The Vent and Rant Thread

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Actually I'm not referring to necroposting; rather to the behavior of some memebers to keep sharing their opinions on many threads....

Oh well, in that case it depends. Do they agree with me?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Oh well, in that case it depends. Do they agree with me?

Agree with you. Surely you jest. Oh wait I have you confused with someone else.

[Dylrob]

You know as much as I love Apple products, if the rumors about them ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack on the next iPhone turn out to be true, I really hope Tim Cook joins Steve Ballmer in the "out-of-touch former CEOs" club.

[Katsunami]

Apple is always pushing 'different' connections. They pushed Firewire, but nobody ever used it, apart from some people in edge cases (and Apple users themselves). They also helped intel to develop Thunderbolt. I've never seen a Thunderbolt device in the wild in the Netherlands.

USB is a mess now. Previously we had USB, USB2, and USB3, and they were backwards and forwards compatible. Now we have those three, but we also have USB3.1 Gen1, which is basically USB3, we have USB3.1 Gen2 which is basically faster USB in a USB3 connector, and we have both USB3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 inside the USB-C connector; and that connector also supports Thunderbolt 3 and HDMI and even SATA/PCI-Express if I remember correctly.

I don't know for sure. I would have to read up on this... and I'm in IT. Imagine how 'normal' people feel about this. (I don't know if the USB mess is Apple's fault though.)

[Katsunami]

According to this article, all of Apple's wealth and revenue comes from the iPhone; over 70%.

This means that Apple is now a phone company with some computing stuff on the side. One big mistake, and people could switch away from the iPhone. It's much, much easier to switch phones than to switch computers/operating systems.

You can see how fast everything went downhill for Nokia and Blackberry. Nokia is very big outside the phone world (in networking and industrial applications and such), but Apple isn't, AFAICT. If the iPhone fails, Apple fails.

If Windows 10 fails, Microsoft will possibly fail as well.

Then we have only Google and it will turn into Skynet.

[CRussel]

[QUOTE=Katsunami;3237387If Windows 10 fails, Microsoft will possibly fail as well.[/QUOTE]

MS has substantial revenues from multiple sources, including cloud services, apps, and enterprise servers. Oh, and Windows 10 shows NO signs of failing. It's selling, and being installed and used, like hotcakes.

I'm not sure Apple is completely tied to the phone, but that 70% figure should be scary to them. Personally, the ONLY apple product I use is my iPhone. And I'm getting close to ditching it. It wouldn't take much...

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

According to this article, all of Apple's wealth and revenue comes from the iPhone; over 70%.

This means that Apple is now a phone company with some computing stuff on the side. One big mistake, and people could switch away from the iPhone. It's much, much easier to switch phones than to switch computers/operating systems.

You can see how fast everything went downhill for Nokia and Blackberry. Nokia is very big outside the phone world (in networking and industrial applications and such), but Apple isn't, AFAICT. If the iPhone fails, Apple fails.

If Windows 10 fails, Microsoft will possibly fail as well.

Then we have only Google and it will turn into Skynet.

I have some Apple friends that would take many fails to get them to move anywhere else. I am very serious about that. Even when products suck to start (Apple Watch) they are still giddy about the poor performing things.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

According to this article, all of Apple's wealth and revenue comes from the iPhone; over 70%.

The article gets it somewhat wrong. As of fourth quarter 2015, the iPhone's contribution was more like 64%. (See http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q4fy15datasum.pdf for the quarterly numbers, and http://investor.apple.com/common/dow..._As-filed_.pdf for the 2015 10K filing.) Note that the iPad made a greater contribution in prior years.

This means that Apple is now a phone company with some computing stuff on the side. One big mistake, and people could switch away from the iPhone. It's much, much easier to switch phones than to switch computers/operating systems.

Won't happen. Apple has tried as hard as it can to build brand loyalty, and succeeded. It will take a lot more than one mistake to get folks to switch.

Phones are not technology, they are fashion statements. The motive for all too many phone buyers is "My phone is cooler than yours!" It's why I wasn't expecting much from Microsoft's Windows Phone efforts, even though it's technically decent. iPhones are cool. Android phones are cool. Windows Phone isn't cool. The corporate executive with a company provided phone might have no problem with a Windows Phone device, because his IT folks will find it easier to have everything used running a variant of the same OS - Servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. His teenage daughter likely wouldn't touch a Windows Phone device with a stick. (And his teenage daughter is far more representative of the overall market than he is.)

Apple still defines cool for a major part of the market.

You can see how fast everything went downhill for Nokia and Blackberry. Nokia is very big outside the phone world (in networking and industrial applications and such), but Apple isn't, AFAICT. If the iPhone fails, Apple fails.

Nokia had been showing signs of problems for a while.

The problem is that the smartphone market resembles the movies - you are as good as your last hit picture, and Nokia hadn't had a hit for a while. Nokia's market share was concentrated in lower end devices at commodity prices where making any money was a challenge. Nokia's Symbian OS had turned into a development black hole, and issuing hot new higher priced products wasn't happening.

You can argue that Nokia really should have adopted Android instead of Windows Phone, but that would leave the challenge of differentiating Nokia's offerings from everyone else's Android efforts.

If Windows 10 fails, Microsoft will possibly fail as well.

It won't.

First, MS has its fingers in an assortment of pies. See CRussell's comment.

Second, people are adopting Win10. (I have it on two laptops here, and at some point the desktop will get it too. That's on hold because the desktop dual boots Linux, and I need to be certain of what happens when you do a Win10 upgrade in that case.)

MS faces an interesting challenge with Windows. Historically, most folks did not upgrade in place. They got a new version of Windows when they got a new machine that had a new version pre-installed. Hardware has gotten progressively faster, more powerful, and cheaper. There is less need to get a new machine, because the one you have probably does everything you need it to do. What will make you migrate to a new version of Windows?

MS's response was to make Win10 a free upgrade, and to remove as much friction from the process as possible. Windows is starting to look more like Linux in the way upgrades are handled. Another major change is that MS has decided the Enterprise customer is their core market. The pay attention to the CIO who signs off on a site license and support contract for multiple thousands of machines, and a lot of what people are objecting to ("Win10 phones home, and I can't tell it not to!") is in aid of that. The stuff Win10 phones home is intended to make it easier to support it and figure out what's wrong when there's a problem.

We'll see how it all works out, because the unanswered question is what MS will charge for down the road. Win10 is free, and it's been announced it will be the last version of Windows. I expect future upgrades to be far more modular, adding features to what Win10 already has with the core remaining pretty much the same, and the issue will be what additions people will be willing to pay for.

Then we have only Google and it will turn into Skynet.

<snicker> There's always Bing...
______
Dennis

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Won't happen. Apple has tried as hard as it can to build brand loyalty, and succeeded. It will take a lot more than one mistake to get folks to switch.

His teenage daughter likely wouldn't touch a Windows Phone device with a stick. (And his teenage daughter is far more representative of the overall market than he is.)

Apple still defines cool for a major part of the market.

And how do teenage daughters keep paying for €600 phones? At some point, someone will realise that better or equal products can be had for less money.

I'm specifically looking at Leica as an example. The epitome of photography. If you had a Leica, you had 'it'. Until 'it' suddenly was surpassed in the 70's, and the company was near to bankrupcy several times.

Their competitor, Carl Zeiss, just goes "chug... chug... chug...", producing lenses that hit 98% of Leica's quality for 20% of the price, for a gazillion camera's, branching out into a huge array of different fields as well, from spectacles to microscopes to lenses used in spacecrafts.

Now, Carl Zeiss is almost too big to ever fail, while Leica is mainly supported by rich Americans and Asians. As soon as someone sees fit to introduce a real rangefinder for a normal price (under €2000 or so, instead of Leica's €4700), it's bye bye for Leica. Everybody will switch to that rangefinder using Zeiss or Voigtländer lenses.

At some point, I see the same happening to the iPhone. I firmly believe that at some point within the next 20 years or so, Apple will be a marginal player at best, if they don't bring anything other besides new iPhones and tablets. Their 6-7% market share on the desktop/laptop is not enough.

It won't.

First, MS has its fingers in an assortment of pies. See CRussell's comment.

Second, people are adopting Win10.

I think it would. Microsoft is betting everything on Windows 10. That is why they are giving it away. If people and businesses won't upgrade, they will have a new Windows XP-like problem at their hands in 2020, called Windows 7.

Windows 10 being free is the only reason people are upgrading, despite the fact that it phones home so much. It's not for nothing tools like Shutup10 and tips how to lock down Windows 10 are appearing by the dozens.

Windows 8.x is hated. If Windows 10 wasn't free, nobody would upgrade to it (including myself, on my current computers), and the 2020 Windows 7 monster would be a real threat.

Microsoft HAS to make Windows 10 work. If they don't, most of the IT world will be stuck in 2009 for another 10 years from now.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

And how do teenage daughters keep paying for €600 phones? At some point, someone will realise that better or equal products can be had for less money.

In the US, at least, you have a skewed market based on how phones are acquired.

Most aren't bought at full retail. They are bought through a carrier, who subsidizes a good bit of the price because you are also buying a multi-year cellular service contract. There are an assortment of cell phone stores in my neighborhood. All are operated by one or another carrier.

Indeed, AT&T was the original US cellular carrier to offer the iPhone, and I've seen some pretty convincing arguments they lost money initially - what they had to pay Apple to offer the desired subsidy more than wiped out any profit they might have made. They were hoping customers would renew the contract when it expired, and they'd make money in subsequent years. But they assumed (correctly) the iPhone was going to be a monster hit, and they had to take the pain up front to sell the contracts. Cellular providers are all in cut throat competition for market share, and the throat they cut can be their own.

A contact elsewhere did the math. He wanted an iPhone, and got a top end "unlocked" iPhone at full $600+ retail price, and then went searching for the best contract. He actually saved money over the life of the phone. Most buyers don't do that sort of life-cycle cost analysis. And some that do might want an iPhone but not have the spare cash to buy full retail, so acquisition requires a carrier subsidy.

<...>

Now, Carl Zeiss is almost too big to ever fail, while Leica is mainly supported by rich Americans and Asians. As soon as someone sees fit to introduce a real rangefinder for a normal price (under €2000 or so, instead of Leica's €4700), it's bye bye for Leica. Everybody will switch to that rangefinder using Zeiss or Voigtländer lenses.

So the camera market bears resemblance to the high end cell phone market. A lot of the purchase decision seems to be driven by intangibles not necessarily related to underlying design or technology in the camera.

At some point, I see the same happening to the iPhone. I firmly believe that at some point within the next 20 years or so, Apple will be a marginal player at best, if they don't bring anything other besides new iPhones and tablets. Their 6-7% market share on the desktop/laptop is not enough.

I can't agree. Apple has very carefully staked out the high end in their respective markets. The folks they sell to don't buy on price, and price may play no part in the purchase decision.

In terms of unit sales, Apple is hardly the market leader. They don't care. In terms of revenue and profitability, Apple is far out in front. They can successfully charge a lot more for their products, and make an enormous amount more on each one they sell. It's how they reached a point where they have $205 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short marketable securities, and $119 billion in shareholder equity.

It's all about the price of the stock.

Once upon a time, Microsoft was the quintessential "growth" company. They retained earnings, and didn't pay dividends, but investors didn't care because MS posted steady double digit increases in revenue and profits, MS stock price rose into the stratosphere, and investors made out nicely, thank you, on the appreciation in the value of their portfolio.

But sooner of later, any market gets saturated. Pretty much anybody who could use a PC had one. There was a substantial market for replacements and upgrades, but where would new sales come from? New sales were required to maintain growth. MS was making the transition from "growth" company to "mature" company. Mature companies throw off gobs of cash, but don't have stock prices in the stratosphere. You can make a case that Bill Gates picked an appropriate time to step aside. He had built Microsoft into a giant, and was at one point the world's richest man based on his MS stock holdings. He could exit as a winner. Ken Ballmer was left holding the bag and trying to support the stock price. He floundered, because he had no recipe for growth.

Apple has been recapitulating that process. They have been the current poster child growth company. Apple didn't create any of the markets they were in. Computers, media players, cell phones and tablets all existed before Apple started making them. Steve Job's genius wasn't in innovation, it was in refinement. Under Jobs, Apple developed products became the standard defining "This is how you do this!". The iPod, iPhone, and iPad largely transformed and expanded the markets they were in. Apple exhibited phenomenal growth, and got a stock price in the ionosphere.

I was grimly amused a while back. Apple historically did not pay dividends. They retained all their earnings, and plowed them back into the company. One of the issues Tim Cook confronted after Steve Jobs died and he took over as Apple CEO was that Apple had something like $80 billion socked away in retained earnings

As CEO of a publicly held company, Cook is a custodian of Other People's Money, and his first responsibility is to preserve and increase the value of his shareholder's holdings. What could he invest that $80 billion in that would do that? The usual strategy for a company in that position is to use the accumulated capital to make an acquisition, but there really wasn't one Apple could make that would significantly benefit Apple or further boost the value of the stock. I assumed the only option they had was the one he took: begin to return some of the accumulated earnings to shareholders, so for the first time, Apple began paying dividends.

More recently, I watched Apple's release of the iPhone 5 and product launch in China. Apple still had the issue of maintaining growth. The smartphone market was showing signs of saturation. I believed that if Apple didn't have another category transforming product up their sleeves to fuel another round of growth, their stock price would get hammered. It did.

Where would future growth come from? Apple needed to expand sales in markets they weren't heavily in, with China the biggest and most obvious. The iPhone 5 was among other things designed to be sold at a somewhat lower price and still make the desired margins. Apple was counting on the Apple name being a sales driver. The initial results were underwhelming. China has a strong "Buy Chinese!" ethos, and the Apple brand name and (relatively) lower price weren't enough. Apple is doing okay in China, but I don't think their numbers are what they hoped for in the Chinese market.

So the market is waiting for the Next Big Thing from Apple to fuel another round of growth. We'll see if Apple can come up with one.

It won't go under if it doesn't. It's too big, with too much accumulated cash, and there is a big enough market for replacements and upgrades of existing products to keep Apple going nicely. It simply won't have the sort of growth the financial market loves, and investors will need to look elsewhere to get that sort of results.

I think it would. Microsoft is betting everything on Windows 10. That is why they are giving it away. If people and businesses won't upgrade, they will have a new Windows XP-like problem at their hands in 2020, called Windows 7.

Windows 10 being free is the only reason people are upgrading, despite the fact that it phones home so much. It's not for nothing tools like Shutup10 and tips how to lock down Windows 10 are appearing by the dozens.

Personally, I don't care that Win10 phones home. Unless you specify otherwise when you install, the default level of data sent to MS is the lowest level, and MS documents what they collect. Nothing in that level of data gives me heartburn. The area that really has people concerned is the highest level of data transmission, when Windows will send memory dumps that may contain sensitive data. But you don't turn on that level of sending unless you are having serious problems you need assistance debugging. It's not the default action, and almost no one will have cause to enable it.

And the way Win10 behaves, including phoning home, is a consequence of the focus on the Enterprise market. Corporate users want Windows to Just Work, with prompt fixes if something breaks, so MS is collecting data on Windows performance in use to see where it breaks and have a better idea of how to fix it.

That's increasingly SOP for all manner of things. I use Firefox as my browser, and Firefox has various telemetry to aid Mozilla in development and fixes. I could turn it off but don't. Nothing it phones home is a problem for me.

Windows 8.x is hated. If Windows 10 wasn't free, nobody would upgrade to it (including myself, on my current computers), and the 2020 Windows 7 monster would be a real threat.

Windows 8 got hated largely because MS did what it has a bad habit of doing - totally revamped the use interface. Once you figured it out, it wasn't a transcendent horror, but it was different Most folks I know, and have supported professionally, learn just enough about the PC to be able to do what they need to do, then stop. The obstacle to any sort of upgrade is the learning curve, and the steeper the (apparent) curve, the greater the resistance. I've spent a fair bit of time elsewhere explaining that no, staying put wasn't an option, and the more they dragged their feet on upgrading things they used, the more trouble they were storing up for when they simply couldn't delay any longer.

Win10 at least brings back the Start menu, though it's gotten a fair amount of "Why did they fix what wasn't broken?" comments about some of the changes they made. (I helped a friend buy a new laptop than came with Win8.1, and installed Classic Shell so she could largely ignore the Metro interface. She was happy)

Microsoft HAS to make Windows 10 work. If they don't, most of the IT world will be stuck in 2009 for another 10 years from now.

Thus far it has been, but no, it won't.

The Windows Server group has been concentrating on what I believe they call Windows Core. It's (relatively) lightweight at about 400MB. It's the basic set of Windows APIs needed to run a server. It doesn't even have a GUI. The assumption is that it will be in a "lights out" environment, and configuration and systems administration will be done remotely via SSH. If you need a GUI, you can add one via a additional modules. The fundamental design of Windows is becoming far more modular.

Windows Core will be the base on which everything else is built, including what gets deployed to desktops. The question is precisely how MS is handling the split into modules and what functionality will be in what modules. What people will actually pay for in the future will likely be new or upgraded modules, and the MS challenge is providing things buyers will find worth paying for.
______
Dennis

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

You know as much as I love Apple products, if the rumors about them ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack on the next iPhone turn out to be true, I really hope Tim Cook joins Steve Ballmer in the "out-of-touch former CEOs" club.

With bluetooth headphones becoming fairly widespread it is a potential place to spare some cost and a part that almost always fails at some point, especially given the constant bumping the connection is getting. That said two companies over the years enraged me enough to pretty much never buy their stuff based on proprietary stupidity. Sony and Apple. Sony used to make their own memory cards for their digital cameras. Apple gets it for forced obsolescence of their technology as well.

That's my vent. That said, I love Apple products for how they are designed and how they work. I love my old 2nd generation iTouch which I still have, but it's a music and movie only device because the OS can't be upgraded to run anything anymore.

[poohbear_nc]

Well, it's been a while since I shared any stories of 'adventures with my boss' - I don't know if that means he is improving, or that my progressive brain death is accelerating.

But, today, a new tale to relate: "It runs in the family"

The company I work for is family owned, with the fourth generation poised to take over, so to speak, in a year or so. The heir apparent is a former fratboy smart a$$ whose management style is talking loudly and issuing orders in your doorway, so that he can flee before you can ask any questions. He manages by committee meeting, with absolutely no follow-up on his suggested changes/improvements, etc. He has no knowledge of accounting, and can't even read his own balance sheet.
He's making early retirement a no-brainer decision.

So, this afternoon, my boss (the dad), asks me to read an email sent to him by the heir's wife. (Don't get me started on her!). It's from their tax accountants, and she doesn't understand what they are talking about. She called the heir, and he's clueless too. So they forwarded it to dad, who metaphorically forwarded it to me. In this email, the accountant is making projections on their probable tax obligation for 2015, and asks if they are going to make their fourth quarter estimated tax payment for 2015.

It seems neither the heir or wife ever opened the large white envelope that contained their 2014 tax returns, and hence didn't read the schedule of estimated quarterly tax payments to be made in 2015.
Upshot? They have made no estimated tax payments in 2015, and are looking at coming up with over $20,000 plus fines plus interest ... aside from what's now due on their year end return. And a probable audit.

How could this happen you ask?

Well, the heir and wife decided that they were big kids and could do their own taxes (= take their stuff to the accountants). They didn't need to ask for help from that 'know it all' in dad's office, who looks after all the other family members' tax stuff.

I know I'm eventually going to get blamed for this, but I'm just not sure yet how ....

[Updates to follow]

[Freeshadow]

Now we know where the PHB's come from.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

How could this happen you ask?

Well, the heir and wife decided that they were big kids and could do their own taxes (= take their stuff to the accountants). They didn't need to ask for help from that 'know it all' in dad's office, who looks after all the other family members' tax stuff.

It sounds like you need to have a brutal and blunt private conversation with dad:

"Do you want this company to continue to exist after you're dead?"

"Of course!"

"Then don't hand it over to your son. He'll kill it, and you'll live long enough to watch it happen!".

Dad won't like it, but the heir and his wife's latest moves are handwriting on the wall for anyone who can read.
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It sounds like you need to have a brutal and blunt private conversation with dad:

"Do you want this company to continue to exist after you're dead?"

"Of course!"

"Then don't hand it over to your son. He'll kill it, and you'll live long enough to watch it happen!".

Dad won't like it, but the heir and his wife's latest moves are handwriting on the wall for anyone who can read.
______
Dennis

This is so weird--a good friend, who is one of the first Booknook.biz clients, is in a similar situation (although, there's no PHB grandson, as I understand it). Her husband (in his 70's) has had to return to his position as CEO, because the Prez that they hired to replace him was running the biz into the ground. Damnation, I know that you'd THINK that some youngling in that fam would take over, no? Boggles my brain.

{more ranty fun coming, in my next post} ETA: Never mind. I decided it was too icky to post. Sorry!

Hitch