“I contend the biggest story to come out of last week’s Apple launch, and which almost no one is discussing, is the breadth of the assault Apple is readying for the enterprise, Microsoft’s final stronghold,” Brian S. Hall writes for TechPinions.
“Free iWork — with secure cloud included. The very best smartphone (and tablet). A secure ecosystem that welcomes enterprise-class apps. Working fingerprint identification. An M7 motion chip can both support and foster the healthcare, logistics and wearable computer industries,” Hall writes. “‘Desktop class architecture’ inside mobile devices. Yes, Apple gleefully reiterated the world ‘desktop.’ True end-to-end ownership of the hardware and software, delivering the best reliability, customer support and security. The premier software developer community and the very best, most accessible, most secure software distribution platform. Yes, these all belong to Apple.”
Hall writes, “The PC is a relic of the 20th century. The smartphone is the computer. No one, still, is even close to Apple in this regard.”
Much more, including why Apple won’t make a budget-priced iPhone, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: One of the best things about this is that Microsoft never saw it coming and, quite possibly, still doesn’t.
Related articles:
Apple’s iPhone 5s’ biggest loser: Microsoft – September 12, 2013
Apple kicks Microsoft when it’s down with free iWork for iOS apps – September 10, 2013
iPhone 5s: Once again Apple leaps ahead with Touch ID fingerprint recognition; a big enterprise win for Apple – September 10, 2013
Funny how the keynote is getting huger and more significant with time…
Much like a zombie, microsoft will never die. they’re too entrenced in business. hardware builders may come and go, but Apple’s not ready to take over the business world. Apple is a consumer product company and lacks the infrastructure to deal with businesses on a 24/7/365 basis here in the US, let alone world wide. Sorry, but Apple’s not ready yet.
It took the Wintel duopoly more than 15 years to truly replace the big iron & terminal infrastructure — and even now, some legacy systems sill exist (not ALL the mainframes are dead), even if they are the extreme rarity.
The “post PC” transition will happen faster, but won’t happen overnight. The iPad was introduced at the beginning of 2010 — the real advent of the transition to the post PC era. Even if the transition happens in half the time as the big iron to PC transition happened it will be 2017/2018 before Microsoft and the PC are relegated to history.
However, unless Microsoft can move into the post PC era (which is looking more and more doubtful every day) Microsoft will be mostly irrelevant before the decade is out. January 1, 2021 will be very different from today. Yes, just like the extremely rare cases of big iron still existing today, there will be Microsoft hold outs with the Wintel servers and PC infrastructure. But the vast majority of the world is moving on. Unless Microsoft evolves by 2021 Microsoft will be a true, fossilized dinosaur.
Balmy *laughed* at the iPhone.
In 5 years, when Microsoft is gone, that video will mark the moment the company died (but didn’t know it).
Zmarc, you vote for your own posts?
I think the eight 1-star votes just answered that question.
So did the next 50
And the 136.
I was just thinking about that video statement myself when I read his post. Nailed it so true. Ballmer will go down in history as providing the ass-backward leadership that sank Microsloth into irrelevant oblivion.
Hey Nerd, you vote for your own posts?
Does anyone think Balmy will still be laughing when Apple announces most people never need to upgrade their PC again because the iPhone 5S (and future iPhones) will wirelessly run MacOS on a full size monitor and keyboard at your desk whenever you are near it?
That would kill the consumer market for Windows and put a dent in regular Mac sales too. Who would buy their kids a separate PC when you could just by them a wireless screen and keyboard?
Apple would be king and Microsoft would go into free fall.
Been saying what you noted about an iPhone running a large monitor, but tech journalists just keep on wanting to talk about “gold cases”, as if that amounts to anything of substance.
It’s up to 75 now. Is it possible to game such a secure system?
Heavens forfend that a simple Perl script could accomplish such largesse! 😆
It’s just a flesh wound.
Yup.
Ah, the soul of wit.
No, the soul of Jim Dalrymple.
http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/08/12/apples-rumored-september-10-iphone-event/
A very interesting take on Apple’s direction. I’m not sure I agree with everything the authors states, but what he says is certainly worth thinking about.
Yes, there are some things he just does not get about Apple.
And he sounds like one of the people that complain about “Why won’t BMW make a cheap car for me?”.
BMW does make a cheap car, several models. Check Edmunds.com for pricing. So does Mercedes and Lexus. They try to cover the market. Use Rolls and Bentley, you got a point.
Both Rolls Royce and Bentley are owned by Volkswagen who do make cheap cars so we’re running out of examples!
Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Tata Motors, maker of the least expensive car in the world, the Tata Nano
Wrong. Rolls are owned by BMW, Bentley by VAG, along with Lamborghini and Bugatti.
Is nothing safely sacred?
Did you see the special edition Mini Cooper that BMW had the Rolls people create? The font the dials used was from Rolls. The cornsilk colored Cashmere headliner was Soooooo soft.
It was very pretty, and only 51K. 😛
What cheap car does VW make? “Reasonably priced” yes. Cheap? You must be a bank president.
This article means the LATE 20th Century. As a history major, I feel this need to be distinguished, because the 20th century lasts from 1901 to 2000. Throwing that phrase around carelessly, and people will think you mean PCs were around in 1902.
I dont think anyone would assume that anything labelled ’20th century’ existed from 1901 until 2000.
The phrase means that this thing existed at some point within the period 1901-2000.
It’s still inaccurate though. It’s almost as ignorant as saying the 20th century lasted from 1900-1999, or saying that the Mayan date in the Long Count 13.0.0.5.2 is in the 13th Baktun (1618-2012) when it is in the 14th Baktun (2012-present) I know it’s minor, but ignorance like this drives me crazy since I’m a history major.
We all feel your pain. 🙂
It also might “drive you crazy”, because, you know – you’re crazy.
Nobody thinks PCs, or any electronic computers, were around in the early-20th Century. Have a cuppa tea.
Nevertheless, thank you for not calling yourself *an* history major. If we must speak of pet peeves, putting the article “an” in front of the word history is the same as writing, “an horse,” “an house,” and “an whore.”
I think I’ll have a cuppa tea now.
Your post marks an historic milestone for me – I could have fallen off an ass.
I admire your skilful wielding of the irony scalpel.
chop chop, cheerio….
The author overlooks the iPad mini when he states that Apple is not capable of producing an inexpensive device. Just a little while ago, we were praising Apple for their pricing strategy of shutting off pricing umbrellas (think iPod nano under the iPod touch). I’m not sure how the 5C fits into this strategy. The 4S is a less expensive alternative, so perhaps that’s Apple’s view of shutting off the pricing umbrella. The market certainly doesn’t seem to understand.
I believe Steve Jobs said something to the effect of Apple not knowing how to produce an inexpensive (product) that doesn’t suck. Maybe Apple has finally found a way to break Steve Jobs rule.
I would always prefer a metal iPhone over a plastic one because I can afford to pay for it, however I could likely tolerate a plastic iPhone case that felt like a ceramic case. I basically want a product that feels solid even if it is plastic. I definitely don’t want a product that flexes easily in one’s hands.
I almost thought the link went to the wrong article. MDN’s re-pring above was just a small snippet to an article that overall had a much different slant.
“Apple just drove a wooden stake into Microsoft’s heart”
…what heart?
Just like with vampires, it’s a dead heart, but a heart nonetheless.
Nice tribute to Mo the other day. Who knew the Red Sox had a heart?
yes, sure was. In fact, every team has done wonderful tributes to the greatest closer of all times.
Mariano Rivera: Not the Greatest Closer of All Time Against the Boston Red Sox
Sunday was Rivera’s 14th-career regular-season blown save against Boston, by far the most versus any opponent. In 66 save opportunities against the Red Sox, Rivera has given up the lead more than 21% of the time.
He’s even less effective in the playoffs against the Red Sox, converting only six of eight chances.
Not exactly lights out.
The triumph of facts over sentiment. Which is why sentiment drives legions of fools to their deaths, and facts cripples hope for the rest.
fuck off.
Agree with your comments in every particular. Like you I suffer the design deficiencies of Microsoftware but must maintain community, and continually hope for Apple to more vigourously “push the envelope”, impatient at their side forays and Sawyeresque toe-dangling, nail-admiring delays.
Neither is Word truly cross-platform capable in that way – try opening a Word doc in Pages.
One can learn both as I, and apparently you, have.
the point is these tools will be in the hands of many, on their iDevices, and people will begin to use them – so eventually no need to use MSoffice.
even corporate offices have begun to use keynotes for better presentations before this news – rejoice it was and shall be seen as a brilliant move by Apple – more so then the iPhone 5c.
Not true.
My wife is a professional freelance editor of coporate communication documents. She charges $150/hour. She gets a stream of word documents with track changes on, she edits them in Pages because she likes the interface, emails them back as Word docs and her clients never know. In five years there has never been an issue.
There is 101% compatibility between Pages and Word.
That’s fine if it’s just a text document, I can assure you that it isn’t the case with several kinds of objects, formatting etc.
I would have changed the title to the article to “Apple just drove a silver stake into Microsofts’ wooden heart”, but that would have indicated the vampire-like approach that MS has been so good at doing for so many decades – sucking the hard-won blood from the bottom line of business by establishing IT Departments with their own ever-increasing budgets just to “maintain” the Microsoft-based environment. And so I continue supporting PCs…;^(
The last PC I ever bought (built) has Vista on it. Ever since then I have been buying iPhones, and VMware.
Vista.
V is for Vampire.
I said has, but meant had. All hardware is the same. Currently it won’t boot, and I don’t really care.
I doubt MS realizes the damage they did with Vista.
I take that back, they have no idea the damage they did with Vista because they are repeating it with Windows 8. Heck Windows 8 makes Vista look like a great version of windows. lol
They think that Vista was a PR fluke. They confirmed it with a test. They showed it to newbies, and called it Windows 7, and everyone said it was great. What they didn’t realize, was that people tend to tell you what you want to hear. So they screwed up on the OS, and the research.
Just about says it all ….
Yeees, PCs are dead. Oh, wait, I just need to do some serious After Effects work. Where did I put my 8 core iPhone with 64 GB of RAM and upgradeable high-end NVIDIA CUDA card?…. What’s that? There’s always the new Mac Pro? I assume it’s good value pound for pound? And the graphics cards are upgradeable and support CUDA?
What is After Effects? This is the question that vast majority of ordinary people would ask to such a statement.
If you use that After Effects every day, you obviously need to buy a truck, not a car.
In America, the single most popular vehicle is apparently a pick-up truck. Not because all who bought it truly need it to haul things around every day; it is just because for many, it is the default vehicle of their neighbours and their community. To buy a car in rural America would be ridiculous, even if all one uses the vehicle for is driving people around. Not even a minivan would be acceptable. There’s millions of trucks sitting in driveways of suburban and rural homes, driving kids to school and ball games, ferrying groceries and an occasional IKEA drawer chest.
There are still way too many people who think they need desktop computers, but they in fact don’t — an iPad would easily meet all their computing needs. This is going to be a slow change, but it will eventually happen. Just like cars/trucks, though, there will remain a sizable part of population that will continue buying desktop computers, even though they really don’t need them.
“iWork will inevitably mangle documents made on MS Office… ”
Word also mangles documents made on different versions of Word.
I use Pages to open many documents created in Word and I encounter fewer issues than most of my colleagues who use Word to open those same documents. Indeed, on several occasions Pages has opened a Word document that other versions of Word have failed to open.
Its a good move, but they making iwork free only for devices bought after september 1st is not good enough to make the move stick. They would be better served if they made it free for all idevices as well as macs. I dont think Apple need to push their products to the consumers who have been buying their products because they are the best. Apple move can be looked at as not a favourable for consumers who are already keyed in on their products.
Come on Apple be fair on your customers who already have bought your products and are using it.
Yeah, I still like my Microsoft Office since I’ve been using it for so many years. However, I know things change over many years because I’ve lived through those changes. Lotus 123, Wordstar, Wang OIS, VisCalc, WordPerfect, Ashton Tate dBase, Aldus Pagemaker, etc. to name a few. At one time all of these packages held prominent positions in the office but they practically all faded in time. So to say that Apple’s software packages will never gain prominence in the office would be denying my own history.
I don’t care either way since I won’t be around forever and I’m not the one who’ll be active in those changes. I’d like to see Apple gain at least some foothold in the enterprise just to see yet another change take place that certain people said weren’t possible. Many things that seem impossible become possible if you wait long enough.
You left out FullWrite.
I like that verbal depiction, I like it a lot.
iWork is only up to the task of competing with Office on very limited terms.
Office as a whole is incorporated into enterprise workflows and business applications. If you think its a simple matter of getting someone to use Pages instead of Word you aren’t seeing the big picture and how deeply MS has entrenched office. Pieces of office are the nuts and bolts of many a company.
As for the applications themselves Numbers can’t even create pivot tables so its pretty much DOA in many businesses.
Microsoft’s cash-cow will continue to moo for a long long time. But Apple’s move is boldly aggressive and very welcome.
“The PC is a relic of the 20th century. The smartphone is the computer. No one, still, is even close to Apple in this regard.”
Bullshit
Yeah, I’m going to perform your Radiation Therapy Scan and plan it right here on this 4″ screen. Yeah, I’m going to edit the next Academy Award Winner right on this 4″ screen. Yeah, I’m going to model the crumple zone performance of the nest Benz right on this 4″ screen. Yeah, I’m going to compose the orchestral score for your $200 million movie right on this 4″ screen. Yeah, I’m going to design the next generation of microprocessor right on this 4″ screen…
yeah, well, get a truck, we all have antiques in our lives (even if they are our wives)
DIE, VAMPIRES! DIE!
The sun shall shine.
The Stone Age Of Computing shall end.
So looking forward to the bronze age. Copper is one of my nail colours.
I wish I had been there when you chatted with Rush Limbaugh. How did you get away with not intimidating the hell out of him? Crafty, clever and endearing is our Hannah goddess.
Oh and I like copper too! But I don’t think there’s going to be much elemental correlation between the metaphorical bronze age of computing and the actual bronze age of metallurgy. I think computers are busily abandoning copper for the aetheric and optical propagation of electromagnetic energy transmissions. Then again, copper continues to be far more useful in electricity transmission than the aether.
[To innocent bystanders: I’m loosely applying Steampunk chatter to modern computing, just for fun, in case you’re confused as to what the hell I’m going on about.] 😀
I was writing an article about Richard Nixon, and I solicited Rush’s thoughts. I believed Nixon’s actual achievements were eclipsed by the Watergate scandal. Rush agreed, and added some insights about the years under Ike, the loss to Pat Brown in California, and the first presidential run. I was young and impressionable, probably breathless 🙂 You can imagine.
I agree about Nixon. Ideally he should have killed off the Vietnam war without having to be embarrassed into it. But otherwise, he wasn’t too bad by contemporary standards. What got him was his paranoia and inherent need to connive. That was a personality flaw he could have done well without.
OIC, the fresh and lovely young republican woman. I’ll end my comment there. 😉
I didn’t say I was a Republican, only that I was writing about one. Come on, Derek! Logic! Still, I’ll own that I’ve changed parties more than once, in order to vote for what I believed was the best candidate. Parties are a bloody bother, as my father used to say. (Political parties, that is)
I know, I know! I was talking about how Mr. Limbaugh would see my theoretical rendition of you as you discussed Richard Nixon! My apologies for my lousy use of language. I try.
I’m not into bringing up politics, especially with people I admire. You should see me attempting to talk politics with me mum. Not pretty. But we still love each other and support each other in everything important. I also know her heart is in exactly the right place, despite her poor taste in politicians, as if ANY of them taste good.
:-Q*****
I’m sorry, I didn’t get you at first. You are subtle at times, exuberant at others. Crossed me up with both at once, tho a pint of Guinness stout may have helped. 🙂
Yes. Guinness is good for you, and me both.
I have a penchant for obscure syntax and mania. I’m pretty good at weeding out the obscure syntax if I bother to proof read. The mania tends to be a style trait I exploit rather than contain. Whenever I get my semi-Steampunk story series posted on the net, my joy of mania will be obvious, as part of the series’ point is to out do Baron Von Munchausen, or at least provide a Steampunkish/modern equivalent, in my narrating character. I want the readers to freak at his stories and sort of doubt his veracity. I also neatly provide a barrier that will never allow us to actually know the truth, which craftily explores my obsession with humans never knowing everything about anything. – And I’m off on an obscure rant. But if I pull it off, it’s going to be startling fun.
Rush, if you’re reading this, I was the red headed reporter for a college newspaper writing an obit for Nixon in fall 1994
I don’t agree. Office is still a must for iOS. I know this comment it will be voted down but I am a big Apple fan, I am also not stupid. It does not matter what we think reality should be or look like. Office is extremely important. iWork is an alternative but for from a replacement.
I use Excel intensively. It is very capable. Word I regard as an atrocity, and the rest of the Office suite is awful.
I plan to acquire and study Numbers, but it couldn’t replace Excel in the near term. Too many legacy spreadsheets, no time to convert them, no real point in doing so.