During a dinner Thursday at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley when “asked about smartphones, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Nokia, Research in Motion and Apple will all lose out as the market expands over the next five years, because they design their own proprietary hardware and tie it closely to their software,” James Niccolai reports for IDG News Service.
“Nokia leads the smartphone market today with about a 30 percent share, he said. ‘If you want to reach more than that, you have to separate the hardware and software in the platform,’ he said,” Niccolai reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Like with PlaysForSure vs. iPod+iTunes?
“In other words, he thinks the same strategy that helped Microsoft become the leader on the desktop — licensing its OS for use by other hardware makers — will let it win out on smartphones. Long term, he said, the battle will be between the Symbian OS (which is now open source), mobile versions of Linux and Windows Mobile,” Niccolai reports.
MacDailyNews Take: What allowed Microsoft to take the PC market was the absence of Steve Jobs at Apple combined with the one-time luxury of a poorly written contract signed by an unprepared sugared water salesbozo which allowed them to poorly rip-off Apple’s Mac ad infinitum. Microsoft will not have the same luxury this time. Apple has over 200 iPhone-related patents that Steve Jobs has publicly-stated Apple plans to vigorously defend.
We’ve been pushing the state-of-the-art in every facet of design… We’ve been innovating like crazy for the last few years on this and we’ve filed for over 200 patents for all of the inventions in iPhone. And we intend to protect them. – Steve Jobs, January 9, 2007
Niccolai continues, “Apple won’t boost its share of the personal computer market or become a threat in the enterprise for similar reasons, according to Ballmer — because it won’t license its software to others. ‘Apple’s a good company, I won’t take anything away from them, but they have a certain kind of strategy. They believe in putting the hardware and software together, they don’t believe in letting other people make it.’
MacDailyNews Take: And therefore, it actually works for the users instead of against. Which is why Microsoft and Ballmer dumped PlayForSure to try to, once again, copy Apple by “putting the hardware and software together,” with the Zune. Related: Microsoft tries to match Apple’s vertical approach – October 11, 2006. And Apple is already significantly boosting its share of the personal computer market, dummy.
Niccolai continues, reporting that Ballmer also said, “I’m not saying there isn’t a threat’ from Apple, he said. But if Microsoft and its PC partners ‘do our jobs right, there’s really no reason Apple should get any footprint in the enterprise.”
Full article here.
Such a fundamental lack of understanding of major markets in which his company competes should be appalling to not only shareholders, but… uh, we mean: May Ballmer remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes!
“The graph for M$ for the last ten years looked like it had “flatlined.” (No stock splits or any other adjustments were noted)”
Hi sparkplug, you’re right, if you arbitrarily choosing one point 10 yrs ago and one point now, Apple wins.
But isolate just the periods I mentioned. By picking different dates, you get quite different results.
Lets say you brought and held until now.
If you brought and held any time prior to 14 years ago, you win by owning Microsoft, and if you brought as much as 20 years ago, it’s Microsoft by a substantial margin.
If you brought and held any time from 14 years ago when Apple was really slumping until 1 year ago, you win by holding Apple, again by a substantial margin and again depending when you jumped on the bandwagon, the later you jumped the less your gains.
If you brought and held any time from one year ago to now, it’s about the same and not really good for either company. Over the last 6 months, you’d have been better off to own Microsoft.
Further, if you timed your exit from each company perfectly, you could have brought any time up until 1993 and still done better with Microsoft. However with Microsoft you’d have seen your payback almost a decade earlier.
As an example of how fickle the numbers are, if you’re brought AAPL in June 1998, you’d get about an 1800% gain. Buy only 2 months later, you get “only” a 1000% gain. Buy and hold from 2000 to 2005 and you’re better off having held Microsoft. Buy and hold from 2004 to today, you’re back to that 1000% gain, so 5 of those 10 years you mention Apple was flat or worse. Wait until Jan 06 to jump on the bandwagon and hold until today, your gains are only 84%. Wait until 07, and you lose money big time.
The fact is Apple’s had a strong run up from “nearly dead” to “doing quite well”. If you brought and held at “nearly dead” and watched almost flat returns for half a decade, yet didn’t sell, you’ve done quite well. The bigger winners are of course those who brought in 2004, after the long flat patch through the early part of the decade, and got out at the peak in late 2007.
is this a joke?
“CHEAP CHIPS ‘R US”
– due to the worldwide mass customer experience CATASTROPHY with the BROKEN device that is the 3G iDISASTER that continues unabated today (despite Jobs usual insidious ploys)was NOT UNEXPECTED. The product was knowingly prematurely released to appease shareholders growing concerns.During the pre-testing the economy chip they were using was too weak and under powered to perform with the expected efficiency that modern 3G mobile phones DO manage on 3G networks the world over (COMPLETELY unlike the heavilly “compromised” iPHONE). The technological explaination of how the chip malfunctions in combination withthe network is the ONLY logical explaination as to the contradicting variety of user network problem experiences in addition to explaining why Apple is trying to “cover up” this problem with 2.1 firmware (ie basically their automated version of the absurd advice to solve the problem by manually TURNING OFF the 3G (so EDGE only iPHONE) on the MORE expensive 2nd GEN upgrade 3G phone you PAID FOR!!!) since they know they can’t fix it they’ll employ there usual PROPAGANDA to try to confuse/diffuse the issue eg now get mores BARS for actual same DIRE signal strength after latest update as discussed on phone forums everywhere.)
APPLE – it just works! – Yeah RIGHT! – about 10 years ago when they actually did (MAKE THEMSELVES) + use quality components and the meaning of quality in quality control meant “quality” instead of the meaning of todays version which means ” making profit for the shareholders $$$$ as a “thankyou” above all else including SHAFTING customers” .Luckilly Apple PR relys on making sales with subjectivity and style over substance (including the absense of truth and integrity but their customer base being in general being so scientifically and technologically ignorant couldn’t spot such qualities absense anyway).
Why isn’t Apple telling the TRUTH about the 3G iPHONE because it blatantly as USUAL has something to DESPERATELY hide and the style/IMAGE their PR creates is more important for their consumers then the actual functioning of the product itself. Apple have constantly hid under lies or transfered blame (as per) with this iFAILURE debacle and made vague promises that the previous 2 updates would fix network problems BUT when looking around the web they clearly haven’t solved the problem for the majority affected pre – fix and never will because its so uniquely hardware controled.
Proprietary = Microsoft(Dell + HP + Acer + Lenovo)
Here’s what Microsoft means referring to choice…
Any customer can have a PC with any operating system that he/she wants so long as it is Windows!
Read the following article below to get an idea…
http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/
“Any customer can have a PC with any operating system that he/she wants so long as it is Windows!”
Whereas Apple any customer can have any PC they like as long as it’s one of 5 basic models and made by Apple.
Where’s the ultralight notebook? There isn’t one, the lightest Mac is 3lb. Where’s the high end, high powered notebook? There isn’t one. The biggest Mac has a 17″ screen and slow processor and graphics. Where’s the entry level notebook? No, sorry. How about budget minitower? Not for you. An entry level desktop. No, don’t do those either. High end high performance system using latest processors and video cards? Not yet.
At least you can use much of the the Win32 API with no Microsoft software involved. (Wine, ReactOS, Crossover Office and other Win32 implementations). There’s no such similar open source Mac equivalent. And you can run Windows on any PC, even a Mac, virtualized or not.
When will Apple users ever get past the limited very proprietary hardware and software choices they have and stop even trying to put Microsoft in the same class as Apple in this area. Once you go Mac Steve owns your ass and you can look forward of a lifetime of not quite state of the art hardware that’s not quite what you wanted.
Who are you talking to?
Imagine a product that could do everything the iPHONE was supposed to do (but in reality became an ornamental cigar lighter for the majority) but infinately more, with superior quality,style and reliability FOR a fraction of the price………YES UMPC NETBOOK sales are growing at an exponential rate and soon the 3G iFAILURE will be nothing more than a nasty nightmare of a DINOSAUR technology and permenent gaping breach in Apple’s purely PR fabricated image…..
owwww….. balmer blaming the PC guys, whom have been so so so faithful to Microsoft for so long….
Thanks, it was certainly a great read for me, I’ll be looking forward for more of your articles. jobs in finance
Silly Fanboy enters the Twilight Zone:
“Where’s the ultralight notebook? There isn’t one, the lightest Mac is 3lb.”
That would be the MacBook Air. And you want something lighter?! And the point of something lighter would be what? [Cue the Twilight Zone theme].
“Where’s the high end, high powered notebook? There isn’t one.”
The MacBook Pro = 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed. Graphics = NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with dual-link DVI support and 512MB of GDDR3 memory. Dual monitor and video mirroring capability. Built-in iSight camera. Up to 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, all of which is used by the laptop. Windows Vista can only access 3.12 GB of RAM max. So what are you talking about? [Cue the Twilight Zone theme].
http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/vista/vista-32bit-memory.htm
“The biggest Mac has a 17″ screen and slow processor and graphics.”
The iMac has a 24-inch screen at 1920 by 1200 pixels, with 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with either an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory or NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory with a built-in iSight camera . So you are Rip Van Winkle who just woke up from how many years ago? [Cue the Twilight Zone theme].
“Where’s the entry level notebook?”
That would be the MacBook, starting at $1099 for new or $899 for a refurbished model, which is eligible for full AppleCare support. Are you from my planet? [Cue the Twilight Zone theme].
“How about budget minitower?”
You mean a cheap ass Celeron POS that literally can’t run Windows Vista because it is so under powered? (Or is it that Vista is such a CPU hog. I forget which). Have fun with your toy computer! [Cue the Twilight Zone theme].
I’d personally rather get a MacMini, which is capable of being used as a Mac server, $599 for new. No way can your Celeron POS pull that off.
“High end high performance system using latest processors and video cards? Not yet.”
That would be the Mac Pro: 8-core: Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors. Graphics card: NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5GB of GDDR3 memory, two dual-link DVI ports, and one stereo 3D port. RAM: Eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (four slots per card) supporting up to 32GB of main memory. The most RAM 64 bit Vista can access is 7 GB. See the same link I posted above for verification. So you are not a miserable little know-nothing troll tweeker because why? [Cue the Twilight Zone theme].
And allow me to kick you in the groin by pointing out that the IBM derived PC is still stuck using Ye Olde BIOS firmware. Macs have been using Intel EFI firmware (the successor to ye olde BIOS) since 2006. So you want a PC because why? [Cue Twilight Zone theme].
“(Wine, ReactOS, Crossover Office and other Win32 implementations). There’s no such similar open source Mac equivalent.”
– That would be DarWine:
http://darwine.sourceforge.net/
– And MacPorts:
http://www.macports.org
– There is also CrossOver for Mac:
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/
– And are you serious about ReactOS?! It’s in ALPHA release, ‘not recommended for everyday use’ as they state on their website. So BFD…. But if one could bring one’s self to care at this point, I see no compatibility problem with running ReactOS in Virtualization or natively using Apple’s BootCamp, which is included with Mac OS X Leopard. Testing has not yet been documented that I know of.
The Coup De Grace:
“Once you go Mac Steve owns your ass and you can look forward of a lifetime of not quite state of the art hardware that’s not quite what you wanted.”
No actually. You are insane, out of your mind, cuckoo, a blithering idiot, just-another-worthless-troll.
The Macintosh is EXACTLY what I want, and I give up nothing whatsoever except the ability to build my own Mac. So I’ll build my own IBM derived PC and run Linux on it. I bought my first Mac in 1992, which happens to be the year I joyfully tossed my PC into a dumpster. I’ve supported Windows users regularly since 1996, which is why I have never been tempted to buy a PC ever again.
Trolls, you HAVE to at least TRY to know something about which you speak. You make slamming you all to easy. It’s boring.
“That would be the MacBook Air. And you want something lighter?! And the point of something lighter would be what?”
The point of something lighter is that it weighs less. Duh silly fanboy. PC subnotebooks that weight 3lb have all the extra bells and whistles like 256gb solid state storage and Blu-Ray drives. Those that don’t like the air, weigh 2lb. The Air is a hefty beast for the features it offers.
“The MacBook Pro = 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed. Graphics = NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with dual-link DVI support and 512MB of GDDR3 memory.”
Great, Intel’s fastest mobile processor from a year or so ago, coupled with Nvidia’s last generation of Mobile graphics card.
“Windows Vista can only access 3.12 GB of RAM max. “
What planet are you on? load 64 bit Vista.
“”The biggest Mac has a 17″ screen and slow processor and graphics.””
Let me clarify, Mac laptop. Now rebut please.
“That would be the MacBook, starting at $1099”
That’s not Entry level. Entry level laptops are around $500, $300 for refurb or closeout.
“I’d personally rather get a MacMini, which is capable of being used as a Mac server, $599 for new”
Wow, It’s news to me that 2.5GHz dual core Intel processors can’t run Vista. But OK, take your choice.
“That would be the Mac Pro: 8-core: Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors.”
Slow processors and slow graphics. Why not use the new fast Xeons or new graphics cards.
“And allow me to kick you in the groin by pointing out that the IBM derived PC is still stuck using Ye Olde BIOS”
Seriously, you’re trying to tell me that EFI makes any difference at all to PC performance. Well you can buy EFI equipped PCs too if you really think so. I think you hit your own groin.
“The Macintosh is EXACTLY what I want, and I give up nothing whatsoever except the ability to build my own Mac. “
Except the ability to use state of the art hardware.
That pain you feel is just the warm glow of Mac ownership. With your Spec list you just showed to the world that Everything Apple does is about a generation behind.
“You make slamming you all to easy.”
Ha Ha. Slammed by a fanboy who just provided a list PROVING my point, yet thinking that he was defending Apple. Fanboys don’t come much stupider than you.
Thanks for playing.
Such interesting read and information, thanks for sharing this post, I’ve already bookmarked your blog. Acid Reflux Diet
“There’s no such similar open source Mac equivalent.”
And you missed the point there. By equivalent I mean software which allows you to run applications developed for Mac OS X without Mac OS X.
While many clones of the Win32 API exist including open source ones making it to some degree non proprietary, so far nobody has bothered to create a clone of the Mac APIs on other operating systems.
You know, I absolutely love the way that some of you are attempting to rewrite history. My true guess is that some of you weren’t old enough to remember the bad old days.
Look up the article that DudeMac put up and learn something. I have a dear friend who fell on hard times because he put together 6 Linux boxes and sold them to a small business. Let me tell you what happened. Word got out that he was building Linux boxes and he was charged a PC fee (a fee for the creation of the PC) which goes to Microsoft from the OEM. Yes, Dos, it appears has to be paid for. Even if you never use it on the machine or even install it. He then found himself blacklisted, having a difficult time getting Office (still one of the best suites ever made). He reverted back to Lotus but was warned by others that this would make matters worse.
What ensued was a long, slow death for his company. Everyone essentially wanted Windows and Office and he didn’t have enough of it to install on his machines. When he asked about getting more licenses, he was told to wait. He knew he was on some type of list, but could not prove it. All of his competitors were getting their products on time and in droves. He even attempted to buy from them, at a premium, but that channel soon dried up.
In the end, he knew what got him in this mess and there was nothing that he could do about it. He was the sacrificial lamb. His company closed down, despite supplying many businesses with top quality products, while his competitors learned the lesson that they needed.
Please @dickw, don’t try to tell me about how wonderful MSFT is. They have become the company that they displaced — IBM.
However much I acknowledge some of the good things that they did for the PC market, I am always reminded of the bad. My friend ending up in a Psychiatrist’s office is proof of that. They may be changing, but the road to the top was not pretty.
Although Steve Jobs is egomaniacal, he admits it and everyone who has chosen to jump on board this ship knows the rules. They are laid out for all to see. Unlike MSFT, you know what you’re getting yourself into before you start. The only difference is that the results are spectacular.
Thanks for the information you mentioned here, I’m looking forward to see your future posts. Cheers !! Ferrari Website
I’m sure it was actually secret CIA operatives arriving in black helicopters that stole all the copies of Office destined for him.
And you missed the bit where the government (in league with Microsoft) operated on his brain to make him go insane.
But one flaw in your creative writing exercise. Dos was ancient history before Linux ever became popular.
“Although Steve Jobs is egomaniacal, he admits it and everyone who has chosen to jump on board this ship knows the rules.”
Apparently those are: if you’re Mac clone maker (who Apple encouraged), we’ll yank your license and kill your business.
The same happens with the App store. if Steve doesn’t like your app for any reason, he gets to kill your company.
You’re right, that’s insanely ego-maniacal. I cant understand why anyone would risk doing business with the guy.
Wow! What a well written great piece of information. I remember that I was looking for something like this from a couple of months. I am glad that I found my way here by coincidence!
Cheers,
Ford F150
Awesome! I have read a lot on this topic, but you definitely give it a good vibe. This is a great post. Will be back to read more!
Regards,
free credit report
I am in love with your quality articles! I wish I had time and patience to make my blog like yours. Thanks for the informative information you share. Bookmarked your blog.
That is very interesting and awesome:) You definately made my day with this awesome post. I will check here often for more cool stuff.
research papers
sdsd
This have a lot of information in this topic,
Macintosh and Windows both have was protected by copyright, and that each individual element of the interface was not as important as all these elements taken together. Apple was really attempting to gain all intellectual property rights over the desktop metaphor for computer interfaces, and perhaps all GUIs, on personal computers.People love iPods (including me) but this bundled with iTunes.
This have a lot of information in this topic,
Macintosh and Windows both have was protected by copyright, and that each individual element of the interface was not as important as all these elements taken together. Apple was really attempting to gain all intellectual property rights over the desktop metaphor for computer interfaces, and perhaps all GUIs, on personal computers.People love iPods (including me) but this bundled with iTunes.
I really admire your quality information.When will Apple users ever get past the limited very proprietary hardware and software choices they have and stop even trying to put Microsoft in the same class as Apple in this area. Once you go Mac Steve owns your ass and you can look forward of a lifetime of not quite state of the art hardware that’s not quite what you wanted.keep posting