Post by: kelly on June 24, 2003, 08:53:48 AM
http://new.lowendmac.com/musings/03/0624.html
Post by: kelly on June 24, 2003, 11:31:40 AM
People should be excited that these new Chips etc. are here.
Power Mac G4s and G5s compared
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/0.../06/24/compare/
I think the G5s are beyond what anyone reasonably expected.
Can't speak to unreasonable expectations.
Post by: Randy on June 24, 2003, 12:53:12 PM
http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/
http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1296
Post by: kelly on June 24, 2003, 01:00:19 PM
Post by: Bill on June 24, 2003, 02:40:27 PM
"So, please do not take my article as a criticism of Macs. Rather, I am criticising misleading advertising and fanaticism."
Not sure if his article on Apple misleading isn't misleading. <gr>
Post by: Bill on June 24, 2003, 08:55:23 PM
Some ... 'heavy' ... discussions about the authors lack (or left out) of facts.
Post by: Paddy on June 24, 2003, 11:15:23 PM
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...3/06/24/2154256
However, I liked this post, from someone named Vought:
QUOTE
The "status quo" crowd that jumped all over Apple this morning for the "fake" benchmarks and "dishonest" wording will still find lots of reasons and ways to disparage the fruit company, simply because Apple isn't doing what they want - building the best, fastest, and most cutting-edge computers for $400.00.
Forget about Serial ATA - (Apple is the first top-tier manufacturer to make this interface stardard across their high-end machines.)
Forget about the new motherboard featuring HyperTransport, PCI-X, and the IBM-fabbed 1GHz northbridge chip. Oh, and 802.11G, USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and Bluetooth, too.
Forget about the imagination and creativity that goes into making a project like this go from concept to reality in eighteen months.
Why support a company like that? Bunch of dirty liars - there's no way a 2GHz chip could be faster than my Intel/AMD/whatever86!
Maybe it's not ultimately faster (although Greg's comments seem to indicate that the playing field was pretty equal). I don't buy "fast". I buy well-integrated tools that help me get work done, and in turn, bill clients. So I (still) use a Mac.
Jeez - to hear people around here, you'd think that innovation, style, performance, and the courage to move forward agressively and definitively with new technologies doesn't come at a price.
What other comapny would develop all these technologies to hardware and software maturity as part of a new hardware platform, then bring it all to market with system software already written (by the same vendor, I might add) to take advantage of new hardware features?
Those things DO come at a price. The price begins at $1999.00 for the 1.6GHz G5, or $799.00 for an eMac.
As long as there are people who just want to get work done on their computers without hiring an IT department or worrying about who is responsible for which component of the system, Apple will still be around.
I bill around eight hours a day with my Macintosh - the $400.00 price premium over PC hardware at the time I bought my G4/800 simply isn't an issue - over the lifetime of the machine, I'll probably bill at least two hundred times that amount for work made possible by its existence.
That $400.00 up-front cost means that I don't have to spend my time - my extremely expensive and finite time - having to deal with at least two vendors just to get a system with competitive hardware, a competitive OS, and support for them both. If your time isn't valuable, by all means cheap out and build your oft-touted (and perfectly capable) PC from parts you buy at Frys. $400.00 means nothing to professionals - it's cheap support insurance.
I hope Apple sells a TON of these machines - because they're practically the only personal computer company willing to take the initiative and responsibility for supporting hardware and operating system on equal terms.
Perhaps if Apple stressed the cost of ownership point to more people, they'd have higher sales. Our small business has nearly thirty Macs. I'm the lone IT person, spending an entire hour a week on supporting a bunch of artists and their Macs. What similarly-sized Windows-based business can make that claim?
Forget about Serial ATA - (Apple is the first top-tier manufacturer to make this interface stardard across their high-end machines.)
Forget about the new motherboard featuring HyperTransport, PCI-X, and the IBM-fabbed 1GHz northbridge chip. Oh, and 802.11G, USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and Bluetooth, too.
Forget about the imagination and creativity that goes into making a project like this go from concept to reality in eighteen months.
Why support a company like that? Bunch of dirty liars - there's no way a 2GHz chip could be faster than my Intel/AMD/whatever86!
Maybe it's not ultimately faster (although Greg's comments seem to indicate that the playing field was pretty equal). I don't buy "fast". I buy well-integrated tools that help me get work done, and in turn, bill clients. So I (still) use a Mac.
Jeez - to hear people around here, you'd think that innovation, style, performance, and the courage to move forward agressively and definitively with new technologies doesn't come at a price.
What other comapny would develop all these technologies to hardware and software maturity as part of a new hardware platform, then bring it all to market with system software already written (by the same vendor, I might add) to take advantage of new hardware features?
Those things DO come at a price. The price begins at $1999.00 for the 1.6GHz G5, or $799.00 for an eMac.
As long as there are people who just want to get work done on their computers without hiring an IT department or worrying about who is responsible for which component of the system, Apple will still be around.
I bill around eight hours a day with my Macintosh - the $400.00 price premium over PC hardware at the time I bought my G4/800 simply isn't an issue - over the lifetime of the machine, I'll probably bill at least two hundred times that amount for work made possible by its existence.
That $400.00 up-front cost means that I don't have to spend my time - my extremely expensive and finite time - having to deal with at least two vendors just to get a system with competitive hardware, a competitive OS, and support for them both. If your time isn't valuable, by all means cheap out and build your oft-touted (and perfectly capable) PC from parts you buy at Frys. $400.00 means nothing to professionals - it's cheap support insurance.
I hope Apple sells a TON of these machines - because they're practically the only personal computer company willing to take the initiative and responsibility for supporting hardware and operating system on equal terms.
Perhaps if Apple stressed the cost of ownership point to more people, they'd have higher sales. Our small business has nearly thirty Macs. I'm the lone IT person, spending an entire hour a week on supporting a bunch of artists and their Macs. What similarly-sized Windows-based business can make that claim?
Post by: sandbox on June 24, 2003, 11:31:24 PM
Although I realize speed is important to some, and maybe even critical to their production efficiency, I have to wonder how much of the market really uses said speed, and how much “trust capital” is spent making questionable claims.
In the mean time, while back at the ranch.......
http://slate.msn.com/id/2084727/
Post by: kelly on June 25, 2003, 08:57:50 AM
Thousands of replies arguing Angels Dancing on Pins.
Whatever.
It's nice to even have it debatable again.
SB. I still see Linux making bigger inroads into Commerce than the Desktop.
I'll also bet you a six pack Harley-Davidson goes under before Apple does.
Post by: Bill on June 25, 2003, 09:20:11 AM
Another had quite a few defending the author. I'd say around 65/35 ratio.
The way Linux has been going uphill, I wouldn't be surprised if they climb past apple sooner than what your link states SB.
What? Harley-Davidson is still out-and-about?
Been seeing an awful lot of motorized skateboards around these parts.
Figured they were hand-me-down Harley's.
Post by: kelly on June 25, 2003, 10:02:35 AM
Blowout G4s or Forthcoming G5s, Which Wins the Value Comparison?
http://new.lowendmac.com/musings/03/0625.html
Post by: Bill on June 25, 2003, 11:02:23 AM
QUOTE
If you need a Power Mac that boots into OS 9, the 2003 Power Mac G4s are not an option. Neither are the forthcoming G5s. You have only one choice on the new market -- the dual 1.25 GHz G4, which was just reduced in price to $1,299.
Bet you paid a whole lot more than that Kelly.
Fact I paid just a little more than that for my last 933! /sigh\
Still like the sub topic being that the specs are on everyones mind right now. <gr>
Post by: kelly on June 25, 2003, 11:11:21 AM
I don't regret that I've had mine to use for almost a year.
I did get the best price on mine I saw until many months later.
Post by: Bill on June 25, 2003, 11:26:06 AM
They tossed in tons of extras just to close the sale.
Post by: sandbox on June 25, 2003, 12:23:46 PM
Linux has some strong points, $$ is one, community is another, and their reputation for being useful is growing.
Bumble Bee’s can’t fly, Harley’s can’t Run, and Apple is rotting on the vine I hear tell.
As for the Slate argument, I disagree with “there’s only room for two at the top”.
As can be seen in our other economic engine, the Automobile, the Big Three Lives.
Now on to beer, I’ll take that bet, but in case of a draw, Harley buying Apple, Apple buying Harley in the future, we may want to change the bet to a round of Boiler Makers.
Post by: Epaminondas on June 26, 2003, 10:01:47 PM
(1) This is a great time for the Mac! Congratulations!
The G5s promise to be everything that one could have hoped for and more (except for minor nit-picking, which we choose not to do) - and the promise of scaling to 3000 MHz over the next year on dual 64-bit processors with a 1 GHZ front side bus with a 64-bit MacOS is pretty amazing stuff.
Whoda thunk it?
My head is spinning.
The high end user who waits six months or so to buy, while the early adopters are getting burned, is going to be one very, very happy camper.
Long term, the alliance with IBM looks like a real win for Apple.
(2) The Slate (owned by Microsoft) article suggesting that there can only be two major OS contenders in the ring - is interesting.
I had not heard the argument before. On the surface, it certainly sounds plausible. Perhaps even compelling.
What the argument seems to overlook is that the Mac OS 10.x and the various Linux distributions are are all *nix plus gui's.
It is apparently not that difficult to migrate an application from Linux to Mac OS X - or vice versa. Not trivial, certainly. But not that difficult.
I believe that the GIMP and Open Office either have been ported or are on their way from Linux to Mac OS 10.x. I dunno if much of anything is really flowing in the opposite direction. I'm not sure which way Mozilla goes - or if Mozilla is so multi-platform that it doesn't really go from one platform to the other, but has more of a "starfish" distribution model.
My counter-thesis to the Slate article - developers need not choose between supporting Microsoft and Macintosh vs. supporting Microsoft and Linux, as the article seems to suggest. Developers now also have the choice of supporting Microsoft and *nix variants.
Each developer will call the shots as he sees fit. For example, the music people do not seem to be in any rush to port their Macintosh OS 10.x applications over to Linux. Why not, I asked an old friend who writes Macintosh music software for a living?
"Because I write Macintosh music software for a living," he said, a bit testily "and Linux people don't pay for software."
Uh - sounds pretty reasonable to me.
But then - someone from a poorer country is gonna try to make his mark by cobbling something together. Or some music hardware vendor is going to find it in in his best interest to fund Linux software development for his particular device.
Eventually something will come along.
Maybe not great - particularly not at first. Maybe not as complete as the Apple offering. Certainly not as innovative.
But eventhually it will be good enough. Good enough.
And it will be free.
It's all kinda Darwinian.
The niches that are empty will be filled.
One way or another.
(3) << I still see Linux making bigger inroads into Commerce than the Desktop. >>
<< The way Linux has been going uphill, I wouldn't be surprised if they climb past apple sooner than what your link states SB. >>
<< Linux has some strong points, $$ is one, community is another, and their reputation for being useful is growing. >>
The various predictions of Linux desktop market share overcoming Macintosh desktop market share over the next year or two are beginning to become interesting.
No way to tell unless and until it actually happens, of course.
But it is actually beginning to look like it might be real.
No - we are not talking high-end Photoshop users here, thank you.
We are talking primarily about us bottom feeders. :-)
Governments seem to be leading the way: they typically can switch over massive numbers of desktops in one fell swoop.
One nice thing is, in a sense anyway, is that this is not a market that is being taken from the Mac. These are largely losses for Microsoft.
To some extent, in regards to Microsoft, Mac hits 'em high and Linux hits 'em low.
How much market share Microsoft might actually lose from this dual one-two attack? One (1) percentage point? Even more?
There is no way of telling until it happens.
If I was Microsoft, I would sleep well at night: forty billion dollars in the kitty makes a awfully nice cushion.
A few examples of the large scale low-end Linux migrations that are happening now:
Munich - switches over to Linux on 14,000 municipal desktops
Lower Saxony - switches over to Linux on 11,000 government desktops
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/st...,982275,00.html
Extremadura, Spain: Linux on 80,000 government desktops. Primarily schools, but also 33 community computer centers:
<< The centers have drawn citizens of all ages and walks of life. The oldest user of the centers is 99 years old. >>
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cb_hea...der_file=header
Largo Florida municipal government - 450 Linux thin clients, 900+ users
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/12/04/23...15.shtml?tid=19
I am not really seeing these kind of governmental migrations moving from Microsoft onto the Macintosh platform.
Different niches.
All the above ignores the server market, of course, where Linux already does fairly well.
Regards,
Epaminondas
Post by: kelly on June 26, 2003, 10:23:40 PM
Whatever. I can see that happening more and more.
MS is driving people, companies away all the time.
But the Dinosaurs were around for a long time.
OpenOffice for OS X (X11) goes Gold
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/0.../26/openoffice/
Post by: sandbox on June 26, 2003, 11:42:33 PM
In the World of Mac the passion is shared between hardware and software. People like Shinny, and that showroom smell...... Linux is what’s under the hood.
As I’ve wondered though the streets of Cambridge, Amherst, North Hampton, Worcester, Gainesville, and Tampa (College Towns) in the coffee shops, juice bars, and book stores, the buzz in the geek world is Linux and building their own Rome. Oh ya, the gamers talk fast Wintels but the that’s the retail end.
It’s a quiet riot, while Mac flashes on the scene, Linux moves mysteriously through gray matter like Pink Floyd.
I’ve posted the Munich Switch, and read about Spain, but the others had escaped me, thanks. Across the Puddle, (Tampa Bay) is Central Command, there they have also switch to using Linux, as well as Apple for security reasons the 2001 article said, though I can’t seem to find it. And here at USF Oceanographic Institute their using Apple’s to map the ocean bottom.
On the other hand the local schools may be forced to go MS because Dell or eMachine will furnish whatever they need, and OSX is not really compatible with the early unsupported iMacs they have now. Taken a step beyond, if Dell didn’t furnish free computers the cost would force the educational system to look at Linux or go without. Imagine VW going to Detroit and giving away cars so kids don’t grow up to buy Fords?
As I see it, like the Lamborghini or Harley, Mac will do well in the upscale market as long as they are compatible with the standard, as long as they can drive on the same roads and read the road signs.
I think Linux and OSX will blend on some level as well, (maybe when Panther move to Calico) at least people who write in C, C++, Unix say there similar, and MS is backing away from Apple in subtle ways like not upgrading the Explorer Browser.
I will probably use Macs for sometime to come, though I’ll be a bit resentful that the company has dropped OS8-9 and forced everyone to buy new software. I suppose I could be more rational and except that the cutting edge is sharper than the heel and look to Linux for justice to the undeserved in the coming years.
On buying a First Edition, been there, done that, and I may wait for the re-release of the New Shinny G5 +’s B)
Seeya!
Post by: Bill on June 27, 2003, 03:35:38 PM
Epaminondas and Sandbox sure know how to sharpen their pencils! Don't they!
Best part is they both make a whole of sense in their own way.
Post by: cdub1988 on June 27, 2003, 04:06:51 PM
OS X is turning folk's eyes, but the cost is still an issue when you can download virtually any distro of Linux for free except a select few.
May take some tweaking on the server level, but that's what the net admin gets paid for.
I think of what we're forced to do this year because of budget cuts.
Sure, I'd like to get a new box for myself here at work (running Jag on a Blueberry 350), but got our IT budget cut totally.
So, the other Blueberry still on the LAN will soon be running Yellow Dog Linux, with capability for Classic through Mac-on-Linux. B)
I like OS X, but I'm not getting into the battle of the OSes.
Not worth the argument. If it works for you, hey cool.
Marketing machines are just that - marketing machines - whether its MS, Apple or Linux.
Linux chose the subtle route and DOES seem to be touting some serious following.
My $.02.
P.S. - What's up, Epaminondas.
I'm getting ready to install YDL 3.0 on the 6500 since I can't run Jag on it and don't have the bucks since the wife's job got cut from the budget yesterday 
, so I may be quite satisfied with it very soon. Take care,
Chris
Post by: cdub1988 on June 27, 2003, 04:28:59 PM
QUOTE(Bill @ Jun 27 2003, 3:35 PM)
Epaminondas and Sandbox sure know how to sharpen their pencils! Don't they!
Yep, they're both really sharp.
Epaminondas brings a lot from the land of Penguin (which I like - just my opinion - I like the variety).
SB - well, he's SB. He's just always there with the info.
Well, him and Kelly.
Take care, all and have a great weekend. Sposed to be nice here.
Chris