{"id":561,"date":"2006-10-16T17:42:35","date_gmt":"2006-10-17T01:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/10\/16\/tech-world\/"},"modified":"2006-10-16T17:42:35","modified_gmt":"2006-10-17T01:42:35","slug":"tech-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/10\/16\/tech-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Students are Mac-in’ it<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s a juggernaut.\u00c2\u00a0 For those choosing not to link through to the above story, FORTY FIVE PERCENT OF COMPUTERS PURCHASED AT PRINCETON THIS YEAR WERE MACS!!\u00c2\u00a0 Apple’s market share appears de minimis because the typical corporation purchases a ZILLION computers, whereas the average household has only one, certainly no more than there are people in residence.<\/p>\n

For those believing Apple’s switch to Intel would be the death of the company, it is now clear that the opposite is taking place, this is the final piece of the puzzle.\u00c2\u00a0 Now purchasers can be assured they’re not shut out, that they can buy Apple and STILL use Windows, whether it be via Boot Camp or Parallels.\u00c2\u00a0 And, once someone is turned on to the Mac OS, they never seem to use the Windows OS anyway.<\/p>\n

Point of all this?\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re in the business of appealing to consumers and you’re not putting Macs in the equation, you’re leaving out an ever-growing piece of the pie.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV made its site Mac savvy, but Yahoo still doesn’t allow streaming of videos on Macs.\u00c2\u00a0 Illustrating that once again Terry Semel has his eye on the wrong party.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than focusing on corporate partners, one must focus on CONSUMERS!\u00c2\u00a0 iTunes and YouTube have driven a wedge in corporate America.\u00c2\u00a0 Many content owners now realize it’s time to PLAY!\u00c2\u00a0 The days of stonewalling Napster appear to be dying.<\/p>\n

As for iPods…\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s not be myopic.\u00c2\u00a0 Although the iPod has almost an eighty percent share in the U.S., it isn’t doing this well in the rest of the world, especially Asia.\u00c2\u00a0 You must be global.\u00c2\u00a0 And to be global in the music sphere, you must speak phone.\u00c2\u00a0 People may not be buying tracks on their handsets here, but they are in Asia.\u00c2\u00a0 Apple is entering this sphere soon, but will they dominate?\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when you must placate the providers?<\/p>\n

Microsoft<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vista plays games SLOWER!\u00c2\u00a0 So, if you’re looking to a new OS for gaming, FORGET IT!<\/p>\n

In an era where Google now provides word processing, is the action in the Windows OS?<\/p>\n

What Microsoft does best is bully.\u00c2\u00a0 But bullying won’t get the hearts and souls of consumers, who are ALL tech-savvy these days.<\/p>\n

Microsoft has heinous licensing rules <\/p>\n

\n

Microsoft limits Vista transfers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Regarding both OS and Office, which is incredibly profitable in itself.\u00c2\u00a0 But as alternatives appear, the Redmond company’s dominance will evaporate.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Slowly, but then with alacrity.\u00c2\u00a0 If for no other reason than the OS won’t be where it’s at.<\/p>\n

As for the Zune<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

All you have to say is BROWN!\u00c2\u00a0 What did Frank Zappa say, BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT?<\/p>\n

It’s a Toshiba Gigabeat.\u00c2\u00a0 The Wi-Fi eats battery power.\u00c2\u00a0 The transfers between users take forever and how many people have Zunes ANYWAY?<\/p>\n

Zune will take market share from other Windows-centric\/iPod competitors.\u00c2\u00a0 It will not hurt the iPod in any significant way.<\/p>\n

Sony<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marginalized.<\/p>\n

The PS3 is delayed ad infinitum, and its cost is exorbitant.\u00c2\u00a0 The laptop battery recall is black eye, but its new MP3 players demonstrate the true insanity\/inanity of this company.\u00c2\u00a0 The big feature?\u00c2\u00a0 You can load directly from DISC!\u00c2\u00a0 In an era where Tower Records goes out of business, is it really ABOUT the disc?\u00c2\u00a0 Is there anybody purchasing an MP3 player who DOESN’T own a computer?\u00c2\u00a0 This is like the backward compatibility of Philips’ digital cassette.\u00c2\u00a0 Who wanted to play analog cassettes after they had digital?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t think practical in the lab, think hip, where electronics are cheap and people get new cell phones every two years at the LATEST!\u00c2\u00a0 FURTHERMORE, only Sony could try to compete with Apple by offering LESS!\u00c2\u00a0 The two gig iPod costs $149 and for $169 you get a ONE gig Walkman.\u00c2\u00a0 The two gig Walkman costs the same as a FOUR gig iPod, $199.\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, in price-conscious America, never mind the rest of the world, which one are YOU gonna buy?<\/p>\n

Real\/Rhapsody<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fighting for its life.\u00c2\u00a0 SanDisk has a dedicated player.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d be stunned if Real\/Rhapsody’s solution isn’t better than Microsoft’s.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Then again, Microsoft has the marketing dollars.<\/p>\n

Yes, Real\/Rhapsody was there first.\u00c2\u00a0 But so was XM, suddenly being trounced in new signups by Sirius.<\/p>\n

If there’s any justice, Real\/Rhapsody will win.<\/p>\n

Napster<\/strong><\/p>\n

Going out of business.\u00c2\u00a0 Hope you’ve got the right date in the dead pool.\u00c2\u00a0 At least SOMEBODY will make money on the company.<\/p>\n

(It may be sold at a pittance as opposed to closing its doors.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Loudeye.)<\/p>\n

Dell<\/strong><\/p>\n

The days of dominance are over.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?\u00c2\u00a0 SHITTY SERVICE!<\/p>\n

Treat your customers like shit, and they’ll abandon you.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the company’s competitors have figured out how to match Round Rock’s efficiencies, and STUNNINGLY, now that PCs are commodities, people prefer the instant gratification of purchasing at a RETAIL STORE!<\/p>\n

HP<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Apple, ignore the legal brouhaha.\u00c2\u00a0 Apple’s options fiasco will have about as much negative effect on its operations as HP’s spying fiasco.\u00c2\u00a0 Both companies have stellar management.\u00c2\u00a0 Apple dominates with cutting edge products.\u00c2\u00a0 HP has succeeded via an internal reorg.\u00c2\u00a0 If your people are competing against each other, you can’t win…just like in the RECORD BUSINESS!<\/p>\n

Google<\/strong><\/p>\n

It just works.<\/p>\n

Stunningly, its video service didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Was that because it was headed up by a Hollywoodite instead of a Silicon Valleyite?\u00c2\u00a0 Interesting.\u00c2\u00a0 If she’d had it together\/was competent, they could have saved themselves $1.6 billion.<\/p>\n

Google’s not going into the record business.\u00c2\u00a0 Google is not about OWNING content, it’s about SERVING IT UP!\u00c2\u00a0 The whole Net is about distribution, but the content owners somehow believe content is king.\u00c2\u00a0 Would there have been dominant viral videos if MAINSTREAM CONTENT HAD BEEN LICENSED\/AVAILABLE?\u00c2\u00a0 As for people coming out of the woodwork and dominating…how much money do you think the Album Cover Wars<\/a> people have made?\u00c2\u00a0 About as much as LonelyGirl16’s producer pocketed.\u00c2\u00a0 NADA!\u00c2\u00a0 They just want to play in YOUR world, the mainstream world, these are AUDITION tapes.<\/p>\n

The old players can dominate only if they play by the new rules.\u00c2\u00a0 License EVERYBODY, before alternative content appears on uncontrollable distribution platforms.<\/p>\n

Yes, uncontrollable.\u00c2\u00a0 If only the labels had licensed Napster, there wouldn’t be Limewire\/BitTorrent, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 But no!\u00c2\u00a0 TimeWarner’s merger with AOL?\u00c2\u00a0 No, the biggest tech blunder of the dot com era was the majors’ refusal to license new Net distribution platforms.<\/p>\n

The Disc<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does Google sell anything on a disc?\u00c2\u00a0 No, you just download software to your computer.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is the model, for EVERYBODY except old farts.<\/p>\n

Sure, Starbucks can sell a few titles to aging baby boomers who want to appear hip as they lay down dough for overpriced lattes.\u00c2\u00a0 But don’t forget, Starbucks’ burn bar was a COLOSSAL failure, not to be further pursued.<\/p>\n

It’s a bits and bytes world.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you don’t believe so, just ask anybody under twenty.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask them the last time they purchased a CD.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you can’t even give a kid a CD as a GIFT anymore!<\/p>\n

Pro Tools\/GarageBand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Put the means of production in the hands of the proletariat.\u00c2\u00a0 The expensive record is a dying dinosaur equivalent to the Compaq that trounced IBM by producing cutting edge computers for MORE money being forced to change its business model and ultimately merge with HP by the we don’t overtest but we sell at rock bottom Dell.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t think record production is now cottage industry, then you must not know that many MAJOR LABEL records are cut at home on Pro Tools rigs.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like there’s little call for string players since the advent of the synthesizer, there will be an ever-declining call for high-priced session musicians to perform in multi-track studios renting out for even a hundred bucks an hour, never mind a multiple of that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple Students are Mac-in’ it It’s a juggernaut.\u00c2\u00a0 For those choosing not to link through to the above story, FORTY FIVE PERCENT OF COMPUTERS PURCHASED AT PRINCETON THIS YEAR WERE MACS!!\u00c2\u00a0 Apple’s market share appears de minimis because the typical corporation purchases a ZILLION computers, whereas the average household has only one, certainly no more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-online","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-93","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}