Re: [NTLK] Bigger than iWalk

From: BK (bk_newtontalk_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jan 05 2002 - 15:12:18 EST


On Sunday, January 6, 2002, at 04:31 , Steven wrote:

> Do you buy Apple because it is simply Apple and you think their
> computers
> look cool...or do you buy them because they are elegant and
> functional? I
> Suspect its the latter. If that IS the case, then isn't the OS and
> software
> that you really like?

I buy Apple for two reasons

a) their portable hardware has been the best value for money whenever I
was in the market for a new portable and as a permanent traveller that
matters a lot. So I am using an iBook and a Newton.

b) Apple's ease-of-use philosophy most closely resembles my
coffee-machine paradigm. Basically, I feel that computers should be like
coffee machines: do a few things very well, never break down before
their end of life time has come, never need an engineer, never need any
training, take any kind of water and coffee, intuitive to use as you
will immediately know where the water goes and where the coffee goes
even without reading the manual.

> Then you have got to ask yourself, Do you think the Mac OS could stand
> on
> its own? That is, compete with Windows? I suspect that it could
> compete....but on a software level, not hardware...because to be truly
> competitive in hardware you need to be successful in the business sector
> (Intel is the winner there)...but in software/OS you can cross all the
> line
> (business/home = expanded market. So....yes you are right, their
> hardware
> business would decline but their OS business could Soar....there are
> millions of PC users who would love to stop Microsoft from controlling
> their
> desktop.

Their hardware business would decline and their software business would
too.

The problem is - to use the coffee machine analogy - that if Lavazza
makes the finest coffee machines in the world they couldn't succeed
neither in the coffee nor in the coffee machine business if
Flavoured-brown-water Inc, would own all the coffee shops in the world
and they had a global exclusive deal with Shitty-Beans Ltd and
Crappy-Filter-Machine SA and pretty much everybody was hooked on
flavoured brown water.

It took Starbucks years to educate Americans about coffee and they did
work totally unexplored terrain. If some kind of Flavoured Brown Water
Inc had been sitting on this terrain and protected it with all their
market power Starbucks would have never made it beyond Seattle.

If you take into account that Starbucks isn't all that good compared to
Italian coffee, imagine how difficult it would be for Lavazza to build a
coffee shop chain in the US in competition with Starbucks despite having
the better quality product. Now Imagine Starbucks would own the whole of
South America and they could simply shut down any supply of coffee to
Italy leaving the country dry of coffee with Starbucks being the only
alternative and you have a formula that even in Italy you could get into
the market despite gourmet customers and established traditional brands.

M$ is a monopoly and they use their monopoly power shamelessly. It would
be suicidal for any company in the same market to ignore this. At the
very least it would be very risky for Apple to compete on software
alone. If they became successful to the point where it hurts M$ all they
have to do is to discontinue Office and tricks like that and it might be
good bye Apple.

Probably the best Apple can hope for is to regain some ground -say- get
back to 10+ % market share in a way where it doesn't hurt M$.

rgds
bk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: newtontalk-bounce_at_newtontalk.net
> [mailto:newtontalk-bounce_at_newtontalk.net]On Behalf Of Bill Davis
> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 11:02 PM
> To: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] Bigger than iWalk
>
>
>
>> What would be really revolutionary is if they ported OS X to run on
>> Intel
>> machines.
>> Can you WOW.
>>
>
> I can say "NOOOOO!"
>
> Although......they sort of have, in Darwin:
>
> http://www.opensource.apple.com/
>
> The NextSTEP/OpenStep OS on which MacOS X is based ran on Intel (and 68K
> and PowerPC and I think something else) hardware already before Apple
> bought NeXT.
>
> There is a Darwin port for Intel. You don't get all the OS, just the
> core, no GUI...but I believe that XWindows has been ported to it.
>
> So the potential IS there. But it's not likely, as Apple is a HARDWARE
> company. That's where it makes most of it's money. Porting it totally
> to Intel hardware so that it'd run on machines they didn't make would
> just kill the company. Just look what happened when Apple allowed
> cloning the Mac. People made cheap knock-offs instead of innovating and
> hurt Apple. A lot. They didn't expand it's market at all.
>
> It'll never happen unless the Motorola totally screws up PowerPC
> development (worse than they already have, I mean) and I think Apple's
> taking steps to not be dependent on them anymore...
>
> - Bill
>
>
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