of Frenchies going around protecting losers and those who fail. What a brilliant concept.
What a joke of a country! A socialist hellhole that despises success, demonizes the rich and taxes the hell out of everybody. No wonder France is a mess, and things will only get worse! Now at least that is some good news!
I've been to most places in Europe, but I refuse to step foot in that ridiculous country.
Seriously : how many people injured , killed, in this "raid" ?
Although some of the commenters show me that not all American think the French are communist (and the German nazis, and the Asian servile copiers ...) I have a great news to announce to all others : I give up, you win.
Enjoy your country , above any criticism, paradise of capitalism, where taxes do not even exist, and Apple is never questioned (and of course , condemned) about any legal issue , whether about taxes, patents, etc ....
I came to this site with a great admiration for Apple, and the positive aspects of your society that made it possible. I quit the site, with regret, due to the -not so positive- other aspects, which I knew, but obviously underestimated.
The only thing on the surface that is bogus is the digital download thing. That is almost certainly simply that they adjusted prices to deal with the change in exchange rates which happened this time to raise prices. Next time it could lower them even below what they were before if the market goes that direction. Happens in every country.
The rest is likely bogus to a degree also, in the sense that the reseller contracts are the same as before, are totally within laws for any such type of reseller deal (but perhaps were written assuming the parent company would never build their own stores which is not the company's fault) etc. But French law is rather quirky compared to other countries and they will likely find some kind of fault even if the common person doesn't find it logical. They would do it with any company but Apple being the press magnet that it is this will be pushed as big headlines, Apple is evil etc. for page hits
Once again, competition is labeled "unfair" and "anti-trust" is used as if it was about protecting people, when it is really about protecting politically connected businesses.
Government is a disease, masquerading as its own cure.
Businesses should go paperless and use very strong encryption. If there is nothing to steal, these thugs will be less likely to raid.
Comments
There is a large number of independent ATT stores. Guess who did not have iPhones for a very long time...
Quote:
Originally Posted by foljs
It's not like a typical American, that is characterised by 3 things:
1) Only speaks English
2) Only watches American movies and reads (if anything) mostly American and/or British books.
3) Only has any direct experience with a 2 party system that alternates in power for more than half a century.
4) Rarely follows World News, and when he does is only related to the interests of his country (e.g media
covering some regime the US doesn't like or are about to invade, a few human interest stories from the Third
World, etc).
That is just mean... I have attached a world map, to prove that I am cultured.
Perhaps this will help explain :
French Soldier: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
.....
French Soldier: You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.
....
French Soldier: You don't frighten us with your silly knees-bent running around advancing behavior!
King Arthur: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
French Soldier: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he will be very keen. Uh, he's already got one, you see.
King Arthur: What?
Sir Galahad: He said they've already got one!
King Arthur: Are you sure he's got one?
French Soldier: Oh yes, it's very nice!
I'm American and I agree with them.
1. Learning a second language is compulsory in secondary education in many regions of the United States. The most popular second language is Spanish rather than French for obvious reasons. For obvious reasons there is little incentive to learn several languages in the United States. English has, for better or worse, become the de facto international language as English is the language of business.
2. There is little to no advertising or marketing of foreign films in the United States. There are many English remakes of foreign films, however, for which I hope the owners are properly compensated.
3. There are more than two parties although the other parities lack significant power. There are many reasons for this issue. Perhaps we need to rethink aspects of the American Political System. Personally, I favor authoritarianism as long as I am the authority.
4. World News is simply not available in a convenient format in the United States. I do not, personally, understand the demise of international reporting but I suspect the result is profit driven. This is very sad but true. Shamefully, CNN International is often not available to American citizens in America. BBC World News is no longer shown on BBC America. Personally, I now watch Sky News on my AppleTV as I am a "cord cutter."
You seem to judge all Americans on the basis of a small sample which isn't necessarily representative of the entire population. Should Americans judge all French by attitudes in The Vendée?
Quote:
Originally Posted by foljs
It's not like a typical American, that is characterised by 3 things:
1) Only speaks English
2) Only watches American movies and reads (if anything) mostly American and/or British books.
3) Only has any direct experience with a 2 party system that alternates in power for more than half a century.
4) Rarely follows World News, and when he does is only related to the interests of his country (e.g media
covering some regime the US doesn't like or are about to invade, a few human interest stories from the Third
World, etc).
You forgot:
4) Has never traveled outside the US.
I watch "Le Tour de France", does that count for anything?
Quote:
Originally Posted by stephane36
It is not about Apple Stores competing fairly with Premium resellers and still having the preference of customers. It is not about an unnamed computer store failing miserably beacause it operates a few blocks away from a brand new Apple store either.
It is about Apple coercing its partners to conform to costly specifications (size of the showfloor, type of furnitures, shelving layout etc.) in order to get the "Apple premium reseller" tag, then fucking with them by supplying only its own Stores with the latests products.
In Europe, Apple sales were really bad in the 1990s (marketshare was half the US one) and if not for enthusiast Apple resellers like eBizcuss at that time, Apple would have not had much places to sell the iMac when the first one hit the shelves%u2026
eBizcuss wasn't a small store, it covered dozens of Apple Premium Resellers in both France and Belgium. Nor was it the only reseller to ask for someone to have a look in Apple practices.
Apple wants to do business in EU. They have to conform to EU laws. That's it. If EU citizens money is good enough for Apple, they should stop fucking with our laws
French Apple Stores aren't paying taxes: Apple built an Apple Store EU subsidiary which buys product from Apple US, at retail price. Because french Apple stores bear payroll charges too (which are quite high in France), they are losing money and avoid any taxes on profit by doing so.
I admire Apple for their products and their commitment to quality and innovation but as a company, when they do business outside of US, they tend to behave like bastards%u2026
They do the same thing in the USA. When a product is hot, independent resellers cannot get the item. I have had many sales scooped by Apple in the past where the order was placed with me while I already had the product ordered from Apple. Apple then does not deliver for weeks while it's stores do. The customer gets fed up with waiting and orders direct from Apple and gets THAT order before mine.
Call me a hypocrite but I own Apple stock and have made more money on the stock then I did selling Apple products. The sad thing was about half of my sales were 'conversion' sales where I got a Windows user to switch to Apple. We stopped selling Apple and stopped converting Windows users to Apple.
Do I support raiding? No. Apple can run things the way they see fit, and if they want to turn off a small army of sellers who will touch people their ads could never get to that is their choice. Most of the sellers who are good will find other (more) profitable things to do. Do I think they could alter their approach to allow small sellers to get them more desktop sales and a broader market penatration.... sure. They could make more money overall but the stores would make a little less and the main business would make more. Apple could also benefit from caring more about the server side then they do now as it creates synergies that would sell more high profit desktops.
We should also mention how cultured we are with all the French influences:
Raid led by French police inspector Clouseau.
naw....Inspector Gadget.....Apple is quickly approaching the same situation Microsoft had in the 90s. The major difference is that Microsoft acted arrogant and hostile when it gained its level of dominance Apple is using their position to make friends rather than enemies, which is a far smarter approach. Spreading the wealth will not draw as much ire as hoarding it. There is now a giant economy around iOS where multiple companies depend on iOS products to exists and there are other companies partnering with Apple to make their own products better.
The problem is that partnerships alone do not always beat the competition, and it is almost impossible for any company to make a move against a competitor once they reach a certain level of market share. Any aggressive action will be deemed "monopolistic" or "anti-competitive" by some government somewhere in the world.
Unless a major shift occurs, the EU will almost certainly implement restrictions on Apple. Count on it. The FTC never did anything of consequence to Microsoft in the US, but the EU implemented far more restrictions. Microsoft only grew stronger as they were forced to make changes to their products. It's all a joke really. The EU seems to believe people will always make a choices if given an option, and that isn't always the case . It wasn't until Apple introduced the iPad and iPhone that Microsoft was vulnerable. The biggest threat to a company always is and always will be its competitors. Microsoft proves you can look huge and invulnerable but you never are. The right product at the right time can end dominance no matter your level of influence.
I still haven't seen evidence that monopolies exists in the software / computer / mobile device industry. So far the only thing I've ever seen slow down a tech company that was deemed a "monopoly" was a competitor beating them. The thing that led to every major downfall in every tech "monopoly" has been complacency. It always seems impossible until it happens. In the years before the iPhone, no one would have expected Apple to be the leading PC maker in less than a decade.
Apple's dominance won't end due to some government mandate but when some tech company down the road does what Apple did this go round: sees a future no one else has envisioned yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soundvision
My former life was heavily involved with the reseller world. The claims that this French reseller is valid but there isn't much you can about it. The smart resellers adapt and get more into consulting and differentiate themselves from Apple. The resellers who don't close up shop and complain how horrible Apple is.
What they don't realize is if it wasn't for Apple in the first place they would have never had a business. There is more money than ever to be made in the Apple world, but it isn't in Apple hardware sales.
Most resellers don't add enough value to attract customers away from them going direct to an Apple Store. The only way guys like Mac Mall, etc. compete is by giving a little discount and maybe having more third party products in stock at a local store. It's a tough business which is why the computer resellers aren't doing that well.
first: It's laws passed under right-wing government. The previous president was mostly like yours republican.
@jungmark 2013/07/01 08:56am
"This is the same country where it's illegal to work more than 35 hrs a week."
it's false. or a lie.
35h is the legal work time. it means it's the basic period for negotiations in enterprise and state workers.
Me for example, I work 39h/week, with supplementary hours to my discretions and my hierarchy.
it depends also from corporations and enterprises. Some can restrict you, others can pay you for more, other to compensate by time.
Also, independent workers can mostly do as they want.
please, STOP spreading LIES.
France is mostly like one of your American states. The main differences is you will see a LOT of croissant in bakery.
and I have to remind you, ANTI-competitive LAWS are EUROPEAN UNION laws, not French ones.
Mostly like US laws.
-
The DOJ vs Apple about Ibooks store have NO equivalent in EU. So, who is the most collectivist here ?
yes, it's fun.
it prevents us to live horrible things like that:
American Way of Birth, Costliest in the World : http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-birth-costliest-in-the-world.html?hp&_r=0 (and no better).
Remember a little while back how some Frenchy minister was bashing Apple, because Apple had dared to remove some French app from the app store that was violating the rules? Do rules not apply to Frenchies?
And now we have the French "competition authority" raiding Apple's headquarters! "Competition authority", haha, that is hilarious. A bunch of Frenchies going around protecting losers and those who fail. What a brilliant concept.
What a joke of a country! A socialist hellhole that despises success, demonizes the rich and taxes the hell out of everybody. No wonder France is a mess, and things will only get worse! Now at least that is some good news!
I've been to most places in Europe, but I refuse to step foot in that ridiculous country.
? Use Raid in a sentenceraid
[reyd] Show IPAraid
noun
1.
a sudden assault or attack, as upon something to be seized or suppressed: a police raid on a gamblingring.
2.
Military . a sudden attack on the enemy, as by air or by a small land force.
3.
a vigorous, large-scale effort to lure away a competitor's employees, members, etc.
4.
Finance. a concerted attempt of speculators to force stock prices down.
verb (used with object)
5.
to make a raid on.
6.
to steal from; loot: a worry that the investment fund is being raided.
7.
to entice away from another: Large companies are raiding key personnel from smaller companies.
8.
to indulge oneself by taking from, especially in order to eat: raiding the cookie jar.
Seriously : how many people injured , killed, in this "raid" ?
Although some of the commenters show me that not all American think the French are communist (and the German nazis, and the Asian servile copiers ...) I have a great news to announce to all others : I give up, you win.
Enjoy your country , above any criticism, paradise of capitalism, where taxes do not even exist, and Apple is never questioned (and of course , condemned) about any legal issue , whether about taxes, patents, etc ....
I came to this site with a great admiration for Apple, and the positive aspects of your society that made it possible. I quit the site, with regret, due to the -not so positive- other aspects, which I knew, but obviously underestimated.
The rest is likely bogus to a degree also, in the sense that the reseller contracts are the same as before, are totally within laws for any such type of reseller deal (but perhaps were written assuming the parent company would never build their own stores which is not the company's fault) etc. But French law is rather quirky compared to other countries and they will likely find some kind of fault even if the common person doesn't find it logical. They would do it with any company but Apple being the press magnet that it is this will be pushed as big headlines, Apple is evil etc. for page hits
Government is a disease, masquerading as its own cure.
Businesses should go paperless and use very strong encryption. If there is nothing to steal, these thugs will be less likely to raid.