Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

December 14

Hell no, still no CEO. It's now official that the boobs over at Apple have fessed up that no one wants to take the official CEO slot. The latest spin on things is more interresting though. People, including myself have suspected that one of the largest reasons it was going to be hard to get a captain for this doomed ship, was none other than Steve Jobs. Forget the fact that his method to get people can be called insulting at best, it's now obvious that if running Apple itself is bad enough, running Apple with Jobs is a nightmare. This of course was mere speculation, but now it's official from one of the development people from Sun who declined the spot. Steve Jobs is an asshole. Ok, those weren't the exact words from the newswire. But the person in question from Sun, did say that he wouldn't take the position if Steve Jobs remained on the board. Steve declined this request. Why? I thought less than 6 months ago, Steve didn't even want the CEO slot, let alone stay at Apple longer than needed. After all, he's got Pixar to run right? Well here's some news, Steve will stay with Apple until it's under the waves, or until the board votes him out again. After being on the sidelines with NeXT for so long, he's got too much attention at Apple to miss out on. Granted, the Mac is still pretty much sideline material for the duration - but this isn't nearly as embarrasing as the last 4 years at NeXT proved to be. This was when he was foisting crap that no end-user wanted, no high-end client could justify using for more than 5 years, and no developer could actually finance his future on. Of course now that he's behind the desk at Apple, he's going to cling to the desk tighter than a leech on testicle. That isn't to say that there's a lack of CEO material that has the balls to deal with Apple, they just don't want to take on a position that requires the professionality of a surgon to succeed at with a rank-amature playing king in the office next door. So far at least 4 candidates have bailed on the request. I can assure you that they're not going to be taking on another soda king anytime soon, and not one of them is going to be asked that famous question that was posed to John Scully about sugar water. This time they'll have to say please, thank you, and we'll get Steve out of here one way or another. I don't expect this to happen in my lifetime though.

December 15
Apple's marketshare slips - AGAIN! The latest quarterly figures from IDG show that with the continued slide of Apple's sales averaged over the year, make their marketshare even less than before. Just when you think they couldn't get any lower they slide to 3.3% and falling. Of course the MacJihad will cry out the line from Guy Kawasaki about BMW's and all that. NewsFlash, gasoline runs on all cars. Software doesn't. And if you want to sell software you'd better have numbers that aren't running into the toilet as far as your target audience if you want to get any investors to back your efforts. "Oh yes Mr. Investor, we'd like 250,000 to develop for the Mac! Windows? No we're not going for that market, we're happy to sell to a scant 3% of the available user base out there!". Sounds of doors slamming ensue. In a perfect world, any yahoo could take some basic C++ code together a bug-proof application and sell it word of mouth packaged in ZipLock(tm) freezer bags. Newsflash 2, this isn't 1978, and the way things were in the Apple II days are long dead and gone. Just ask any developer how many man years have been spent on the code in front of them, and how many hours went into testing it, advertising it, packaging it, and getting the user manuals in shape. Now tell that developer that he's only going to develop for the Mac, or is going to have to recompile a ton of code to get it to work for the Mac users who assume something on this magnitude is a walk in the park. Ask me if that developer is still able to contain his laughter. The fact still remains that most of the software out there that runs on both platforms, was either some rinky-dink multimedia title compiled in MacroMedia director - a market that still runs more than 80-90% in the red - or something that took over another year's effort to get working on both platforms. Worse, the audience base on the Mac side of the fence will complain if there's nothing that seperates it from the Wintel side as if it's an act of trechery. With gratitude like that from the userbase no wonder developing for the Mac is looking less and less like a nice niche income base, but more like a royal pain in the neck for a bunch of ungrateful slobs.

December 16

The most interresting thing about the problems that Apple has been having with getting the G3's to print, among other things, is that there's hardly anyone left to fix the problem. The problem for Apple in this case is that the people who wrote the drivers for the StyleWriter line of ink-jet printers have left the ship long ago. Either by layoffs, or by massive attrition, more rats are leaving Apple by far than are coming on board. This is aggrivated by the new policies involving a suspension of standard bonuses, stock-options and the usual sunderies that make geeks flock every day to California and put up with the high cost of living there as well as the pollution. The problem for Apple is that they are cutting back on what is a basic benefits package for every other company around them. And with everyone from Microsoft on down sucking in people left in right during this new economic boom period, Apple is showing their true colors indeed. With Apple, it's no longer cool to give pampering that can retain workers who can literaly walk across the street and get a raise and all the pampering they can stand. Now they've lost so many key people that will be instrumental in their ability to not make a bigger ass of themselves in the marketplace, that they can't even guarantee basic functioning quality in their computers. Of course these problems with printing will be fixed, but how does this bode for Rhapsody's future? Most of the NeXT savvy programmers have left the scene ages ago. And if they're going to be convinced to give Apple the time of day, they're going to have to see some gravy with their potatoes. With Apple serving bread in water, I just don't see how this is going to work. One thing I CAN see is a lot of Macintoshes barfing up code from slipshod high employee turnover work.

December 17

One thing I'll come back to when the news is slow is the bias that drives most Mac users into the shadow of Apple. It's this same reflex, based on fear and ignorence, that more people are coming to terms with and realizing how stupid it was at the outset. For example, the pre-press industry is very techie at the highest end. They'll use Scitex, SGIs, Suns, Alphas and other geek boxes. Whatever the format, if they're good, they'll make it work. Most dotheads on the low end of the equation shy away from PC files not because they're any harder to print out, but because they're scared of the PC. More PC clients have been taking their material for output to shops that have learned the PC and those very same shops are now putting a crimp on the Mac Biased service beuraus. These are the ones that take 4 times longer to output what a PC savvy SB can set to film or paper. I've worked for these shops myself and have had to deal with driver reinstalls, work-arounds and translation of file and font types. And this is on a Mac mind you. Some of these very same tasks have to be taken into consideration on the PC side, but without a basic knowledge of Windows, the smooth operation can devolve into a replay of the keystone cops. And yet it's these same idiots at non-PC savvy service shops that are telling people that they advise against PC files. Sometimes these people will lease a Mac for the project. Often times they'll just go to a shop that knows what it's doing instead. The Jihad acutally buys the former argument, and is totally unaware that most of the planet is in fact getting material to professional printers on a daily basis with headaches that are no more significant than they are for the Mac side of the fence. This is also the reason behind the myth that the Mac is instrumental to the publishing industry as whole. It's not, at least not for those who know what they're doing anyway.

December 18

The evangelist and their MacJihad members have been busy little Nazis stomping over every active online debate which has no real solution. Aside from having my own BBS, I've already noticed that no matter how complete and multifaceted an argument can be made against the Mac, there's going to be one minor technical point that will be lambasted as proof-positive that the initiator of the argument is out to lunch. This would be akin to saying that because the person who shot the man behind the counter at the 7-11 on video tape was wearing loafers, where most of the thieves wear tennis shoes, the person isn't guilty of anything. Splitting hairs is the biggest pastime of the current MacJihad debating team I noticed, which indicates that they either suffer from an accute case of tunnel vision - or they can't see the forest from the trees. The thing that's amazing is that these trees are now the size of Redwoods, and the rings are only a decade in age. You really don't have to go further back in time to the days of the Amiga to see the same mass delusion in action. Even today, there's plenty of geeks on the internet who you wouldn't dare make joking references to the Amiga without recieving a deluge of hate-mail and a flood of pro-Amiga messages on the usenet. Problem is, compared to the level of nuttiness going on in dialogue after dialogue today with Mac users, you realize that at least the Amiga users weren't being duped into a reality distortion field by Steve Jobs. The point being, is that while the Amiga users of the past were incessed with rage at the impending deminse of the Amiga platform, they weren't being duped by the actions of one particular person spouting catchy sound bites of misinformation. Of course to contradict, or even lampoon a single word of this information isn't amusing in the least because in the eyes of the chosen people it amounts to heresy. Some of the more civil rebukes will just wonder how much time I spend doing all this, and to be honest - it's about 2 hours a week not counting the occasional 30 minute graphical brainfart. The MacJihad however have been wasting whole man years chasing all over the net, reading articles, and reporting back to home base the next target of their harrasment. I don't mind, I love it. It's not only good for ratings, but it's an ironic indictment on something that I'm making fun of at the outset. For everyone else it's a head scratching episode of the real-world meeting the delusional mind. It's why most people now just roll their eyes when people say they use a Mac, because they know that they're going to hear hours of computer angst drivel. Perhaps now we know why Apple wasn't invited to the Comdex party. No one likes a bore.

December 19

Further reflections on the numbers that went into USA today and the disparaging gap between that information and the information to the SEC. The information to the SEC as per-law, had Apple revealing forcasted numbers of continued dwinding income due to erroding marketshare and the further slide in the sales of Macs compared to Wintel PCs. In fact the numbers were so bad that they had no concrete date as to when they would abate into the relm of profitability. This is very counter to the information that was slapped on USA today, with their rose-colored mist verbage, that it casts new light onto what is an ovbious case of misinformation and subterfuge. It's this skewed information that goes to two sources - one legally mandated and the other not - that brings to mind touts of billions in the bank, and 33% OS share for the quarter in reams from the Mac faithful. But when the general public, which takes a more critical eye at things, sees SEC copy that warns of a company in an absolute tail-spin it put's them on a collision course of a bus filled with shiney happy Mac people. Until this Grand Canyon of a gap of words can be filled with some common sense don't look for this situation to improve anytime soon. Certainly Apple has it's suckers, and then there's the SEC and their records of what's going on as reported in the Wall Street Journal. As for me? I keep reading the Wall Street Journal. Of course the MacJihad will just accuse me and the SEC of bringing more bad news to the party, even when that bad news comes from Apple itself. Oh well.

December 20

Got some interresting e-mail back from Robert Cringely, the author of Accidental Empires and Triumph of the Nerds. I was heckling him a bit on the viability of the NeXTstep OS as was recommended in passing to a dame named LuLu. Speaking of LuLu's I countered, I actually bought one of these things! What are you trying to dupe on this poor lass? He responded to paraphrase that "I caught him", but that it was burried in other OS ideas. He did go on to confirm something that I've ranted on in spades which was the overt manner that Steve Jobs plays his user and investor base for dupes. I feel that getting confirmation words from him were interresting since he, after all was one of the origonal Apple employees. He countered that the 20 million dollar fiasco from Ross Perot was nothing to the dupes he played Cannon to - over 350 million dollars. Of course one wonders if Steve Jobs is all that smart. After all, is he really smart enough to play the current Mac user base for suckers while devloping NC's on the backs of the last models of Macs devoted to the current aging OS - on purpose? Or is he fooling himself in the process as well. That is the real question when you consider the wisdom of Steve Jobs, as well as those that follow him like a lost puppy.