Replies

Whoa! For an exalted network guru, you sure know very little about sizing images for the Internet. . . These are huge! I'm not using my 27" iMac right now! Try using width = "500" or so after the URL and before the right caret character. Cut those babies down to a reasonable size.

I'm not the one who whines, wow, 21% represents other PC manufacturers and they are very nefarious, by using the word, 'other'. To tell you the truth I really don't care about these kind of nits and I really don't care about your frothy opinion. Man, they need a new DSM just for you.

Ok you got your obligatory insults in. How about trying to NOT use them ? Make a conscious effort, Lx.

You're whining now. You're demonstrating you still have no comprehension with your very first sentence: " Apple kicking six other manufacturers' butts, here's a hint, who was it dishonest against?"

I don't know. Who? You? That huge computer maker Other? Microsoft? The tooth fairy? Sasquatch? Tell us.

Did you bother to read the critique or just skip over it? You are still claiming there SIX competitors opposite Apple? Counting skills are important in life. Most of us learned them in pre-school. I learned them from my mother and father when I was two. Let me make it simple for you.

Dell—one.
HP—two.
Lenovo—three.
ASUS—four.
Acer—five.
Other—an unknown number that is NOT six.

Lx, where do you dishonestly, and nefariously get only six competitors from that? Are your analysis skills so lacking? Did you sleep through math, logic, and statistics classes? It seems as if you did. I cannot believe that so I must conclude you are attempting to deliberately obfuscate the data, the facts, for other readers. That fits your behavior better, I think.

Or do you seriously want people to think you believe there is a monolithic unknown company called Other? FIVE named competitors and an unspecified number of other competitors. Lx, how many competitors are there in "Other?" Since these are PC makers/assemblers with a profit share less than 1% each, there mathematically have to be at least 2, which would make it Apple against at least 26 competitors. But industry experts report there are thousand of PC makers in this group.

Do you really think the author can put every one of the thousands of maker/assemblers of PCs with a profit share below 1% on that pie chart in a wedge and give them a label of their own? ROTFLMAO! Again.

Lx, let me educate you. In statistics, it is standard practice to congregate insignificant participants in an industry, population, sample, etc., under the title of "Other" when there is no significant data gleanable from breaking the data down any further. There is no purpose or probative value to do so. A profit share of under 1% is a reasonable share to arbitrarily designate as insignificant in this case. Most of these small companies' wedges would be less than a second of arc, probably not even a pixel width, on such a display. They are minor players, coming in and out of the market. . . noise and chaff. . . significant only as a group. Ergo, they were displayed as a group wedge.

Would you have preferred another label for that wedge? What? Please enlighten us. What would be less. . . "Nefarious?” Less "dishonest?" I, for one, would really love to know what would be a better label than the accepted standard. Please, make a suggestion. Future statisticians are waiting with bated breath for a better terminology.

You then post a flurry of product shipment and data financial charts from the same period essentially proving what I showed with one, where I explained its meaning in detail. I was once told by one of my economics professors, when a student doesn't understand a topic, he plasters his report with too many graphs, without any explanations of WHY they're included. You just did that. LOL! W.C. Fields said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh!t." You are attempting the bafflement, because the brilliance just ain't there. Sorry. The baffling isn't working either.

You started out belittling these data. . . claiming it is "dishonest" and nefarious" when these data are from the industry and easily replicated and found duplicated from many sources. . . when you didn't know a damn thing about what you were talking about. You're now on your second post digging yourself deeper and deeper. When you do that, don't be surprised when someone like me hands you your head. Enjoy China when you reach it.

Change of subject.

I guess it doesn't matter to the faithful but if I want a Windows PC, I can get one anywhere or build one. If one wants a Mac, you get one choice, remember Radius clones, no one does, maybe Psystar will do better but I doubt it? Get a device that can run Cisco's IOS and see where that goes. Of course, in such a case, the real moneymakers are the attorneys. I'd build a Mac clone but I don't want you to have chest pains over your more ethical than thou self delusion.

If you want a Windows PC, fine. Get one. I don't give a damn. If you want to build a Mac clone, that's between you, your conscience, and God. I told you Apple most likely won't go after you. Here's some current instructions on how to do it.

How to build a Hackintosh—part 1—Selecting the parts.

How to build a Hackintosh—part 2—Assembling and configuring.

Go for it. Don't worry about my health.

I know you're under some weird delusion that I hate Apple but I don't.

You could fool us.

You're the one who is making all the negative comments about another platform you know very little about. I guess it doesn't matter to you've, but most of us have HAD a Windows PC and never want to repeat the miserable experience again, so why should we be so insane as to want to buy one again, much less build one?

I remember Radius Mac clones. . . and many more besides. CEOs Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio thought that it was possible for Apple to both be an OS publisher and a manufacturer of computers that competed with the computers running the OS they published. They were delusional. No company has ever been successful doing it. They soon learned it was not a good idea to be in direct competition with your customer AND your competitor. To compete with the various niche models the clones were filling, Apple started making too many models and lines, lost focus, and still could not compete because they simply could not. Costs climbed with each model added.

When Steve Jobs returned he found an unfocused mess. Apple was making over eighty different configurations of Macs in over 30 models in four lines. . . and unsold inventories were climbing. There were actually 168 different legal clones of Apple Macs worldwide from 1995 to 1997 when Jobs canceled the misguided Apple MacOS Licensing program that had almost bankrupted Apple.

your more ethical than thou self delusion.

Now we need to look at a consistent philosophy that is not based on convenient wants.

Holier than thou? I'm a conservative Christian. I believe in the law. Both God's law (Thou shalt not steal.) and the Rule of law established in our Constitution, which established both copyrights and Patents, giving the owners of the intellectual property and inventions a monopoly on how and when those ideas and inventions can be used. Apple put in the investment and hard work to perfect an operating system to make their hardware worth buying and so they could make a profit on the sales of their hardware. That is their purpose for it to be used. No other. They did not put in that hard work and investment so that Lx or anyone else could build a clone. The law says you may not make use of their invention for any purpose without their agreement.

Do you know what a license is? Even a drivers license or a dog license or hunting license? It's a permit to do something that would be otherwise AGAINST THE LAW. Somethings should require such permits some should not. A natural right such as bearing arms, free speech, worshipping, etc., should never require a license in any circumstance. Apple grants the purchasers and owners and users of its Apple branded computer hardware a limited license to use its property, its software. Otherwise, it's against the law.

When you "buy" Apple's OSX you are only buying that permission, a license, to use their property under limited conditions. You want to have no conditions. Apple could sell an unlimited license. . . but they are not. How is what you want different from the guy who wants to use your car, permanently, without your permission? Or the children who want to step across our border without the legal niceties? How about eating the restaurant's food without paying for it? What's the difference?

You mentioned Psystar, saying you hoped it would be able to do cloning better than Radius. Another example of your peculiar ignorance. US District Court Judge William Alsup slapped Psystar down in November 2009—five years ago. Psystar was ordered to pay Apple $2.7 million and attempt to recall any computers the had sold with OSX installed. Psystar appealed. It was denied at the Appellate court, and Psystar appealed to the US Supreme Court. On May 14, 2012, the Supreme Court denied Psystar's appeal. Radius made their clones under license. They are still in business making monitors. Psystar is pushing up daisies. If you have a Ouija board, you might ask Psystar how their luck is holding up in doing better than Radius.

Psystar used the argument that you use. . . it's OK, I'm really and truly buying OSX and Apple can't tell me what I can do with it since I own it. The courts disagreed. From the trial court to the US Supreme Court. You are NOT buying the software, you are buying the permission to use it as licensed.

Now, as I previously posted, the latest O/S 10, is only $19.95 (I think you can download updates for free though, are you listening MS?), but is it the real cost or was that to eliminate the charges of having a monopoly on the hardware?

Are you channeling the Occupy movement? Or just Harry Reid and the Democrat anti-Capitalists? As a man with a degree in economics, I can tell you that you don't have a clue (again, this is getting monotonous) what a monopoly is.

First of all, does Ford have a monopoly on Ford cars and Ford trucks? You bet. Do you have a monopoly on Lx's labor? You bet. Can you and Ford be "charged" with exercising such a monopoly? Nope. Then how can Apple be charged with having a monopoly on their hardware? Your point is an absurdity. No, it doesn't even rise to the level of absurdity!

Secondly, OS X.5 Leopard to which you are referring is not the latest version. It came out seven years ago. The current version is OS X.9 Mavericks (October 2013) and the cost is $0 for owners of Apple Macs with an OS X 8 Mountain Lion installed. Apple is currently finishing working on OS X 10 Yosemite (due October).

You say you are buying OSX because you would be paying $19.95 for the it, but the law and the courts strongly disagree with you. Did you even bother to read the license agreement? That's a contract. That price is specifically for installing that operating system on a single Apple Macintosh branded computer to upgrade the computer as the license specifies how that software may be used. If it was meant for installation on any generic computer, the license would so state, as does Microsoft's, and the price would be far greater, as Microsoft's is.

Why is the price so low? Because much of what is being installed is already on the Mac computer that was already bought and paid for if the buyer of the upgrade disk had actually bought a Mac. Steve Jobs addressed this. The majority of the amortized development costs had been paid when the computer was purchased and Apple believes you should not have to pay twice. Literally, it's because Apple is not in the business of selling operating systems. Of course, since you do not own a current Mac, you will not have paid for those development costs and are not entitled to install the OS.

Why does Apple make it a full install disk? Unlike Microsoft, Apple has always tried to assure that an OS X reinstall, if necessary, is monolithic, complete in one package, so they include everything. One should not have to install an older version, then another, then another. It is just one more example of attention to customer experience. There are some modern downloadable exceptions, now. For example, one must have OS X Lion or Mountain Lion installed to install the free download only OS X Mavericks.

Consider this true scenario involving intellectual property. Some forty years ago, a woman in my city hired a contractor and an architect to design a unique house for her. She paid $25,000 for the design which the architect copyrighted, a standard practice. (Call this the OS). The contractor built her house on a nice lot in North part of the city where it fit the neighborhood of similar homes. (Call this land and setting her computer)
A city councilman saw her house and liked it, coveted it, and went to a local major developer and asked the developer to build one exactly like it. The developer said "We will need plans." The city councilman and the developer went into the City Building Permit Office and pulled the architectural plans for the woman's house. They proceeded to make a mirror image copy of the woman's unique house in the south part of town.
During construction, part of the plans of the curved grand stairway were unclear, so the developer and the councilman checked out a city marked truck, drove to the woman's house, knocked on her door and told her they were from the Building Permit Office. They explained that during a routine review of her building permit from eight years before, something had not been checked off. . . "Please excuse the intrusion, but it'll just take a moment. We need to look at it, make sure it is OK, and then we'll be gone. Wouldn't want your fire insurance to be affected, you know." They proceeded to inspect the stairs, learned how it was constructed and left, assuring her everything was copacetic.
The city councilman's house was a true eyesore, a three story frankenhouse finished in Flamingo Pink behind a stucco wall in a neighborhood of single story white bungalows. (The wrong land and setting) The floor plan, structure, details, everything but the horrid color and the mirror reversal were exact copies of the woman's house. (Call this installing a fine OS the wrong computer!)
Who owned the design? The woman? The architect? The city? The previous contractor who built the house for the woman?
Was the woman harmed? How about the architect? How about the community? Comments?
What is the Christian or conservative thing to have done in this case?
Am I being holier than thou? Than you? Perhaps. This is about people's livelihoods. You are the one who thinks it's OK to pocket the hard work of people without appropriately compensating them, not I.

Adding injury to insult, the developer, with the architectural plans in hand, built four more clones of the woman's home in the surrounding area. (I know all the names of the persons involved in this. . . I got the story from the developer's brother, one of my clients, who thought it was uproariously funny. I independently confirmed the details.)

So, when I lump together all the manufacturers, it's as bad as dividing by zero but when you mention profits when Apple sells the hardware and software, that's OK. Is there a chart where they separate the MS tax so the P/L is more accurate or did they already do that? Isn't there a term for when a single manufacturer sells an object; I guess since you can buy a computer, that let's them off the hook. or I guess they should have hired the correct politician for their board.

No, it's the same. Whether a company develops the OS themselves, as does Apple, and includes those development costs in their sales price, or they buy their OS from Microsoft, as do HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, Acer, and those thousands of other assemblers who pay the Microsoft Tax, they include that MS Tax cost in their sales price, it works out about the same. Bulk OEM license from Microsoft, depending on quantity, run $20-$65 per unit. Back when Apple was licensing clones, their OEM license was $40-$50 per unit. Using Apple's standard software markup, apple most likely allocates about $25 per Mac for the OS at cost, plus there are other apps that will have license fees. . . Probably around $75 at cost more per Mac. In the long run, both machines come with software from the vendors. . . and those profit data charts includes it. So Lx, ahem, it is comparing apples to apples.

By the way, because Microsoft is stupidly competing with their own business customers (just as Apple did back in '95 -'97, and they too will eventually learn it's NOT a good idea), they are now a PC maker with their Surface tablet/laptop line, so they were included in the "Other" wedge in 2013's pie chart where Apple took home 55% of the industry's profits. (Truth be told, MS was present in the 21% in 2012 but as some part of a $900,000,000 loss! The rest will be taken on the 2013 chart.) Microsoft's figures on the 2013 pie did not include their Xbox, OS, or Office sales figures, only their PC sales.

Incidentally, none of Apple's figures on these charts include any profits from their iPads or iPhones. Canalys, one of the major PC statistical reporting firms in the world", noting that IDC and Gartner were counting all of Microsoft's tablets but not iPads in their numbers, distinctly distorting the figures, started including iPads and other tablets in PC figures. Several other statistical firms are beginning to follow suit. By that metric, Apple is the largest PC manufacturer in the world. . . by a large measure.

When did 8 come out?

October 26, 2012

Thanks for the advice. My shoulder is getting sore.