tundraboy's Profile

Fermat's last theorem was proved by Andrew Wiles around 1995 and he did not use a ton of computer time nor a Power Point presentation. He mostly used pen, paper and black (or white) board. The theorem that was famously proved using a computer is the Four Colour Theorem and it was solved in 1976.

I thought about it some more. Apple is building a server farm and they sell computers and mobile devices. So they have the two ends of the cloud computing model. I've always said cloud computing will not really take off until the bandwidth problem is solved. There are two components to that problem, one is technological --simple throwput. Cloud computing requires the ability to move lots of data. The other one is structural --the bandwidth providers have the Googles, Apples, and Netflixes of the world at their mercy. So, I think Jobs is piling up the cash because sometime down the road he expects he will need to free Apple from the threat of being held hostage by the likes of Comcast and Time Warner. And the only way to do that is to own your own pipes. Either by acquiring Comcast or Time Warner or by building your own. The wild card is the state of wireless technology. If wireless throwput and reliability reaches the point where it can replace wired internet transmission, then for Apple building its own wires just got cheaper. I look forward to a time when I only need one ISP for both mobil and desktop needs. That's probably the nightmare scenario for the cable & DSL providers.

So are you saying that there is no company that Apple could acquire to its (Apple's) benefit? You might be right. Though one wonders might there be some totally unrelated moribund industry where an application of the "Apple Way" can completely revolutionize things? Automobiles? Airlines? Department stores? Just shooting the breeze.

Apple does not have a monopolistic position in the smart phone market. Any argument that flows from that false premise is dead on arrival. To exercise monopolistic behavior you have to first be a monopolist. And no, there is no such thing as an iPhone monopoly. Or a Coca-Cola monopoly. Or even a Windows 7 monopoly. Apple's position in the smart phone market is that of 'most desirable product' and there are no antitrust hypotheses, theories, or statutes that make being in that position a basis for regulation or population. Otherwise we would be in the position of punishing companies for selling great product. Sheesh.

This "openness killed the Mac" line has been tossed around for so long now that people have come to accept it as gospel truth. In truth openness did not kill the Mac. (Okay, stunted really but 'killed' is more dramatic.) Two things killed the Mac: One, IBM's overpowering prestige in the corporate world and two, Sculley's greedy, short-sighted decision to sell the Mac at insanely high prices. Bear with me here. Back in 1981, corporate desktop computing was at its infancy, Apple was a young company run by a pair of hippies. There is no freaking way that a Fortune 500 IT purchasing manager was going to recommend Apple II's over the new IBM PC. Just no way. But would anyone here claim that an IT manager picked IBM because the IBM PC was an 'open' machine? Of course not, they picked IBM because it is IBM, the company whose institutional knowledge of business computing dwarfs everyone else's, the company with the rock solid financial footing that will be around to support their products well into the next millenium. So let's throw that 'openness made the IBM PC a winner' canard. Even if IBM kept the PC closed, they would still have dominated corporate desktop computing which then flowed into domination of home computing. Let's move on up to 1984. The Mac comes out. It's a positively revolutionary innovation that made computing a lot easier and more accessible to the non-geek customer. It's still going to be hard to go up against Big Blue, but maybe you have a fighting chance with the snazzy new interface. But what does Sculley do? Insanely high prices for the Mac! Hooray, Tiffany pricing for the "computer for the rest of us"! Instant niche product! The Mac became a runt not because it was 'closed' but because it was overpriced. Not only was it overpriced, it was overpriced when it had no right to be given that the main competitor was Big Blue. So we'll never know if the Mac would have succeeded if it pursued the right pricing strategy but we do know it wasn't closed-ness that killed it. Now, let's think about openness some more. Aside from desktop (and laptop) computing, in the history of modern commerce, has there ever been any other successful technologically complex, mass consumption product that pursued an open strategy? Cars? Radios? TVs? Game consoles? MP3 players? Let's go a little lower tech. Fridges? Toasters? Dishwashers? None! There was a role for openness in PCs though. Openness allowed Microsoft to wrest control of the industry from IBM. Openness made it possible for Microsoft to cultivate the PC clone market which turned IBM into just another hardware manufacturer thus forcing them to relinquish control of the industry to Microsoft. So let's put this openness-is-the-best-strategy myth once and for all. And if anyone still stubbornly believes in it, I give you desktop Linux.

You mean that guy who sacrificed long term growth for the sake of short term profits by saddling the Mac with insanely high prices that assured niche status for a revolutionary product?

'Over-teched'. Seeking your permission to use that phrase in the future, Mr. Seibold. I've been searching for a word that conveys exactly what 'over-teched' (shades of 'over-sexed') suggests. Capital word smithing old chap!