[opendtv] Re: I'm starting to feel sorry for, and worry about, Apple

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:45:58 -0400

At 6:11 PM -0500 7/29/10, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
You are missing the whole dynamic of what happened. IBM designed the PC to be an open platform. Hardware and software. Apple did not do this with the Mac. That's why the PC, with DOS and then Windows OSs, got the lion's share of business sales. 

That's pure crap!

Windows won for two MAJOR reasons:
1. Microsoft Office (and the fact that the Mac version was always a generation behind and MS kept changing the file formats).
2. Good marketing - especially to corporate IT professionals, who were losing their tyrannical grip over the corporate IT infrastructure.
The second item was really the key, especially after we started hooking PCs up to corporate networks. Microsoft offered the IT guys a way to regain the control they lost when PCs started to replace the client server architectures administered by the MIS departments. They made some of this stuff so arcane that it required IT professionals - who had to be MS certified - to keep things working... 

Job security!
Meanwhile Apple was trying to tell customers that they did not need the IT guys to make things work. They ran ads that flaunted the fact that a two man shop could hook up some Macs and run circles around Windows based PCs.
BAD MOVE! They alienated the very people they needed to get the Mac into corporations.
Then Sculley really screwed up and said that the Mac was not a game machine, just as Microsoft was pushing PCs into the home with the subtle but powerful message that you needed a PC to run the software you were running at work. 

Game Over.
Apple is doin what they always did, and threatening legal action for those who want to jail-break their own property, for heaven's sake. It's hardly the same thing as just telling them the warranty is invalidated.
Apple has never threatened legal action regarding jailbreaking the iPhone. In fact they sold several million phones knowing they would be jail broken to work in markets where the iPhone was not available. 




 You are not being very consistent here Bert. You want to deregulate
 TV broadcasting, but seem fine with the highly regulated world of the
 telecoms...
How am I fine with the world of regulated telecoms? Perhaps what you're thinking is that I'm fine with heavy regulation of industries that must operate as monopolies? Yes, I am, of course.
There is no compelling reason for telecom to be a monopoly. It's ALL about interconnection and allowing access to the wired networks.
One could build a rational case for having only one electric company in a market, as transmission line overbuilds are REALLY UGLY. And this is exactly how the unholy deal was cut between the industrial tycoons and the politicians to make ALL utilities regulated monopolies and oligopolies. 

Regards
Craig


----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org 
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word 
unsubscribe in the subject line.

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. opendtv
  3. Archive
  4. 07-2010