It makes me wonder what kind of concessions the evil empire got when bill gates dumped what was it, a couple of hundred million dollars, in apple during the 90's to keep it afloat.
150 Million. Yes. However, it had nothing to do with keeping Apple afloat and I do believe that that agreement has expired some time ago. Part of that agreement was that Apple would make Internet Explorer the default Browser for the Mac and that MS would continue to make Office for the Mac. I have no idea what else they agree to, but Apple just has a history of not marketing the Mac's OS and of allowing MS to bully Apple around with threats that MS would drop Office for the Mac if Apple didn't do what MS wanted. That's all.
There's a long history here from almost the very beginning, even before MS had Windows out in the market, MS had threaten to stop making Word and Excel for the Mac unless Apple did what they asked, Apple gave in and Apple has been MS's bitch since then. It's sickening. Apple needs to stop fearing MS and get on with the show.
So what if MS drops Office for the Mac? I mean really? I know I will get slammed for saying this, but you know why MS can use this as a tool to keep Mac users in fear? Because of Apple's low market share. If Apple had a 20% to 30% market share who would give a rat's ass if MS didn't make software for the Mac? Why? Because there would be a viable market for Mac OS X for someone else to do it instead of MS! Trust me, MS will drop Office for the Mac the minute it feels threatened by Apple. It already dropped IE and now WMP. It's only a matter of time.
The thing is... the solution is timing and having it all in place. And the "timing and the having it all in place" has been for at least 2 years now! Apple's market share should be at 10% to 12% right now. If not more.
In today's world computers have found a place in the house and they are no longer just in businesses. Have you noticed that? Well, I don't think Apple has. The consumer does not need Windows to do what they need to do. The Mac OS does a better job for what the consumer needs and wants anyway. Hello!! So why isn't Apple telling them this?
What Microsoft constantly does, and is constantly mocked for is copying the concept, copying the name, implementing it in almost the exact same way - marketing it the same way, using the same colour schemes...
Are you saying that the blue title bars with red close boxes and a green start button, all on nuclear green hills isn't an MS orginal idea? They can't even be ugly without copying someone?
Seriously, there is not that much room for creativity left
to develop a - what? - office suite, no? Okay, one can try...
Yea, If mankind can make it, we already have it, we should just call it a day and close the patent office...
That idea is as wrong and mis-guided today as it was in the early 1900s when such proposals were taken seriously!
Just because major companies lack th cahones(sp?) to think otside the box doesnt mean that innovation is dead. There is a lot of truth to the saying "in this industrey, your worst fear isnt the biggest rival, it is the kid in his garage..."
Just ask HP, they had first right of refusal on the Apple1
Just ask IBM, they made a deal with an "insugnifigant little startup" and who one the day there?
Just ask Palm, who has gotten their ass kicked lately by RIM...Palm owned the business-man-PDA market for a decade, RIM added real time email.
Just ask Xerox, they gave away the one element that made personal computing feasable for 90% of folks, the GUI
[B]Funny you should mention both Pepsi and CocaCola as market share gainers, I always thought they were competitors on same field, so they gained market share from each other????
the're all competitors. that's the point. that's what comptitors do, fight for market share. what they all have in common is that they all advertise. why? why invest billions of dollars in advertising if there is no market share to be gained in a mature market? these corportations are not run by idiots. how do you think Dell got the market share they have?
Windows 2000 smokes any pre-X MacOS. OS9 and earlier had sucky memory management and the multitasking blew as well. I never would've bought a Mac if it weren't for OS X.
Yes But OS9 was incredibly easy to use, simplistic, and generally user-friendly, and get-out-of-the-wayish that it was cool. The apps were great. AppleWorks 5, Claris Emailer, Internet Explorer 5, Photoshop 4, ahh... simpler days. Nowadays, of course the tech and interface that made OS 8-9 simple (and that was showing it's age in 1997-2001) is positively ancient and would never work. GraphicConverter, Fetch, etc... so much great shareware. Extensions made for the coolest hacks, like Kaleidoscope. They broke often, of course, but they were neat. Before 2000, around 1998-1999, Macs were a clear winner. The iMac and G3 B&W were simple, cool-looking, powerful, fast, inexpensive, and only a little bit more finicky then the horrible Windows 98 or Windows 95, still in widespread use. In 2000, Macs were a tradeoff. You sacrificed the memory protection and multitasking of Windows 2000 for a cool machine, a far more elegant user interface, and the promise of more to come: you could, if you had a Power Mac (iMacs didn't really run it so well, after all it WAS slower then 10.2) install Mac OS X Beta, which, although slow, weird, and not the most comfortable to use, showed incredible power and demonstrated some interesting, later-practical UI enhancements. It was, to some, a worthwhile tradeoff. I personally don't mind frequent crashes all that much, so I probably would have done it.
Overall, I see different types of Mac users; those who really think OS 9 sucks, a select few who think OS 9 ruled, and many who think OS 9 was an interesting reminder of times gone by.
Market share is actually extremely hard to gain (or gain back) in a mature market. If you were expecting a 5% or 10% jump in 5 years, you were expecting the impossible.
What Apple did to itself in the mid-90s will haunt itself for the rest of its life. They will have a very rough time getting back to 10% market share in the next 5 years.
I don't know if Steve planned it that way, but Apple has been slowly gaining mind share using the iPod (without the iPod, Apple would have had zero chance increasing its computer market share.) Apple is slowly getting people hooked on iTunes, iPod and QuickTime. When the time is right, Apple could pull the plug or cripple these for those who are using Windows and force a migration to OS X. That's an extreme solution though...I think Apple will try to grab these users fairly and without force but you can't deny that possibility as a backup plan.
The 'iPod revolution' was in its infancy 2 years ago. People that bought an iPod and are satisfied with it are probably still using a PC because it still works. But when the time comes to buy a new computer, they might consider a Mac much more than before when they didn't know iPods existed.
And Mac OS X has been a mature OS since When? October 2003. 10.0 and 10.1 were far from solid, fast, or even reliable, and the number of apps was pitiful. 10.2 was better, but still demonstrated some immaturity, and until 2003, many apps were still unavailable on OS X. 10.3 finally achieved maturity.
but he only did so after having being ripped off by Beethoven and Mozart...
...and they all ripped off Bach!
Who ripped off Buxtehude!!!
Bastards, all of them!
I suppose you are aware that 12 notes are enough for exactly 12 composers without them having to rip off one another's notes
On the topic I can only add that Microsoft should just license Mac OS, rename Mail to Outlook and Safari to Internet Explorer, and re-brand it by changing the "Welcome to ..." screen. That would save them some gigabucks.
Comments
Originally posted by ibuzz
It makes me wonder what kind of concessions the evil empire got when bill gates dumped what was it, a couple of hundred million dollars, in apple during the 90's to keep it afloat.
150 Million. Yes. However, it had nothing to do with keeping Apple afloat and I do believe that that agreement has expired some time ago. Part of that agreement was that Apple would make Internet Explorer the default Browser for the Mac and that MS would continue to make Office for the Mac. I have no idea what else they agree to, but Apple just has a history of not marketing the Mac's OS and of allowing MS to bully Apple around with threats that MS would drop Office for the Mac if Apple didn't do what MS wanted. That's all.
There's a long history here from almost the very beginning, even before MS had Windows out in the market, MS had threaten to stop making Word and Excel for the Mac unless Apple did what they asked, Apple gave in and Apple has been MS's bitch since then. It's sickening. Apple needs to stop fearing MS and get on with the show.
So what if MS drops Office for the Mac? I mean really? I know I will get slammed for saying this, but you know why MS can use this as a tool to keep Mac users in fear? Because of Apple's low market share. If Apple had a 20% to 30% market share who would give a rat's ass if MS didn't make software for the Mac? Why? Because there would be a viable market for Mac OS X for someone else to do it instead of MS! Trust me, MS will drop Office for the Mac the minute it feels threatened by Apple. It already dropped IE and now WMP. It's only a matter of time.
The thing is... the solution is timing and having it all in place. And the "timing and the having it all in place" has been for at least 2 years now! Apple's market share should be at 10% to 12% right now. If not more.
In today's world computers have found a place in the house and they are no longer just in businesses. Have you noticed that? Well, I don't think Apple has. The consumer does not need Windows to do what they need to do. The Mac OS does a better job for what the consumer needs and wants anyway. Hello!! So why isn't Apple telling them this?
Originally posted by the cool gut
What Microsoft constantly does, and is constantly mocked for is copying the concept, copying the name, implementing it in almost the exact same way - marketing it the same way, using the same colour schemes...
Are you saying that the blue title bars with red close boxes and a green start button, all on nuclear green hills isn't an MS orginal idea? They can't even be ugly without copying someone?
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
Seriously, there is not that much room for creativity left
to develop a - what? - office suite, no? Okay, one can try...
Yea, If mankind can make it, we already have it, we should just call it a day and close the patent office...
That idea is as wrong and mis-guided today as it was in the early 1900s when such proposals were taken seriously!
Just because major companies lack th cahones(sp?) to think otside the box doesnt mean that innovation is dead. There is a lot of truth to the saying "in this industrey, your worst fear isnt the biggest rival, it is the kid in his garage..."
Just ask HP, they had first right of refusal on the Apple1
Just ask IBM, they made a deal with an "insugnifigant little startup" and who one the day there?
Just ask Palm, who has gotten their ass kicked lately by RIM...Palm owned the business-man-PDA market for a decade, RIM added real time email.
Just ask Xerox, they gave away the one element that made personal computing feasable for 90% of folks, the GUI
[B]Funny you should mention both Pepsi and CocaCola as market share gainers, I always thought they were competitors on same field, so they gained market share from each other????
the're all competitors. that's the point. that's what comptitors do, fight for market share. what they all have in common is that they all advertise. why? why invest billions of dollars in advertising if there is no market share to be gained in a mature market? these corportations are not run by idiots. how do you think Dell got the market share they have?
Originally posted by PBG4 Dude
Windows 2000 smokes any pre-X MacOS. OS9 and earlier had sucky memory management and the multitasking blew as well. I never would've bought a Mac if it weren't for OS X.
Yes But OS9 was incredibly easy to use, simplistic, and generally user-friendly, and get-out-of-the-wayish that it was cool. The apps were great. AppleWorks 5, Claris Emailer, Internet Explorer 5, Photoshop 4, ahh... simpler days. Nowadays, of course the tech and interface that made OS 8-9 simple (and that was showing it's age in 1997-2001) is positively ancient and would never work. GraphicConverter, Fetch, etc... so much great shareware. Extensions made for the coolest hacks, like Kaleidoscope. They broke often, of course, but they were neat. Before 2000, around 1998-1999, Macs were a clear winner. The iMac and G3 B&W were simple, cool-looking, powerful, fast, inexpensive, and only a little bit more finicky then the horrible Windows 98 or Windows 95, still in widespread use. In 2000, Macs were a tradeoff. You sacrificed the memory protection and multitasking of Windows 2000 for a cool machine, a far more elegant user interface, and the promise of more to come: you could, if you had a Power Mac (iMacs didn't really run it so well, after all it WAS slower then 10.2) install Mac OS X Beta, which, although slow, weird, and not the most comfortable to use, showed incredible power and demonstrated some interesting, later-practical UI enhancements. It was, to some, a worthwhile tradeoff. I personally don't mind frequent crashes all that much, so I probably would have done it.
Overall, I see different types of Mac users; those who really think OS 9 sucks, a select few who think OS 9 ruled, and many who think OS 9 was an interesting reminder of times gone by.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Market share is actually extremely hard to gain (or gain back) in a mature market. If you were expecting a 5% or 10% jump in 5 years, you were expecting the impossible.
What Apple did to itself in the mid-90s will haunt itself for the rest of its life. They will have a very rough time getting back to 10% market share in the next 5 years.
I don't know if Steve planned it that way, but Apple has been slowly gaining mind share using the iPod (without the iPod, Apple would have had zero chance increasing its computer market share.) Apple is slowly getting people hooked on iTunes, iPod and QuickTime. When the time is right, Apple could pull the plug or cripple these for those who are using Windows and force a migration to OS X. That's an extreme solution though...I think Apple will try to grab these users fairly and without force but you can't deny that possibility as a backup plan.
The 'iPod revolution' was in its infancy 2 years ago. People that bought an iPod and are satisfied with it are probably still using a PC because it still works. But when the time comes to buy a new computer, they might consider a Mac much more than before when they didn't know iPods existed.
And Mac OS X has been a mature OS since When? October 2003. 10.0 and 10.1 were far from solid, fast, or even reliable, and the number of apps was pitiful. 10.2 was better, but still demonstrated some immaturity, and until 2003, many apps were still unavailable on OS X. 10.3 finally achieved maturity.
Originally posted by Volox
And Beethoven ripped off Mozart and Haydn...
and Mozart ripped off Haydn...
and Haydn ripped off Mozart and Beethoven...
but he only did so after having being ripped off by Beethoven and Mozart...
...and they all ripped off Bach!
Who ripped off Buxtehude!!!
Bastards, all of them!
I suppose you are aware that 12 notes are enough for exactly 12 composers without them having to rip off one another's notes
On the topic I can only add that Microsoft should just license Mac OS, rename Mail to Outlook and Safari to Internet Explorer, and re-brand it by changing the "Welcome to ..." screen. That would save them some gigabucks.