Apple’s Colossal Disappointment

I believe that there were some pretty solid arguments made here in this article. I too, am frustrated by practices that they follow regarding things being so closed off. While other companies also follow a similar strategy, at least the other companies in question are not locked into select hardware manufactures.

I heard a rumor last week that Apple would announce they are switching to Intel chips. My first thought is that I hoped that Steve Job’s success selling iTunes to the other 95% of the world - Microsoft Windows users - would embolden him to take a strategic step that could shake up the PC business as we know it. I was hoping that he would catch the openness wave sweeping the technology world and apply it to his business. I would love to see Apple’s PC market share reverse its downward trend. Few people know it, but I started my tech career as a Macintosh user, ran a consulting company specializing in Macintosh, and even wrote my first commercial application, Network Security Guard, for the Macintosh.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with Apple’s actual announcement on Monday, which revealed not a bold strategy embracing the openness movement but confirmation that Apple is still a company locked in the time warp of the go-it-alone ’70s. Apple agreed to switch from processors made by IBM to special processors made from Intel over the next two years - that’s it. This is only slightly more significant than Apple choosing to change the hard disk or memory supplier it puts into its computers. [Read the rest]