Entries Tagged 'the Media' ↓

Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft has been keeping awfully quiet about sales figures for its Zune, a product that many Windows Enthusiasts originally predicted would cause considerable grief for Apple’s iPod. However, despite a new model refresh last fall and plenty of advertising, Microsoft has been left to announce that its actual sales are still a joke.

According to an Associated Press article citing Jason Reindorp, Zune’s director of product marketing, the device has sold “just north of two million” between its debut in November 2006 and May 2008. Apple has sold roughly 76 million iPods during that same period, more than doubling the installed base of iPods since the Zune’s debut.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Just ahead of its recession defying, record setting Q2 2008 earnings reports, Apple revealed plans to buy PA Semi, a chip designer specializing in processors based on IBM’s Power architecture. This news sparked a flurry of confusion from observers: why is Apple getting into the semiconductor business after partnering with Intel in its Mac systems, aligning with ARM licensees for its mobile WiFi iPhone platform, and particularly after decisively migrating away from PowerPC in 2006?

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft’s current and future operating system projects, Windows Vista, Windows Seven, and Singularity, share too much in common with Apple’s failures of the mid-90s. Each project bears a striking resemblance to the three catastrophes that nearly killed Apple in the early 90s, and for many of the same core reasons. Here’s why, and what this means for the future of the PC desktop, the Windows platform, and new emerging mobile markets.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
The Mac pilot program within IBM Research, outlined in the previous article, is only a small part of IBM’s corporate efforts to diversify its computing platforms and push the adoption of Macs in particular. A number of internal sources wrote to provide additional details on IBM’s current and future plans.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Demonstrators waving red flags in favor of the Beijing Olympics mingled rather peacefully among those protesting China’s atrocities in Tibet, its support of genocide in Darfur, and its record of human rights violations against its own citizens. Meanwhile, in efforts to avoid any serious confrontation or stop the Olympic torch run through the City, officials decided to hide the torch in a van and spirit it from the ballpark to Van Ness and Pine, where it was then run up to Fort Mason and then through the Marina to the Golden Gate Bridge, avoiding the planned route down the Embarcadero.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Is Apple’s announcement of Exchange Server support in the upcoming iPhone 2.0 software an admission of failure for the company’s apparent plans to push its own Exchange alternative in Mac OS X Leopard Server? Reader Pete Wann asked the question; here’s what I think about it.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Apple Stores across the US are running out of iPhones, resulting in the rumor that Apple is allowing inventory levels to dry up in advance of the release of a new 3G model. While this commonly does happen prior to the release of a new model, the current iPhone shortage appears to be a artifact of unpredictably high demand from foreign markets rather than an artificial supply shortage, here’s why.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Michael Mace of Rubicon Consulting interviewed 460 iPhone users–0.01% of the installed base, all users in the US–and published the results in a white paper. Here’s the more interesting bits Mace reported, with a look at how the tech media has worked to sensationalize some of his findings, particularly the unsurprising concept that most iPhone buyers are already familiar with Apple’s products.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
The previous article, The Unavoidable Malware Myth: Why Apple Won’t Inherit Microsoft’s Malware Crown, outlined that Microsoft’s malware crisis is a product of that company’s engineering mistakes, not an unavoidable problem facing whatever computing platform becomes the most popular in the future. Even for those holdouts who choose to ignore the realities of the malware economy–so they can insist that the only reason Macs aren’t infected with viruses is because Apple isn’t selling enough of them–there are other reasons why future platforms, including Apple’s Mac and iPhone, aren’t fated to be plagued with Microsoft’s malware crisis of the past and present.

There are five factors related to the future of computing platforms that will prevent Apple from inheriting Microsoft’s malware legacy. Here’s why these factors will have such a significant impact on the future of malware, and why the world’s greatest malware threat will continue to be firmly attached to Microsoft, the company that introduced the epidemic to the world in the first place.

The Unavoidable Malware Myth: Why Apple Won’t Inherit Microsoft’s Malware Crown

“No Windows for Old Men” composition by Michael Jackson.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
According to the Unavoidable Malware Myth, Microsoft’s Windows security epidemic of viruses, spyware, and adware will be passed on to the next major computing platforms as an inevitable symptom of platform popularity. Were this to be true, it would be bad news for both Apple’s Mac platform, which is growing several times faster than the PC average, and for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which appear to have an early lead as one of the most promising mobile platforms of the future. But malware isn’t unavoidable. The myth is wrong, here’s why.

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