Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 14:35:08 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Bzdik BSD <bzdik@yahoo.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: [Apple]RE: Mundie, Perens, GPL, BSD etc again Message-ID: <p05100300b750fc065f21@[194.78.241.123]> In-Reply-To: <20010616080451.84356.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20010616080451.84356.qmail@web13609.mail.yahoo.com>
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At 1:04 AM -0700 6/16/01, Bzdik BSD wrote: > Any numbers to illustrate this? How about installed base growth? The only numbers I recall having seen were quoted by Steve Jobs during his WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) keynote speech in May of 2000. From <http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2000/05/wwdc_keynote/part1.html>: iMac at age 2 "Now, I want to focus in on the iMac because this month two years ago we introduced the iMac. Shipped it in August of that year. But the iMac is two years old, publicly, this month. And in that two years we've shipped almost three and a half million iMacs to customers around the world. And what boggles my mind is in two years there's still no credible competition for this. "There's still not a desktop computer without a fan in it that doesn't make a bunch of noise. There's still not one with a super crisp display. Or FireWire built in. Or slot load DVD drives. Or super great audio built in. There's nothing like it. And there's nothing that you don't want to hide when company comes over." So far as I can tell, these statements are as true today as they were then. Now, for the numbers: Who's buying iMacs? According to the research, says Jobs, 28% of iMac customers are first time buyers (meaning that they've never owned a computer before), and Wintel switchers account for another 17% - a total of 45% new customers. Jobs noted that 88% of iMac customers were on the Internet (two thirds of them getting there the first day), and that 65% have already purchased something online. Interestingly enough, 61% had said they did not consider anything else before buying an iMac. Sounds pretty convincing to me. > Bottom line: ...it's the bottom line... since 1996 a company can donate > a computer to a school district in USA and write the whole price off > within the first 2 years. That's when the Apple started to agonise - > schools are lost. Where I am at it's HP flooding local schools and > libraries with computers, not Apple. The only reason Apple would be hurt by this is that most Apple computers are useful for far more than just two years. Most places hang on to them much longer than that. For those that don't, there is such a strong market in used Apple computers that it doesn't make sense to try to take them as a tax write off. If you don't believe me about the strong resale market, just take a look on eBay at what two year old computers are selling for -- pretty close to what you could buy a new machine for that is a lot faster, has more RAM, and a much faster and larger hard drive. Contrariwise, most companies seem to consider PCs totally worthless after two years, so they *NEED* to be able to take the tax write off on them. Sounds to me like this might be yet another example of the Microsoft/Intel hegemony flexing their corporate monopoly muscle to get laws passed that benefit only them. > I still like the Mac OS Classic as it's called now the most and Mac OS > X is the most beautiful Unix in history with a potential to make Unix a > consumers' OS. But this potential will be annihilated by the 'wisdom' > of Stevie and his sucker-uppers. Care to explain this one? > Besides, Mac OS X is far from being as > functionally transparent as Classic. Pity for all bright engineers at > Apple: Stevie conceived it and he will bury it. The jury is still out on MacOS X. It's got a ways to go before I'm willing to use it, and I've been waiting for something like this for seventeen years. Unless you've been both a MacFanatic *and* a Unix advocate for that period of time, I'm not entirely sure that you're really qualified to make this kind of statement. > Only a small percentage of consumers aimes for the best, most take the > best price, just go to Costco. You can tell them all you want about > advantages in the long run - TCO, no need for tech support and stupid > VB programmers, much higher productivity, longer use cycle, etc. Sure, the "disposable everything" culture. We've all heard about it. Strange thing is, there are enough intelligent companies (and individual people) out there who will take a look at the whole picture that Apple doesn't really need to concern itself too much. They're still a world apart, and seem to be weathering the economic downturn far better than any other PC manufacturer I know: Apple was upgraded by Sanford Bernstein's Vadim Zlotnikov today. Mr. Zlotnikov cites Apple's strong notebook sales and strong PowerBook G4 sales as the catalyst to his upgraded earnings forecast. From TheStreet.com: "Recent channel surveys indicate strong initial iBook sales and continued success of Power Book, consistent with overall strength in notebooks. Notebooks should drive 60% of Apple's sequential revenue growth," Zlotnikov wrote. There are plenty of people out there who are willing to spend a little extra money to get a quality car (such as a BMW). You don't see anyone talking about them going out of business, do you? So why are you so egotistically, ecstatically, mono-maniacally driven to spread even more Microsoft-brand FUD around? Can't we just get along? -- Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> /* efdtt.c Author: Charles M. 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