Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

April 26

It's storytime boys and girls! And I've got one that will give the MacJihad nightmares - it's "On the Firing Line, My 500 Days at Apple" by Gil Amelio. The full review is in the new Biblio section, but here's a few tasty chunks of prose collected from Gil's tome of tenure to tide you over in the meantime. Let's begin with those nasty rumors that Steve Jobs doesn't give a fig about the Mac, and is milking the user base for all it's worth like a bunch of dupes. Well here's a little tidbit in the way of confirmation of THAT speculation. Steve Jobs paid Gil Amelio a visit, while he was still CEO of National Semiconductor, and blurted out the following Jobsian soundbite - quote - "The world has changed, the Mac has outlived it's usefulness, it's time to go on to something else". Well how about that MacFreaks? Your savoir doesn't give a blinkers cuss about the Mac, and wants his NeXTtech to help the world move on. And YOU'RE not a part of it! Say goodbye MacOS, say hello to Unix administration - because with Steve Jobs, once you're a bozo - you're always a bozo. And like his stance with people, he's stubborn to the core when it comes to tech and strategy. But wait - that's just one tip of the hand from Apple - there's plenty more in this juicy saga. How about product quality control at Apple? Oh yes, the MacJihad loves to say how bug-free and defect low their machines are. Not the people at Apple though, here's a quote from the Gilman "We received word from the Apple office in Japan that the customer had reported a "little difficulty" with the desktop computer he had bought from us, and was requesting help with the cost of repair - not a repair of his computer, repair of his HOME". Gil goes on to explain that this cutomer had his Apple monitor explode - demolishing half the room and furniture. Sure, we'd seen flaming mac laptops before, but forget about bashing the exploding mac site, Apple makes exploding Macs that you can order from the factory! Suddenly those cute little bomb icons take on an ominous tone of foreshadowing a potential outcome! The chapter where this nugget comes from - chapter 9 - goes on to describe 5300 laptops with shoddy parts, pieces that fall out of place, with defective rates as high as 25% shipped into retail. All at the time that Mission Impossible was being screened advertising products that were on hold until they could be fixed. Trying to buy a mac, but are running into verbage about product shortages? Perhaps they're trying to get the damn things to actually work! And those horrible stories about working for Steve Jobs being an experience akin to serving time in hell? Well Gil quotes NeXT vet Avie Tevanian as saying "Working for you is really different than working for Steve - Steve only suggested lunch when he had some important message, I always expected the worst - working for you is really nice". Nice to know that the man at the helm of Apple today is still fruity as a loop, and is going to have rats bailing on him left and right from the sinking ship, with no one eager to subject themselves to his special brand of bullshit. Another wonderful exerpt concerns the irony of the Applefaithful celebrating Microsoft's woes with the Justice department. Seems Apple's got their own problems - "Steve quickly canceled the clone licenses, which - never revealed til now - tirggered a Justice Department Investigation". Looks like Apple knows how to piss off the Government as much as Bill Gates! As for Microsoft's commitment to Rhapsody, which has been previously the domain of "develop for NeXTstep? I'll piss on it" soundbites, that little deal last summer seems to be missing an ingredient. Gilquote "Steve failed to get the one essential element-a commitment that Microsoft would develop applications to run on the new Mac OS based on Steve's NeXT software". Well if Steve's going to push Rhapsody onto the world at the expense of the current MacOS, don't expect the world to be knocking that door down to buy into it - since there's going to be little reason to run another computer that doesn't have anything from Microsoft available for it. After seeing the Atari ST and the Amiga - and even NeXT - die trying, you don't have to be Nostradomus to figure out where this is going. My last two favorite take-homes from this huckster story, - GilQuote - "Steve brought in his own computer to his exectuitive suite - more interrested in his NeXTOS more than Apple loyalists might think, Steve's machine was not a Mac, but an IBM clone! And, he took credit for the new products and the internet marketing program - and for many other achievements that had been initiated without his input-all started long before he took over". Well besides the fact that the poster boy for the Mac uses the same brand of hardware that I'm using right now, Jobs still persists in the acclaim of the MacJihad, and takes credit for work that wasn't his. What a guy! And I implore all you MacFreaks out there - to take the initiative and "convince" Steve to abandon his PC and use a Mac just as you've been doing for all the rest of us ThinkPad, Compaq, and Dell users. After all, there's no real point in "converting" the masses, when your Christ Figure isn't even part of your religion.

April 27
CNBC reports new numbers for the top PC manufacturers, and of course - Apple isn't anywhere to be seen. Compaq, Dell, and Packard Bell are right up there, while Apple isn't even in running of the top 5 - which means I have no idea how far down the rung they are - because the investor community only goes for short lists and newsbites. But in spite of the short duration of the limelight, CNBC also disclosed a 14% increase in overall PC expansion for the 1st Quarter. Between the two numbers, it's obvious that even if Apple maintains it's present levels - they are still missing out on one hell of a sales party as new users continue to expand the overall market numbers futher into favor of Windows. In this case it's obvious that unless Apple gains significant marketshare in the near future - they're still going to remain left out in the cold with a marketplace that doesn't give a care about the MacOS, Apple, or it's religious and rabid userbase. This also furthers the cause that in spite of their advertisements preaching the choir of the MacFaithful, no one is buying into the load of crap - except those that still have Macintoshes hung off their necks, and under their hairshirts.

April 28

More CNBC soundbites that shed a less than happy spotlight on Apple's woes. In the news program, "Taking Stock w/Roy Bloomberg", the analyst was fielding phone-in query's about companies and their respective health. Here's a great quote from a man who manges major portfolios and has his pulse on the no-bullshit world of finance and corporate health. Quote - "The stock has gone up on expectations of Steve Jobs turning Apple around - Apple is not my kind of stock, since Apple is fundimentaly incapable of turning around". Well, if that's not what I've been saying since July 20th of frigging last-year then I don't know what else to say. Oh that's bullshit - I have plenty to say! For all you wackos that claimed that "I don't get-it", it seems that the role of role reversal is afoot, and it's the fanatics that are wearing the other shoe. The rest of the world, now including the financial community, has detected the bullshit parade in spades. And while Jobs may be shoveling it by the ton, only the farsical MacJiahd are digging in. The rest of us aren't buying it anymore - and it's all live and direct, on CNBC.

April 29

ZDnet did two interresting things this week, first - they had their IPO hit the stock market this week with a healthy couple of points earned on several million shares offered for an otherwise healthy publishing enterprise - one that has shed most of it's mac related no-selling bagage off. Suddenly the spining off of MacWorld seems all that more focused strategically of making a focused offerings to investors. With no one buying Macs, it's painfully obvious that the last of the MacRags are on the rocks. In other ZD info, columnists from their editorial pool are noticing the splash all the "advocates" are making - with references of "OS2 Teamsters" and "MacMujahidin". Two take-homes hit hard with this disclosure, one - my nomenclature for the Mac wackos out there has been justified in spades, by those who get paid to write about the computer industry. Second, it was another warning about how computer bigotry - and all of it's overinvested lifewasting ilk that purvey it - is a destroyer of credibility for the products that it inspires. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is NOT the anti-mac, all you macusers must die die die site. This is the Apple doomsday clock - fool baiting those who proport "advocacy" for actually being a major pain in the ass, and shedding light on the scale and scope of a computer company, so pompous - so arrogant - and so out of control - that this sucker writes itself week, after week, after week. The fact that Apple consistantly finds itself on the front pages, and never has a dearth of soundbites to derive opinions from, is both amazing and sad. Because, after all, do successful companies like Sun get as much popular press? Worse, do they actively seek it out in "life affirming" exercises that "all is well"? Truth is, they don't - and until the foaming at the mouth followers get a clue, I'll continue to spend my meager 2 hours a weekend having a shitload of fun at the expense of the MacJihad.

April 30

When is good news bad news? When feable numbers are hyped up as a significant turn of events. Case in point. DataQuest reports that Apple's Marketshare numbers - rather than continuing their omniprecent slide, have actually held fast for the last quarter to be equal to what they were a year ago. Voh-doh-dee-o-doh. I guess hanging off the edge of a cliff for just a few tender seconds longer than usual - is a GOOD thing. The fact that Apple would draw events out in a long and painful fashion for it's fanbase - and crow about it in the face of an expanding market is also - a good thing. But when that market sees expansion like a weather balloon on all levels, leaving Apple computer sitting firmly on the ground, it might not be quite a good idea to be going into overdrive and hyping up how "well" you're doing. But - it just goes to show - that when you're on the critical list, every bit of data helps. No point waiting till something seriously good happens to make a good impression with the marketplace. As noted before, none of this is outside the relm of prior insults. NeXT was an avid fan of trumping up even the most embarassing detail as an event to try to keep users happy about their condition. Even when announcing a misperceived profitable quarter, after 8 years of existance, as being something to crow about. Obviously, there's going to be more where this nugget of news came from - and I'll be here to evaluate it along the way. Lord knows, this site has yet to come up with a case of writers block yet at the current rate of ongoing PR releases from Apple.

May 1

Taking today's date into the contemplation zone, you now know why we're doing the commie motif. It's not just a fun reference, it's topical too! When artificial price controls rule the audience, the populace often is apt to defend their purchasing power under the guise of "revolution". Another example of this reared it's head as the iminent "Wall Street" line of laptops emerges from Apple. Well by god, you're going to have to be making cocaine levels of income with the Wall Street crowd to justify the expense of these monsters. In NeXTian and classic Apple fashion - these suckers are going for $3899, and $5599 respectively. No those decimal points aren't missing, Apple (after tax) totals puts these new portables in the redline of over 4 frigging grand. Now, the laptop that I'm now hammering on over an Irish Whiskey at my fave watering hole is no Ferrari, but AT LEAST it was less than price of a used car! For a nearly 2 year old one of those, it's kept me plenty happy. This Thinkpad 365 ED has been - on the whole - a nice crashless (still haven't blue screened), stable tool for portable mayhem. The cost? $1300. How much did I sell the Quadra 800 for? $1300. Besides trading up at least 3 fold in horsepower (and I checked the blue book on the Mac at the time of sale, so there's no hucksterism involved), I have a nice system that performs better than the guano I unloaded (ok a little guilt, no hucksterism, but a little bit of guilt since I've found out that the guy is unloading it to another poor schmuck). In any case, I cannot for the life of me figure out what the hell is worth 4 grand in these beasts! The screen? No, I see plenty that size in the $2600 range. The memory and hard drives? Same story there too. I suppose it's that G3 crap that inflates the price, if you really need your copy of Photoshop to take a whole 1.5 less seconds to perform some indiosyncratic operation, like "rotate", or something else critically important. Of course the pokey screen - redraw is still a problem, but look at that baby ROTATE! Wow! Well in this revolution - like the last one - the people usually are the first to suffer. And with Apple, it's just more of the same. With inflated price controls to pay for the insane overhead that comes from the ego that casts a shadow over other egomainiacs through history. Seeing radical moves like this on the populace, it's only a matter of time before Apple follows others into the relm of nostalga.

May 2

When does preaching to the choir become gouging from the choir? Why, when the prices for your hardware stay well above the rest of the computing public. In light of recent notebook pricing, and the delays behind the Artemis project, you have to stop and wonder - what the hell is Apple doing to it's remaining customer base? I mean give this scenario a gander. You're the head of Apple. You've been running inflated numbers against the competition for so long that your userbase has dwindled into relms that are less than a 10th of what your previous marketshare represented a decade ago. You've let your product lag on two fronts into a marginal advantage to justify those inflated numbers, to the point that any advantage you have to offer, is basically crucified by the fact that your platform is now a risk investment and workgroup liability rather than an asset. You have people either screaming for a reason to stay with your flagging userbase, or jumping ship in droves. What do you do? Do you - A - lower prices and reform the company into something that can compete with the marketplace and their standards? - B - Enhance your R&D position and create new markets that fall outside of the status-quo? or - C - just stay the course with an outdated kludgy OS that is no longer an asset, and screw your current userbase into the ground with higher margins than ever? If you answered - C - then you're right in tune with Apple current strategy. Rhapsody aside, since it's basically a decade old system that one wants, there is nothing left at Apple that would enhance it's position and expand marketshare. Apple "could" market great Wintel systems and take advantage of the ever-expanding market that puts Compaq in the first place position. You "could" even raise the price bar a little and make Bang and Olfsun style Wintels that justify any higher price tags in this market to set you apart from kit boxes that - while cheap - look the part. OR, you can let ego get in the way, and screw your current customer base all the way to the bank. What blows me away is how blattent this observation is, and why the hate mail piles up in my inbox from suckers being conned out of every inflated dime that defies rationalization to the majority of the planet. But then when you are looking at people who could otherwise drink Kool-Aid in Jonestown, anything is possible - and often defies amazement in the long term. The irony is with logic and conduct like this from Apple, the long term may very well become the short term - in short order.