Apple receives delisting warning from Nasdaq

MarketWatch ^ | 6:19 PM ET Aug 11, 2006 | Matt Andrejczak & John Shinal

[TChris]

Same with me (DEC). Robert Palmer was no friend to us and certainly couldn't compare to Ken Olson. IIRC, our software services group of 14 was slashed to 4. The worst performers were let go first and received the best severance packages. By the time they got to me, I was happy to go - just to get away from the bad morale. But, plenty of managers had different experiences ($$$). I'll still consider the 12 years at Digital to be the good-old-days. VMS Internals - true bliss.

Gosh I miss DEC. I don't know the smallest percentage of what you guys do, but I do know Digital made some of the best hardware and software I have ever touched. When I came to work for my current employer, we had an all Digital switched ethernet network and a DEC Ultrix MIPS machine of some kind (I can't remember what the model was, and neither can the guy who used to run it!). We got rid of the DEC computer when we no longer used the Lawson payroll software it hosted. Then we were forced to "upgrade" to an all Cisco network infrastructure. It's been a complete nightmare to go from the very reliable DECnet hardware to this fragile, cantakerous Cisco crap.

It's really too bad that the technical prowess of DEC didn't meet up with the marketing and management capabilities of Microsoft.

Instead, we get fantastic marketing of a mediocre product from Microsoft, and the complete failure of Digital, which had all the best of the best in technology. As a computer guy, that fact bugs me often.

[kittycatonline.com]

Final Cut HD Pro (pro video editing), iLife (seamlessly integrated consumer media production and management, free with every Mac), Xgrid (instant, easily-managed clusters), Logic Pro (pro audio creation), Xsan (ultra-cheap SAN creation and management), Remote Desktop (haven't seen anything that good on a PC), and of course there's OS X itself.

Not a bad list. Let us take a look at it:

FinalCut Pro: I'd be using Adobe Premier on my Windows box. Linux folks use Kino or other packages.

Xgrid: This is a server product, in which case I'd be going with either Microsoft Cluster Server (Windows Server 2003 Ent. Ed.), or a Linux clustering solution if desired. This wouldn't do a thing for the typical home user.

Xsan: Another server product. I'd go with a linux box running iscsi-target, which is quite easy to set up, and I'd use the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator to connect my XP box up to it. Cost? $0 for software. Apple charges how much for Xsan? [worth note: I think Apple could be a leader in the enterprise hardware market, but they're more interested in selling iPods instead of selling their rackmount servers and RAID arrays, which appear to be excellent products]

Remote Desktop: What? You can do that with a Windows server, or an XP client. For free. Or I could go with the classic VNC, again for free. Pff, I can even use a Linux workstation to remote back to my Windows XP or server box.

OS X itself: I'd dare to say that NeXT, OS2 and BEoS serve as testimonies to the fact that an OS without software is a doomed OS. OS X without worthwhile software is just eye candy. OS X might look nice, and it might be a pretty nice rebundle of BSD, but without the software, it's pointless. And if by "software" you mean Linux titles, I'd wonder why bother with OS X in the first place? Just run Ubuntu or any other Linux flavor on a basic Windows box and save loads of cash.

My position is this: Apple sells overpriced consumer PC hardware and a markets it to the AOL crowd. They hype the ability to run Windows software, in effect, admitting that the software users want to run is Windows software. In my opinion, folks would just be better off buying a much more inexpensive Windows PC in the first place. Folks are entitled to buy what they want, and if they want to pay too much, they're welcome to do so.

[kittycatonline.com]

The software included free with a Mac is superb, and it all works together. I can transfer from a video camera to iMovie, add music to the movie from my iTunes library (including music purchased from iTunes Music Store, which also works on iPods), add photos from my iPhoto collection for still images, compose a theme song with Garage Band, edit the movie and transfer it to iDVD for burning, then watch it with the Apple DVD Player application on my Cinema Display. Any single one of those apps is better than what is included with Windows, and Windows does not allow that level of seamless integration between applications.

You know, the funny thing is, I produce a half-hour public access cable TV show, and actually do the very things you mentioned. Regularly. Easily. All on my Windows box. True, I had to go out and get VideoWave and CoolEdit 2000 (now Adobe Auditions), but that set me back what, less than a hundred bucks? DVD burner for a Windows box? You can pick those up at Wal-Mart if you like. Most PCs now, even the ghetto-cheap ones, come with DVD burners in 'em. So from what I'm seeing, your list of features reads to me like the guy who paid too much for his Mac and is trying to justify it by listing out the stuff he'll likely never do with it.

[Swordmaker]

My position is this: Apple sells overpriced consumer PC hardware and a markets it to the AOL crowd. They hype the ability to run Windows software, in effect, admitting that the software users want to run is Windows software. In my opinion, folks would just be better off buying a much more inexpensive Windows PC in the first place. Folks are entitled to buy what they want, and if they want to pay too much, they're welcome to do so.

KittyCat, I know about 60 Mac users... and and only one of them uses AOL or ever did.... and he is a 50 year old retarded man who uses it to email his mother. Most Mac users made an intelligent decision to leave the Windows world and embrace the Mac. (Over 1,000,000 switched last year alone.) Quite frankly, most of Mac owners I know would be considered power Windows users before they abandoned the platform... Many of the are still forced to use Windows in their work, but CHOOSE to use Mac for their own personal computing.

You have been spouting your anti Mac propaganda on this thread... most of it years out of date. .. and ignore those of us who know what we are talking about when we provide you with the facts. Several times you have demonstrated your ignorance of the modern Mac. You claimed familiarity with Macs because you owned some in the early 1990s. YOU are not even aware that modern Macs can run Windows natively... despite all of the publicity the Windows crowd has ascribed to this achievement in the last 10 months, you asked if it was done by "emulation"!

What, via emulation? In that case, I can fire up VMWare and run about any OS on the planet, and thereby any amount of software I want. . . .All the Mac people are excited about emulating Windows. . ."

And:

They hype the ability to run Windows software, in effect, admitting that the software users want to run is Windows software.

Actually very few of us "Mac people" are at all excited about emulating Windows. . . or running it natively. Why should we want to go back to the environment we dumped?

Hype the ability to run Windows indicating Mac users really WANT to use Windows? You have to consider the target audience of the Mac ads... it is not those of us who are already using Macs... it is targeted to those who have Windows, are dissatisfied with their experience, but who need the "security blanket" of a fall-back position of being able to run what they are used to.

Apple itself has only one out of seven currently running television ads that even mention that capability. Even those who have purchased a new Intel Mac with the intention of running Windows find, that after a month or two, they are almost exclusively running OS X.

As to your assertion that Macs are "over priced", I posted a comparison of the new Mac Pro with the closest equivalent Dell, using the SAME or equivalent components... and the Mac Pro was $1100 cheaper than the Dell with the same processing capability. You didn't acknowledge that except to anecdotally dismiss it:

"And the price quote? I went over to www.pricewatch.com and got tired of wading through hundreds of similar combos, . . ."

That is an outright fabrication. There may be as many as ten combos that meet the criteria... but you provided none for comparison. Time after time, when Macs at EVERY PRICE POINT are compared with PCs with similar quality components with similar capabilities, the Macs are either competitive or less expensive. . . before the suite of included software is included.

You challenged us to:

Gimme three titles available only on a Mac that would convince somebody to buy a Mac.

Antirepublicrat provided you with a list that HAVE convinced "somebody to buy a Mac", but you then apparently changed the challenge to find something that can't be done on the PC. I don't know of anyone who has purchased a PC so they could run "Adobe Premier". They buy Adobe Premier to run on what they have... but thousands of professional videographers HAVE purchased Macs specifically to run Final Cut HD Pro... and many who already have Macs have purchases new Macs to run it better.

You claim to be knowledgeable about Macs but posted this:

"Xgrid: This is a server product, in which case I'd be going with either Microsoft Cluster Server (Windows Server 2003 Ent. Ed.), or a Linux clustering solution if desired. This wouldn't do a thing for the typical home user.

Xgrid is really not a "server product". It is software that is designed to link multiple single computers (Xserves or even desk top Macs) into a supercomputer cluster to attack large number crunching problems... it is not a super file server. You asked for programs that would cause people to buy Macs... this one alone has sold tens of thousands of Macs.

By the way, while I will grant you the Linux Clusters, where are the Windows clusters on the top 500 list of fastest supercomputers?

They say that when you cannot argue from facts, attack the opposition. That's how you started.

You entered this thread with a nasty slur against all Mac owners. You said:

"A company that sells vastly overpriced merchandise that appeals to a too-trendy-for-you hipster crowd that simulatenously wants to look cool while being too dim to figure out how to use a normal PC.

You continued this character assassination of all Mac users in a following reply:

They still cater to the hippy-dippy Ultra Lib crowd just as always. I don't know, they seem as if their entire marketing effort amounts to "We're AOL for hardware! Can't figure how to use a PC? Use a Mac!"

I make my living FIXING the software screw ups of your favored platform for Professional users. My clients who have chosen to migrate to the Mac have far less need of my services while still maintaining their professional operations.

Quite frankly, KittyCat, most of the Mac users I know got tired of the much more complicated maintenance required on the Windows platform... and found there was a simpler way. The same work can be accomplished without the overhead that Windows forces you to accept. The Mac users value their time much more than that.

Have you EVER used OS X? I doubt it.

[CheneyChick]

Quite frankly, KittyCat

LOL.

[John Valentine]

What I'd really be interested in seeing is three intelligent, fact-filled sentences from kittycatonline - three sentences that could convince me that some sort of intelligent dialog could take place.

Until then, I'm as unlikely to post to this person as I am to buy a Dell.

[HAL9000]

"You know, the funny thing is, I produce a half-hour public access cable TV show, and actually do the very things you mentioned."

I used to do that back in the 1970s and 80s. Of course, the equipment was far more primitive and expensive compared to the digital technology available now.

The point is that Macs are bundled with excellent software that is well-integrated and easy enough for the average home user - or public access cable TV producer - to operate successfully. Mac owners don't have to buy and install a bunch of extra equipment for video production, or digital photography, or digital music, or videoconferencing, etc. Macs are ready to do all of that stuff out-of-the-box, with no hassle.

"So from what I'm seeing, your list of features reads to me like the guy who paid too much for his Mac and is trying to justify it by listing out the stuff he'll likely never do with it."

Drop by sometime and I'll force you to watch my vacation DVDs. It's true that I don't use each and every application frequently - for example, I've only composed one song on Garage Band. Still, I'm glad Apple included several excellent apps with the Mac. It's fun to try them all, even if some get used more freqeuntly than others.

I've lost count of how many computers I've owned over the past thirty years, but Macs are definitely the best purchases I've made, and Windows PCs are the worst. Dollar-for-dollar, Macs are an excellent value, and they're actually a bargain for anyone whose time is valuable.

[HAL9000]

I think Macs are the best machines for FReeping on the Internet, but here is an opportunity to show us how your computer can do it better. The challenge is simple: Design a page of HTML links to news sources, and post it on Free Republic.

I used the Mac's Safari web browser, the built-in Apache web server and a text editor to create one, and posted it here. All you have to do is create a better one on your OS of choice, and post it on FR. And try to be original.

[zeugma]

Great list! I'd not seen it before.

[antiRepublicrat]

FinalCut Pro: I'd be using Adobe Premier on my Windows box. Linux folks use Kino or other packages.

You said programs people want, you didn't say stuff that had no equivalent. If equivalents are allowed, then there's no reason not to buy a Mac, because equivalent software is out there. Hoever, Final Cut is considered far better than Premiere. It's why Adobe stopped making Premiere for the Mac.

Xgrid: This is a server product,

People don't buy servers? I was talking all markets. Besides, MS Cluster Server is barely catching up to what's normal in the industry. Xgrid goes beyond that and will harness the power of any desktop or server in your organization, including remote systems on the Internet.

Xsan: Another server product. I'd go with a linux box running iscsi-target

Xsan is a bit beyond that. It will create and manage a very large SAN. You normally get such software from companies like EMC and Cisco and pay big bucks.

emote Desktop: What? You can do that with a Windows server

Basic stuff. I use the Windows one all the time. Look at the Apple site to see what Apple's can do. To start with, they've rolled up system management and remote control of a user's session into Remote Desktop. It's also fully scripted and will automatically perform system updates and software installs, as well as do massive logging and reporting (quick software auditing). You can even observe any number of systems (including Linux and Windows) in action:

You need to get a bunch of different management software to do this on Windows or Linux.

OS X without worthwhile software is just eye candy.

There's a lot out there, thousands of titles from educational to pro apps.

My position is this: Apple sells overpriced consumer PC hardware and a markets it to the AOL crowd.

You haven't seen the comparisons? For features, a Mac tends to be the same cost or cheaper than a PC. They just don't sell in the ghetto PC AOL market.

[kittycatonline.com]

warning from Nasdaq, HAL9000 wrote: I think Macs are the best machines for FReeping on the Internet, but here is an opportunity to show us how your computer can do it better. The challenge is simple: Design a page of HTML links to news sources, and post it on Free Republic. I used the Mac's Safari web browser, the built-in Apache web server and a text editor to create one, and posted it here. All you have to do is create a better one on your OS of choice, and post it on FR. And try to be original.

Done. In advance. Drop by www.kittycatonline.com any time you want. Done on my PC using UltraEdit-32, imho the greatest text editor on earth. For a Mac equivalent, try BBEdit. Kittycatonline.com is a web-based CMS (content management system) based on Slashlog code. I update it via the web just like here on FR. But then, that's really not a Mac-vs-Win thing; you could do a website using Vi if you wanted to, and many folks do.

[kittycatonline.com]

You need to get a bunch of different management software to do this on Windows or Linux.

Looks like something that an SNMP manangement package would do. You'll have to ask the folks at Apple, though, why they spend their time advertising iPods instead of their server products, which even I do agree look pretty darn good. And I think I know the answer; the iPods make money. Server products don't. So, although there may be some very talented folks there developing cool server stuff, the management is still more concerned about hyping an image of "Apple = dude hopping around with iPod earphones on" instead of "Apple = BSD ready for the enterprise". And that's why they will most likely never penetrate the enterprise; the general perception of Apple is that they are a toymaking company making toys, and Apple feeds right into that perception daily.

[HAL9000]

"Done. In advance."

No, not done. The challenge was to design the best set of links to news sources using the best design tools available on your system - then post it on FreeRepublic.com. All you did was spam FR with a link to your personal web site.

"you could do a website using Vi if you wanted to, and many folks do."

vi is included in Mac OS X, but I use it only when logged in to Linux systems. vi is fine for editing a line or two, but not for a major task.

You were challenged with a simple test - and you failed miserably because you are using an inferior system.

[Comstock1]

Or the company that invented the personal computer.

[kittycatonline.com]

You were challenged with a simple test - and you failed miserably because you are using an inferior system.

I think your logic fell apart on the reply, for one, if I did do what you desired, wouldn't it also be on an "inferior system"? And, is the reason I failed to do so because I was using an inferior system? No, I failed to do the challenge simply because I didn't feel like it. I already have a site I've maintained for some time now, so the challenge task was pretty pointless. Faced with the challenge, I decided it more fun trolling this post to death. Ignoring other people, I could do that if I was reading this on a TRS-80, were that possible. Definately not a task limited to either Mac or Win people.

[HAL9000]

No, I failed to do the challenge simply because I didn't feel like it.

I wouldn't feel like doing it either, if I had to use Windows or Linux to do it. Fortunately, I have a Mac and that makes all the difference.

[kittycatonline.com]

I wouldn't feel like doing it either, if I had to use Windows or Linux to do it. Fortunately, I have a Mac and that makes all the difference.

Heh, this thread is soooo trolled out. Web authoring is probably one of those tasks where there are an abundance of tools out there, and even a basic text editor on a command line will work. I'm sitting here with my Compaq laptop running Win XP, watching Super Size Me! on the TV while browsing FR. I'm not interested in writing a page cuz' somebody says something like "Nyah Nyah" at me. It's more fun to simply wear the "troll" hat here with a quick type barb after barb here. Oh well, show's over and so is this post.

[Myrddin]

During my last year at PacBell, the management sent an 11 page "intellectual property" agreement to a large number of people in the company, myself included. It essentially gave the company ownership of everything in your head and any benefits that might accrue to your heirs and assigns in perpetuity. It went straight into my briefcase without a signature. It was resent to me many times and every copy went unsigned into my briefcase. After some months, a lawsuit was filed against the company. The lawsuit forced the company to abandon the "agreement" and release any employ foolish enough to sign it from any obligation.

I have a ham buddy who was faced with signing a similar document. He told his manager that he had signed a similar document at his previous company, thus it legally impossible to sign the one in front of him. His manager persisted. He wrote above the signature line that the form was signed under duress and he refused to abide by anything stated in the document. He then signed it and handed it to the pushy manager.

[HAL9000]

I'm sitting here with my Compaq laptop running Win XP, watching Super Size Me! on the TV while browsing FR.

I'm watching a live interview on my Mac. A NATO spokesman is giving details about how they killed 40 Taliban militants in Kandahar, Afghanistan this morning.

Trolls are so useless.

[antiRepublicrat]

You'll have to ask the folks at Apple, though, why they spend their time advertising iPods instead of their server products, which even I do agree look pretty darn good. And I think I know the answer; the iPods make money.

iPod has the mindshare, so I'm sure advertising brings in more dough. And although they are making some good money on their computers, it would be nice if they advertised their servers more, because they have had some amazing stuff for quite a while. They did give server publicity a try with the VA Tech cluster, but they didn't carry it.