[opendtv] Re: The case against Thunderbolt
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 08:13:09 -0500
At 3:49 PM -0600 3/2/11, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
The vast majority of PCs are sold on the basis of low cost, not performance.
The only market segments that still care about performance are machines for
gamers and servers, which now have little resemblance to a generic PC.
??? Is this true? From what I've seen and read, the non-business and
non-industrial/military appeal of PCs is exactly the fact that you
get considerably more bang for the buck than you do with Macs, and
there are all manner of add-on, super-fast video cards intended
precisely to optimize the PC for gaming.
If you want a very basic machine for surfing the web and e-mail there
is no question that a commodity PC is the cheapest option...
Whoops - is this not the same territory for which Apple created the
iPAD (and now iPAD 2)?
At a starting price of $499 even cheap PCs have little advantage, not
to mention little things like the ability to shoot and edit HD video,
Facetime video conferencing, and now a cheap adapter that allows HDMI
connection to a big screen TV with video mirroring at 1080P.
And did I mention that the iPAD is cheaper than any comparable tablet
competitor?
Or how about a light weight, full featured laptop? The $999 Macbook
is cheaper than its two closest competitors, the Sony Vaio X1 and the
Acer Timeline X.
The truth is that when you compare apples (PCs) and Apples, the cost
is comparable. Apple simply chooses not to sell cheap commodity Macs.
Macs account for 91% of the U.S. market for PCs that cost more than
$1,000.
And I would note that Macs now leverage the same add in boards and
peripherals as PCs. They even use the same processors, and run PC
applications faster than a PC...
Well, I would say that they are no longer the subject of press hype,
perhaps, because they have become a relatively well-known and mature
product. The products that get the press hype today are small, hand
held appliances, the likes of smart phones and tablets, or perhaps
small netbooks.
The Netbook craze was short lived, although you are correct, the did
generate a lot of media hype.
What the Netbook did bring to light is that you can only cripple a
product so much before making it next to useless. Netbooks are/were
little more than stripped down laptops with lousy graphics, lousy
battery life, and cheap construction.
They are newer appliances, is all, and while they are and will no
doubt find roles to play in the business community, their initial
appeal is with kids. People who used to gab with their friends
incessantly on the phone can now do so even while in class, without
being noticed as much, or even while being ferried to school by mom.
You clearly don't have a clue about this Bert. Business adoption is
soaring. Many applications in sales support, medical applications,
point of sale. I could go on, but there are MANY reports out there
about Fortune 500 companies deploying iPADs
Yes there is a huge opportunity in the education market for tablets.
And Yes Apple is doing well in this market segment. The iPAD is just
beginning to take off, which creates an interesting challenge for
would be tablet competitors, AND PCs in the enterprise.
The nuisance factor is what happens when someone tries to push the PC
architecture to the limits.
No. The nuisance factor is when the interfaces that you have been
building your systems around change incompatibly. That's when a PC
refresh cycle creates a lot more system impact than you would hope
for. Obviously this is less of a concern for stand-alone appliances,
or hand-held toys.
You have a warped view of this Bert. Apple has done a much better job
of preserving the useful life of its products than the PC industry.
And for the past decade it has been doing this with the same
commodity interfaces as PC competitors. You are confusing Apple's
traditional role as the company that is first to role out emerging
technologies, with the notion that they purposely choose technologies
that are incompatible with the rest of the PC world.
Thunderbolt is a perfect example. It is an addidtive technology for
those who may need the extra performance. You can still use the USB
and Firewire peripherals you have invested in. And having used both
DVI and displayport, I'll take displayport any day in terms of
convenience.
A USB upgrade, that could handle baseband video as well as the
daisy-chain feature and autoconfiguration, makes a lot of sense. You
can add functions to it without disrupting what came before.
Interfaces like DisplayPort and this new Tornado just seem to typify
the "this is such a racket" aspect of the microcomputer industry.
Some among the trade press gush over them, because it gives them
something to write about, but we the consumers don't need to
slavishly salivate in unison, do we?
Unfortunately, USB 3.0 does not do the stuff you think makes sense.
But Displayport and Thunderbolt do solve real world problems and are
just one more reason that Apple's products are viewed by many as
being worth the price.
Regards
Craig
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