[clue-talk] Apple riding the Tsunami of....

[Nate Duehr]

Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> On 05-16 09:24, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> 
>>what?
>>
>>Take a read and make your predictions:
>>
>>http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/next_wave_tigers_real_secret_weapon_to_rock_the_market/
>>
>>The interesting question: where is Linux in this?
> 
> 
> My prediction is that this is hyperbole and that Apple continues to get
> marginalized. Sure, they've enjoyed good sales of the Ipod and OS X is neat,
> but someone will come along and kick the iPod to the curb on
> price/features/branding. And OS X only has <2% of the market?

I would agree, but Apple does something that not a single other computer 
company really gives more than lip-service to, and it seems to be the 
backbone of their products -- and I think they know it too:

They make all of it easy to use for an average person.

Of course, I've also been realizing as of late that there are a much 
larger percentage of people out there who will gladly pay 1/2 the price 
of an Apple product and work harder keeping the machine running, doing 
what they need.  There's also a large percentage of people who simply 
believe in the religion that computers are supposed to be hard to use.

I call it a religion because imagine the emotional gut-level response if 
a CEO said "I refuse to hire a help desk or set up any trouble ticketing 
systems for my large enterprise, and I expect the computers will work 
perfectly"... they'd be laughed off the Street.

However... I know of at least one medium-sized company that is using 
100% Apple products that both have has a SINGLE sysadmin who's 
maintaining things, and generally nothing breaks.  XServe with XRAID, 
and all Mac clients... the systems work every day, and rarely crash. 
And users can fix their own problems most of the time.

It *is* a possibility, but the world prefers not to believe it is, and 
there's too many of us who trust that computers will BREAK regularly and 
who BANK on that for our livelihood.  That's no recipe for better 
computing.

Apple's headed somewhere else.  I applaud them for their dedication to 
stuff that "just works" and does it elegantly.  There may be better 
"iPod like" devices in terms of feature-set and size, but you'll never 
beat the user interface for someone who's computer-illiterate.

My opinions anyway, just for discussion-fodder.  ;-)

Nate