Ron Lindeboom
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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A few months back I bought a new über-iMac, the big gun. And to be honest, it chokes and stalls and the 27″ screen has issues thanks to the video card and the video ram. But it was the top-of-the-line that I could get. It really is disheartening.
If this is the top of the food chain, then I am sorry but we’ll run our old Intel MacPro towers until they are gone to Computer Heaven. (Where there are no streets of gold just those silicon pathways that we got to see in Tron.)
I believe Apple’s vision for consumers is a compelling one and I think it will be something that adds to their coffers in the years ahead. I just wonder what the outcome will be for demanding pros. This is what has us working with Macs, Linux and Windows.
As Walter Biscardi says, it’s coming down to options.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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Andrew,
You and I are clearly looking at this from two markedly different vantage points: you are an engineer and I am a marketer. You believe that Apple will release a new workstation and I believe that they will not.
What would a Z800 running OSX give me if it existed? It would give me (as a businessperson running a company) the feeling that I didn’t have to change out my whole company. But we are coming up on the year anniversary of last June’s culling of the herd, so maybe we are in for another shortly.
We’ll see, won’t we?
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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[Andrew Richards] “Yes, IF they drop the Mac Pro. They haven’t played their hand yet, or folded for that matter.”
I really don’t expect much out of Apple even if they do release a new workstation.
For many years now their support for OpenGL and other critical technologies not developed at Apple, has been abysmal. Bad. Junk. Crap. Downright the worst out there. Oh, period. ;o)
No, a new workstation from Apple will not surprise me. But a GOOD new workstation with real expandability supporting current industry leading technologies — now, THAT that would greatly surprise me.
Someone wrote me today and asked if I really believed that Apple would license OSX to HP. I said, “No. I don’t buy that at all — still I can dream.” But what I do believe is that Apple is so strong now that they can afford to let others shore up ancillary niches not supported by their own direct efforts.
This is NOT foreign to Apple’s Corporate Ethos, as some believe. It was but not today.
It is the VERY ESSENCE of their huge success in the iTunes Store. They make money on Other People’s Work. Those songs and TV shows over there at Itunes are not made by Apple. They belong to someone else.
If you look at the Apps phenomenon, at its base is a huge aggregate of developers who make tools and products that Apple sells. Apple does not make it. If Apple had waited to get a whole bunch of things ready themselves, the revolution would have never happened. 5 or 10 tools wouldn’t have done it. But 100s of 1000s and millions will get the job done.
Apple used to build their own machines. Now others do it. Some, direct competitors like Samsung who builds the iPad and yet competes against the Apple iPad with their Android-based Genesis, etc., etc.
I could go on and on with more examples of Apple being more open than many believe but this is already too long.
Apple’s new business model is one of far more inclusion than many have noticed. It is social media in business, practiced by people who get that 20th Century business principles will not work in today’s global market with interconnected peer-to-peer communities through sites and services like Facebook, Twitter, the COW and others.
I have used Apples since about 1982. I have bought plenty and all the iDevices to boot. Bought them for my employees and have them richly saturated throughout our team. I don’t want to move but the day that Apple tells me that they have no interest in my business is the day I will move the company. Not overnight but I will have to move it.
I wonder why a company that works with direct competitors on its Crown Jewels would balk at doing so on products their users need but they do not want to build.
Lastly, in the race to supplant Beta as the standard, VHS won because its creator (Toshiba as I recall, look it up) let others market against them as long as there was the one contracted part which Toshiba alone supplied. Using the same principle, I could see a machine built by HP that served our needs and yet had a card or module that no one else built except Apple. Without it, the machine couldn’t run OSX.
It wouldn’t be hard to do and Apple is already doing it with the iPad and the iPhone. They are even in court fighting their very own supplier, Samsung, so it’s not even like it’s a marriage made in heaven. But I could easily see where Apple would keep many more of us years longer by letting HP build the machines we need.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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We do not doubt for the second that as you say “Less on the desktop, more on the web.” But just as everyone years ago was saying that video for the web was just around the corner, that corner ended up taking longer than the early adopters wished it would because human nature is pretty consistent — so it took about a decade longer than many thought it would. (Believing it would get here much faster is what destroyed Media 100, who changed their company focus to the web.)
I personally believe that in a day not far away we will see — for example sake — no more Adobe Creative Suite boxes. We’ll log onto Adobe Cloud to use their software. Software companies for years have been trying to enforce EULAs that the courts have over-turned time and again, and not only does the cloud rid them of piracy issues but also ends the argument — the software’s theirs and we’ll all pay for the time we use it.
I also personally believe that one day not far away, Apple will realize that they are selling an experience and that they now have such a huge warchest of monies to burn, that they can afford to partner with “controllable” vendors that can help sell that experience into markets that Apple no longer wishes to directly support themselves.
Yes, I could be wrong. I’ve called some wrong shots like everyone has. But I’ve also nailed quite a number of things over the years too. I’d love to see an HP workstation running the Mac OS. It would be an interesting turn of events, wouldn’t it?
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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[Andrew Richards] “Workstations have a lot more in common with servers than they do with consumer PCs nowadays. The PC might be dying, but the server market is growing.”
True, Andy.
When HP was momentarily on the chopping block last year, it was NOT because of its workstation division (which was growing around the world and was doing quite well). Servers and workstations are indeed doing well while other markets continue to tank.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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Hi Craig,
With a deal in hand to be licensed to run OSX on its workstations, I think HP could have its arm twisted to change its position on Thunderbolt.
I know it would sure change mine if I were HP. ;o)
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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[David Roth Weiss] “why would Apple bother to remain in the high-end market segment at all? What’s really in it for them?”
What they do care about, David, is their iSales. They know that the Top 2% as you call them are often enterprise clients — clients that Inc. Magazine recently ran an article about because they are getting Macs into the enterprise by using iPhones and iPads to help get them there. Macs (read: iMacs) are getting into the corporate space because the ones with the power to get them there love their iPhones and their iPads.
While Apple may not care about enterprises with a hundred or two seats of FCP (based on 6/21/11), I will guarantee you that they do care about iSales.
With HP handling units for the highest end customers, Apple could keep all its highest end customers happy without lifting a finger, collecting money while keeping them on iPhones, iPads, iPods and AppleTV — all in a happy homogenized and integrated OSX/iOS world.
[David Roth Weiss] “Apple just rolled over on a vast portion of their user base at that end of spectrum, including many substantial enterprise customers.”
I think you may be exaggerating just a bit, David, calling the numbers a vast portion. It seems like that when you are swimming in the blood of the FCP fishbowl but the numbers Apple is building on with iSales has built the world’s most powerful technology juggernaut — one with its focus clearly on the “Apple Experience.”
Apple’s greatest achievement in the history of Apple is iOS, not the Mac, not OSX and not FCP. With the Mac, OSX and FCP, Apple was never anything more than a highly creative company with great products and ideas but a small — and I do mean small — market share. With iOS, they have become the most successful technology company in the world.
Apple is smart. I think they know that it is going to get tougher and tougher to make any real workstation that matters. It is clear they do not have the heart for it any longer. Working with a single quality vendor to build the kind of behemoth that this market demands, is something that makes sense to me.
But hey, I was saying that Apple should have bought Macromedia long before Adobe did, so what do I know???
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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[Michael Gissing] “Perhaps he was alluding to rumours that Mac might support HP with OSX officially but I seriously doubt it.”
I would LOVE to see the Mac OS licensed to HP. I love the HP’s power and expandability but it would be even nicer if it was running dual OSes just as Macs can.
What I meant by saying Hacintosh is that people are already learning to create PCs running the Mac OS. That is the whole “Hacintosh” movement that seems to gather steam more over time.
I have little doubt that HP and Apple could be great corporate partners and could find a way to please the highest-end Mac users — after all, we have been trained by years of Apple buying to not look for the cheapest way out. ;o)
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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I had to smile reading the people on this thread speculating about the possibility of officially licensed Mac OS on an HP Workstation.
For years, Tim Wilson and I have talked about the idea of HP providing workstations that run the Mac OS. (Not every PC manufacturer, just HP.)
Why HP?
It is why we actively focused on getting them involved at the COW. We believe that when the smoke clears, the most rabid Mac professionals on the planet — the ones running über-powerful systems that need slots, cards, etc. — will find themselves dancing with Apple and HP. Either as dual platform shops, or if it goes as we suspect, Apple will license a sole PC vendor to work with. We think that will be HP.
Over the years as Tim Wilson and I have hammered on where the growing “i-focusing” at Apple would take things, Tim said to me one day that “There is now just one true workstation left: HP’s Z series, that’s it.”
It had been years since Apple built a new one. They had killed XServe. They had swept away things like XSan, Shake, FCP, Color and other pro initiatives.
It was not hard to envision an Apple in which they would not want to lose their highest end customers, while simultaneously finding themselves becoming ever increasingly unwilling to directly supply them.
Why? For the very same reasons that had killed all the products mentioned two paragraphs back.
Even if Apple builds a new workstation, the harsh reality is that it will grow increasingly difficult for Apple to focus on a market so ancillary to what the company’s focus is.
HP’s workstation division is dedicated to serving that market around the world and does it well, always pushing the limits of where things are today.
We believe that it would be a win-win to both camps. Apple users averse to running Windows directly would stay with their OS of choice, while Apple works with a single source whose commitment to building servers is unparalleled — and whose corporate ethos of quality is akin to Apple’s own.
A bonus is that for a change, Mac users would get rid of the goofy OpenGL they’ve endured for years. The double-and-more cost of high-end video cards would end for Mac users.
When I saw my first HP Z-800 at a press event, I told their VP/GM and the VP Marketing that “it out-Macs my Mac.” It was clear that HP had looked at all the best stuff about Apple and had raised the bar when it comes to expectations in a workstation.
Unfortunately, for many users, running Windows is not something they want to do. But even the most dedicated Apple user needing real workstation power would have trouble saying no to a Z-Series HP Workstation running Mac OS.
Now if only the team in Cupertino, California would get on the phone with the people in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Apple is having to look at the proliferation of sites dedicated to the Hacintosh. So, a real joint venture looks to me to be well-timed and one that would be fortuitous to all involved.
Those are some of the thoughts that have been rolling around along with the marbles in my head.
Do with them what you will, they are just thoughts.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss
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[Craig Seeman] “There’s already rumors that Apple has another event planed March 16. Rumors range from a “store” event to AppleTV update. I can’t imagine a MacPro event but if it’s a store event one might hope that one component might be MacPros going on sale. OK this is just in the wishful thinking department but . . .”
Titillating thoughts, Craig.
I suspect that Apple will be sneaking out a model or two of its television systems, not AppleTV but a TV from Apple…with a lot of extra bells and whistles. Well beyond what AppleTV has been in the past.
I expect to see an iOS-based home theater centerpiece that ties together and lets you manage your email, website, blogs, social media channels, music, your television shows, provides pay-per-view and is all fueled by a powerful search function.
That’s what I am expecting to see. I could be a little early but Apple has sucker-punched the audience more than a few times over the years. They could surprise us all.
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.netCreativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.
“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss