Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

May 03

If you really want to get next to the meat, you really have to get down to the bone. And you don't get any closer to the bones than the people digging up dirt in your own backyard. In this case the one's doing the digging is the LA Times which had this quotable quote ala Charles Pillar "The biggest reason Apple is finally making money, is that the company is shrinking faster than it's dwindling marketshare". Again aside from finding my own conclusions in print and paid-for-one-of-those form, it's refreshing to see more people waking up to the obvious. The only way Apple will be able to struggle longer than necessary for a terminally ill company is in shirking more limbs than the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Well if blood letting is a cure, then ask George Washington on his deathbed and he may beg to differ. The fact is, that Apple for nearly half a decade has been running on margins slimmer than a knife. And once you've shed more than your fair share of flesh, someone is going to feel the pain. In this case, it's the oft delayed projects like making Rhapsody a perpetual-beta product, and any hope for a low-cost or at least under 1 grand Mac OS box for the masses. Or at least the choir of remaining users. With all the cutbacks, I can safely say that I've upgraded the reason for NOT recommending an Apple OS box as a "buy" just for the loathsome tech support, as well as the hidious warranties. I mean come on - if you can't insure something I'm going to spend 4 figures on at LEAST point me in the direction of someone who can. In the case of the Thinkpad that I'm hammering away on now - in the same bar that deep-sixed it weeks ago - I can say that I not only liked the instant 1800 no-wait service that got it in and out of the shop within a week - but I liked the fact that the company that backs it for 3 years (for 50 bucks) was included in the packaging. What are you going to do when your Apple monitor fails? Don't ask me, cuz I don't know. And in spite of me quoting John Llydon - I stand by the fact that Apple is no longer capable of supporting even it's existing user base - let alone one that might turn around it's nosediving marketshare. The point is - with cutbacks in service and support as well as basic R&D you're not going to.

May 04
Where there's irony, the Apple Doomsday Clock is soon to follow. Just when the first soundbite left the LA Times' lips in print, you find another that is not only mentionable, but ironic to the core. And in this case it's in regards to the perceived user backlash from the Mac community about Intuit abandoning the Mac. Quote - "They've not exactly been lighting up the corporate switchboards". Well la-te-da! You know, the last time I heard crap of this magnitude - it was when NeXT and NeXTworld Magazine implored it's impassioned user base of desktop publishing software to rise up in arms and write Quark about it's rationale of not porting it's software to NeXT in leau of political and financial fallouts between the two firms. In this case, the platform that was the best for Desktop Publishing ever, fell short of the mark as long as Quark XPress existed for the Mac. Quark on the other hand, was concerned how much demand there was for their product in the first place to bother porting it at all. Well the numbers were disclosed in "Steve Jobs and the NeXT big thing" as not even breaking out of the number 10 mark for the letters that were tallied up from this little pre-email spam campeign. Even worse, Jobs refused to believe that this was the obivous case - that no one was actually using his computer, let alone gave a fig about publishing - and that there was some ground out there to be swelled in his favor. Well, there wasn't. And in the obvious case for Quicken for Mac there aren't many people interrested either - about as many people as use Macs in the first place. The funny thing is, with the head of Intuit being on the Apple board of directors, I'm sure Steve will make good on his promise to make him flip-flop on his decision to do the obvious when the numbers are against Intuit from doing anything rational other than sticking to it's guns. With Steve, anything is possible if he's within distance of a bullet. And with the head of Intuit, it's got his named etched all over it. And so the body count will surely rise with Apple - as the gang bang continues.

May 05

If there's anything worth risking - is something that's worth repeating. In this case it's musings about how long it will take for Apple to die and how it compares to the same mistakes Atari made when it transfered from an Atari/Warner one of those - to a Atari/Trammel one of those. Mind you, the parallels between the two have been drawn up in the past by other writers - even those in the download section. But what I want to focus on are those regarding how each kept it's imintent demise to itself for the longest run possible - and how. In the case of Atari, it was a company that bascially went into "Home Shopping Mode" and sold off the surplus of a multi-billion dollar enterprise, that didn't end up in the secret landfills, into the public's hands on a skeleton staff that was devoted to filling retail sales - not supporting the consumer. With the exception of 30% of the Atari ST line, and the Jaguar effort, nothing that Atari brought to the table was invented by Atari. Instead they took a failing enterprise from a shallow slope twords ground zero - into a long glide to ground zero. It took the video game equation to tip the hand since Nintendo, Sega and - now - Sony are all throwing massive funds at complex equations to make the books for their respective slice of the market. Atari didn't even have close to critical mass to endure, and lost most of it's remaining equity even trying. Now we have Apple. A company that has shed itself from an 11 billion dollar a year enterprise circa 1995 down to a 6 billion dollars a year endevour today. Here's the problem - within the last 3 years, Apple has barely been able to scrape a profit from it's market - and with billion dollar quarters flagging from sight, it's going to be interresting how much overhead Apple can continue to shed in light of a marketshare that is dwindling faster than it can keep up. With 1 billion translating into 50 million either side of the coin - you don't have to be an economic consultant to figure out what Apple's playing at. It's playing a game of "marginal roulette" where the survival factor depends on how many pounds of people and support Apple has sent to the free winds vs what their competitors are doing - which is - having a great time with expanding market share. If there's no other reason to justify why the the hell I waste 2 hours a week on this site - it's because of this one constant which makes Apple - just another Atari. A long death, but a death none-the-less.

May 06

Well the masses of Mac asses are going crazy 8 bonkers for the imac - or the still to be realized release of Apple's Artemis project - the all in one Mac design that brings a lower price to the table. A table that still has it's foundation firmly rooted in the educational marketplace even though it's beening weakly offered to the consumer market. The computer with it's G3, it's 32 megs of ram, it's 4 gig floppy, infared port, USB design replacing the aging ABD bus, the integrated 33.x baud modem, stereo speakers, 24x CDROM, ethernet, and integrated 15 inch color monitor is interresting. What's even MORE interresting is it's industrial design and the lack of a SCSI port and floppy drive. This is obviously an escapee from the eductational marketing plan, since most home users - one would "think" - would like to take material from work to the home. But with any off-the-shelf scheme for making a floppy disk work or Zip, or Syquest or anything removable to get data OFF the damn thing - this is going to be quite the poser for newbie and non-newbie alike. I personally can't wait for the obvious questions popping up across homes throughout America "honey?, where's the floppy disk drive on this thing? I need to take my spreadsheet files back to the office". I can't even wait to see the return rate that will accompany the answers to the aformentioned question. The reason it lacks a floppy is because it's geared to schools that have servers and the like that will facilitate getting work off the damn thing. Problem is, not many home users have in home networks tied into servers - and won't be pleased. I mean this is fucking bizzare. Of course it's possible to bridge the floppy gap with USB add-ons perhaps, but it's either going to be (a) more expensive to buy these niche solutions - or (b) it will take time for them to hit the market. Don't expect ZIP to be leaping to the USB bandwagon anytime soon. Now, some of the MacJihad have wondered just how big a deal a floppy is. Well, I know you can't install Quark XPress without one - since the floppy acts as a key - amongst other operations. Now sure, you could futher argue that a 1 grand layout package is not geared for a 15 inch monitor consumer market, but then neither is Photoshop which carries the same price points. So for every G3 pundit that goes ga-ga over time trials with their favorite poster-boy app - I'd just have to say, if you're going to write-off Quark XPress and other high-end publishing apps, then shut the fuck up about how much faster Photoshop is in a few lab functions since it's the same goddamn price. The rest of the market has plenty of floppys waiting for some non-disclosed solution to bridge this problem for the "home market". I mean come-on. This thing is so damn educational driven that practically every all in one design is pretty much socked out just for them - since the education market is the only people left who would limit their expandibility as well as stand-alone versitility. Compaq and Apple have played with all in one designs. To little effect. Most people who buy Wintel PC's - ergo ALL of us - do so because of the flexability of tooling a box the way we want it, with the screen we want, with the output options we want. Being locked down to the fashion whims of Steve Jobs hasn't been much a sucess curve in Apple's history - with most sales only getting good when they debuted the Mac II - go fig. Speaking of fashion - while I could be polite and call the look of the case and the design "interresting" - it makes me wonder why the hell Swatch hasn't tried selling anything for more than 1000 dollars. Truth is, they haven't and Apple's day-glo design puts the same "toy" image right back to the limelight. While I could cast the same concerns aside - it's doubtful the rest of the market will do the same. Lastly, comes the price for this educational product with recent consumer cross-overtones. $1300.00. With more complete (with floppies even!) Wintel solutions poised to drop futher below the 1000 dollar mark, It's very easy to say that this is too little-too late-for too much frigging money lacking the features that essentailly cripples itself outside of what Apple really wants to sell - which is the 2 grand and up babies. But through all the retro design and market positioning that infests the imac - you have to love the fact that the same retro-style Apple greed is alive and well. I'm just waiting for white-disco suits and gold medallions to become on-stage attire during Steve's next expo appearence. It would only round out the package at this point.

May 07

The thing that continues to blow my mind with the imac's features and lacking features, is how this is such a NeXT-job from start to finish - only this time the time table from the past is condenced into a mere 3 months. Ok, take something from the lab benches for the educational crowd. Hobble it with output features that makes it only good for the network crowd like a mutant high-priced NC. Then position it for consumers while making an obvious pitty-play for schools by announcing vaporware (they are now claiming that the features aren't done yet) a whole 3 months before it will actually be proposed for sale. Why? Because schools need to order them now - not when they open their doors. So what do you do? Rollback your announcement date ages in advance and hope they take the bait. Some fucking great consumer focus there - oh yah! Of course this is nothing new or noteworthy to a NeXT vet since they disclosed prototypes with NeXT logos on them anywhere from 3 months to a year before the damn boxes even were available for sale. Looks like were FINALLY seeing what Steve Jobs' hath wrought - in leu of Gil's policy of not announcing anything that was actually available. Lord knows, if they actually do massage the featureset and the price too much between now and then - you're basically looking at retro-Apple bait-and-switch. Peekaboo! We have a great new computer! Can we touch it? Noooo. Can we buy it yet? Noooooo. And can we take work from the home to office - hell no! Will the public actually buy into this crap as the new generation of under 1000 dollar Wintel full-featured PC's come out? Take a guess.

May 08

The other retro NeXT stance is the obvious combination of using an educational product without a floppy and throwing it into the university populace like so much shit, and seeing if it will stick to the walls. Well in 1989, it didn't - and in 1998 it won't again. Naturally there's going to be some scramble to revamp the offereing when it tanks - and perhaps they'll have better luck in making a unit that sells for nearly 1500 after taxes - move into the consumer marketplace. It's possible - but with educators leaving Apple in droves - the price point still makes it a moot one of those. Educational buyers even when Macs were selling for 2 grand, were getting Mac 128K's, and selling them to students for 1 grand. This isn't just a new market that Wintel has finally breached in spades - this is the magic price point that the 1983-4 university consortium used to it's advantage to seed the future for the consumer populace. NeXT tried to do it again by selling something for 6 grand, 10 grand loaded to students - and failed totally. Sorry, I wasn't wealthy as a student - and most students aren't faring much better today. Why in the hell would these users in a Wintel dominated campus choose a divergent OS model that is priced higher than the first all-in-one mac was priced? The tranlucent aqua-marine case? How about the hope that they can save their work and go to the nearest kinkos or lab and print out on the laser printer there papers? Getting the picture? What's amazing is that while I'm focussing on the floppy plenty - only two other sites MacOSrumors, and Mackido, have even noticed this poigniant shotcomming which may be it's biggest achilies heel outside of the usual reasons that school kids are running away from the Mac in droves. With a 40% slide in educatonal numbers to back this up - it's a ponderence that Apple would bother to bolster it's pricier machines with a dumbed-down version that only comes second to the PCjr in hobbled features to preserve the higher price margins on the usual run of the mill. Well, it didn't work for IBM then, and in light of old Time articles that coined it as IBM's first edisel - you're basically looking at Apple's NeXT Tucker.

May 09

What's truely scary in all this is how the columnists and the pop-press are taking all this in. Granted when Steve Jobs' pressured the Intuit bozo to flip-flop on his decision to stop loosing money on his products long enough to take Apple's money to continue developing Quicken for the Mac, I figured the reality-distortion field was alive and well. Problem is - it's spreading like a virus again. In this case Don Crabb has gone bozo nuts for the spec list and rumors that Intel is quaking in it's boots and some such nonsence. Well considering that he failed to notice the missing features, like SCSI, expandiblity, and a floppy, it's obvious that he must have been present at the roll-out and gotten sucked into la-la land. Funny how other sites that didn't get subjected to Steve's magical talents are finding the shortcommings in short order. In fact, I suppose that Mac the Knife missed some Steve shit along the way - since he pointed out that Rhapsody is now being targeted NOT as a competitor to Windows NT. Oooookaaay? What the hell did they spend 400 billion dollars on for? It's not like NeXTstep is actually user-friendly or anything compared to what the MacOS newbies are used to - trust me I owned a damn NeXT - learn Unix or lump it. A bunch of NeXT employees, Steve Jobs and a few hundred million dollar of debt to Ross Perot which amounted to a 700 million dollar quartly loss for Apple? I guess that combined with forcing Gil out was worth it somehow. Just keep this in mind when Apple's liquidating it's assets from Steve retro carnage trail.