“I spent a lot of time last week reading the Microsoft employee blogs and apparently there is some reasonably strong feeling among many folks who work there that the wrong ‘Steve’ is running the company. This is, in my view, a ‘grass is greener on the other side of the fence’ type of perception — since ‘the other Steve,’ Jobs, that is, is neither known for being a good software guy nor being anywhere near as employee-focused as Microsoft’s executives are. He does, however, have skills that Microsoft could use desperately right now,” Rob Enderle writes for TechNewsWorld. “Clearly there would be some anti-trust hurdles in an acquisition of Apple by Microsoft, but the oil companies seem to be able to get through those reasonably well and both Apple and Microsoft have clearly done the ‘impossible’ before. Setting these concerns aside, let’s imagine what might result from such a merger.”
“While it is easy to point to the acquisition of NeXT by Apple as an example of when a purchase fixed a problem like the one Microsoft had recently with Vista, Apple really isn’t an OS company, and Microsoft’s problem is vastly broader than just its OS,” Enderle writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Uh oh, Rob’s clearly off his meds again. Microsoft’s “problem” with Vista is happening now, so “had” should be “has” in Rob’s last sentence. Enderle states, “Apple really isn’t an OS company.” What’s that supposed to mean? Apple right now offers what is simply the world’s best operating system; a feat they’ve accomplished at least three times before with totally different, unique OSes, by the way. Is Rob about to tell his readers that Microsoft wrote the first Mac OS again?
Enderle continues, “Microsoft has lost the support of many of its critical employees, partners and customers, and even the U.S. government shows little interest in protecting the company from foreign threats. Microsoft has a major image problem and an apparent inability to either recognize or deal with it. In addition, Microsoft appears to have a leadership problem, one it likely shares with companies like GE, GM, and Ford these days, where the executives are isolated, regularly tricked into making bad decisions, and aren’t taken very seriously. Broad image problems are the responsibility of marketing and public relations executives. While Apple’s public relations is mixed, its marketing is second to none and, having made the mistake of comparing potential customers to lemmings years ago, the company would probably immediately see that referring to its own customers as dinosaurs for not buying their latest offering, wasn’t particularly wise.”
“According to the Microsoft blogs, the one place inside Microsoft that doesn’t have many problems is the Mac Business Unit, which is arguably more closely connected with Apple than Microsoft these days. This would indicate a strong foundation for the belief that Apple could help Microsoft — but could Microsoft help Apple? Why Apple Needs Microsoft: The obvious word here is ‘Office,’ but recall that Microsoft provided Apple with critical funding (US$150 million) when it was about to go under so that the firm could come out with new hardware and finish its new operating system. In addition, Microsoft, in continuing to support Apple with Microsoft Office, allows Apple to sell in a lot of places it otherwise would be locked out of,” Enderle writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s $150 million was a dog and pony show for the media, not “critical funding.” Even in the dark days of 1997, Apple had $4.233 billion in total assets at the time Microsoft purchased those long-ago-sold $150 million in non-voting Apple shares. The real deals there were Microsoft’s promise to support Office for the Mac for 5 years (a promise that they’ve recently restated) and the payment to Apple by Microsoft of an “undisclosed” amount to settle the “look and feel” legal issues.
Enderle continues, “Imagine what would result if a new Apple OS was based on the new Windows kernel rather than on Unix.”
MacDailyNews Take: LOL! Yeah, just imagine. Imagine also, if you will, that Ben & Jerry’s replaced sugar and cream with sand and crude oil. Yum, yum! Imagine how quickly we’d switch to Linux if this particular bit of Enderlunacy came true.
Enderle continues, “Apple’s machines are long on usability but short on interoperability, which is almost the mirror opposite of Microsoft products like Media Center. In fact, Microsoft could help dramatically in getting Apple platform products to work seamlessly in Windows environments and make a Media Center product jointly developed vastly more attractive and profitable.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ooh, goody! Microsoft can help Apple make products that are long on interoperability and short on usability. Our proposed marketing slogan: “They don’t work very well, but they sure can interoperate!” We can see the midnight lines forming already.
Enderle continues, “Now, an Apple-Microsoft merger may not necessarily be a good idea because it may go too far. Much of what makes both companies interesting is what is unique to each firm. I honestly don’t see a chance that the U.S. government would allow such a merger to take place anyway. But how about a broad partnership? If Apple’s next generation OS — Leopard — was ready now the company could take some market share from Microsoft in the 4th quarter, but Apple probably wouldn’t be able to hold onto it. All reports say Leopard won’t be ready until 2007, after Vista ships, anyway.”
MacDailyNews Take: In all of the reports that we’ve read and covered, Apple is slated to release Leopard, the next release of OS X, either late 2006 or early 2007. Vista’s most-recent slip has it being released in January 2007. Based upon past performance, no one should have any confidence that Microsoft will hit that date. Besides, if properly introduced to the world, Apple’s Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar — which debuted years ago — could take share from Microsoft’s Windows, as could Mac OS X 10.3 Panther and 10.4 Tiger. Apple doesn’t need a “next-gen” Leopard when even their old Jaguar would stun 90-percent of the PC-using world with its UI and features. Sigh. If only Apple did a better job of showing the world the Mac and the benefits it offers…
Enderle continues, “What if Apple worked with Microsoft to make the iPod ‘Plays for Sure’-compliant, and Microsoft worked with Apple to make the Mac OS a true peer platform to Windows?”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, what if Apple made the iPod compliant with all of the online music services that nobody uses? One can only imagine the wide-ranging non-effects. What if the Mac OS became a “true peer platform” to Windows, whatever that means? Since it’s an Enderle suggestion, we’ll assume that whatever he thinks it means is pure stupidity.
Enderle continues, “Employees might also move more freely between the firms, providing a formal system of cross-pollenation in skills and practices that both could use.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, Microsofties could go down to Cupertino whenever they wanted company-provided towels or stock options that don’t chart like a parking lot. Apple employees could head on up to Redmond whenever they want a dose of stifling bureaucracy or a tutorial on how to create tangled, bloated code coupled with unintelligible, ugly user interfaces. A perfect world indeed; like an Elvis existence: too high, take a downer; too down, take an upper. We can see the human resources videos already: “Apple employees, are you too happy, too optimistic? Do you think different and see a world where anything is possible? You need a dose of reality: transfer to Microsoft today!” “Microsoft employees, are you suicidal, trapped in your cubical, stifled under layers of retarded bureaucracy? Do you like the comfort of group think and are perfectly content with “good enough” results? It’s time for a trip to Cupertino!”
Enderle continues, “This is all an ideal-case scenario, and things seldom work that way. Apple historically has not been a good partner and the distrust that surrounds Microsoft is near legendary. Still, stranger things have happened. While neither company is in critical shape at the moment it does appear that both firms need each other right now — with an urgency that is unprecedented.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iMacs in earthquakes and Paris Hilton in an Apple Store! Whenever you think Enderle can’t go any deeper off the end, he does it.
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Related articles:
Enderle: Microsoft employees voice concerns about working for dysfunctional company – March 29, 2006
Big surprise: Enderle was wrong about Apple’s holiday quarter Mac sales – January 19, 2006
Enderle: Microsoft’s ‘PlaysForSure’ going to be a long-term problem for Apple – January 09, 2006
Enderle: Apple+Intel could be wonderful for those of us that love design and use Windows – December 26, 2005
Tech pundit Enderle: ‘Microsoft wrote the first Mac OS’ – September 28, 2005
Enderle: ‘iPod Halo Effect is just a myth, same thing as having Paris Hilton visit Apple stores’ – May 02, 2005
Tech Pundit Enderle: ‘This year will be more difficult for Apple Computer’ and iMacs in earthquakes – January 24, 2005
Enderle: maybe it’s time for Apple and Sun to merge – August 10, 2004
Poor Enderle, what a lousy way to get hits…
M$S sufferers, just get a Mac.
Hey Rob try to overcome your undermedicated haze for just a second and see the “vista” that this thing you call a “true peer platform” is what the EU complaint is all about!
How about you revise this part of the sentence to “and Microsoft worked honestly” with developers to provide accurate documentation to allow non-Microsoft products to be true peer platforms to Windows.”
Oh that’s right because the 20th century monopolists in Redmond would die a much faster 21st century death than they already are!
Clearly this is another case of Enderle writing for the sake of writing so that he can justify his job, forget about making any actual sense!
If this is not a delayed April 1st joke, then Enderle has just lost in an IQ contest to a fence post. Stupidity has no lower limit.
“While neither company is in critical shape at the moment it does appear that both firms need each other right now — with an urgency that is unprecedented.”
Apple moved up over 100 spots in the Fortune 500. It’s 1-year growth in profits ranks it 11th. It’s 1-year growth in revenues ranks it 13th. It’s stock price has had several years of astronomical increases. Macs are gaining market share. iPods/iTMS dominates its market.
Exactly what “unprecedented urgency” would drive Apple to need Microsoft?
If microsoft is 5 galons of orange juice
and apple is 1 galon of grape juice.
why mix them both?
it would ruin both flavors.
If microsoft is 5 galons of orange juice
and apple is 1 galon of grape juice.
why mix them both?
it would ruin both flavors.
If microsoft is 5 galons of orange juice
and apple is 1 galon of grape juice.
why mix them both?
it would ruin both flavors.
If microsoft is 5 galons of orange juice
and apple is 1 galon of grape juice.
why mix them both?
it would ruin both flavors.
Ahhhh…Enderle is back. All is right with the world.
I almost fell out of my chair when he concluded that Apple would benefit from making the iPod “Plays For Sure” compliant.
Then I actually did fall out of my chair at his suggestion that they could adopt the Windows kernel and drop the BSD kernel. Hey, what if Lexus dumped their engines and replaced them with some leftover Yugo engines stockpiled in a warehouse since the mid 80’s! Wouldn’t that be great???
And what is he talking about with the whole “interoperability” thing? I’m not sure exactly what he’s referring to but I’ve been the only Mac user in an all PC office on a few occasions and there’s never been a problem. I guess it’s silly of me to expect Comical Rob E. to actually know what he’s talking about.
Enderle seems to be on the bad crack again.
I must admit my eyes glazed over reading this stuff – both because of Enderle’s comments and also MDNs.
The situation right now at Microsoft isn’t really much like how things were at Apple when they bought NeXT to get themselves a new OS. The NT kernel, which underlies modern Microsoft desktop and server OS’s, is a modern kernel already with all the kind of features that Apple had been struggling to produce for years as part of the Copeland project. There was serious talk of Apple using the NT kernel – which wouldn’t have been that bad an idea really.
Replacing the NT kernel with XNU (the kernel Mac OS X uses) wouldn’t do anything to help Windows. Pile a load of crap on top of XNU and you’ll end up with crap – much like when Microsoft piled a load of crap onto the NT kernel they ended up with crap.
Microsoft could produce a great OS on top of the NT kernel… Only problem is that it would break compatibility with Windows. They could go for the approach that Apple did with Mac OS X and write an emulator (a Classic environment equivalent for Windows) but that in itself breaks compatibility with a big chunk of software. There’s quite a bit of stuff that won’t run under Classic.
The actual situation is a little more complex than this – there are a few problems with how the NT kernel works that could use fixing.
The only time I’ve ever heard anything quite as ridiculous as this is when the owner of the “idea” had missed several doses of their Lithium.
Really, he’s got to be on a manic phase this week.
Man, MDN, stop making me snort coffee out my nose!
Those takes were just too funny
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Imagine Microsoft buys Apple and Steve Jobs becomes the majority shareholder. Imagine a coup where Jobs takes over Microsoft from Gates just like he did when he returned to Apple.
I think I’m having a heart attack.
I see the light.
Is that you, Jesus?
Is that you?
Imagine I’m King Kong.
I want to go back to Skull Island.
In late 1999, Microsoft gave Best Buy $200M and got the same, non-voting stock. Guess they saved Best Buy from extinction also. Not!
Devorac and Enderle seem to be Brokeback Mountain buddies when it comes to Apple
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why not…
who gives if it is a unix kernel or a windows kernel… apple is a corperation and they exist to make money.
to the end user, it would still be a mac!
and to everybody out there who denies it, you can all go to “intel” to get an idea of where S.Jobs ethics lay.
I … AM … ENDERLE … !!!
IT’S…
IT’S…
SOOOO…
BIIIIIIGGGGG!
IT’S
IT’S…
SO BIIIGGGG!
MY POOOOOOO!!!
IT’S COMING OUT!!!
IT’S SO BIGGGG!!!
MY POOO ISS COMING OUT!!!
For I am Enderle.
I don’t know about M$ buying Apple but I know M$ already owns this s@#t head Enderle.
Make me a Microsoft Milkshake, Ballmey boy!!!
ARRRRRRRRR!!!!
Enderle’s right!
It IS so big!!!
Oh, Enderle!
If that wasn’t the greatest April 1st joke of all time then it was the greatest April 2nd or April 3rd joke of all time.
Any way you cut it, Rob Enderlie is the greatest technology joke of all time. He may be a Marketing Analyst but he definitely is not a Technology Analyst. He is perpetrating the biggest fraud of all time on the Technology Writers of America.
One big steaming pile of…(insert favorite expletive)
I think you are all missing the point. Really think about what was written here. There was no Mac people are deluding themselves and we should come to the dark side. There was no puffed up chest beating that windows is so much better. There is a straight admission that windows is in trouble and that the only thing that he can see to fix the problem is to buy Apple. Which is not an option. People at microsoft are breaking the code of silence and talking about what a screwed up placwe it is. The bosses at MS are being shown the incompitent people that they are. Vista is such a total copy of OSX (Widgets vs. Gadgets) Give me a break. I heard that 60% of tyhe Vista code will be re-written? Do I think that MS is going out of business…. NO. Do I think that this is the beginning of the end for people BLINDLY buying MS. I absolutly do.
I checked the date on his article. It’s 4/3/2006. It’s not an April Fool’s Day joke…he’s serious.
MDN, please post this again during Halloween. It’s funnier than hell, but the most scary thing is, Enerle *BELIEVES* this dreck!
Microsoft could never buy Apple. The shareholders wouldn’t allow it, Steve wouldn’t allow it, and the Government wouldn’t allow it. I’ll keep repeating that to myself through the day, and I’ll feel better eventually.
Enderle: “I’m the April Fool that just keeps giving all year ’round.”