Team Agonist Editor in Chief: Michael Collins
Editorial Team
nymole, Raja, Numerian, Lex, Actor212, Graham, steeleweed
Contributing Authors
Brian Downing, Jillian, Cliff Schecter, Nat Wilson Turner, Don Henry Ford, Jr., Jack Cluth,
Rook
Editor Emeritus:
Sean Paul Kelley
In Memoriam: Rick Harrison, 1952-2008
Thoughtful, Global, Timely
|
One Thing . . . By Sean Paul Kelley, on October 27th, 2010 . . . not mentioned in this article is that Microsoft makes terrible software. I have a lot of problems with Apple’s growing digital tyranny and Google’s very real digital tyranny. But I still use an Apple OS, which is in every way superior to Windows, even the latest version, and I use Google’s email service religiously.
Perhaps Microsoft ought to focus on making better software for starters and then worry about the other stuff, you know?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
|
|
He succeeded. Including the decline by becoming a victim of its own success.
IBM declined because of a failure to innovate, and a refusal to enter the applications market. MS? A failure to innovate.
He wanted to entirely dominate the OS market, and he succeeded. Of course, in order to do that, he had to crush all competition, which he did. He also set back the progress of software at least ten years by killing off valuable third party efforts, including advanced grammar checkers, which might otherwise have led to a linguistic approach to artificial intelligence.
.
Cows get milked, rubes get bilked,
And fat cats dine on fools and cream.
but Apple is the company that really creeps me out. They are extremely top-down and go out of their way to maintain absolute control over their products. I recently had a conversation with someone who is involved with a self-repair website for electronics and appliances, and he told me the following:
-Posting Apple product service documents online will result in an immediate cease-and-desist letter from Apple lawyers.
-The screws in the new MacBook Air require a patented screwdriver, which US customs does not allow one to import into the country. One such screw is used on the battery case, preventing replacement by anyone other than Apple’s authorized services. He said that the Air is probably the least customizable/repair-friendly product he’s ever seen.
-The battery on the iPod nano is not replaceable, period. Fixing the the iPhone and iPod involves you sending it back to Apple and them sending you a brand new one. Your data on the old product is now out of your hands…
-Apple tries to price repairs out of its products, so if your laptop LCD dies they’ll tell you its (for example) $1500 to fix, but only $1600 to buy a whole new laptop.
The company’s entire business plan is designed around keeping things exclusive, not opening up to users or third parties, and forcing you to do things their way and buy instead of upgrade. Microsoft may suck, but at least PCs are customizable and relatively open.
Actually, here are two interesting articles recently posted at ArsTechnica comparing Apple and Microsoft OSes:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/2010/10/the-21st-century-guide-to-platform-trolling-apple-edition.ars
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/guides/2010/10/the-21st-century-guide-to-platform-trolling-windows-sucks.ars
I like how I can tinker with my windows 7 pc to my hearts content. I have clients who have 5+ year old win computers that they have been able to upgrade HW\SW wise with little trouble. I don’t see a lot of old macs around. Apple products are just appliances you throw away in time. As Bolo mentioned, Apple is a very closed system while Windows has incredible hardware support. I bought an old Motion 1700, upgraded it to windows 7 and now have an amazing pen tablet at a fraction of iPad with better specs.
…form of the 5 lobed Torx. I tend to think it falls into the category of rare specialist item, not forbidden item. Suspect you can order one here: http://www.wihatools.com/indexes/indxSecuritytorx.htm
“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel…may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly.” ~ Richard Haass
is really the way to go. Been using Ubuntu for quite awhile now…it’s effortless compared to MS. No experience with Jobs’ creations; like others, not willing to try something so closed off and proprietary.
______________________________________________________________________
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France
while I largely agree with you on the subject of hardware, when it comes to software, the Mac OS is consistently better performing both speed wise and has few if any bugs, compared to Windows.
“SÃ che dal fatto il dir non sia diverso.”
-Dante
but in the end it comes to personal perspective. To me, hardware is just as important as software and I just can’t consider doing anything with a computer in which either of them are locked down to the extent that Apple’s hardware is.
Again, it depends on what you’re looking for in the computer(s) you use and in what way(s) you want to use them.
They’re doing quite well, thank you, just not in the PC world. Their innovation has never been questioned – they file more patents every year than any other company in the world. If anything, their vision is sometimes myopic.
The real problem with PCs is that the underlying hardware sucks. IBM built the original PCs with Intel 8086 chips instead of the vastly better Motorola 68000 chips because Motorola couldn’t guarantee a sufficient supply and Intel could. IBM accepted the inferior hardware because they underestimated the potential of the PCs.
Interesting that IBM’s mainframe software is proprietary but available to anyone (except possibly the code for the security routines?). If you want to write a package to compete with parts of IBM’s OS, you don’t have to reverse-engineer – you just ask IBM for a copy of their source. You may then figure a different/better way and try to compete. Many mainframe customers have non-IBM components which mimic IBM code.
That would explain IBM’s stunning ability to keep up with the industry, why HP is #1 in revenue, and Apple’s revenue is almost equal to IBM’s.
Why is it IBM, dominant in almost every market segment in 1980, is now dominant in barely a few?
Networks – Cisco, Storage – EMC, Processors – Intel, PCs – HP and Dell, Printers – HP, Tape Systems – STC, Software – Microsoft, names that hardly featured in the revenue PIE charts of 1980 or 1990.
As for IBM not using the Motorola 68000s in PCs, was because Apple was using them. IBM used Motorola 68000s in many other products, and the development people inside IBM at the time generally preferred 68000s.
IBM failed in the late 1980 because they were unable to bring new products to market. New products were stifled because the existing products revenue could not be affected in any way. IBM’s ability to product patents was never in question, ability to bring new products to market was and is very questionable.
Unfortunately my application suppliers don’t….:-(
OCO = Object Code Only (No source).
At one time IBM published its source, until the Japanese copied it. I was involved in a lawsuit over this with IBM and Fujitsu.
All the security in ZOS (MVS relabeled) is invoked by an SVC (Supervisor Call) on a very well defined interface. Well defined because of an anti-trust settlement. Third parties (Now nearly all acquired by CA) built software on these interfaces.
Kids also love their bicycles with training wheels and ringy bells and tassels on their handlebars.
Using a Mac is an exercise in frustration if you are anything beyond a casual user. The software that you need is not really there, or is a pitiful comparison to a full featured PC version. HPFS sucks sucks sucks. There is still a dearth of hardware compared to a PC. They force you to spend a fortune on a desktop, or buy an all in one, or buy a limited feature mini. They charge you up front (using utter fear by experience) for “Applecare” knowing that you will need the service when the system fails and nobody can fix it besides them. They make systems intentionally incompatible and forced obsolete (try plugging in a last generation laptop into a current gen display… can’t be done). The OS is full of unexploited yet known and unfixed security holes. 99% of the Mac users that smarmily (?) proclaim “It’s UNIX, you can open terminal to do command line stuff”, have never opened Terminal and wouldn’t have a clue what to type if they did. Apple Mail is a joke. Safari is a bad joke.
Mac, the computer for little old ladies that browse and do email and that’s about it. Oh, and artistic types that haven’t graduated to real tools.
The problem was never IBM technical prowess, but rather upper management’s lack of vision. They couldn’t see beyond the mainframe, so they concentrated on making it better, at the expense of ignoring a huge market. They are rather like the person who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.
I don’t dispute your observation – the $$ speak for themselves. IBM is not a big player in the PC market – that’s not it’s their area of expertise. For large-scale data storage, huge transaction rates and near-perfect availability, IBM is still the best answer. But then none of the other IT hardware makers have much share in the area where IBM excels. They are different markets, aimed at different users, to fill different functions. If there’s more money spent on PCs than mainframes, it’s because you and I don’t need a mainframe to surf the ‘Net and send email and there’s more of us than there are folks who need IBM’s systems.
…yeah, like I could …..
Having used PCs from the early days (My uncle worked at IBM, and I got to play on an experimantal, pre-release PC back in ’78, playing net-Trek over Thanksgiving weekend)…I’ve worked on Computers starting with CPM, then early DOS, then GEM Desktop (nobody remembers the Atari ST-systems these days…)…
I use Windows at work, because that is what they’ve standarised on…it’s not easier to use than OSX, nor is it any quicker. It’s been said that ‘nobody ever got fired recommending Microsoft’….to me, if somebody had recommended Exchange and Outlook to me, I’d have had their ass mounted for my trophy room… I’ve written better mail servers than that, and I’m no programmer. UNIX might be an old OS, but it’s had the benefit of 1–15 more years of hackers beating on it to get more out of it, and I find it more stable, faster, better at handling multi-tasking, better at handling memory-intensive work, and better-tooled for debugging problems with readily-available, *open-sourced* applications.
I’ve said mare than is necessary to fuel this PC/Mac flame-war….Anybody else have an addition or ad-hominem for this?
“If Stupidity got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out?” — Will Rogers
In my time at IBM and post-IBM, I worked extensively with the internals of the OS, from Release 1 of PCP through the current z/OS. I don’t know when the source stopped being made available, since I haven’t needed that level of access in recent years. However, with all the documentation and ‘well defined interfaces’ plus the hooks provided, it’s fairly easy to extend and/or modify the OS. Various companies have software packages competing directly with components of the OS. I’ve worked with both IBM and non-IBM software for a number of different functions: secutity, disk handling, tape handling, resource serialization. I’ve also built applications which extended the functionality of OS, particularly for unsupported hardware configurations but also to accomplish things which were user-work at the time but which IBM later incorporated into the OS, such as dual-disk I/O and duplexed systems.
They have been putting some of their OS code on the chip for years, code that is extremely stable and highly used. There are also a lot of Linux and DB2 functions in the hardware these days.
It used to be in the 370 assembler, then they started using a PL/1 like lnaguage PLS which later became PLX and I don’t know what it is called these days. By the way, little known, is that not only did the Japanese copy the IBM code and produce IBM compatible mainframes but so did the Soviet Union minus the Winchester Disks (DASD).
While he might have crushed his competition, he also made it impossible for others to make money and that’s not a good situation…
IMO, the next big blow to Microsoft happens when “cloud based iPhones” and “cloud based iPads” are shipped since they won’t be tethered to a Mac or PC!
In the end– and due to its market share, the PC will probably suffer the most.
This implosion will surely send violent shockwaves through Microsoft’s ecosystem because, as their market share shrinks, growth goes backwards!
The only way that Microsoft wins is if their developers suddenly stop writing programs that need 4GB systems since today’s iPad systems ship with much less!
Power users, of course, will need beefier systems but the rest of us won’t be subsidizing them…
in general, I support Steve Balmer because he’s a customer oriented person…
that said, I like my MacBook; the last PC I owned was an HP and I used it for 40 hours; these days, and because of my iPhone and MacBook, I’ve become an addict again!
IMO, Steve Jobs did the right thing by kicking Adobe in the pants because, from what I’ve heard, Adobe decided to stop writing software for Macs since the user base dwindled. Today’s story is different since Apple now boasts 600,000 developers and they’re adding 30,000 more developers each day so MacBooks will have as much software as PC’s.
My favorite Mac feature is its deeply integrated PDF support since I can cut and paste PDF fragments between applications; that’s impossible ( out of the box ) on a PC.
I made a comment about IBM’s decline.
Then I documented its failings.
And while I agree IBM doe much transaction processing, linux/apache does more, by order of magnitude. Apache is the foundation of delivering web pages, which are stateless transactions, just as IBM’s CICS is a stateless transaction manager.
Oh, if you’ve run a transaction on an IBM mainframe, ever, you’ve used my code, or code I’ve tested and debugged.
You know where this is headed already…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixQE496Pcn8
IBM tried to put glitches in their own machines, so that software written for the IBM (i.e., DOS, as opposed to the brand-specific CPMs on other machines) wouldn’t run on the clones. That mindset of protecting the monopoly even at the price of producing inferior machines seemed predictive of IBM’s loss of innovation.
Patents are not necessarily signs of scientific or product innovation. Different is the grounds for a patent, and a lot of dumb mediocre trash gets patented in marketing and monopoly wars. See, for example, big Pharma’s evergreening initiatives.
Why would we ban someone who like to post after inhaling. A lot.
Case in point:
Using a Mac is an exercise in frustration if you are anything beyond a casual user.
Really ? Do tell. Tell me how I am a casual user. Go ahead. Funny, I dont feel frustrated… unless I have to fix yet another persons Windoze machine.
The software that you need is not really there, or is a pitiful comparison to a full featured PC version.
I know, like MS Office, Adobe products, blah blah blah [sarcasm]. Oh, you meant games ? Well, sure there arent nearly as many Mac games, but call me old fashioned for playing Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. Silly me. I suffer so.much.
HPFS sucks sucks sucks.
HPFS ? The OS/2 file system ? Huh ?
They force you to spend a fortune on a desktop, or buy an all in one, or buy a limited feature mini.
Apple doesnt _force_ you to buy anything. Its your choice. If you do buy Apple, funny how the choices APple has cover pretty much all the bases. And if you still arent satisfied, you can build your own hackintosh. Its not difficult.
They charge you up front (using utter fear by experience) for “Applecare” knowing that you will need the service when the system fails and nobody can fix it besides them.
No, incorrect again. You are not forced to buy Applecare. Stop inhaling, ok ? I can almost see your reefer smoke coming out of my screen.
Nobody can fix it besides them ? Fuck huh ? You ever take a gander at ifixit.com ? Shit, I fixed iPod touches, iBooks, macbooks, etc. Apple didnt make it hard for me at all. I mean, if you have a hard time opening a can of soup without hurting yourself, then maybe computer repair isnt for you, Awake.
They make systems intentionally incompatible and forced obsolete (try plugging in a last generation laptop into a current gen display… can’t be done)
Funny, I dont have a problem at all plugging in a previous generation macbook into a LCD. Did you try turning on the computer ?
The rest of post doesnt even rate a response. Enjoy living in windows hell, because fixing other peoples windows machines is bad enough. Using one for work is even worse.
Mad Dog