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June 11, 1998
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June 11, 1998
You don't think Microsoft's got a monopoly? Try buying a PC without Windows like this guy did. I'm sure somebody out there will be think, "Well, you can't buy a Mac without getting the MacOS on it." But it's important to understand that Apple also makes the hardware. (Indeed, when there were Mac clones, some of them offered the BeOS.) Microsoft does not make any PC hardware, and that they would lock consumers into Windows 95 like they have is the essence of anti-competitive practices.
June 9, 1998
The Federal Trade Commission takes action against the computer chip monopoly known as Intel. I weep bitter tears.
June 5, 1998
Microsoft Windows 98 has "gone gold," meaning it is now completed and in the form it will be shipped to customers. Word on the net is that it is about 10 percent slower than Windows 95. The big enhancement seems to be a tighter integration between web browser (aka Internet Explorer) and operating system, but with a catch: Now if your browser crashes, it can damage your system files. I kid you not!
June 3, 1998
I attended the Apple Update Tour this morning at Apple's campus in Cupertino. They were showing off a variety of Mac software and hardware solutions. This included news and information about MacOS X, QuickTime 3.0, the new PowerBook G3s, the iMac, Connectix' Virtual PC and a variety of other items.
The short form is that the Mac G3 is an incredible computer platform no matter what you software you need to run or what kind of network you need to connect to. They showed the Apple Developers' Conference "bake-off" between the G3 and a variety of Pentium II machines, and the results were astounding. The Pentiums got very clearly dusted by a huge margin. (In the case of the iMac versus a comparably priced Pentium 266/MMX machine, the iMac completed the entire test and the Pentium had barely drawn the opening screen. They then did the same test, this time iMac versus Pentium II. Again, the iMac won by a wide margin.) And remember, all you potential purchasers of computer technology: The Macintosh TCO ("total-cost-of-ownership") remains the lowest in the industry.
Adobe Application Engineer Eric Thomas was on-hand to demo Adobe Photoshop 5.0 and Adobe Premiere 5.0. The Photoshop demo was particularly impressive as Thomas highlighted new features like multiple Undos (all of which can be recalled and used in a non-linear fashion!), a magnetic lasso tool, a true type tool (finally!), and a variety of layer effects. These features got a lot of applause and for good reason. Thomas was cut short on the Premiere demo, but features included a much more intuitive interface, more audio and video tracks, and better sync for longer projects. Both look like great upgrades!
June 2, 1998
This won't surprise anyone who's ever used both platforms, but here's a link to a PDF file of the Gistics' 40-page report on computers and Return-On-Investment. The study looked at over 10,000 media-producing firms in 1997. Here's some of the findings, quoted from the Evangelist:
- - > A Mac-using creative professional produces $26,441 more annual revenue and $14,488 more net profit than a comparable Windows user.
- -> Mac-based studios achieve payback on a new platform in 4.59 months. (NT: 12.58 months.)
- -> Deployment of Macintosh technology constitutes a fiduciary responsibility. (I like that one!)
- -> Per year, a Mac user spends 234 more hours authoring/working (while the Windows user is "futzing around with Soviet technology", as Michael put it at his Milia'98 presentation in Cannes recently... :-)
If you not seen the numbers before, I think you might find them a pretty compelling argument for the Macintosh. See what you think.
May 30, 1998
Mac gaming news out of E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, has been fantastic. Lots of great games are headed to the Mac in the near future. Here's all the latest.
May 29, 1998
Apple yesterday showed off its upcoming iMac and presented it as a superior consumer-level product and outstanding gaming platform. There are rumors that the iMac will ship with a games software bundle.
On a related note, MacSoft announced that its sales had increased 151 percent in the last year, with profits even higher than that. MacSoft, famous for their Mac versions of popular PC games, said that the much-hyped game Unreal would be coming out for the Mac soon.
May 28, 1998
Just finished reading PC Magazine's on-line review of an incredibly inconsequential operating system upgrade called Windows 98. Slower performance, worse with battery life (for laptops), and no major interface changes to what is indisputably one of the worst Graphical User Interfaces ever put on the mass market. (Unless a "channel bar" is considered a major interface change.) The list price of $109 is almost criminal.
On the brighter side, Microsoft claims to have squashed "over 3,000 bugs from Windows 95." I knew there were a lot, but 3,000?!? And I liked what PC Magazine had to say about the bug-fixes of Window 95 by Windows 98: "How many [bugs] this version retains or introduces is an open question." If we're generous and say they only introduce half as many as last time, that's still 1,500 bugs! In the operating system alone!
May 23, 1998
Interesting news from an on-line PC magazine benchmarking a beta version of Windows 98. The new operating system is approximately 10 percent slower than Windows 95. Microsoft claims that ultimately Win98 will be faster than Win95 because Win98 contains a spiffy hard drive defragmentation utility which will, down the road, make the hard drive work more efficiently. Microsoft claims that over time Win95 slows considerably because of disk fragmentation, and thanks to Win98's defrag utility this won't happen any more. This is still a far cry from Macintosh operating system updates which typically speed things up by 10 percent.
Also of note is that Win95 plus Internet Explorer 4 was approximately 6 percent slower than a machine with Win95 alone. That's not my definition of a great web browser.
May 18, 1998
This was such a fun day for us Microsoft bashers that I nearly keeled over in laughter several times. In summary, the U.S. Department of Justice, the attorneys general of 20 states and the District of Columbia all filed parallel lawsuits against poor Microsoft claiming that the software giant violated anti-trust laws (obviously both state and federal) by forcing Internet Explorer on various Internet Service Providers, PC manufacturers and, basically, anyone else Microsoft could think of.
Microsoft, already losing badly in the court of public opinion, tried desperately (and it did sound desperate) to re-frame the anti-trust issues as governmental interference in business. But let's go through Bill Gates' remarks and see what we think, shall we? His indented comments are quoted straight from the Microsoft press release.
Thank you all for coming today.
...you can pick up your checks on the way out.
Twenty-three years ago, Paul Allen and I started Microsoft based on the principle that technology could dramatically improve peoples' lives.
Instead of "improve peoples' lives" it's probably more accurate to say "increase our bank accounts." I doubt very seriously that Bill Gates or Paul Allen, in starting Microsoft, ever thought once about principles, unless "money" is a principle.
Since then, Microsoft has worked hard to make computers more affordable, easy to use and accessible to millions of people.
After "Since then" I would like to see the word "arguably" appear somewhere in this sentence.
Today, people around the world are able to do things with computers and the Internet that just a few years ago seemed unimaginable.
Thank God. Think what the world would be like if Bill Gates had imagined the success of the Internet, and been able to control it.
I'm especially proud of Microsoft's contribution in creating and advancing this revolutionary industry and constantly expanding consumer choice.
Which is a particularly amazing statement given the fact that Microsoft has neither created nor advanced the industry and has probably set back consumer choice by about five years.
Our Windows operating system is the most popular PC operating system in the world because it offers consumers the best combination of price and performance.
Notice he said "Windows" not "Windows 95"? That's because the Win95 market share isn't any bigger than the MacOS market share. You have to include Windows 3.x to make the above statement half true. And of course the price-performance claim is ridiculous. The MacOS is less expensive, more elegant and does things with ease that Windows can only dream about.
Our desktop applications - like Microsoft Word and Excel - have made productivity tasks easier for millions of office workers, as well as people at home and at school.
True, depending on which versions of these programs you're talking about. Word 5.1 was terrific; Word 6 was a dog.
The Internet features that are part of Windows have opened up a world of information and enabled thousands of other technology companies to create products for the Internet.
Boy, that's a polite way of saying Microsoft has forced PC manufacturers and Internet Service Providers to use its software.
Today, we're shipping to computer manufacturers the next great innovation in software for the personal computer - Windows 98.
Ah, hyperbole! How I love thee!
Yet, ironically, on the same day that we're shipping this new consumer product, federal and state regulators have taken the unprecedented step of intervening in America's most successful and growing industry — by trying to design software.
Oh brother. It might come off as designing software, but what they're really trying to do is make up for Microsoft forcing their browser down everybody's throats. Ask yourself this: If this inclusion of Explorer into the operating system succeeds, what's to stop Microsoft from incorporating whatever other software they want into the operating system? And is that good for competition and innovation?
This is a step backward for America, for consumers and for the PC industry that is leading our nation's economy into the 21st century.
This is potentially a huge step forward for America, for consumers and for the PC industry that is leading our nation's economy into the 21st century.
How ironic that in the United States - where freedom and innovation are core values - these regulators are trying to punish an American company that has worked hard and successfully to deliver on those values.
This is about the point where most readers threw up their lunch. After pretty much ripping off Apple's Macintosh Graphical User Interface wholesale, it's hard to believe that Microsoft is touting itself as an innovator.
We believe an anti-trust lawsuit is counterproductive, costly to the taxpayers and ultimately will be unsuccessful in the courts.
Could be, but me and at least 20 state attorneys general don't think so.
I'm very disappointed we couldn't reach an agreement with the government.
I'll bet.
I would have liked nothing more than to settle this matter without a lawsuit. That's why we spent 10 days in intense negotiations with lawyers for the federal government. It's why we put forth - in good faith - substantive proposals despite the fact that we felt the government's claims were without merit.
Does anyone really believe that Microsoft would enter into negotiations of any kind if they thought that the government's claims were without merit? Me neither.
Demands that Microsoft hide its Windows user interface and Internet technology from PC users, and that we ship Netscape's competing software with Windows - all appear to benefit a single competitor at the expense of consumers.
It does "appear" that way, but then again Netscape is that company that's been most grievously harmed by Microsoft's anti-competitive practices.
Forcing Microsoft to include Netscape's competing software in our operating system is like requiring Coca Cola to include three cans of Pepsi in every six-pack it sells.
Coke doesn't have a 90 percent market share. And this analogy makes the web browser high fructose corn syrup, not a can of soda.
The changes the government is demanding on the boot up screen is like telling Coca Cola that it must remove it's name from every can of soda.
Um, actually all the government wanted was for Microsoft to let the PC manufacturers have their names come up first. That's hardly re-labeling cola bottles.
And saying that we must remove Internet technology from Windows is like telling Coca Cola it must take something out of its formula.
The government said Microsoft had to offer a choice of browsers. Again, the analogy is not very apt.
This kind of government intervention, citing from the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling last week, would, quote, "puts judges and juries in the unwelcome position of designing computers."
That's a quote marvelously out of context, but it really only points up what a terrible job the Justice Department did in the 1995 consent degree Microsoft gladly signed.
This suit is all about Microsoft's right to innovate on behalf of consumers and the right to integrate new technologies into the operating system as they develop.
Again, the words "Microsoft" and "innovate" should not be used in the same sentence. Anyone out there believe Microsoft works "on behalf of the consumers"? Or is Microsoft working for consumers' dollars a more likely scenario?
Under the rules the government regulators want to apply, Microsoft not only couldn't integrate Internet technology, but also wouldn't have been allowed to integrate the graphical user interface, memory management and networking support - all things that have allowed the PC industry to thrive and offer such amazing choices for consumers.
Disregarding this utterly unfounded "Microsoft as industry savior" premise, the government only wants fair competition. This would have relatively little to do with graphical user interfaces, memory management or networking support, except that Microsoft acquired the code or the ideas for all those items via what can only be described as nefarious means.
The regulators complain about lack of choice. But they have the facts wrong.
No, I don't think they do.
Huge numbers of users today have chosen which browser to use.
Yes, but Microsoft altered a level playing field by forcing Internet Service Providers and PC manufacturers to offer Internet Explorer and only Internet Explorer. This is the essence of anti-competitive practices. And let's face it, if Microsoft hadn't done this Netscape Navigator would still have a 80+ percent market share (instead of its current 50+ percent).
Computer manufacturers can choose to configure the first screen differently, and they do.
Then why is this a concern of the government? Why was this a sticking point in negotiations? Why did Bill just compare it to Coke being forced to label its can as Pepsi?
They can choose to add any browser. They can choose to market any other office suite.
Sure, but Microsoft obtained its market dominance in these areas by leveraging its dominance in operating system software.
Windows has helped grown an industry of millions of software developers worldwide, opening up new choices for consumers every day. We have promoted choice while bringing consumers the latest advances in technology.
Microsoft has promoted its own monopoly. That's not "opening up new choices for consumers."
Interfering with the freedom to innovate - through lawsuits such as these - will limit, not expand choice.
Well that's what we're hoping to find out.
Despite today's action, I'm enthusiastic about the great things we're working on at Microsoft and in partnership with thousands of other American technology companies—companies who share our vision of high-performance, affordable computing.
Well, Microsoft's got a force-feedback joystick that looks kinda neat. Other than that, I'm kinda lukewarm on Microsoft's "vision."
We're going to stay very focused on building great products while we resolve this issue in the courts because it's important to continue the progress we've see in this industry. It's important for consumers and it's important for America, because the technology industry really is our nation's economic engine, driving 25 percent of the country's economic growth and employing more than 7 million Americans.
If Godzilla appeared tomorrow and swallowed up Microsoft whole (well, I can dream, can't I?), the technology industry, consumers and America—not to mention the nation's economy—would scarcely be worse off. In fact, what you'd probably see is a fresh wave of innovative new products from start-up companies eager to fill the Microsoft void. Since the companies wouldn't have to compete against the company that made the operating system, they'd have a chance at succeeding, too.
In every corner of America, the personal computer industry today is touching someone personally — with a job selling software at the CompUSA store in Lexington, Kentucky...
Hopefully selling Mac software at the new Apple/CompUSA "store-within-a-store."
...creating the next killer software app in a garage in Boston...
Which Microsoft can't wait to either buyout or crush like a grape.
...building a computer at Dell's Round Rock, Texas plant...
Sales are off this quarter at Dell.
...or designing a more powerful microchip at Intel's operation in Dupont, Washington.
Or a chip more powerful still at Motorola.
There isn't an industry in America today that is more creative, more alive and more competitive.
The music and film industries come to mind.
And the amazing thing is, all this has happened without any government involvement.
I couldn't agree more. Where has the government been when we needed them most?
Indeed, it has happened precisely because companies like Microsoft and Compaq, Dell and Intel, IBM, Sun and Netscape have all been free to explore the frontiers of innovation and creativity without the government telling them how to do it.
Bill's mixing the issues, but the truth is that a little government intervention and regulation would've worked wonders here.
I'm confident that in the end, America's judicial system will uphold our right to innovate on behalf of consumers.
If that were the issue, I would agree.
While I am disappointed by today's actions...
Perhaps Bill will find solace in his $50 billion.
...I look forward to presenting our case in court and continuing to create great software for consumers.
Hey, Bill! Let me know when you start on that "great software for consumers" thing. Excepted Word 98 and Excel 98, we're still waiting.
May 17, 1998
Government-Microsoft anti-trust talks fell apart yesterday, so it appears that there will be a whole bunch of lawsuits filed on Monday. Admittedly, I'm not well-versed in anti-trust law, but my understanding is that it's illegal to use dominance in one business area to dominate another. If that's correct, Microsoft surely has a rocky road ahead. As one might expect, I'm not shedding many tears.
May 12, 1998
Okay. Here's the full scoop on Apple's operating system plans, straight from their PR release:
At the Company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple Computer, Inc. today outlined its operating system software strategy. The strategy includes continuing to enhance Apple's popular Mac OS 8 in releases scheduled for the Fall of 1998 and 1999. In addition, Apple announced Mac OS X (ten), a new advanced version of the Mac OS which will be available to developers in early 1999 and ship in the Fall of 1999. Mac OS X will feature preemptive multitasking, memory protection and advanced virtual memory, and will be fully optimized for Apple's PowerPC G3 based computers.
"Mac developers have created over 12,000 software applications for the 25 million Macintosh customers worldwide," said Steve Jobs, Apple's Interim CEO. "Our software strategy builds on this incredible foundation, and adds advanced features that will give us the foundation to continue to stay ahead in the coming decade."
Mac OS X will be based on a subset of the Macintosh application programming interfaces (APIs) that developers have been using for years to create Macintosh applications. With just a few weeks of work, developers can "tune-up" their applications to deliver new versions using the advanced features of Mac OS X, including protected memory, advanced virtual memory and preemptive multitasking. Apple also expects almost all current Macintosh applications to run unaltered on Mac OS X without a "tune-up" (and without the advanced features), ensuring a smooth transition to the operating system for both developers and customers.
Apple is paving the path to Mac OS X with two important operating system software releases scheduled for 1998—Mac OS 8.5 and Rhapsody.
Mac OS 8.5—code named Allegro—advances Internet integration on the Mac with new find and browsing capabilities and even easier Internet set up. Mac OS 8.5 will also include new features for power users, such as fast file transfer optimized for 100 MBps Ethernet and a full PowerPC implementation of AppleScript. As well as enhancing existing Apple technologies, Mac OS 8.5 introduces new services for developers that will allow them to begin development for Mac OS X.
Later this year Apple will ship the first customer release of Rhapsody, a new operating system that Apple is providing as a server platform for publishing and Internet solutions. Rhapsody contains technologies key to Mac OS X, including a microkernel-based core OS and an advanced software development environment.
Apple also announced that over 1 million Macintosh and Windows users have downloaded QuickTime 3 or QuickTime 3 Pro. Personally, I'm planning to wait until I'm certain all the kinks have been ironed out, but I am definitely going to jump on this bandwagon soon. My understanding is that QT3 Pro ($30) is a giant step forward.
May 11, 1998
I tuned in late, but I got a chance to watch via streaming video the end of the keynote at Apple's developers conference this morning. Steve Jobs announced plans for MacOS 8.5 ("Allegro") and MacOS X (that's "ten"). MacOS X features a whole bunch of really cool things like protected memory, 100% PowerPC code, etc. And supposedly it'll be pretty easy to write for. I saw an Adobe VP demo Photoshop 5 on an alpha version of MacOS X, and it looked great.
This has got to be one of the best articles on why the Mac interface is better than the sorry Windows 95 interface. I think once you read it, you'll never see your computer the same way again. Let me know what you think.
Apparently there's a glitch in Microsoft's FrontPage98 which will allow a user to unwittingly delete his entire hard drive. It's not a typical, every day situation, but it can happen (and has). Bug.Net calls it a bug, but Microsoft has no plans to fix it, saying, "Microsoft is not posting any patch for the problem because it's not a programming glitch." Yes, that's right: It's not a bug. It's a feature.
May 9, 1998
CMP Net recently interviewed Alan Solomon, the "Dr. Solomon" of anti-virus software fame. The last question of the interview was priceless:
Question: The current beta versions of Windows 98 lets files automatically be written to a user's hard disk, does this present a security problem?
Answer: That's going to be hilarious. If Microsoft actually ships it like that, then it is possible to create a file on your hard disk. The problem is that if anybody on the Internet can create a file on your hard disk, then they could create a file called autoexec.bat containing anything they wanted it to.
I was checking this interview out because the Mac has a new significant virus, "Autostart 9805," on the scene—the first significant Mac virus in three years, according to MacVirus. A couple important notes about the virus: First, it only runs on PowerPC chips; if you're running a 680x0 machine, you're safe. Second, Disinfectant will not detect it, but Dr. Solomon's and Norton Anti-Virus both have updaters available which will deal with the virus properly.
Mac-specific viruses aren't very common. For the most part, Mac users biggest virus problems come from the cross-platform Microsoft Word and Excel macro viruses which originate on PCs. What Mac users have to deal with is nothing compared to the carnage exacted by thousands of viruses in the PC world, a strange but important Mac advantage.
May 7, 1998
Apple's new iMac machine looks like a very intriguing consumer-market machine. Priced at $1299, it comes with a 15" monitor (1024x768, with 2MB of video RAM, expandable to 4MB), 32MB RAM (max. 128MB), 512K L2 cache, 10/100 Ethernet, 233-MHz "G3" CPU with a 66-MHz bus, 4 GB hard drive, 24X CD-ROM, dual Universal Serial Bus ports with USB mouse and keyboard, 4-Mbit IRDA infrared networking, 33.6K modem and dual headphone jacks and stereo speakers (surround sound). The software for the machine includes MacOS 8.1, FileMaker Pro, Quicken 98 Deluxe, and ClarisWorks.
In terms of price/performance, iMac is a killer computer. It's faster than a 400-MHz Pentium II, and at a very nice price point. True, it's not a particularly expandable machine, but neither was a lot of the now-defunct Performa series, and that didn't stop those from being good machines. It looks to me like Apple's iMac is a winner.
Of course Apple didn't just introduce iMac yesterday. It also introduced a complete line of new PowerBook G3 computers, the slowest of which is still faster than the fastest Pentium II-based laptop. In short, these machines scream with speed.
May 6, 1998
Motorola announced a new instruction set, AltiVec, for PowerPC processors. This is kind of like Intel's much-ballyhooed MMX technology, except that AltiVec really will make PowerPC chips that much better. Motorola's press release says:
AltiVec will enable future PowerPCs to dramatically accelerate applications such as voice over IP (Internet Protocol), multi-channel modems, routers, virtual private networks (VPNs), speech processing, image and video processing, and array processing, among others.
Supposedly, this will yield a "tenfold performance increase over standard PowerPC chip, at least when applied to some data-intensive applications." That's not bad at all, especially when compared to the really lame MMX chips which can actually slow things down in some instances. (Despite Intel's big MMX marketing hype thing last year, I'm not aware of more than a couple Adobe applications that actually use MMX anyway.)
Over on the dark side, Microsoft, in their tireless battle to prove that there's no public relations damage like self-inflicted public relations damage, held a nifty little press conference to try to illustrate support for Windows 98. The level of hyperbole climbed to new heights in the process, as reported by CNet News:
...Dr. N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard, echoed that forecast, saying postponing the release of Windows 98 "would throw sand into the gears of human progress."
I'm sure half of America fell out of their chairs from laughing so hard. I know I did. Look for government court filings relating to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to be filed against Microsoft soon and for the laughter to continue.
May 1, 1998
Don't know if this is nation-wide or not, but the Santa Clara, California CompUSA has a bunch of cool Mac games (Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Descent, Prime Target, Damage Incorporated, Terminal Velocity, Monopoly, etc.) on sale for $10 each. Worth checking out!
April 26, 1998
Okay, this item is a little long, but I think it's really important. So many people think Windows 95 is just as easy use as the MacOS, or, God forbid, they think it's easier. While I'll grant you that Win95 looks pretty on the outside, it's a confusing nightmare once you really start using it. This example comes from a poor Mac user forced to use Windows 95. The story is quoted from the Evangelist:
When I first saw the Windows '95 Desktop, (at work, of course!) I saw "My Computer" and assumed it was the hard disk, or C drive. It isn't—so, preferring to have all my drives on the desktop, I made shortcuts for the floppy disk, hard disk, CD-ROM and Jaz drive.
This works well enough when you're just dragging things to them, but when you work with them in File Open and File Save dialogs, the following Incredibly Stupid Thing happens: You have a file, let's say it's called "Very Important Report.doc" [and] you go to save it and the File Save Dialog opens, showing you those easy shortcuts to all your drives. You want to save it to your Jaz drive, so you click on the shortcut "Jaz Drive."
It opens up and you save—but before you save, take a look at the filename—you're saving a file called "Jaz Drive.lnk"! For some reason, the shortcut's filename gets substituted for your filename.
Blink and you've missed it—and if you have missed it, you've haven't got a document called "Very Important Report.doc" any more—try doing one of those "but I know I wrote that report!" searches—plus you've got a deeply-confused file that thinks it's a shortcut but isn't.
Also, shortcuts to drives aren't shortcuts to drives at all, they're shortcuts to drive ID's, so the day you come in and forget to turn your "D" drive on, the system just ignores it and maps the next drive it finds, which yesterday was "E", to that shortcut. Surprise! Your CD-ROM is now only available via your Jaz shortcut, and your Jaz shortcut is just an error message.
Compare this with a Mac Alias which gives you sensible error messages when drives are switched off and will cheerfully connect you to an previously-unconnected networked drive with just a brief sidestep in the File Save process....
April 23, 1998
As many of you are well-aware, the Macintosh is immune to the programming problems surrounding the year 2000 debacle. How hard, after all, is it to see that the year 2000 is coming up so are computers better to prepared for it? Apparently it's a little too hard for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. Here's a paragraph from the Evangelist:
"Microsoft classifies its products for Y2K 'compliant,' 'Compliant w/minor issues,' and 'Not compliant.' The NT4.0 Workstation and Server editions appear to be 'Compliant w/minor issues,' whatever that means. They list software required to be 'in compliance,' however at least one of the pieces required is in beta form...lovely!"
Where do you want to go today?
April 21, 1998
I don't know if I'm ready to declare that the tide is turning, but frankly it's been plenty refreshing to see Microsoft and Intel get beaten up in the press for a change. And it appears that Mac Evangelism is working. Here, courtesy of Mac Central, is set of stories about people dropping Wintel and moving to the Mac.
Maybe you've already read the story about Bill Gates showing off a Windows 98 demo and getting a blue screen of death for his efforts. Although lots of Mac people have been jumping on this, I'm inclined to cut Gates some slack. (As one Mac site said, "It beats a cream pie in the face.") Windows 98 isn't a released product, and he was just showing off beta software as far as I'm concerned. Of course Window 98 is only 4 weeks away from release, so one would hope that Microsoft would squash these bugs in a hurry. You'd hate to have instability like that in your final product. <snicker>
April 15, 1998
How's this for a day that many thought would never come? Apple declares a $55 million profit for the 2nd quarter (traditionally their weakest), and Intel announces it will lay off 3,000. There wasn't a lot of breakout in Apple's financial statement, but there's no question the G3 machines are selling like crazy. (I believe Apple shipped 650,000 of them last quarter.)
Speaking of G3 machines, Apple Germany is now bundling Virtual PC 2.0 with every machine they sell. Why buy a PC when you can get a G3 and run software for both platforms?
April 10, 1998
Good news, Microsoft-bashers! The company has gone and shot itself in the foot yet again, this time via a nationwide ad campaign. Here's the details, as quoted from the Los Angeles Times:
"Microsoft Corp., stung by the public relations fallout from antitrust investigations of its business practices, has been planning a massive media campaign designed to influence state investigators by creating the appearance of a groundswell of public support for the company.
"The elaborate plan, outlined in confidential documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, hinges on a number of unusual tactics, including the planting of articles, letters to the editor and opinion pieces to be commissioned by Microsoft's top media handlers but presented by local firms as spontaneous testimonials."
So when you start reading a bunch of pro-Microsoft news in the coming months, now you'll know why. In fact, the first anti-Justice Department Microsoft ads began running yesterday, and included the line "We believe the marketplace should determine what innovations consumers want."
Well, exactly. That's precisely why so many of us think Microsoft's monopolistic power is a terrible thing.
April 9, 1998
My review of Virtual PC 2.0 (appearing on my web site as "My 486 is Out of a Job") is also being posted to Mike Breeden's Accelerate Your Mac, a major Mac web site which garners something in the neighborhood of 60,000 hits per day. Click here to read my review on Mike's site.
Headline out of today's San Jose Mercury News was amazing: "Computer files erased at Stanford; Years of academic work lost in what dean calls 'disaster.'" Two techs were upgrading the business school's Windows-based (surprise!) network and for whatever reason the machines, when turned back on after the upgrade, were unable to read their original files. Literally years of academic research, doctoral dissertations, etc. were lost. My favorite line in the article? "...[M]any of the faculty members and students were shielded from the disaster because they used Apple computers or Unix mainframes—rather than the Windows-based PCs served by the business school network."
April 6, 1998
Leave it to Microsoft to try to rain on the Apple QuickTime 3.0 parade. After being rebuffed by the International Standards Organization, Microsoft has gone ahead and introduced their own new content creation format, Advanced Streaming Format 2.0 (aka ASF). Never mind that QuickTime is already the de facto standard for content creation (and was just picked by ISO for the MPEG-4 standard for that reason). Microsoft is touting ASF as a better file format, something that is—not surprisingly if you know Microsoft's history—just not true.
In fact, Microsoft calls QuickTime "not suitable for cross-platform multimedia file interchange." That is an absolutely false statement, bordering on ridiculous. QuickTime operates on both Macintosh and PC platforms. (And not just Windows 95. I know the guy who did the OS/2 QuickTime translator.)
In contrast, ASF 2.0 is not supported by Windows 95 or Window NT 4.0. And those very few, poor saps who were unlucky enough to buy Microsoft's bill of goods with ASF 1.0 will find that ASF 2.0 is incompatible. ASF 1.0 movies don't run on 2.0. And I won't even start on 2.0's the huge hardware requirements. (Though trust me, whatever machine you're using right now probably doesn't qualify for 2.0.)
In the end, this may be a moot point, and Microsoft can just go and do what they want. Apple's QuickTime 3.0 already supports directly OpenDML files, GeoTIFF files, AVI-wrapped DV files, etc., and Apple (or any QuickTime developer) can support AAF with a QuickTime Import component. So anyone who wants to use Microsoft's new format (which, by the way, is derived from Apple's OpenDoc technology), can rest easy in the knowledge that it can be incorporated into the only true multi-platform content creation file format, QuickTime 3.0.
March 31, 1998
Apple releases a much-heralded QuickTime 3.0. Connectix releases the long-awaited Virtual PC 2.0. Adobe ships Premiere 5.0.
March 17, 1998
I finally had the chance to do a side-by-side comparison, Mac versus PC, of Duke Nukem 3D. Although it really doesn't effect game play all that much, the Mac graphics are clearly superior to those of the PC. For most items you don't really notice it, but any text that's displayed on-screen during the course of the game is much more crisp and legible on the Mac. FYI, gamers.
Steve Jobs gave the keynote on Seybold NY this morning. There he showed off Quicktime 3.0, Colorsync 2.5, and some new 300-MHz G3 Macs. He even did a demo comparing a 333-MHz Pentium II, a Power Mac G3 266-MHz, a Power Mac G3 300-MHz and a prototype of a Power Mac 400-MHz. I hardly need add that the Pentium II got kicked up a tree, finishing way behind everything else.
March 15, 1998
I've had a couple days now to play around with MacOS 8.1, and despite an initial conflict with the ObjectSupportLib file (which I neglected to remove—oops), it's a great upgrade. Clearly faster than 7.6.1 or 8.0, MacOS 8.1 also appears to be the most stable system I've run. Once I ditched the ObjectSupportLib extension (which is what it says to do in the Apple read me file), it's been nothing but clear sailing. Among other things, programs open and close significantly faster than before—the days of waiting for the computer are pretty well over.
March 3, 1998
According to PC Data, a market research company, Apple sales in January accounted for nearly 12 percent of the revenue earned in the PC marketplace. Apple's market share for January was 7.1 percent.
March 2, 1998
Apple cuts prices across the board. Worth of special note are G3 systems using desktop enclosures. The entry-level model with a 233-MHz processor, 32 Mbytes of RAM and a 4-Gbyte is now only $1,700. The 266-MHz model with the same features, but with a Zip drive, now runs $2,000.
February 16, 1998
What!?! Another flaw in Intel's chips? Yep.
February 12, 1998
Word has it that ISO (which I think stands for "International Standards Organization") has selected Apple's QuickTime technology to be the basis for MPEG-4, a video display format. As usual, Microsoft was pushing their own inferior technology.
February 6, 1998
Reports from NAMM, a music industry tradeshow, say that Apple's presence there is bigger than it's been in years. This re-dedication to creative content producers is a very welcome sign, particularly in the area of audio where (1) the vast majority of professionals run Mac-based setups and (2) I'm currently spending lots of money. I see Apple choosing to strengthen their marketing here as a very good thing.
February 5, 1998
Apple has a new "Think Different" ad on the airwaves, and it's probably the best ad they've done in years. Finally they're letting the world know that the G3 chips are up to twice as fast as the Pentium IIs that Intel is pushing. Let's hope somebody's paying attention.
In other news, IBM presented a technical paper on a 1 GHz PowerPC chip that it in development. (Apparently they already have a 500 MHz PowerPC in prototype.) While chip speed is not the only factor in over computer performance, current and future PowerPC-based machines look to outperform their Intel-based counterparts probably for the next few years. And if you're talking laptop computing, it's not even close. Because the PowerPC is a RISC chip and Intel's are CISC, the PowerPC actually gets smaller and cooler as the new generations come out. In contrast, the Intel stuff gets bigger and hotter.
January 29, 1998
If anyone wonders why Mac advocates like me complain about the unfair press Apple's getting, here's a headline from today's San Jose Mercury News: "Best Buy boots Apple."
What's so infuriating is that the headline should read "Apple boots Best Buy." Apple announced about a month ago that they were going to pare back the number of retail outlets that could carry Apple merchandise because the sad fact is that most of them do a terrible job of selling Apple equipment. When Apple sent undercover buyers to Apple-authorized retailers last fall, they found that more often than not the sales people even tried to sell Wintel boxes to the buyer (even when the buyer said he/she was interested in Apple computers). Big surprise that Apple's dropping these guys, but leave it to the media to put an Apple-negative slant on the story.
[In the meantime, if you're looking for Apple stuff at a retail store try CompUSA. They've substantially beefed up the Apple departments in 54 of their stores, and they're aiming to have all stores re-worked by the end of the year.]
January 28, 1998
One of the biggest raps against the Mac has traditionally been the lack of games. (Never mind that the games are generally better graphically on a Mac.) Well, now that I've stepped up to PowerPC speeds (and very slow PowerPC speeds at that—a 601 at 100-MHz), I'm finally able to run MAME, the arcade game emulator. This program runs dozens of different arcade games, and it's freeware. Checkout Emulation.net for details. Meanwhile, here's a screen shot from one of my favorites, Kangaroo:
