| Home > Of things Mac > Apple's "childish" digs at Vista is very serious business indeed - and its all about getting more Macs in people's hands to overturn Windows "good enough" attitude to computing |
| Apple's "childish" digs at Vista is very serious business indeed - and its all about getting more Macs in people's hands to overturn Windows "good enough" attitude to computing | | Date Created: 10 Aug, 2006, 01:20 PM |
 The fallout from Steve Jobs' WWDC Keynote continues to spread far and wide.
And forgive me if I move into "rant mode" for this blog entry (no obscene language ever here).
I've already written that those sucked in by rumour and blog commentary sites and had their hopes falsely raised should look to themselves and their referral sites to deal with their disappointment, and not Steve Jobs.
I've read the various sites (and pardon me if I don't link to them here in usual blogger style) who have called attention to an "ill, jaded, disinterested" Jobs; how he was too tired to do it all and so gave some work to his senior V-Ps; and how their place in the WWDC sun was a test of their being groomed to replace Jobs.
Please, enough!
One more time - this was a Developers' conference. V-Ps have usually presented in the WWDC Keynote since it's their wares they're in charge of which they are demonstrating to their developer market! And if you look about the blogosphere, you will note how few pieces of hardware have ever been released at WWDC, and never popular consumer items like iPods or iMacs.
MacExpos in Europe are coming up soon, and that's the place (sans Jobs) where Apple may release new consumer items. And the iPod is such a consumer juggernaut which could be devolved into its own company that it has been accorded its own show in past years when new iPods or iTunes products have been released. Can you say U2, San Jose, and video downloads?
And to those in Public Relations who are corporate bloggings' greatest advocates and upset that blogging for public consumption at WWDC is disallowed, please wise up.
It's a private, pay-$1500-to-get-in training event, where attendees sign NDAs because they are being exposed to confidential Apple material so they can ready their software applications for Leopard's eventual release. Get it? Got it? Good!
That a Developers' conference is garnering so much public attention, albeit with so much poor, inaccurate and feeble attempts at commentary, is perhaps a tribute to the so-called 2% market share company. That's Paul Thurrot's continuing estimation of Apple's market share, driven down further each year since Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.
What other company with such a low market share garners such disproportionate media attention from those who await its latest technological innovations which eventually drifts down to the copyers and replicators, like Dell?
As Mike Langberg wrote on Siliconvalley.com in March, 2006:
"(Leander) Kahney, who regularly writes about the most devout of Mac true believers, concludes: ``Mac users are very confident these days. They're hipper and smugger than ever. Low market share is a badge of honor. It shows exclusivity.''
I want to make some comments about the Apple digs at Vista.
Anyone who saw the previous banners at WWDC will recall the "Redmond, start your photocopiers" signage.
Prior to this year's WWDC, others passing Moscone centre were able to access this year's banners ("Vista 2.0") and post them on Flickr. No attempt was made by Apple to obscure them. Start the hypemachine. Save advertising dollars.
Anyone who didn't expect Steve Jobs or anyone on stage to compare Leopard with Vista is a picnic short of a sandwich.
This was the first time however, in my memory, when Jobs directly mentioned another company, Google, when suggesting Microsoft imitates rather than innovates, and so link Apple with Google as technology leaders, not followers.
And he made it clear it's not money in the bank that drives innovation, a very direct dig at Bill Gates and Steve Balmer, and how they've been running Microsoft of late, if not for a long time.
Forget about the Top Secret start to Jobs' Leopard preview. Stuff not ready; hiding it from an almost-finished Vista development team; building up tension for January's MacWorld... whatever. Keep amusing yourselves by guessing, because I don't know either. Nor do I care.
I saw enough both during the Keynote and on Apple's homepage later where other features were shown. Go look, for example, at the remote control features of iChat to conclude that Jobs' is supremely confident that, with features like this and more, Leopard will have Vista for breakfast.
I've noted some articles claiming that Leopard is "catching up with Vista". These are based on comparisons between what was seen at WWDC and the features already seen in the various Vista beta releases. Mind you, this is an already denuded Vista, hobbled in an effort supposedly to speed its release after all this talk and time.
For myself, I saw enough at WWDC to know that I am entirely comfortable with what I didn't see - the Top Secret stuff. If you want, you can believe Steve Jobs is thumbing his nose at Microsoft in a transparently humourous effort to protect Apple's IP, given the banners at WWDC referring to photocopiers. It's a running joke, folks.
Why so many digs at Vista, and by extension at Microsoft and further extension, Bill Gates? For a start, there is a lot of history here. Go watch Pirates again.
Secondly, Jobs knows that MS for many in the corporate sector is on the nose. He is aware that with his switch to Intel - a fairly smooth, on-time one at that - the enterprise market is finally sitting up and paying attention. It's a perfect storm combination of "Intel Inside" (did you hear the chimes in your head just then?), lowered prices on Apple hardware, and the security/malware/virus nightmare so many Windows users confront each and every day.
Jobs and others' digs at Vista, considered so "childish" by some, should be seen for what they represent. A very direct effort to let the Windows operating world that Leopard is a serious competitior in this space, and that Apple wants more of this space than it has been granted so far.
It's part of a long term, very patient effort on Jobs' part, I would offer, since he returned in 1997, to get back 12% or more of market share. That would still mean 88% of the world operates non-Mac equipment, but that doesn't mean that same percentage is operating Windows. Remember, Linux and other flavours which can also operate on Intel-based Macs and non-Apple hardware.
That effort has been visible since Jobs dumped - quite ceremoniously by literally burying - OS 9, and making the first of his several transitions needed to position Apple to regain desktop mindset. Which is one reason why the first Intel-based Macs were a combo of iMac and MacBook Pro. Covering both domestic, consumer and prosumer markets.
Then the MacBook was released and Apple doubled its laptop share to 12%, enough for Jobs to make mention of it at WWDC, as if to say:
"See, we're making the kind of product the market wants if not demands. Keep developing because by extension, there's a market wanting your software".
Remember, this was a Developer's conference.
So, let me make it very plain.
Trying to read what I can into the WWDC Keynote, and I watched it again, and trying to use my powers of intuition and knowledge gathering, here's my take:
Apple and Steve Jobs are very serious about increasing market share. They take pride in the ratio of people buying new Macs in Apple's stores who are switchers - 50%.
They know that the only way to keep doing this won't be by building better Macs.
It's going to be by the user experience.
That user experience has been for most people a Windows-based one because of real hardware cost differences in the past, and still current misinformation about current costs and the total cost of ownership over three years. As well as a perceived lack of software. To do email, and word processing, and surf the web and instant message, right?
Jobs and Apple know that it's very hard to shift an "It's good enough" attittude to computer use, such is the Windows experience. It has perhaps reached its zenith with Xp. Judging by the number of sites and bloggers saying they see no reason to get Vista for their current PC but will wait until they purchase it OEM with a new PC purchase - when in the right moment of their upgrade/replacement cycle - I don't hear a lot of enthusiasm for buying Vista for current setups.
This is when the "good enough" philosophy comes back to bite you on your rear end. Which is why you see all those awful, insulting dinosaur advertisements for Microsoft Office.
Non-Apple users think, I would assert, that all OSs are created equal: "Just good enough, but in your face too often".
What I saw previewed in Leopard at WWDC were information management tools, not just software to be included in a revision of OS X. I saw Apple telling us it is clearly thinking about how we are interacting with all the data and information flowing about us, and will help us convert that stuff into actions - things we can do. Apple's aware we need better knowledge management help in 2007 and beyond.
What was I most excited about which encapsulates this effort of Apple to help its users deal with all this information - and this will include ever-increasing numbers of disenchanted Windows users - which Steve Jobs showed at WWDC?
No doubt - iChat. It will be the 2010 Knowledge Navigator. Just watch and listen, and like Steve Jobs, be very patient.
And enjoy the digs at Vista. More will come as Vista continues to be delayed, has stuff left out, and has its security systems - its new claim to fame that justifies the upgrade - fall over and be compromised.
It's not at all childish, unless that's the only way you can allow yourself to understand what's going on.
For some, that's as far as they can take it. |
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