MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s got them scared to death. We’d say “scared shitless,” but Acer et al. keep releasing products.
Hwang and Tsai report, “Shih pointed out that Apple deserves to be respected, since it has a completely different strategy than other PC brands. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has always been looking for revolution, while other PC brands evolved naturally and are developing products in a more solid way, Shih commented.”
MacDailyNews Take: Solid. As opposed to runny.
Hwang and Tsai report, “Shih used the example of the competition between Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Macintosh OS and noted the Apple has always looked down on Windows and believes it lacks creativity. But Windows’ open platform has attracted the adoption of most PC brands, Shih said adding that, Apple’s PC market has turned out to be limited, with a market share far less than the open Windows platform group.”
MacDailyNews Take: Can the founder of a PC company really not understand the difference between market share and revenue share? Apparently, he can. Apple has margins and revenue share about which Shih can only dream. Apple owns the premium personal computer market. Owns. Acer peddles low-grade commodity PCs. If you had a choice, would you rather be Apple, the envy of multiple industries and markets, or a dime-a-dozen PC assembler choke-collared on a leash held tight by Ballmer T. Clown? Tough choice, huh?
Hwang and Tsai report, “Shih noted that Google’s Android operating system is already attracting a lot PC brands to develop related products and this is one of the factors that proves that PC brands will eventually be able to isolate Apple.”
MacDailyNews Take: He doesn’t get it. Obviously, it doesn’t take much to found yet another PC box assembler. Michael Dell, for another example. iOS is not the Mac OS. The critical mass has long ago been achieved. Hundreds of millions of iOS devices are out there. Tens of thousands of developers and third-party accessory makers are catering to the iOS platform. To see how iOS vs. Android will turn out, look not at the Mac, but at iPod.
Hwang and Tsai report, “Shih also predicted that US-based PC vendors will eventually quit the PC market in the long term, and pointed to IBM’s sale of its PC department to Lenovo is one of the signs.”
MacDailyNews Take: And eventually, the sun will sputter out, too. Shih seems to have missed Apple’s record Mac sales; quarter after quarter after quarter…
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If the “cure” for the “Apple product virus” is Acer junk, we hope to be infected forever.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dow’s iPad” for the heads up.]
MDN take is spot on!!! These folks a scared shitless.
wtf’s a virus ?
oh that thing pc’s get
..
@MDN
Amen!!
“Apple CEO Steve Jobs has always been looking for revolution, while other PC brands evolved naturally and are developing products in a more solid way”…
And what products did the Acer brand develop? Someone, please help me out…
“the competition between Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Macintosh OS and noted the Apple has always looked down on Windows and believes it lacks creativity. But Windows’ open platform has attracted the adoption of most PC brands”…
Only because the PC brands didn’t have the availability to license Mac OS onto their machines! Hello!!
The cure they will find is called Bankruptcy. Their own!
Man ALIVE! I have heard it all.
In keeping with this analogy it is safe to assume the “mutant viruses” will continue to mutate, i.e. evolve. As soon as you find an appropriate anti-viral, a new stronger even more virulent strain will develop.
Eventually the organisms normally attacked by the virus succumb, often building a symbiotic relationship with the contagion. It might behoove PC box makers like Acer to skip ahead to the last chapter of this horror story and start building iPad accessories.
Ahahahahaha!!!!!!
I would like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time as a software developer. It came to me when I tried to characterize the effects of Windows, and I realized that Windows is not actually an OS. Every OS on this planet is developed to improve the productivity of its computing hosts; but Windows is not. Instead it collects crufty pieces of code, and multiples its registry, until every resource is consumed and the computer is deemed worthless. The only way for Windows to survive is to spread to new computers. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern… a virus. Windows is a disease, a cancer on this planet, a plague, and iOS… is the cure.
You can imagine they have a R & D facility with an iPad clone running. With Android 2.2.
And every time he sees “another bloody iPad,” he gets a little madder knowing he has an inferior product that he can’t make a profit on.
How cheap would their tablet have to be to sell?
Eventually they’ll figure it out: game over new order.
When this guy talks about Macs as being a mutant virus compared to the mob of PCs, I thought of the Twilight Zone episode “The Eye of the Beholder”. (Except Apple isn’t trying to change to fit everyone else.)
LoL……. I must admit I read the first take 3 times b4 I got it.
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When I got it, I effin loled my arse off. Really clever
I’m sorry MDN, I think you missed it. It’s not “Solid. As opposed to runny.” It’s “Solid. As opposed to new, inventive and evolutionary.”
sweet take MDN
The Windows, or PC, ecosystem is based on an American company creating, managing, and licensing mediocre code to exploitative Chinese or Korean hardware manufacturers. In Asian societies the value of human life is, well, worth a few dollars a month for laboriously mind-numbing labor, in other words, almost nothing. In the eyes of Acer, Asus, Samsung, and all the others, human life is just a tad more valuable than a machine.
Shih can speak with such superiority only because of the degree he can exploit others living in his society. He’s correct, the US PC companies will leave the industry entirely soon, driven out by the relentless exploitation of docilely subservient Asian labor.
MDN, your first take nearly made me spit coffee all over my computer screen.
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It is spot on!
I think it’s really sad that Apple consistently has a corner on the market. Apple doesn’t use black magic or alien technology to develop products. It’s simply the skill of some motivated people in the right environment.
Why is it that consumers can plainly see the difference between Apple products and everyone else’s, but these execs cannot? They seem to think their failure is due to a lack of feature-laden stickers on their products.
“One day soon,” Shih says, “we will figure out the right quantity of stickers for our products and Apple will bleed.”
It still kills me that the PC industry had a 10 year “head start” to develop tablets, and now, all of a sudden, they all get it when it comes to how tablets should be done.
And all the PC Android fanboys rip Apple while they bask in the fruits, albeit backwards and clunky derivatives, of those efforts.
Bull, Shih.
Ah yes, the very same mutant genes that allows the survival of the fittest…
Acer has just knifed himself. If thats the case, Apple will dominate the entire market
Mike T.,
No, you missed it.
In the take to which you refer, MDN is calling non-Apple PC brands’ products shit. Solid or runny, they’re all shit.
“PC brands evolved naturally and are developing products in a more solid way, Shih commented.””
Beige, it’s always Boring, Bland, Beige.
I think this is taking place at a PC OEM conference in Taiwan. Yesterday we had the Samsung guy talk about DRAM demand dropping due to iPad sales hurting notebook orders. Today, we get the Acer guy encouraging the OEM industry that they’ll solve their problems, kind of like Nokia’s Oily Pecker whistling past the graveyard.
The number of people I know personally who have bought their first Mac in the past 12 months is mind boggling. Keep in mind I live in a small rural community.
Apple has always been a revenue share company. But hell, they might become a revenue and market share company of the Acers of world really believe what they’re spewing.
This was awesome. I haven’t laughed so hard about tech in a long while.
When the PC box is killed off and Windows is just a bad stain in history, the dead will no longer be infected by the success of the innovative living among us. May that day come soon.
I better Acer would use MacOS if Apple let them.
What’s the guy gonna say? “Apple products are way better than ours”, of course not. The virus analogy doesn’t really work because you get over viruses pretty quickly (except HIV etc).
The reality is that Apple innovate and others follow and copy. In the end they all make money. The only time it didn’t happen was with the MP3 market. Apple completely took over and are still dominating. However android has provided an avenue to compete in the phone and tablet market. It won’t be as good as iOS but just like windoze it will be just good enough to be workable in products.
“Apple’s strong popularity is mainly due to its products”
What can you say? This guy is a business leader? Yes, we will get back to normal soon, and popularity will get back to the way we like it! Mindless zombies following the herd where inept people like Shih can feed off them.
@Nevermark66
Awesome!
Two items….
1) Never ask a problem if its a problem. It will always lies.
2) Android as a tablet OS is like using a hammer to drive in a screw.
Android is NOT a good canidate as a tablet OS. Its being used since the bulk of it ( minus Market Place ) is free! And can run on a portable device. Heck until 2.2 battery management has been a mess. One reason the “other” tablets are 7″ screen is to SAVE POWER!
Like Asus and ther first Netbook. Acer and others have been caught flat footed again… Yea Acer remember that one HD based nettop. If you turned the audio volume up too loud would litterly put the Windows OS into a slower mode to access the HD!
They just dont get it and probably never will…
MDN… please iCal this moron. This is going to be a second ISIDAGTMBTTS!
Stan Shih is really clueless. The tsunami is upon the beach now. It is not just the hardware, it the whole deal from OS, chip design, local and on line stores, smooth compatibility between products, a 500% larger server farm, quality, customer loyalty, …
Even the Windows ONLY software suppliers are jumping ship. AutoCAD will be Mac OS X. QuickBooks finally is making a multi-user version for Mac OS X. etc.
Is it that they know and think we can’t see it happening? About 75% of the freshman in college are caring MacBooks and iPod touch devices!!! TSUNAMI COMING SHIH!!!
“But Windows’ open platform …”
Windows? Open platform? WINDOWS?!
Wow. Give me some what Stan Shih’s smoking. Or, wait… On second thought, don’t. I’d miss all those braincells.
first take is a winner
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@Nevermark66
That was AMAZING, I`m memorizing your post so when one of my unwashed windrone “peers” spouts off some verbal diarrhea about how great MS is I can leave him with that description of windows to chew on.
You are a truly a wise sage.
In Feb Acer president Scott Lin said why Acer won’t build tablets and why it can’t compete with Apple (Feb is when analysts thought Apple would be lucky to sell 1 m iPads a year).
Digitimes:
“Lin pointed out that designing an iPad-like device would not pose any technical challenges for Acer, but said such a product does not fit into Acer’s business model.
Historically, closed platforms are typically limited in terms of scale and are confined to niche markets. Apple has built is business out of carving its own niche, which means that while Apple could see success with devices like the iPad, other players are unlikely to be able to replicate its result simply by copying, Lin noted.”
—
Of course most of his excuses is crap but he got one part right : “players are unlikely to be able to replicate its result simply by copying,”
Let me see. Acer revolutionized… the best BullShih I’ve read so far.
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@MDN. You keep repeating like a mantra “To see how iOS will turn out look not at Mac (vPC) but iPod”. But with android gaining market share, it is looking much more like the former than the latter. No a Verizon iPhone will not change much, some of us live in markets where the iPhone is already available on all carriers, and the android juggernaut is still gaining momentum.
It looks likely the iPhone will still be the phone to aspire to, and the and iOS will be as superior to it’s competitors as OS X is, but you’re kidding nobody if you think Apple is heading for the marketshare dominance with iOS that it has enjoyed with the iPod in MP3 space.
Apple is like a virus? Really?!?
Well, when the PC industry eventually find its cure, they’ll find Apple’s virus will have mutated into something completely different and still be ahead of the game.
And OK, maybe Android is gaining in popularity – at Microsofts expense!
Even PC losers don’t use Acer. That is just pure shit computers. Like the CEO.
Can we iCal you, too?
PC makers are starting to use Android because the CAN’T use Mac OS X. Please. Dell has wanted to build OS X boxes for years, but Apple won’t let them.
The only reason Android is being considered by PC makers (and its adoption is rather slow) is that Android is a much cheaper option than Windows. That’s why most Android boxes are netbooks and (supposedly) upcoming tablets. PC makers can’t use Windows and still compete with Apple on price, because they can’t beat Apple on the form-function-joy of use combination.
“Apple’s got them scared to death. We’d say “scared shitless,” but Acer et al. keep releasing products.”
BEST. MDN take. EVER.
Acer is a bottom of the barrel PC at best. They had some luck with netbooks, but those are dead now. Guess he’s just full of Shih
@kevt:
Apple already has market dominance with the iOS: the iPad. Not PC builder is even close, and they won’t get close.
The smartphone market is something very different from either the PC or iPod markets. Millions, if not billions, of people had some kind of mobile phone when the iPhone came out, and some were even smartphones (blackberries, Treos, etc.). The iPhone absolutely changed the idea of what a smartphone should be.
Apple is still gaining market share in the smartphone arena, but there likely will always be more than two big players. What you failed to notice is that while Android’s share is growing (it is the newest kid on the block, after all, so it had nowhere to go but up), the platform is becoming more and more fragmented and is now starting to get malware.
People aren’t going to stand for their phone functioning like their Windows PC – Blues Screens of Death, crashes, or viruses/trojans hijacking their private info will result in that phone being thrown away for something more secure.
Like the iPhone.
Android has the same ‘openness’ as Windows – you cannot download the OS and must licence it. This will make it harder for MS to re-enter the mobile market. I think they will ‘pull an IBM’ and retreat to providing servers and services.
The unsung heroes are the developers of SoundJam. It was their software that Apple bought and enabled the iTunes juggernaut which sold millions of iPods that funded MacOS X that funded iOS that enables the iPhone, AppleTV and iPad.
@Nevermark66
Nice. Excellent use of one of the best moments in the Matrix.
—-
Wow, that Shih really spews out a bunch of nonsense. I wonder if he believes any of this crap? I doubt that even the most militant windows whore believes it.
Sun-Tzu said, “If a Taiwanese computer manufacturer wants to win in the free market, it must create a superior product.”
He also said, “Talk is cheap.”
MDN’s iPod analogy is off. iPhone vs Android is more akin to Mac vs Windows, as you have a software maker licensing its OS to multiple hardware makers, and competing software development platforms, which wasn’t the case in the music player market.
Now and again you really get to see what kind of shitheads are running these big companies.
@Nevermark66- Brilliant, but you should have continued on with the next, desperate part of the dialog. That would have been transcendent, but your post was a great take on A. Smith anyway. Good one on you!
@ Kevt,
Only about 33% of Android cell phone users would buy another Android cell phone. 87% of iPhone users would buy another iPhone. With iPhone on every American carrier next year the Android juggernaut will stop dead in it’s tracks.
Sure, geeks like you will still buy Android phones, but the other 95% of the population will be looking for something else.
Shih, how’s the cure for the iPjGGtv1.0* virus coming along?
*iPodjuggernaut v 1.0
@flappo: right. the virus talk is richly ironic. i guess when your business is PCs you relate to everything in terms of a virus. ha ha!
Acer, as long as you’re delivering your stuff with Microsoft Windows, you’ll never find a cure. Get original and build your operating system that is worthy of purchasing your product over Apple’s offering!. The problem is, you don’t deliver any differentiating value from say the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc…!
You apple fan boys, just don’t get it. Apple products are made for people that doesn’t have brian to operate a computer. You guys blindly follow the bs apple crap they dish out and think it’s trendy to use mac product. There is no virus for mac because the market is too small not because it is secure.
Speaking of Ballmer T. Clown, haven’t heard much out of him lately. Is he in hiding?
Key word in Shih’s statement “vendor”. As in all PC mfgrs are only vendors. They don’t create or design really. Just build boxes, some w/ different colors.
@Bill – you are right, I don’t have a Brian to operate a computer for me, so I use a Mac and do it myself…
“Shih noted that Google’s Android operating system is already attracting a lot PC brands to develop related products and this is one of the factors that proves that PC brands will eventually be able to isolate Apple.”
Interesting. He is looking to Android to save the PC tablets not Windoz.
It must be raining chairs in Redmond.
What these folks fail to understand is that Apple has a 10 year strategy, minimum. Apple will be integrating future Macs with iOS devises in ways that these boneheads could not dream of. When everyone and their grandmother either has or wants a certain iOS devise, Apple will make it so integrated with the Mac that everyone who has not seen the light will regret not jumping on the bandwagon sooner.
These jokers will wonder what hit them and it will be very much too late to do anything about it.
“PC vendors will eventually …” – Shih
– Straight out of the non-Apple computer manufacturer’s marketing handbook – Try to slow the Apple rise through promises of what’s to come from the competitors.
Microsoft has done this for decades;
“Sure, there are “features” (problems) we’d like to remedy in Windows 98, but just wait until Windows 2000, (ME), (XP), (Windows 7), etc., etc., etc., …”
Plus, Microsoft’s “Courier”, “Kin”, “Zune”, … am I missing anything? Well, the Big Ass Table, of course …
(I’m actually amazed that Microsoft admitted to killing off the Courier. I would expect them to keep trotting out that vapourware at every Apple iPad upgrade announcement.)
And in response to every Apple product released, all the other hardware manufacturers will keep using these talking points;
“in development”
“soon to be released”
“Our ___ will be an i__ -killer”
“Unlike Apple’s limited offering, our product will have TEN USB ports, Swiss-Army-Knife-style card readers, serial ports, PS2 ports, higher megahertz processor, etc., etc., etc., …”
And now we can add this soon-to-be-classic criticism, “Apple’s strong popularity is mainly due to its products …”
There aren’t many logic holes left for these Apple-competitor CEOs to scurry into.
I smell desperation.
Reading over MDN’s takes, I am now convinced Ampar works at MDN.
So far, Acer has clomerated 3rd party hardware into a package and installed a 3rd party operating system to run it a la mediocrity. Acer has innovated and invented two things…their case design and their logo…that’s it. Their production line could suddenly change and instead ship coffemakers and not miss a beat.
Big talk is cheap and not wise for any CEO.
@buster, maybe you’re right! Anyway, what I’d like to add is that Apple is 3-5 years ahead of the competition in research and patents so how can any of them catch up in PMP dept? How can they compete with iTunes, iAds, App Store, Mobile Me, combo? Any monkey can reverse engineer an iPad or iPhone, but you can’t do the same with The Apple Cloud.
Why would anyone want to say something that will just motivate Apple any further, as they are already the cat’s meow for being motivated and having their ducks in a row??
I thought I had a virus once, but it was just a cold.
Acer, I try to remember whether I heard or saw that name before…
Nope.
Shih, that’s another I can’t remember, but wait, I think I stepped into Shih once! It was solid.
Fortunately, the Apple mutant viruses are only likely to be disabling or fatal to Microsoft, Windows PC box assemblers, and Apple iOS product knockoff hacks. The smarter ones will adapt and compete at some level, large or small, with Apple products, and everyone will be the better for it.
Acer founder Stan Shih appears to have a strong case of the Frankenstein complex – if you fear it, then torches and pitchforks are the only answer because it must be killed! This is desperation talking, because Acer could easily find itself in a declining death spiral in the near future.
MDN take; I had to read that twice, then I laughed out loud for a long time!
@ Big Als MBP. Grow up and quit with name calling. So I’m a ‘geek’ because I don’t agree with your hypothesis. FYI I bought my iPhone 4 today. (3g=> 3GS=>4) I’ve been a staunch apple fan since I bought my first Classic II. But that doesn’t blind me to the reality of the marketplace.
I don’t share your optimism that Android sales will be grind to a halt if verizon gets it in the USA. in the UK where the iPhone is available on all carriers it is still selling well. Price. And the Flash myth – although the reality of Flash on android is beginning to be exposed.
What a silly shihhead.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Acer is the Retarded Redheaded Unwanted Stepchild of PCs
@ Connor.
I think you’re right; purely from a numbers standpoint it’s likely that Android smartphones will outsell the iPhone. Even if we count in the iPod touch and the iPad, with Android presumably being used on more and more cheap iPad knock-offs it pains me to say that it does seem likely that Android will surpass iOS.
BUT, unlike with Mac Vs. Windows, as others have pointed out, there are more than two smartphone players — there’s Symbian, Blackberry’s OS, etc. Whatever business Android does, it seems unlikely it’ll dominate with well over 90% worldwide like Windows.
I think we can all agree, however, that Android fanboys are obnoxious little sh*ts who deserve a sound beating.
Have I missed something? What the hell is “the open Windows platform group” ?
There’s been, briefly, two Acer laptops in this household. Neither being anything to do with me- God forbid- but issued by my teacher wife’s school for her use. Both were a mighty pain in the arse to keep working properly and both died within a very short time, losing all manner of lesson plans and exam data.
Never again. She’s got a Macbook now.
This Taiwan cock talks bullshih
You guys who have never worked in public relations, AN ENTIRE TEAM OF PEOPLE probably helped draft up EACH AND EVERY SINGLE answer to these questions, which the CEO memorizes.
This is for everyone, not just Acer. I’m guess maybe the ONLY CEO who does NOT memorize such answers is Steve Jobs, but you can bet everyone else most likely had MANY SESSIONS to memorize and draft these answers.
Same with politicians.
So when you hear someone in an interview, never associate what they say with what they actually believe.
Whatever they say, is the consensus of an entire team of people that were working for weeks and weeks to draft these answers.
Even if some of the answers sound silly, don’t take them literally. They are designed to create specific results (for example, these talks about “viruses” could be addressed to other PC manufacturers, or to Microsoft, to assure them. Or to ignorant PC buyers. Or to shareholders. Or just to create discussion so that the ACER brand will be mentioned, like in this example on this web page).
The technical jargon for this is the list of “Q&As;”.
I think all these companies need to worry about their own company, and their own success, and stop bashing apple.
its easy to point fingers, its hard to DO something about it
a company thats making their own OS and own computers to run it has total control over EVERY aspect. not like Microsoft boasting PC sales that they dont even make lol
I want to see Microsoft learn a lesson from apple and stop relying on other companies to provide Hardware to use windows. Microsoft, Build your own Microsoft Branded PC with windows and take it to the next level. Until then, the coast guard will be waiting to rescue you when you’ve finished sinking.
I have an Ipod Touch and I have an Amazon Kindle. Reading on an e-ink screen is much easier on the eyes and that makes a big difference if you like to read a lot. I get a headache reading on an LCD screen and I get tired a lot faster.
http://xtremenowarnings.com/xtremeno-review-does-xtreme-no-supplement-really-work
I don’t care if Android will overtake Apple iOS, I think it will be hard to avoid. But that does not matter. It only matters to people that counts numbers. Just like PCs are bigger than Mac, but that does no matter. Apple still win and out shines every one else.
I don’t think we need to worry Android taking over iOS, it will happen and lots of nerds will cheer when that happen. But Apple’s model is different. Apple does not need to spread itself all over like Android, Symbian, Windows Phone etc to succeed.
“he believes that PC vendors will eventually find a way to isolate Apple and become immune”
BWAHAHAHAHA!
A Luddite statement if I’ve ever heard one.
Acer: The next Dell. HeeHeeHee!