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- TheNik, on 10/12/2007, -7/+36In what ways has Linux succeeded to find a mainstream audience?
- Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -9/+25If anything, that suggests to me that Roughly Drafted is more honest and objective than its critics give it credit for.
Diggs for honesty. - QueenOfSwords, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Eh, Apple fans who know their history are not going to be surprised by any of this. The stories of Apple farkups tend to be entertaining, too.
And then we get to say 'Apple would own the personal computer market, if they hadn't done 'X'.' - Mysidia, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17I think the real question should by why is Apple succeeding in recent years?
1. No new version of Windows in years.
2. This thing called the iPod.
3. Mac OS X, more stable. Apple machines faster, not as buggy, as the OS9 based systems.
4. Compares positive to windows. No (significant) virus threat.
5. No (significant) virus threat.
6. Less expensive Apple equipment available nowadays, even Apples; in the past, Apple's machines, even their cheapest decent Aapl computers were much more expensive than PCs.
7. Apples changeover to the Intel based platform = greater compatibility with PC applications. More software available nowadays (consumers have less to give up by choosing Apple, now).
And those are just some of the reasons, I perceive. - invader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+137 of the above replies started with an @
:( too bad those poor digg programmers can't come up with a better comment system with more than one reply level - reiggin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16An analytical look at Apple's historical mistakes?!? Wow, there's a subject that's never been touched before.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Apple was never willing to make the design compromises required to dominate the market. This is part of the charm of Apple. They design computers for a selective niche market and they do it very well. That's why I own a Mac. It's great Grandma can buy a $500 Windows PC that works with her 15 year old version of Word Perfect. Personally I don't want that. Bring on the cutting edge. I'm ready.
- cpawl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Only in the computer business can you call billions of dollars in profit a failure. BMW can sell less cars than Honda and be considered a success.. Pepsi can sell less soda than coke, Burger King can under sell McDonalds and all be considered winners... yet if Apple doesn't match the success of Microspft they have failed. Apple has more success than any other company out there. They have hit walls and bounced back, they have introduced the majority of the technology we take for granted in concept and design. They have single handedly proved that market share is not the only thing that makes a business strong. Yet, every other week, there is some financial yahoo, some PC knucklehead, some one who never understood the success of any thing below corporate standards like and indie film or band or whatever- that tries to gain fame by speaking or blogging about Apple.
I have been using Apple computers exclusely since 1986. Never stopped. Never bought ONE windows machine. I run a business on them, I feed my family because of them, I drive a car, own a house, and have found a career because of a failing computer company. Maybe they are not as popular that I can get one at Walmart with my gandmother for $299.00 but we will survive. - blofeld9999, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Interesting article. Not a lot of spin either way, just a retrospective as to why Apple's decisions failed in the 90s.
I wouldn't call it an anti-Apple article. Nobody is going to deny that Apple had troubling times in the mid 90s. - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -10/+19Oh crap, it's a Roughly Drafted post, brace yourselves as zybch falls off his nut with uncontrollable rage and incoherent rantings...
Note to everyone else: Roughly Drafted is a pro-Apple blog. Haters beware. You have been warned. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Dude, read the article. It's talking about Apple's historic failure. If you'll remember back a decade or so, Apple was on the verge of going out of business.
- Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -15/+24Sir, you are exhibiting selective blindness. The author makes good points, but you're so prejudiced against anything he has to say that you dismiss him outright. Good for you. May your blindness serve you well, and may your arguments be ignored off hand as you ignore his.
- TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14They were too much of a cult in the 90's. They had a great product but never took advantage with advertising it. Now, after some hard work, I think Apple is set back up for the road to world domination!!
- Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14@SPThom:
Can the digg audience be called mainstream? It may be semi-main stream, but it has a disproportionately high presence of FireFox users and Mac users, and likely Linux users as well. It's about as mainstream as Slashdot; enough to put sites under when articles get dugg, but still somewhat nerd-fringe in its population distribution. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12@monkeybuttler:
I admit that RoughlyDrafted has a lot of pro-mac slants to it, but it also has some of the best analysis of Apple I've read anywhere. Apple's story fascinates people because it is almost stranger than fiction, and is studied by business pundits, who consistently mis-interpret what they see. RD goes over all the failed advice and overlooked cause-and-effect. And yes, it fixates on Apple, because it's such a unique company in a unique situation. Dismissing his good analysis as a "*****" engine is to toss out the baby with the bathwater. - cpawl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9From Daring Fireball:
I’ve said it before and will say it again: the interesting “share” number for Apple’s computer business isn’t their share of the total units sold; it’s their share of the total profits in the PC hardware industry. For example, Apple trails Gateway by three-tenths of a percent in U.S. market share, but Gateway reported a loss of nearly $8 million in net income for its most recent quarter. Apple just reported a quarterly net profit of $546 million. Now, sure, a few hundred million of that comes from iPod sales, but whatever Apple’s profit from Mac sales, it’s a lot better than an $8 million loss.
Or look at beloved Dell. Their PC market share is at least five times higher than Apple’s. And their most recent net income? $502 million. Five times the market share, but less profit. And counting Apple’s iPod profits seems fair to me in this comparison, because Dell’s number includes all that money they’re making from those DJs.
And speaking of iPods, consider this: If Apple had listened to similar jackasses who told them to get out of the computer hardware business a decade ago, would they have been able to do the iPod? The iPod isn’t a Mac, but it is a computer, and its initial success was largely based on Apple’s hardware design and manufacturing expertise. - Chairboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Not a single "Netcraft confirms that Apple has failed" crack? Have we forgotten our technology memes already? Next, we'll have a thread on slashdot without grits or Natalie Portman.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@SPThom, since when were servers the "mainstream audience"?
- maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12Daniel has become more careful with his word choices and his content. He faced alot of critism, and i think he's toned down the hype and upped the credible content.
I was a very poignent nay-sayer, but it's gotten alot better. - QueenOfSwords, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10No, the Steve still had a lot to learn at that point. It was far from a stupid move. It's made him a better iCEO. He's even said as much.
- AceFury, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Watch the Grandma remarks little dude. I'm a Great Grandfather who uses a Mac to run CS2 and his two scanners plus three ink jets printers. Know at least seven friends over sixty who own Macs. Brought my first one in 1985, 128k, still have it. PCs are for kids, Macs are for adults. Guess i must be a fanoldfart.
- aleahey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"Apple would own the personal computer market, if they hadn't done OS *-9"
Similarly.
"Apple would own the personal computer market if they had released OS X in 1984" - danieleran, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6He's just bitter because he wasn't able to create enough fake accounts to bury this article, as he promised in a posting on my last article:
http://digg.com/users/lakawak
"Now I know to bury EVERY submission you make, and to post your ID to the newsgroup of Digg vigilantes so that they will bury you too. With multiple accounts each."
Will be interesing to see how many fraud accounts digg his thing tho. - krouskop, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@lakawak
Marketing. Right...
Have you used an iPod? Have you used a competitor's MP3 player? The iPod and the entire experience supporting it (iTunes, etc) is so much better designed it's ridiculous.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/design/1stDraft/02.html - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10or monkeybutler?
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That's a myth. Apple's had thousands of engineers since the Apple II brought them into the Fortune 500, and they've never had even a hundred lawyers.
-jcr - sweyhrich, on 10/12/2007, -10/+12Continue to enjoy Eran's aticles about Apple and the PC industry!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+111. thing called the ipod.
2. thing called the ipod.
3. thing called the ipod.
etc... - mingistech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"This guy is plain wrong. I don't think anyone uses low-end products to lure customers, it's the exact opposite"
i guess you've never seen a Dell commercial... huh. - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Next: why did Ferrari fail? Why couldn't they be more like Ford?
Higher-priced items are always outsold by lower-priced items. That's because more people have less money. It ain't rocket science. - Sixcolors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The sentiment of what he's saying is there, but I think the writer of this article minces words. Companies like Dell use lower end PCs to get people into their market. Once there, people start finding out that they can't do quite as much with their $499 PC as they thought they could. So they buy some RAM, buy some other software, maybe buy some other upgrades (although after looking into my Sister's Dell case, there's not much room for anything other than proprietary hardware.) After a while, the low end becomes less useful and the customer in question begins looking into a new unit - this time maybe one that packs a little more punch. And so on.
- krouskop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Market share is a poor yardstick of success. By more reasonable criteria, like innovation, profitability, or even just staying afloat, Apple is no failure.
- jrls, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I thought that the security by obscurity myth was dead. Counter example: IIS has fewer users than Apache, but more viruses. The OS, based on FreeBSD, was designed to be secure. Windows was not. Just as you can not test quality in, you cannot add security after the fact.
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"After Mike (Zych) wrote me directly this weekend, I offered that he write his own counterpoint to the articles I write, and offered to host his opinions on my site, and contribute on his, and interview him in a podcast but he ignored the offer."
And why would he accept? Reasoned argument requires much more thought and energy than just throwing out the same tired rhetoric we see from countless anti-Apple drones on Digg.
As a Windows (by force) and Mac (by choice) user, I've given up any hope of any intelligent dialog from the Microsoft-subjected masses. I believe they fear if they give the debate any real thought, they'll question their own perceptions and biases. And we couldn't have that now, could we.
Let them wallow in their own ignorance. - windowsrookie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Apple Buying Next was the best decision they ever made. Jobs saved the company.
- thinkdifferent, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@lakawak
If it was due to marketing as you suggest, then why couldn't the established players with far more money beat Apple? Also, if you recall, most of the iPod sales have occurred in the past 2 years. There was a slow rampup in sales since 2001. When the iPod first became PC-compatible, they bundled MusicMatch with it.... it sold, but wasn't that compelling. Everyone wanted the experience that existed on the Mac. Once they released iTunes for Windows, it clicked and everyone wanted one. It was around that time they started heavily marketing the iPod & iTunes to re-inforce it, but it mostly became the success it is from word of mouth & has simply maintained that success thru marketing. - ScottAG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The reason Windows won the size of market share it has was because you could pirate Windows and you can't pirate Macintosh. Let's just see what happens to Vista adoption in light of their new WGA scheme.
- BoathouseMac, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Dan does a great job of research and reporting. Is he always right? Nope. But what's this Dan-as-Boogeyman response to his efforts? What are these people afraid of?
"Corporations offer love to get money. Consumers offer money to get love." - ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I would say its notable because of the marketing dollars used. Apple has spent significantly more on advertising than in its previous history.
Apple products always looked "nicer" than its counterparts. However the ugly truth today is that, Apple has less to compare to the rest of the market as its products aren't necessarily better, or even flashier than some of its competitors. HP is stepping up with new glossy laptops, Fujitsu and Asus have been making some really exotic and pretty stuff for years in the Asian market. China's been producing some really hot Apple clones that are now better in price and functionality. Plus arguably on Woot today I saw an "Apple iTV" for Windows machines on the cheap, $55 shipped!
However we have also seen Apple spend more than $100 million on advertising for the iPod alone, which is over 75% of the advertising dollars used in the entire Mp3 player market!
If anything, Apple has become an important footnote on how to market and advertise a product. Apple is likable as underdogs, formerly the dominator's, rising up again.
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5What's a monkeybutler?
Oops, never mind. Looks like he's someone I blocked a while back.
-jcr - danieleran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sixcolors,
The commonly held idea the article refutes is that Apple was always in trouble because it didn't have market share. It takes some substantiation to disprove a commonly held idea. I don't just state my opinion (because really, my opinions don't matter much), but rather try to explain a novel take on things in a convincing way.
Some people find it interesting to look at things differently; the minority who try to bury my stuff are threatened by different ideas, because it forces them to rethink their little world.
Smart people like to rethink things; simple people find challenging new ideas threatening. Nobody has to agree with everything I say, but dismissing it without considering it, or without being able to offer an alternative viewpoint, is the mark of a truely simple person.
I welcome other people's viewpoints, and I like it when people can challenge my ideas constructively. People who disregard an entire arguement to shout, "NO IT WAS JUST LIKE THIS: ... LOLWTFBBQ. MARKED X INACCURATE BECAUSE I DON'T AZGREEOR" belong in a basement with products from Microsoft. - Flanker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2AlexaW is the new albk
- node3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Apple was *never* on the verge of going out of business. They weren't always doing that well, but never where things that bad for the company itself. At worst, they were on a heading towards being on the verge. For "on the verge" study the downfalls of Commodore or SGI.
- rtini, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There is no reason not to go with a Mac these days. The price difference is negligible if you compare specs, they use the same underlying hardware, they look better, they work better. They have better integration of hardware and software. You can run Windows, Mac OS X or Linux on them, at the same time if you like. I dual-boot into Vista RC2 on my MacBook Pro, just for kicks - Vista is very cute looking but clunky as Windows ever was, in spite of the heaps of obvious Mac OS X imitation. No viruses or spyware in Mac OS X. It's even easier to see why Mac is succeeding today than why Apple almost died not so long ago.
- Eddy3oy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Anyways, daniel is right, market share doesn't matter."
-yeah, try telling that to anyone trying to enter the mp3 player market. (Zune notwithstanding) - danieleran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Dweller,
you have yet to actually challenge anything I've written with facts. Stating your opinion is fine, but that doesn't overturn any facts. Until you can actually refute something, you can't ask for a retraction.
You cry above about the "Time Machine Myth" and volume shadow copy, and Zybch weeps about my figuring in the $11 billion Windows anti-virus/malware industry into the actual cost of ownership of Windows compared to a platform that isn't completely in shambles because of horrific security and adware problems, but neither of you ever actaully refuted anything.
Unsubstantiated complaints are not the same as factual rebutting a line of reasoning presented with facts.
After Mike (Zych) wrote me directly this weekend, I offered that he write his own counterpoint to the articles I write, and offered to host his opinions on my site, and contribute on his, and interview him in a podcast but he ignored the offer.
Neither of you are interested in refuting anything. You just throw up a crapstorm to try to discredit someone who presents ideas you find threatening.
That puts you in the same bitter ballpark as Ann Coulter. I pitty your small minded ignorance. - diggtomanjeri, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I never understood the obsession with Apple's "market share". Market Share isn't important to a companies success, growth and profit are. An example: BMW. They have something like a 5% market share of cars on the road but when was the last time there was incessant whining they were going under or their market share wasn't enough?
- Sixcolors, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm wondering how much market share they would have if you only compared sales of higher priced units from other companies to theirs.
- Sixcolors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Customers are people, consumers are numbers.
- Sixcolors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's in the next article, as you can see at the bottom of the page where it says something like, "Coming up next: Why Apple Bounced Back".
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