Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

March 8

This week is pretty much split between the dammage Apple Computer is enduring, and the dammage it's inflicted. With a nod to the latter of the two equations, I did some digging around for how the schools are responding to the ever widdening gap between computers that are relevent to kid's futures, and what Apple tells them. Well, it looks like Apple and the schools have been acting childish for too long. The parents are stepping in. The tasty nugget that put me onto this conclusion was from Fortune's Techno File headlined "Parents are pushing schools to buy Windows PCs". It seems what I first observed last year about misplaced values present within the wasted dollars going into buying niche computers - rather than teaching Johnny how to actually use a computer that represents the best meal-ticket for his future - is becoming a forefront issue as more parents wonder why the hell Johnny can't take his files and educational programs back and forth between home and school. This puts a bright light in the picture as to why those educational market numbers have been dropping like a lead balloon for Apple. It also give me hope that the educational institutions aren't as screwed up as I'd previously thought. Kind of blows my cynical perspective - but in this instance, I'm happy to give cautious optomism a try for the future for this situation. It's good to know that the kids have been given a chance for a relevant future as well. Pitty it helps to remove Apple's future hopes in this dwindling market though.

March 9
Drivers. No I'm not refering to the kind behind the wheel of an overpriced shell produced in Detroit, I'm talking about the esoteric bits that tell the average computer how to talk to printers, Zip drives and the like. Mac users for years have gloated about how they don't require the likes of them - even though you can't slap a Zip disk into a external drive hooked up to a Mac and mount it without one - or RIP a file to an imagesetter for that matter. No, in spite of blattent hypocracies like this, it's the future that doesn't bode well for users of Rhapsody or whatever they hell on deciding this NeXT tech will actually be called. You see, the reason the minor players that I've hung out with lasted as long as they did selling NeXT hardware preconfigured to run the damn OS is because it hardly worked on anything, or would talk to anything. It took the better part of the creme-de-la-creme IS tech to get the screwy OS to talk to anything and stop acting like a goddamn doorstop. The reason? The drivers available for NeXTstep/Openstep were rare - and half-assed when they were available. Apple and it's religous followers love to chant the mantra "Plug and Play" into the wee hours of the morning. Well a new day is dawning, and it's going to pound the ease of use argument into the dirt. Once that dog of an OS Rhapsody emerges from Apple's cave, you're going to think Linux and BeOS are easier to get talking with all your toys plugged into your computer. Count on it, because I'm going to be laughing my ass off when the bug-reports follow Rhapsody's debut about the hell it's spawned for it's newly alienated cheerleading squad.

March 10

MORE NUMBERS! Yes it's number time! Time to see what the marketplace is doing, and what Apple is failing to do. Well here's a goodie - Computer Intellegence reports - quote - "PC penetration overall has increased to 45% of all US households, up from 40.2%". David Tremblay, senior analyst went on to say "Some have said in the past, that the PC market is dead or dying - this market data shows that this just isn't the case". All of this is great in the face of nay-sayers that predicted for the last few years that the market had hit a ceiling of saturation. Well baby - it hasn't. What HAS happened is the new under 1000 dollar PC's have caused the market window to widen like mad, creating the newest groundswell of new users and people exploring the internet. The funny thing is, in spite of all this expansion - Apple STILL can't sell it's way out of a paper bag. I mean with marketshare still DECLINING with it's present user base walking away from the Mac, it's henious to think that Apple can't get a grip in an otherwise ideal market. One that's growing much in the way the market exploded for computers in the early 80's. Man, if you can't move boxes now - you never will.

March 11

Still musing over the data available from research groups and analysts that get paid to report findings - much like I'm doing now for my personal amusement and for free to boot. I came across a cover of businessweek, which mentions Apple's fall from grace in 1996. Funny thing, I had the issue. I just didn't feel like digging through 20 boxes in my basement storage bin to find it. I did find the article on BusinessWeek's website which now rival what they offered on AOL exclusively years ago. Well here's a tasty nugget that I happened across which is basically a long dirge about Apple's inability to sell diddly/squat. According to the Gartner Group - long used by Apple as proof of the cost-effectiveness of the Mac line, hence it's "cheapness" in the face of higher entry costs - the cost of 5 year ownership fell from number one, to number 3 behind Windows NT and 95 respectively. Well how about them Apples! You mean the MacJihad and MacNazis running amok out there touting cost of ownership like chanting zombies are lying? Outright missrepresenting dated statistics that fell out of favor more than 2 years ago? Oh my GOD - how can this be? Mac's now cost more than 40 thousand to use and maintain over 5 years for businesses? Holy COW - no wonder Information Service people are falling over themselves to unload expensive, overpiced garbage! I mean not only does it complicate the workflow and maintenance duties integrating them into otherwise unified single OS offices, but they're more expensive to maintain to boot! Now perhaps the Jihad can get a clue as to why it's fashionable to dump these boat anchors overboard. It's not to make life easier for IS people - although it helps - it's because the things serve no function other than to exist as a black hole for expenses. So I just have to say this one more time for the Apple crowds out there - give the IS people a break about dumping your expensive crap - and shut the hell up about cost of ownership you dupes. The party's over

March 12

Ok it's advertising rant time again - which means this is going to be borishly long. Too bad, the subject matter is in my direct background so I've got plenty of words to barf on this one. This rant, you may have seen in rough draft form in the BBBS section, but that was a warm-up, here's the march. My take on the "bunnies" ad from Apple's latest hard-to-find on TV commercial, only makes me shake my head and wonder what the hell Lee Clow is doing. It's obvious that Apple has given up on expanding it's marketshare with pompous private-nerd war spots that don't do anything but tout geek-specs to their choir of current owners. Rather than show SOMETHING that makes the Mac experience worthwhile or unique to buyers, they're going to muck around and have a snipe fest over esoteric and passe specs and presentations thereof. I mean what the fuck - this is WIERD! I suspected that the "snail" spot was a foot in the door to an otherwise broader argument for Macs. Nope! They're going to base an entire campeign over a series of geek talk that is otherwise relegated to fine-print in your average computer brochure. You can-not and will-not sell computers to people who don't even know why they should have a computer in the first place. These people will only be interrested in price/performance or more specifically, what the hell they can do with all that price/performance. I've already mentioned that I'm not in love with the Intel Bunny spots as much as the Microsoft spots but at least Intel still shows what you can do with the damn things. In fact, a favorite spot that pops to the top of the memory banks, is the series of Compaq commercials depicting Seinfields "George", aka: Jason Alexander, priming his fake hair and faux apartment background for video conferencing with a romantic interrest. Not only do they show the neat things you can do with tech, they created a micro-situation comedy premise around it that helps to make it stick with the viewer. The tact of the series Apple is indulging in still misses the mark as well. Instead of taking the high ground and focusing on the product, they're still slinging mud like some failed Dole presidential campeign, in true crash and burn fashion. This comes as no surprise, since Chiat Day followed the stinkburger 1984 and Lemmings ads with a series of 30 second spots depicting DOS users taking sledgehammers and chainsaws to their computers in a decidedly Plasmatics approach to marketing. It failed like the aforementioned quasi-punk band did in 1983. The response was flop-ola since viewers objected to the violent imagry rather than even listening to the message, which was only absorbed by the Apple fanbase exclusively. It was on the heels of this trajic excuse in advertising history that Chiat-Day lost the account and it was given to BBDO NY. Well it's deja-vu time as snipe attacks in true retro nostalga. What's next? Taste tests? And for the piece-de-resistance, the technical flubs in the spot itself. For those who haven't seen it - most of you I'm guessing for reasons of bad media purchasing and follow-through - it shows a fireman putting out an Intel bunny guy who was in flames, while stomping out a stubborn fire on his foot - while then dancing off screen after manditory copy is read about "apologizing for toasting the PII and the Byte benchmark - twice as fast bullshit". The technical screw-ups abound. What was done right was the on-screen talent who made the pantomine of a stubborn fire amusing enough. Even the cuts between the fireman and the setup were nice, and the choice of music were all great. This isn't remarkable because when you give Chiat-Day 100 million to work with you get good production value from start to finish. Where it fell apart was with the copy and the voice over talent. The copy again seems to have been micromanaged by Steve Jobs because it comes off as sarcastic and otherwise unlovable - and wholly annoying and forgettable. So much so in fact, that the word that was instrumental to the whole setup - "toast" - flew by so fast that it is otherwise missed an otherwise surreal setup. What you are essentially left with is an amusing deptiction of an Intel Bunny suit guy with no real indication of what the hell is going on. This is due to the fact that the idea of showing the competition is passe - so much so, that Coke a Pepsi don't even bother with contrast nay-say ads anymore. The reason, besides giving the other guy valuable airtime, is you take away focus from your product. It's notable because Apple's product shots and ID only make up less than 5% of the entire spot. If were at a bar or someplace where the sound wasn't in the foreground, you'd probably think it was an intel ad. Sadly enough, that's what I came away with. The bottem line is this - with Steve Jobs running this show, I don't expect Chiat-Day to bring anything new to the table competition bashing-wise. I do hope for Apple's sake that they drop the estoteric geek-specs for actually showing what Macs are good for. Wouldn't that be nice?

March 13

Just a stock note, Apple has actually after nearly a year, gone up to the low 20's in price. Of course, if Greenspan so much as farts on camera the entire market can react in manners unheard of in Wall Street history. But suffice it to say that the clear and present danger of open-public blunders have abated to background radiation levels. But that doesn't mean that the road to doomday is off track - in fact it's quite on a nice tidy MIRV course to re-entry to California. No it's time for the warm-ups to the 2nd quarter, and Apple has been padding the public with enough PR memos to suffocate a CEO's assistant. I mean, get-real. These idiots even put out a PR announcement about their TV commercials. Last company that touted their advertising expeditures was Atari - so let's not go there shall we? No, they're padding the media with warm and fuzzy juice because like Compaq, Intel, and every maker of hardware - note Microsoft's absence in all this - computer companies takes a pounding in the profit department when the 2 calendar yearly quarter comes around. Although in everyone's case other than Apple, it's a matter of splitting hairs between forecasted profit rather than outright losses. Well the time is coming for the SEC filings for Apple and I doubt that any PR avalanche is going to save them from the beating they so richly deserve. Gloating? More like waiting with baited breath.

March 14

More irony from the pro-Mac press. Although I've been compared in hate-mail to Howard Stern, Don Crabb has sunk to levels only reserved for Rush Limbaugh. That fat fuck (bowing to metaphorical inspiration from South Park - hey I'm in Colorado ok?) has actually brought out naysayers who hold the president in piss-poor regard, and actually makes a large fraction of his rant focus on it. Now whether you like or dislike Clinton isn't my point. It's the mere fact that he's got the most popular approval ratings in history around an economic barometer that insures people don't give a fig about his crotch. If you're going to go into executive privlidge bashing, you're not going to score ratings with the public that really doesn't like the media very much these days. Well, Don Crabb ducked logic when he includes quotes like - "much like Bill, in his 1992 campeign where he convinced the US voters the economy was in the toilet, much like the media has convinced the consumers that Apple will fail". What the hell is he eating? I mean you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see, dismal retail presence, lack of software, and a company that is pushing numbers to the SEC that would give an accountant nightmares. The recession was no secret either - I lived through the goddamn thing trying to make a living during 2 quarter salary freezes to the point that I went into contract labor/freelance mode to make up the difference until it blew over. For the record, no American president since the mid 1800's has ever been re-elected in the face of a recession - since Eisenhower, and Bush - while ok on some levels best served by the powers of nostalga rather than present-day analysis - was certainly no Eisenhower. Makes you wonder if Apple will bear up under the scrutiny of history nearly as well as other single-term presidents doesn't it?