[SOC] Re: Can you believe this?

[JMcAulay]

At 11:54 PM 03/30/2002 +1100, Ian C. Purdie wrote, in part:

>The biggest mistake Apple ever made was dumping Steve Jobs, removing open
expandable
>architecture and rigorously pursuing third party vendors, they had it all
and handed it by
>default to IBM and as a consequence Micro$oft - didn't he luck out?

Personally, I do believe Apple's biggest mistake was trying to grow their
market by holding everything close to the vest.  Refusing to license their
architecture for almost ever was and is, to me, unsound.  Every other
computer manufacturer who has ever done that has fallen by the wayside.
Remember Atari?  Commodore?  Eachwas big, each insisted on maintaining
their unique hardware position, and now each is dead.  Even IBM was in
danger of slipping badly in the desktop business until they opened their
architecture to the world.  Since then they've prospered.  It seems to me
that 100% of a small niche market is by no means as profitable as would be
10% of an enormous market.  

A Mac OS costs far less than Windows.  Why?  Well, for one thing, it's that
limited market.  They're only selling the Mac OS for one manufacturer's
'puters nowadays.  Microsoft is selling to just about everyone else in the
world, and everyone pays their price, whether they need to or not.  You
speak later of "brain-dead executives."  How many buy a new OS for their
PCs when MS comes out with a new one, even though the old one is still
doing exactly what they want?  Only millions, that's all.  Talk about
brain-dead!

>*NO*, B.G. didn't invent DOS, he purchased a license at bargain basement
prices from
>Digital Research who had no idea what they had on their hands, neither did
Apple as it
>turns out.

Gates has made so many business decisions bordering on the prescient it is
amazing.  Guy Kawasaki (who used to head Claris -- Apple's software arm)
said in his book about twelve years ago that Microsoft had to be the
software company to watch, because they were the only one offering a total
breadth of software:  operating systems, server software, applications,
blah blah blah... you could get just about anything from MS.  Kawasaki was
also the fellow who said anyone who thought Windows was "just like a Mac"
was the sort of person who could detect the face of Jesus on a potato and
think he had seen the Second Coming.

It would be difficult to convince me that any MS OS has ever been
wonderful, just as it would be totally impossible to convince me that any
MS software at all is not stupendously bloated.  Some of their applications
have been nice from time to time, but every new OS seems to bring in more
problems than it solves.  Intuitive operation?  What a joke.  Any operating
system that requires a user to click on "Start" to implement the shut-down
procedure was stupidly conceived.  Imagine those design discussions:  "Hey,
we've got a great idea.  We'll have 'em click on "Start" to stop the
computer."  "WHAT?"  "Oh, yeah, sure, everybody ought to pick up on that
one in no time!"  Duhhh....  Would you buy server software from a company
whose biggest-selling operating system is renowned for its crashes, and has
been demonstrated to be immune from operating crash-free?  Would you buy a
used car from Bill Gates?

>As I said earlier, only brain dead executives will plump for M$ in server
applications....

Unfortunately, there seems to be a substantial oversupply of brain-dead
executives.

>BTW do you know why it's named "Apache"?

In fact, no.

73
John WA6QPL  SOC 263