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Sounds good to me. Lets go with it.

Billy Boy has been played!!!

Steve could help out here and send Micky over to help out.

What a Micky mouse outfit it would be then!

"Redmond Start Your Copiers"

If that isn't someone taunting another to fall into a trap I don't know what else is...

http://themacobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2006/20060403.shtml

"Bill hates to lose. . ."
The first understatement of the year award.

Take a look at Microsoft's stock: INHX

Does the link work ?

http://www.google.com/finance?q=INHX

the full article link links back to this page. We need a fix

Interesting - comparing a computer company with a music download company. Me thinks Bill won when Steve surrendered with MacIntel which should run Vista quite well.

That's a stretch.

So apple forced Microsoft to be crap by being good themselves and concentrating on products and markets they felt the could succeed in? Personally I think that saying it was an elaborate plan on Apple's behalf gives Microsoft too little credit for self destruction.

I am not sure "maneuver" is the right word, but the delay of Vista ceratnly has an Apple factor or more specifically an OS X factor. OS X sets up the bar, and the bar is raised several times during the course of Vista development with each release of OS X. Consequently, Vista has to be readjusted to make sure it is "competitive" with OS X when it finally comes out.

Um, no -- Apple has innovated the OS in such a great way that MS is unable to compete.

Apple took the very painful path of switching to a modern platform which allows rapid development of emerging technologies and is able to handle an ever growing system load.

Windows has been unwilling to leave support for older hardware and software behind. This has boxed them into a corner.

Undoubtedly, they will create a new OS without regard to previous Windows users that will usher in a modern era for them. Until then, it's going to get ugly. And in fact, leaving existing users behind will get even more ugly. heh heh heh

I disagree with this article. If these are the real reasons behind Steve's logic for running a company then I am worried. I'm sure these issues come up, but do you really think this is what is driving the business plan at Apple? This is business not high school revenge. I think profit margins, R&D;, and advertising are much higher on the list then these things.

A more likely scenario is that Microsoft brought all this upon themselves by not thinking far enough ahead. In contrast, Apple has done just that and has consistently produced superior software.

As he writes, I don't think this was a deliberate plan to begin with as Apple could have no way of predicting how long it would actually take Microsoft to get Vista out the doors.

However, they have to an increasing degree stepped up the pressure, and moving the WWDC to September was a cunning move that in my opinion forced Microsoft to move the intro of Vista, or they would have launched a Vista that would look like a silly copy of Mac OS X 10.4.
Microsoft could easily end up looking like they finally had lost it to Mac OS X if they launched at the same time as Steve Jobs announced hot new features in 10.5.

I think Apple simply went back to what Apple does best: make consumer software that's easy to use. Apple plays this "niche" very well and it works.

Microsoft wasn't drawn into anything. They never decided what kind of company they are. They just aren't Apple. That non-focus is tearing the rapidly spinning juggernaut apart.

It was easy to see coming. MS should break up into more competitive groups with separate missions.

I hope that Apple is able to keep focus on their core competencies, but it is easy to forsee the dicipline breaking down with the likes of iPod WiFi. You can argue this is a best-in-class product, but does Apple make an extensible iPod platform or do they control the whole iPod ecosystem?

Apple should try and avoid destroying third-party markets and avoid causing resentment in developers. Apple's come a long way in embracing developers, but they need to keep focussed on building the best possible platform and that's done with outside help, not a closed system and not an everything-approach.

Lets keep the ideas fresh and recylcing and work together without compromising our ideals or our product for political/internal reasons.

That goes for you too, reader.

That makes about as much sense as giving all the credit to Ronnie Reagan for ending communism by forcing the Soviets to outspend their military budget.

Do not ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

Son, I hate to say this but, you're an idiot.

...And, take that finger out of your nose.

Steve Jobs = Ronald Reagan

Reagan was largely credited with the fall of the Soviet Union by ramping up U.S. defense spending, specifically by developing advanced and sexy weapons systems like the F-117 stealth fighter and the B-2 stealth bomber. The Soviets, afraid of falling behind, then tried to play a game of tit-for-tat by also pouring money into defense.

Unfortunately for the Soviets, decades of communism had devasted their infrastructure and economy, and the Evil Empire simply fell apart at the seams in the end.

Not exactly a perfect analogy because Apple has been able to achieve much more than Microsoft for 1/10 the money, but I think the author is totally correct. It sorta makes sense how Jobs jabbed that Microsoft at MacWorld when showing off Tiger that they "couldn't copy fast enough," almost as if he were goading them into making last minute changes in the feature set to try keep up with Apple.

And Windows, just like the Soviet Union, lacked the infrastructure to accomodate a rapid development environment.

Soooooooooooo vague.

We read on this forum a week or two ago the suggestion that Microsoft had been brought to grief by the fact that it had had to try to make VISTA compare to OSX.

The author of the article must read MDN..

Yeah but Microsoft now says that are "people-ready"!

Of course, [url="http://www.tonicnews.com/go/pictures/d/1362-3/nerd.gif
"]this[/url] is who they were talking about. (No offense, if that's one of you guys.)

"but do you really think this is what is driving the business plan at Apple?"

The author says
"I don't think this was a war plan written out in detail. I think it was the gut instinct of a very smart Apple CEO who nursed the plan along and let it flourish,"

So, I think Steve Jobs is driving the business plan. It just so happens that it has had an unintended but some might say welcome side effect.

While his assessment of the current situation seems pretty accurate, I don't agree with him the SJ had this outcome in mind all along and has been steering the Good Ship Apple in this direction. In my opinion, Apple has just done what it's always done, build the best products they can and wait for people to catch on. Microsoft is continuing to do what it always does, build products good enough to ship (although that's debatable) and focus on finding ways to force people to use them. That worked well for them for many years, and it probably will continue to do so, despite the deficiencies in Vista.

He does hit on a point that I've been harping on for a long time, which is that MS is too tied to the legacy of old Windows to innovate. It's hard to turn on a dime with the weight of the world on your back, and Windows will continue to become more and more stagnant until they build a plan to jump to something altogether new, like Apple did with OS X. That was one place where Apple's small market share helped them out. MS is going to have a much harder time doing that. If I were Bill, the first thing I'd do (after firing Ballmer of course) would be to gut the superfluous garbage, and get back to basics. Focus on the OS, and the productivity apps and forget about music, photos, etc. To get out of this predicament, they need to do what Apple did, essentially build two OSs, one completely new one and one to bridge the gap between the old and new. I truly believe that if they don't take this course, they're not going to survive. Don't get me wrong, it'll be a slow death, but it will happen. Think about how much OS X has changed in the last 5 years, while Vista promises little new technology. It's hardly more than a face lift. Then project what technological advances will come in the next 5 years, and where will MS be then? Probably still with Vista, IF it's been released by then.

I doubt that Apple had a crystal ball and set a trap for M$, but I have no doubt that M$ has fallen into one. The world of computing is so much more complex than the dawn of the GUI desktop computer and even the dawn of the networked home computer that being all things to all people is more than a tall order-- it's nearly impossible to do well.

There is an old saying about if you try to be all things to all people you will end up being nothing to nobody, or something like that. M$ has tried to take a kludge OS, maintain legacy app support, stay current with (web, network and media) technology needs, extend the OS into the Unix server space, extend into embedded devices, extend into the handheld (Palm/Newton) market, extend into Smart Phones and both handheld & living room media devices. All with the same or similar code base.

Friends, I can drive an open tractor to Chicago in the wintertime-- it drives a lot like a car-- but it will not be a rewarding or enjoyable experience. I could also probably plow a field with a Hummer and get similar results. I could enter a Toyota Prius in the Indy 500 and it would be more of the same. The point is that all would function, just not very well. This is what M$ has been doing and the ever expanding complexity of the Personal Computer is catching up with their business model and OS roadmap.

The obvious solution to all of this is depending upon interoperable standards. Not M$'s proprietary versions that they market, but the real deal. Then they can be free to write different compatible OSes that work well together. This is the one thing that they will not do.

Microsoft has achieved most of their growth through exploiting their de facto control of the desktop. By releasing "Microsoft" versions of industry standards they can effectively cripple Mac Linux, Solaris and other systems that wish to play in their universe. By supporting open standards the playing field is level and people could use what they want and would see Windows for the kludge OS that it is.

They set the trap with their own greed, hubris and in-breeding.

You could also argue that Apple told Macintosh users that they would deliver a modern OS, and Classic would run their old apps. Then Apple said in order to move the OS forward Classic will no longer be supported. These incremental steps helped users upgrade products they wanted to keep, and get rid of products they didn't want to keep, allowing the maturation of the OS and the maturation of the customer to be in sync.

Microsoft cannot do this easily. But in order for them to compete, they need to tell their users that they will support the old OSes for a year, and then people will need to upgrade or lose support. If they cannot convince people to do this, they are finisshed in the OS market. Their OS will also be bulky, slow and stodgy compared to OS X.

The article misses these poitns, but Apple's firmness to take a stand to move forward and Apple's customer base descision to move forward with the promise of a modern OS are the reason I believe Apple is winning right now.

I am sorry folks. I know for a fact that Apple did not manuever MS to its current management woes. I sent my trained lab rat, "Fluffy", into Mr. Jobs office with a miniature CCD camera strapped on its back. And I found 2 Voodoo dolls under his desk. One was fat, bald, and stupid, the other frail looking with glasses on.

Yes people! Steve Jobs has performed satanic rituals to steer MS off track.

Don't laugh! My explaination is about as viable as Martellaro's. It is also more likely to be made into a movie that can eventually be sold on iTunes...no french version though...:(

Microsoft is in it's problem due to them wanting Windows to be compatible with old software. Apple basically decided not to provide Legacy support in OS X, instead you had OS 9 apps run in a virtual environment (Classic) if you needed a program and it wasn't yet available. Now, 5 years later, just about everything has an OS X version, and on the new Intel macs, they have dumped classic. It's a smart move for Apple. Microsoft has shackled itself by trying to keep everything compatible in Vista. They should just dump previous version support, and run older programs in a virtual environment (like Classic) until they are retooled for Vista. But Microsoft isn't that forward thinking......

What a load of rubbish.

That's all we need...

To have the Windows Fanboi sites pick up the title to this story without understanding the meaning of the referenced article, then declare, "Vista's delay is all Apple's fault. Even the Mac sites say it!"

I can hear it now. You know there are thousands upon thousands of Windows devotees who will sing this tune until they die.

Microsoft is the SOFTWARE company here, and THEY should be the ones setting the bar. But, they have chosen to try to chase Apple which is a fruitless effort (pun intended).

There is no way that Microsoft can make a generic OS for a vast array of CPU configurations and still be as innovative as a company that makes its own hardware. Microsoft will never win!

Microsoft would have been better off ignoring Apple and just created their own path, using their ability to run on thousands of various computers as their strength: "Anyone can make a fast engine for a single car, but how many others can make a fast engine to fit the car that you want to drive?"

Steve Jobs has very cleverly compared their obviously superior OS to Windows... and Bill Gates BELIEVED HIM!!

Where does this leave Microsoft? After trying to make their Windows more Mac-like, it requires a more powerful computer system. People will have to consider buying a new computer... NEW HARDWARE. This is Apple's territory! Apple now has the opportunity to imply that if you are going to buy all new hardware anyway, why not try a Mac?

If Microsoft would have played their own game, they wouldn't have been chasing Apple. But, it's too late... Checkmate, my dear Mr. Gates.

Its not the big that eats the small, its the fast that beats the slow. Done deal.

Microsoft failed to deliver Longhorn and is failing to deliver Vista because, well, it's Microsoft. Unless Steve Jobs has some super-secret moles in Redmond throwing wrenches into the gears it is all Microsoft's problem and Microsoft's doing.

That makes about as much sense as giving all the credit to Ronnie Reagan for ending communism by forcing the Soviets to outspend their military budget.

It was actually Zbigniew Brezinski who was responsible for sucking the Soviets into a ten year misadventure in Afghanistan, which was mainly responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and creating Osama and Al Qaeda along the way. Thanks a lot, Zbig.

I think this writer is "weaving logic" around the events that happened, but it's a good story.

Faaaaaaaaa......aaaaarrrrrrr....rrrr fetch!!

If people are liking MS's woes to the way the West played the USSR, we had better be careful what we wish for.

The power vacuum that ensued the USSR's fall hasn't been exactly good. Instead of one big adversary, we now have groups of terror fanatics fighting from the shadows. Freedom is certainly a good thing, but I don't think the Cold War strategists expected the Soviet fall to play out like this. And like neomonkey pointed out, the disaster in Afghanistan didn't help any.

I'm not saying MS is good. I'm just wondering if things would really be better if they fell out of the way.

Is Apple ready to take the role of OS superpower?

Neomonkey should also check his history and learn how Carter stopped payments to the mullahs in the middle east that set up the instability in the region which led to terrorists thinking they could get away with anything. Can anyone say bombing in Beruit and kidnapping? It also gave rise to the thinking in Russia that they could get away with just about anything they wanted to also. ie Invading Afghanistan which led to the rise of the Taliban who we still have to deal with today. Ahhhh, why are we picking on a dumb peanut farmer???? He's worthy! He's worthy!!

Steve Jobs is a "sneaky" strategist, but I don't think Apple, in its wildest dreams, would have expected Windows 2003 (aka Vista) would be delayed until 2007 (with much of what made it "longhorn" gone).

From what I'm hearing, MS will be lucky to get ANY version of Vista (consumer or otherwise) released by early 2007.

Crappy article, I thought. The author lays out five points very specifically and meanders all over sort of covering most of it.

If he had given explicite examples of each point, it woud have been much better - and exposed many of the flaws (like Apple losing the enterprise market in the mid-90's which was clearly given away a decade earlier).

Here is a link someone posted on another thread of video from the 1997 MacWorld Boston keynote (with Bill Gates on the big screen).

http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/Macworld-Keynotes.html

It's really interesting to see nearly 10 years later what they did right and what they did wrong (not much), as well as to get the perspective of what the new board members thought they needed to do do to fix them company. There were a lot of points that are still relevant today. It makes you realize that Microsoft really is in a similar shape right now. They, like Apple at the time, have lost their focus and desperately need to concentrate on their core competencies (competencies and MS in the same sentence? It's really hard not to make a joke right now), and get back to basics.

It's also funny to hear SJ talk about how MS and Apple plan to work so tightly together and help each other to build better products, and stop competing against each other. Oops! I guess that didn't happen! I highly recommend watching it, it's really interesting.

"Reagan was largely credited with the fall of the Soviet Union by ramping up U.S. defense spending, specifically by developing advanced and sexy weapons systems like the F-117 stealth fighter and the B-2 stealth bomber."

Reagan had NOTHING to do with the development of the F117 and B2, as they were both designed in the 70's. The F117 was flying in the 70's. He did spend a lot of money on them though, which was smart.

Building the OS X user interface on top of standard Unix is the key to success.

Years (decades) of development went into Unix before Apple engaged it. Well proven was Unix, with lots of security issues resolved before Apple even started building on it.

M$ rightly decided they needed a new OS, because the old one was rapidly heading towards end-of-life complexity and bloatware. To avoid copyright disputes they couldn't very well build on an established Unix like Apple. Unix is the only game in town; even Linux is based on Unix. The only option was to reinvent the wheel and build a new OS from scratch.

So M$ is caught between a rock and and hard place, in its endeavours to build a new OS base from scratch. This path has taken, and will continue to take, person-years of debugging, before the base OS eventually becomes super reliable like Unix. Concurrently, M$ has to keep up with Apple's ongoing development of a super efficient and beautiful user interface. In this endeavour they have had to cut feature after feature from ..., Longhorn, Vista, etc. because of the OS base's bugs, I surmise. Apple based its screen graphics on public domain pdf. I understand that even the Windows equivalent of pdf has been scrubbed from Vista.

All M$'s troubles are of their own making; they have over-reached themselves.