Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

October 11

Apple makes 106 million this week off of 1.6 billion dollars in revenue - which adds up to a scant 6% profit even in leau of the minor surge in iMac sales. Guess those 25% plus profit margins (aka: sucker bets) can't get past the fact that even with all the layoffs, product group reductions, computer line downsizing (even to 3 scant products), and general cutbacks - still is outweighed by advertising spending and other sundry Steve Jobsian luxeries - otherwise known as gross overhead. It's a pitty because even with the profit this quarter, Apple's revenue still slipped 6% from the same quarter last year - when they were REALLY on the ropes - and had taken a loss. The upshot? Apple's still loosing buyers (what with the business market now leveled off at 1%), and the Jihad can only buy so much. Sorry to report - that even if you believe a loaded poll from Apple (something a serious stock analyst would be hung for) about new-user purchases, and the end-run of iMacs for the year goalwise - that there's perhaps only 150 thousand new users for Apple to play with - while the rest of the Wintel market takes the 7 digits for a ride quarter - for quarter - for quarter. A loosing game to be sure - but if you heard Steve Jobs on stage talking about Apple's triumphs in the context of - quote - "now's the time to stop and smell the roses" - you might gain some insight as to why the stock plunged 4% that day instead of getting any gains on the "good news". You see, Wintel - and Microsoft in particular - have been going for the jugular non-stop for more than a decade. It's the reason that eMachines is selling Wintels that AREN'T underpowered for 400, 500, and 600 bucks. It's also the reason that Bill Gates is in the DOJ hot seat for being corporate and paranoid about trends that otherwise might make them as irrelevant as Apple and Netscape. Because if you stop at anytime - with low margin and cost-competitive industry like PCs - anyone who is smelling flowers is probably going to be admiring them a bunch from their tombstone. Make Apple's pepperoni with mushrooms please.

October 12
Another thing struck me as either predictable or ironic after reading MacWeek.com's highlight of Interactor@Investor's waffish plea to Steve Jobs to lay off the Dell bashing on stage until Apple can do dick to match Dell's 67 billion dollar market cap. The hopeless hope was curious - but what was more curious was the same Apple vs someone relevant in the computer industry scam from a year ago that is going for another dip at the bullshit well. This is where I really love to watch Steve Jobs - Mr. Charisma, Mr. DNA, altruistic poobah - recycle more material than the typical dumpster diver. If you can't make a facitious case for "computer generation bell curves" that slammed MacOS for NeXTOS 10 years ago - pull out the old tried and true. Bash someone whose making a shitload of more money than you. First it was IBM in 1984 which was an utter waste because - as Bob Cringeley noted - they should have been looking at what Bill Gates was up to. Then it was Sun Microsystems - whose RISC workstations were pummeling the beejeuzus out of NeXT and it's hope to gain salvation in the workstation market. Then of course - finally - it was Microsoft. The funny thing in all of these "enemy mine" instances, was that each and every one became a partner or investor of some kind. Perhaps to shut his trap. IBM of course helped invent the PPC chipline - as well as the ThinkPad these observations are being hammered out on. Sun threw more than 30 million at NeXT to get the rights to various NeXT authorware for Corba - because lord knows, AT&T and other NeXT adopters couldn't rely on NeXT's existance into the next decade by a longshot. Then Microsoft sunk 25 million on NeXT's tenure for OLE and then 150 million to shut the Apple gnat up from it's Deisel and Gill sundry lawsuit after the idiotic GUI lawsuit. Well, now Apple can't pick on any of THEM after crawling into bed with each and every company they were supposed to make enemies of. So whose left? Oracle? Not when Jobs is buddy buddy with the CEO. Uh...Sony? Nah - they get parts from them too. GateWay? Hell no - they'd sue Apple's dick off in a nanosecond. HP? Nope - got to keep those printers - a - comin'. Ah yes! Dell! They're making too much money - and are selling more computers in a day than Apple does in 2 weeks - and is pummeling the crap out of their online sales figures. The sad thing to contemplate is the fact that Dell isn't really as big as say - Compaq - which had Digital for lunch and didn't even burp before they started turing a profit again. SGI is an also-ran with the lamest servers in the biz until someone in Q/A get's their shit together. So now they have to reach so down deep into the grab bag to go after a clone builder that isn't even as mighty as IBM or Compaq? I don't know if it's sad or just pathetic. Something tells me it's both.

October 13

Apple back for good? This is the question the San Jose Mercury News asks when it feels about for the glaring contradiction between the Jobsian fueled media hype surrounding Apple's "comeback", and the rest of the world's continuing yawns about the matter. Dave Trembly of ZDnet is quoted in the piece "let's see 8 - 10 quarters like this - then let's talk about Apple being back for good". Even though I agree with such spew - it really misses the point that Apple's still loosing mindshare - marketshare - and (most importantly) revenue - in spite of it's best efforts. It's this columns contention that the real picture is painted with outlooks that are more than profitable quarter based and more along the lines of cause and effect that sunk Commodore and Atari. Lord knows - at the end both of these companies managed to eek out the occasional profit. It didn't manage to stop their downward spiral - and by all accounts - Apple has yet to stop any such kamakazi flight patterns according to software publishers, marketshare, business marketshare, or purchases. Lets get big picture people. Otherwise everyone might as well be streatching semantic arguments tigher than a gnat's ass over a rain barrel. Special thanks to Eugeene Hoffman for infecting that quote into my brain. A pragmagtic amongst idiots and hypemasters. How he lasted so long in advertising is still beyond me. Suffice it to say - if you want a critical eye on the computer industry - it's all in the Gene's.

October 14

This is a bit of a deviation - or else a complete an utter throwback if you've known me for 5 years or more. I like scamming. I reaaaly like scamming. Particularly when it's nice and legal. In Vegas, when you get shit for free it's called "comp-ing". Of course the trick is that you only get comp'ed if you've spent a shitload of money. In the computer industry - it's different. It's mindshare, exposure, and brain-trust collateral. It explains why the hell - lovable but perpetually broke (in spite of writing the first IBM PC word processor) John Drapper (aka: Captain Crunch) can crash any computer convention for eats, pot, or alcohol. Hell I've done the same thing at NeXTworld myself due to a pathetic per-diem for San Francisco (the second most expensive city next to any in Hawaii). Well, from the NeXTworld expo of 1993 to the Microsoft Developer's Conference of 1998 in Denver Colorado - I decided during a late morning walk to compare how the two differed - and score some lunch - instead of chowing down at the Denver Press Club instead which was on the way (past the convetion center). After all - the frigging thing was in my own backyard/hood why the hell should I miss out on the fun. I got e-mail about the damn thing after all. Well the first thing that hit me was the fact that it was easy to get into if you had any press credentails what-so-ever. The Press Club card paid for itself in this instance. Of course the guy who helped me at the press registration desk being a club doorman for a previous year's decorating gig also helped. Probably the biggest squeeker was listing myself with ADC.com (Apple Doomday Clock.com - once I register this sucker someday). I think the security teams though I was saying ABC.com which caused them to go into red-carpet mode. What the hell - I didn't care - it was correct on my badge, not my fault if D sounds like B over a walkee-talkie. Well two things hit me after lunch in the press-ready room which was overflowing with food for free. First - the food was FREE. Steve Jobs was hawking airline food at Movie Theatre prices. After chowing down - listening to Brits complaining about their impending 17 hour jet lag back to the UK - and drinking WAY too much coffee I took a walkabout. Microsoft's little regional developer shindig took up 90% of the convention center - which dwarfed the NeXTworld expo at the Moscone center by an order of 2X. This thing was huge! tons of giveaways in software too. You could be assured that if you were short of coasters for your house or apartment come party time - you could get a pile of CDroms to make up the difference easy. The second thing was the sheer amount of money present. Not Microsoft's - but the attendees. These people were raking it in. Everything they did with Microsoft's blessing was an excuse to mint greenbacks. This was in stark contrast to Steve Jobs' 1993 NeXT lovefest which was more of a wake for dead hardware and dying software publishers than anything else. It was NOT upbeat by any stretch of the imagination. And that was the point I took away. Say what you will about Microsoft - and lord knows, Microsoft loves it when you do because it helps with the next version of whatever they are selling - but there's no combativeness, no maryterdom, no poor pussy-shit us, no "us vs the world", just - "hey here's some neat shit - go make a fuckload of bucks"! Now which do you think conventionwise I had more fun at? And no - it wasn't just the lobster salad sandwiches that made my day. Although I'll have to admit they beat Steve's crowburgers by any stretch.

October 15

This is a shortie - GiggleBytes, the humor column of Comuter Currents.com, lamooned the iMac PR frenzy in a way that I couldn't even being to approach. But I can send a great link their way - and review it for you. It's almost as funny as the Steve Jobs PR release parody about NeXT ceasing it's harware sales (because no one gave a fuck about it - except 50 thousand meager buyers/users) that compared NeXT hardware line stoppage to the Waco compound that burned to the ground and laid the groundwork for some pussy to bomb a fucking building thus creating a media zoo less than 2 blocks from my doorstep when the trial was moved to Denver. Goddamn Oakies! And I was born there (as was my SO) - so yes I'll slag OK in a microsecond. Anyway - my fave line from this particular parody has to me the idea of Bowling Ball "oyMac's" rolling off the shelves. Can't really do more justice than that. Go there - read it - and enjoy. And just remember that I'm envious as hell and hope he dies soon.

October 16

Cnet reported this week that Hamert and Quist - the people that made Woz (my fave) and Jobs (my anti-fave) richer than shit via Apple's first public offering on the stock market, is getting rid of their Apple computers for Wintels since - after all - there's shit-all available in market and business software available for the MacOS and gosh-darnit-all-to-heck it's damn hard to be competitve when you're getting steamrollered by people with custom trading software available for Win98 and NT. Well this isn't a big surprise after the 1% ZDnet figure came out - but it was a suprise after this nugget hit the wires less than a day after the Apple income figures that allowed Steve Jobs to smell the roses. Go fig.

October 17

MacWeek.com blew my mind when columnist Henry Bortman went GAK at Apple's "Think Pussy/Different" campeign from Chiat-Day. Apart from missing the boat for a fucking year - I can't help but wonder if he's just missing some major hate mail in his diet. After all - I've been making fun of dead people hawking computer for a year now (with exceptions for Jerry Lewis - his career is in the grave - not his body), and am getting ready to showcase people who REALLY think different rather than just being assholes for Chiat-Day's puppet amusement. The thing that made Henry "GAK" was the sophistry that ran amok during the last Steve Jobs onstage one of those. This is typical when he spends more than 100 million on his ego. Henry made a point to notice the books that talked about how the campeign came together. This isn't new - after all, Paul Rand also had a massive multi-volume one of those to show what the hell Steve spent 500K on logowise. What really churned his stomach though was the fact that the huckserism didn't really differ from Nike or other brands that Steve compared himself too in moral bankrupcy. Well, that's no surprise either for this site - just check the back issues. Suffice it to say if this particular columnist from MacWeek.com continues to go apeshit over such PT Barnum exercises he's got a job here in Colorado in the same city that a boob from Pittsburg changed his name too after moving here. Don't worry though - I won't be changing my name to Monty Denver anytime soon.