*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

Ok, so this isn’t a true “Geek Dinner” since we will not be sitting down and eating a dinner but it is something that we did last year at the end of the Summit.  It turned out to be a great time so there is no reason NOT to do it again this year.  MVP Summit Geek Lager 20008 will be held at Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub on Post Alley off of Pike Street in downtown Seattle on Thursday April 17th, 2008 starting around 7:30 PM. 

Last year we had a blast dancing and singing Irish songs with a fantastic Irish band.  The guy playing the fiddle was out of this world and he even broke out the bag pipes at the end.  Who knows if they are having a band again, we’ll take our chances.  What is certain is Guinness and Black and Tans are on tap and cold.

Anyone is welcomed to join us if you are in the area, this is not an official MVP sponsored event and you do not have to be an MVP to attend, you just have to show up.  To RSVP for the Geek Lager RSVP on the Geek Dinners.Com Web Site.

RSVP Here:  http://www.geekdinners.com/DinnerInstance.aspx?id=7

Note:  This is not a sponsored event, you are responsible for your own tab. 

RSVPs (combined)

Keith Elder
Scott Hanselman 
Shawn Wildermuth
Scott Koon
Joe Healy
Jeff Barnes
Dustin Campbell
Jason Follas
Keith Kabza
Scott Dorman
Dave Noderer
Jim Zimmerman
Lori McKinney
Todd Miranda
Marshall Harrison
David Hayden
Keith Kabza
Dave Noderer
Mark Polino
Nikita Polyakov (tentative)
Jonas Stawski
Bruce Thomas
Dave Donaldson
Scott Koon (lazycoder)
Brian Prince
John Kellar
Rob Foster
Drew Robbins
Scott Dockendorf
D’Arcy Lussier
Donald Belcham

Updated:
Ok, stop it with the messages about Guinness not being a lager.   I’m sure they serve lagers there as well, drink whatever you want.  Yes I know Guinness is not a Lager.  So for those of you that love to point out things where you think things are wrong but were in fact chosen for a reason (because it sounded better), stop being technical and let me handle the marketing.  You handle the drinking. 🙂

When I was in high school one of my math teachers took it upon himself to teach a few students about computer programming.  It wasn’t a real class it was just something he put together during our free period.  Instead of attending study hall we’d go to this computer programming class.  Basically other students in the school called the few of us taking the class the “Star Trek” club.  Honestly I didn’t watch Star Trek and never have.  It just never interested me.  I know that I just lost thousands of geek points by stating I am not a Star Trek fan publicly but when you grow up on a small farm in Mississippi things need fed, watered, and slopped.  Coming home from school and sitting down to vegetate to watch TV wasn’t in the cards of our household.  Anyway, I digress.  Even though Mr. Foley didn’t have a lot of support from the school in putting together this class, it was the one thing that really got me hooked on computers.  Mr. Foley was only one man though.  It takes a much larger effort to get students interested in technology.  To hook the next generation of students on programming Bill Gates recently announced DreamSpark.  It is a new project that will provide thousands of dollars of free software to students.  Students like me who didn’t have access to the tools companies were using while they learned can now install and leverage the same products for free.   As an educator I’m really excited to see this announcement.   Here are some thoughts as to why I think this is important and what should spark within the community.

What is DreamSpark?

DreamSpark is simple, it’s all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge so you can chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology – or just get a head start on your career.

DreamSpark makes the following software available to students who register on the site.   The program is available in 11 countries giving millions of students access to professional developer tools.

All a student needs is a computer to get started.  They can load Windows Server 2003 onto the machine along with Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2005 and Expression Studio and have the same tools we are using today in enterprises across America.  If the student wants to build games for Windows or the XBox then they can install XNA Game Studio.  The amount of things that can be built with these technologies is amazing, especially when you think about WPF Windows Applications and Silverlight.

Ok students, Bill has done his part to give you the software.  What are you going to do with it now?  Someone has to replace a lot of the Elder generation as we age.  Even right now there is a huge demand for developers that know these technologies.  Here are some numbers from the popular online job engines.

Searching for .Net

• Dice.Com – 11,131 jobs available
• Monster.Com – Over 5,000 (max return value)
• CareerBuilder.Com – 3,376

Searching for SQL Server

• Dice.Com – 14,588
• Monster.Com – Over 5,000 (max return value)
• CareerBuilder.Com – 8357

Searching for Windows

• Dice.Com – 15,480
• Monster.Com – Over 5,000 (max return value)
• CareerBuilder.Com – 16,933

Positives About DreamSpark

I Couldn’t Even Buy A Vowel

As I said earlier, the DreamSpark program is a great idea I just wish it was around when I was younger.  When I was in college I was still doing off to the side programming while pursuing my music degree.  I knew there were tools, IDEs, databases and other things that people in large companies used but I was broke.  I was financially embarrassed as my father used to say.  I was so broke I couldn’t even afford to buy a vowel on Wheel of Fortune.  The only option I really had was to learn open source tools.  Back then the open source tools were, well, hard.  There weren’t web pages full of documentation, books, and fancy editors.  You basically first had to learn the VI editor and then try to dig through the man pages and the source code.  To say the experience was painful would honestly be an understatement.  It was slow going.  The sad fact today is that a lot of students are in the same boat I was back then.  DreamSpark fills this gap and puts the latest technology in the student’s reach.  This is wonderful, I can’t express that enough. 

Challenges DreamSpark Faces

It is important that students be offered the opportunity to learn the tools we are using today but the sad fact is only a few will take advantage of it without the community getting in behind this effort.  If 1% of the students downloaded these tools, I would consider that a success.  A perfect benchmark to go against is every student enrolled in a Computer Science program and every student in high school taking computer programing.  If 100% of those students download and use the software then that is a perfect world. 

In order to achieve this goal, it is going to take a lot of effort from those of us in the community.  The following is an open letter to Microsoft, the community and educators who can effect change and help create the next generation of programmers.

Give It Away And They’ll Come

The first thing we must overcome is thinking free equals a lot of use.  Some have heard the line before “Build it, and they will come.”.  The reality is just because something is free doesn’t mean anyone will use it.  If this were the case, we wouldn’t need ads, marketing departments, or ad agencies.  This is the first thing we need to do, spread the word.

Ask yourself this question.  How many students will seriously go download this software?  How many of them will actually learn about it?  There are numbers in the industry I’ve heard repeated of the 5% geek rule.  The premise is take 100 computer science students and only 5% of them are truly dedicated to their profession.   This top 5% are the ones that will more than likely take advantage of DreamSpark, the rest will never know.

We (Microsoft, the community, and educators) need to make a concerted effort to spread the word about DreamSpark.   We need to establish DreamSpark Day events at schools and Universities in our local areas and get this information out.  By information I am not just talking about the bits, that isn’t enough. 

How Long Will It Take?

Here is a pondering question.  How long will it take the education institutions to realize they have thousands of dollars of software available they can build an entire curriculum around?  Unless a concerted effort is made the answer is years.  Why?  Well for starters very few of the professors know the technology.  Sad but true.  When I say “few”, I mean a very small percent. 

There are a few professors out there that are teaching .Net.  Those educators should have no problem, but the majority of professors I’ve encountered love to tell you how their first computer was the size of a house and how they punched cards to program it.  What really saddens me is the “dinosaur” professors as I like to call them are still doing things the way they have for years.  Thankfully this isn’t every professor out there, but there are professors at colleges that still rest on their laurels and just learn enough to teach out of a book.  The majority of these professors have no real world experience in technology except in academia because they have spent their entire lives in academia.  I know these types of professors exist because I had several of these “dinosaur” teachers in college.  I used to call them the “Punchcardasaurus”. 

“Punchcardasaurus – A professor who loves to tell you about the stone age of computers but doesn’t know anything about today’s current technology.”

I can’t begin to tell you how much of a waste of time it is for someone like myself to have to sit through a lecture from a Punchcardasaurus only to correct him or her about how the Internet really works and the Mosaic browser is not really the Internet (true story).  I’m starting to digress but hopefully the point is driven home.  A concerted effort needs to be made at the institutions of learning.

Educational Institutions Already Have Free Software – Open Source

I firmly believe that higher educational institutions should focus more of their efforts putting students in a position to get a job and succeed.  Sadly the curriculum of colleges don’t.  Someone graduating from college today should have experience with all sorts of technologies and languages.  Colleges that just teach C++ are doing their students a grave injustice.  Students should learn C, C++, C#, Obj-C, Java, and a variety of other languages including dynamic languages.  Each of these should expose students to the various types of platforms such as Windows, Unix and OS X. 

The majority of colleges use a lot of open source software to teach their students today because, well, the software doesn’t cost the college nor the students anything.  If a college is just focusing on open source software, they are really doing their students a major disservice.  Students should be educated on both sides of the fence and taught multiple platforms.  In the end it is the students who should decide which platform they feel will be the most valuable to their career or interest, not the educational institution.  The more this is done, the more the students  know and the better chance they have at getting a job.  DreamSpark of course helps to fight the cost factor argument with open source software but it is going to take time for the value to sink in.  Especially in institutions where open source software has a very strong hold with a lot of zealots to play devils advocate.  Yes, these zealots exist, to ignore this fact would not prove wise.

Train The Trainer

The Punchcardasaurus and other professors need help.  It has to start with those teaching others.  Here is another sad but true fact.  Even if a school wanted to build a curriculum around DreamSpark who’d teach it?  If it was offered the odds of it being taught with real world business experience on the platform is very small.  We need to do something to train the current educators how to use these new tools.  There are a variety of ways this could be done.

1. Use the current Microsoft training curriculum and certification courses to offer classes to faculty and staff.  Schools are off in the summer and it would be a great time for re-educating.
2. Help the teachers by putting together a standardized curriculum around the DreamSpark project so there is consistency to how the platform is taught.

I personally would be more than willing to spend my time during the summer to put together a train the trainer workshop for those educators willing to participate.  This could be run at night so not to interfere with work duties. 

Already Lagging Behind

Another sad but true fact is educational institutions are years behind in terms of the technology being taught.  I know when I was in college this was true.  For example the language called Java was started in 1991 and released in 1994/1995.   While this was a newly released technology it wouldn’t be taught in the classroom until many years later.  Back then they were teaching us Pascal.  The progression worked something like this.  Once you mastered Pascal, which at the time was already considered a dead language, you could learn C, and then after that C++ and if you stayed around to get your PhD they’d eventually mention Java as an experimental language.  Basic skills are an absolute must have but what chance does a student have at actually getting a job today in a company that uses a technology like .Net where the student has never used it?  Very few companies have a need for engineers that are highly skilled in assembly and compilers.  However, a company would be willing to hire someone who knows how to write applications using Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight, Windows Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation.  All of which have been released in the last year.  I truly feel sorry for students graduating today because the industry changes so quickly.  They need our help.

What Can We Do To Help

There are a lot of challenges that need to be overcome no doubt.  All of them are challenges, not road blocks though.  They can be fixed.  To restate some of the ideas above here are the things we (Microsoft, the community, educators) need to start with.

1. The Community / Microsoft – Organize some type of event at educational institutions to help spread the word.
2. The Community / Microsoft – Help train the current educators.
3. Microsoft – Help the educators standardize a curriculum using existing training information, labs, etc.
4. Microsoft – Put together a program whereby students build something using the tools and award them with free trips to TechEd or Mix or other conferences.

Now that Blu-Ray has driven the nail in the coffin of HD DVD, Microsoft is about to release the ultimate console that will take over your living room for good.  The Blu-Ray / HD DVD format war has held them back from releasing a true home media machine that compliments other products in the line up like Windows Home Server.  Many may not know it but the format war put a wrinkle in Microsoft’s plans to own your living room.  This is why Microsoft chose to ship the Xbox 360 with a standard DVD player a few years ago.  Not knowing what the standard would be has held them back from truly embracing the potential of the XBox and XBox Live’s success.  That wait is now over.  Ladies and gentleman, I give you the XBox 1080.

XBox 1080 Specs

CPU

The specs of the 1080 are truly remarkable as it is a culmination of industry standards finally coming together in one solid machine.  The good news for gamers is nothing has changed in the architecture to make your current games obsolete, they only get more powerful.  The XBox 1080 has two quad core processors and 2GB’s of memory to bring a great 3D experience to games and also provide enough horse power to run other tasks in the background while playing the most intensive of games.  With all of these cores it is no wonder why the marketing reads “Have your cake and eat it too.”.   The XBox 1080 will truly rock your Guitar Hero / Halo 3 experience and provide developers more room to breathe allowing the XBox 1080 to devote processor cores to games while other ones are keeping an eye on your home (see home automation section). 

Video

At the heart of the graphics engine of the XBox 1080 lies NVidia’s latest acquisition, the PhysX Tech card by Ageia.  This newly added addition to the NVidia family allows for physics to be more realistic within games.  Ageia has already been apart of the Xbox, Wii and Playstation but more is to come.  New things are now possible that never were before like sheets flying in the wind, fully destructible buildings in first person shooters and more. 

Home Theater

The XBox 1080 ships complete with a Blu-Ray High Definition drive that supports standard CDs as well as standard DVDs.  Finally home owners can place their separate DVD players and Blu-Ray players on Ebay and consolidate their entertainment centers into one device to rule them all.  The XBox supports 1080P upscaling of traditional DVDs providing a stunning picture to home owners that waited out the Blu-Ray / HD DVD format wars by not supporting either side.  The 1080 also supports high definition video at 1080P (where it gets its name) using the Blu-Ray disc drive.  High definition without great sound would be show stopper for home theater enthusiasts but the XBox 1080 doesn’t spoil the fun.  It supports true 7.1 Dolby surround sound and can be auto configured to support a variety of options like THX for movies and 5.1 for games.  To carry the high def data the XBox 1080 comes with an HDMI output.  It also support component video and digital sound connectors.  For those of you that don’t have either option, sorry, the XBox 1080 can’t help you.  Microsoft wanted the machine to be completely cutting edge and that meant letting go of yesterday’s technology.  For some, it may be time to upgrade.

HD DVR and Media Center

Besides replacing your old DVD and Blu-Ray player, the XBox 1080 can replace your legacy DVR or digital cable box.  There are two options the 1080 supports:

1. Cable Card – Slide in a cable card from your cable provider into your XBox and turn your XBox 1080 into a 500GB HD DVR.  With the Cable Card the XBox also supports features like OnDemand from Comcast.
2. IPTV – If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where you can get IPTV from a provider, just plug into your fiber network and configure the XBox for IPTV.  Within minutes you’ll be watching TV in 720P streamed right from the Internet.

The 1080 takes advantage of years of work that have gone into Media Center to bring a full blown High Def DVR into the home.

Home Server Integration

Integrating with Windows Home Server has never been easier.  Simply point to your home server and start streaming videos, photos, music and much more directly from Home Server.  One of the best features about the home server integration is the ability to take advantage of your home server’s storage capacity.  While the XBox 1080 ships with a 500GB hard drive, it can quickly fill up, especially with high def movies and games either recorded in media center or ones rented/purchased from XBox Live. 

For movies you’ve recorded or downloads you’ve purchased that you want to keep simply select it in the menu and press “Send to home server”.  In the background the data is then moved to your home server (with DRM rights still intact).  The transfer and viewing of items from Home Server and the XBox 1080 is seamless.  For users that have purchased games or downloads from XBox Live, this solves one of the problems of having to repurchase data if you want to upgrade to a larger hard drive or in case your hard drive fails.  What better place to store data than on the server.  For people that are at friends houses and have purchased items from XBox Live that configured and synced home server with their Live accounts, any purchases made from your friends house will be automatically added to your home server.  This new upgrade to XBox Live allows friends to visit another friend who may not have the same add on or mod and still make it accessible as long as the person that owns the item is logged in.  The added bonus of synchronizing these downloads or purchases made from other XBox with home server will be a big win.

Home Automation

One of the most anticipated features of the XBox 1080 has been home automation.  By purchasing the $399 home automation kit you can now control your own home right from your XBox.  Home automation features automatic timers, security integration and monitoring, and much more.  See the website for more details about what is possible with the home automation feature.

With all of these features it is no wonder the XBox 1080 is one of the most anticipated console launches to date.

To keep my blog drafts organized I keep an arsenal of blog drafts around using Live Writer.  When an idea hits me I open Live Writer, write down the subject, maybe a few paragraphs of what I was thinking and then I’ll move onto something else.  This keeps blog entries free flowing and allows me to work on them over time.  Some of them never see the light of day.  Some of them get merged into other posts or whatever. 

A few months ago I really really really wanted to purchase a high definition DVD player to go along with my new entertainment center I built out.  The problem was there as no clear winner or a way to determine which player and or format to invest in.  I got to the point of utter frustration and started writing an entry entitled:

HD DVD vs Blu-ray – This really sucks

I didn’t publish my rant about the situation at the time because I was so enraged most of the article was four letter words.  Fast forward to the past few weeks and we’ve seen some major moves supporting Blu-ray as the medium of choice.  Here is sort of a timeline of events that occurred:

1. January 6th – Warner Brother’s announced they would start to support Blu-ray exclusively.
2. February 8th – Microsoft cut price of Xbox HD DVD player
3. February 11th – Netflix jumped ship to Blu-Ray
4. February 11th – Best Buy recommends Blu-Ray
5. February 12th – Amazon slashed prices on HD DVDs by 50%
6. February 13th – Wal-Mart trims HD DVD player lineup
7. February 15th – Wal-mart drops Xbox HD DVD from online store and picks Blu-Ray officially
8. February 16th – Nail in coffin:  Toshiba announced it give up on HD DVD format war (56 minutes ago)

The snowball rolling down hill first started when Warner Brothers announced their move to support Blu-ray exclusively.  As soon as Microsoft dropped their Xbox drive prices this is when the ball really started rolling down hill quickly.  Within a few days Toshiba declared a defeat in the format war.  It just shows you how fast information travels in the Internet age.  Who knows, if we had the Internet back during the day VHS tapes maybe have never happened.  For those studying history this really shakes up what many had predicted.  When the adult film industry announced they were going to support HD DVD many said history was just about to repeat itself since that was a turning factor as to why VHS won out.

I don’t really have anything constructive to say about the HDDVD vs Blu-ray war.  As a consumer it just plain sucks to be at the mercy of studios and producers lining their pockets with kick backs because a manufacturer wants their beloved technology to win.  It should be really simple from a consumer stand point:

Choose the one with the best picture.

The problem with going the logical route in the beginning of the format war and choosing the format that was superior is different studios decided to back one and not the other.   This left consumers who purchased a Blu-ray player not being able to play movies that were only produced in HD DVD format and vice versa.  This whole ordeal has been sad and I should have some type of regulation around it I think to stop this kind of stuff from happening again.  Why in an age when I can have multiple operating systems communicate over a standard protocol do I have to put up with two different industries fighting for dominance in the market place?  The short answer is money and licensing. 

Look at the millions of dollars Toshiba is going to loose and then look at how much money Sony is going to make off of this since their technology won.  Sony could easily say for every Blu-ray disc created, we want $5.  This scares the crap of me as a consumer.  Imagine for a moment if the TCP/IP protocol was licensed and controlled to a specific vendor.  Can you even imagine the number of law suits there would be today?  Suddenly IBM and Novell come to mind with token rings and IPX. 

Sony needs to “do the right thing” and just open the format up and let the marketplace go to town.  Sony is not known to play nicely with the other children.  They have created more proprietary devices and gizmos than any other company I can think of.  They started their track record of not playing nice with other children with the Beta Max and I also remember Mini Disc Players and recorders which were cool but didn’t support the already established MP3 standard.  Of course we can’t forget their cameras that don’t support standard SD cards requiring consumers to purchase a higher priced Memory Stick. 

See a pattern?  Are you starting to get worried that Sony just won the war?  Here is what I predict will happen.  A new kid on the block will emerge that will ultimately trump Blu-ray which will have a higher resolution and more of an open format that one vendor doesn’t control ultimately giving control back to the consumer and the industry.

I’m happy the format war is over but unless Sony handles themselves in a proper fashion it may not be over.  Just remember you read it here first.

In 2001, or maybe it was 2000 2002 I purchased my first Apple computer. I bought a Powerbook 15inch with the G4 867MHz processor. Some of you know the model I refer to or even have seen me with it before in the past.  Not long after I purchased the Powerbook I got the wife an iBook 12inch notebook.  She got a lot of use out of it but it started showing its age.  Honestly the machine got to be so slow I couldn’t even stand to help her with her problems.  Remember the commercial about the Slowsky’s that like DSL over Comcast because it is slower?  Well they would have loved this machine.

Which One?  Apple or PC?

For several weeks I shopped for her a new notebook.   Quicken Loans offers a nice perk whereby team members can get a $1500 computer loan that is auto-deducted from our paycheck.  Since my last computer loan was paid off last January, and the computer I built myself a few years ago is still working very well I decided to upgrade the wife’s aging notebook.  Call it a “back to school” gift before she started teaching college again for the fall semester.

My wife is a creature of habit and hates change.  She’d rather hobble along than get something new.  This is a blessing and a curse.  When I first got her the iBook she hated it.  She didn’t understand it, couldn’t use it and wanted Windows back.   Since she didn’t have a choice she eventually accepted it and moved on but it took years for her to stop saying she wanted Windows back.  Now that I am looking for her a new computer she of course is used to the Mac so wants to keep the Mac (creature of habit).  To make her happy I started looking at what Apple had to offer and was extremely disappointed in their prices compared to PCs.  I first pulled up the choices for the MacBook and here is what I saw.

So for my $1500 and some change I could get at 13inch notebook with 1GB of memory and 160GB hard drive.  I wasn’t very thrilled spending all of the money on one thing and not getting her a new scanner which she also wanted.  A day or so later I was in Circuit City for something and decided to hit the computer aisle.  Browsing around I found an HP 17inch notebook model Pavilion dv9548us with the following specs:

• 2.4Ghz
• 2GB
• 200GB – 2 x 100GB hard drives (nice, data in one, operating system in another)
• DVD / CD Burner with Lightscribe
• Finger scan authentication
• 17inch XGA display
• 512MB Video
• Built-in TV Tuner for Media Center
• HDMI outputs
• Built-in video conferencing camera (which we use while I travel)

There were other features on the notebook but you get the idea, this thing was a beast of a notebook.  It is a true desktop replacement and with a 17inch screen my wife could finally stop squinting when she used the computer.

A day or so later I got a Circuit City ad and the notebook was on sale for $1199.00.  No mail in rebates or anything, just flat bottom price.  I took her to Circuit City to look at it and she was very impressed with all the features and loved the fact she could get a new scanner, wireless keyboard and mouse and carrying case all within the budget so we bough it on site.

At the end of the day we got a much better computer for her than we could have gotten from Apple.  I’m sorry Apple I just can’t afford your high priced hardware no matter how shiny you try to make it.  It is amazing that HP can sell the same components put together at such a drastic cost. 

How The Hardware Industry Works

I don’t know how much everyone knows about tier 1 manufacturers but I used to run a hardware company (one day I’ll write a book about all the things I have done) and when it boils down to it, the tier 1 manufactures don’t really pay that much for Windows as some might think.  HP is an example of a tier 1 manufacturer as is Dell so those of you trying to calculate the cost to build this HP laptop without Windows, trust me, HP isn’t paying that much for Windows.

Mom and Pop shops or local PC builders are the ones that really don’t get a discount on Windows.  To be “legit” and not get their doors closed by selling illegal copies (yet another story I’ll tell about one day) of Windows they must buy their copies from distributors like Tech Data or Ingram Micro.  These distributors sell items based on volume so if for example you are a local PC shop trying to build computers you might pay $189 for Windows yet you are supposed to sell it to the end user for $199.  Obviously there is no money to be made in the operating system so you make it up in the hardware, service, warranties, upgrades, etc.  However, with a tier 1 manufacturer like HP that has direct connections to the suppliers like Samsung, Seagate, Microsoft, Western Digital, etc, they have a lot more weight to throw around.  Think about it.  Would you rather loose the Mom and Pop local PC store as a customer or HP?  Pretty simple eh?  What keeps the local PC builder in business is the low cost of PC parts.  The low cost in parts off sets the cost of having to pay more for Windows and still makes them competitive for the most part.  If you don’t believe me, look around at the developer machines on blogs that are built that only cost $1500 that would completely rival any Apple desktop costing $3000 or other manufacturers. 

Any tier 1 manufacturer if they want to can squish a local builder though.  It is just fact.  If you don’t believe me, go to Best Buy or Circuit City and try to build out that computer that comes with a monitor, printer and scanner for $299 after rebate.  There are some deals out there in the PC market because of the competition.  This is why Apple can put whatever ridiculous price they want on their hardware, they don’t have any competition.

This is the #1 reason Apple has no thought or care to allow OSX to run on standard PC hardware, they would be out of business because of the cut throat PC business.  Trust me I know, I left it years ago because of this fact.  For those “new Apple fans” that keep telling me to buy an Apple at every corner Apple has already tried this.  Years ago there was a company called Power Computing  that built Apple clones.  If you wanted to buy an Apple, more than likely it was going to be a Power Computing built clone.  They were in local stores, catalogs and online.  The crazy thing is they built better and cheaper computers than Apple and when Steve Jobs took over he squashed them.  Don’t believe me?  Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

Power Computing released upgraded models until 1997 with revenues reaching $400 million a year. The Mac clone business was killed after Steve Jobs returned as interim CEO of Apple in July of 1997. In September, Apple bought Power Computing for $100 million in Apple stock and shuttered the Mac cloning business.

And then to top it off with a cherry:

“Apple has to let go of this ghost and invent the future, Mr. Jobs said. Instead of expanding the share of the market that used computers based on the Macintosh system, the decision to license clones simply ate into Apple’s own sales of hardware, he said.^[3]

Why Apple doesn’t reflect the true market value of hardware costs I have no idea. I have known for years they were overcharging people and obviously some people are willing to pay for that extra price because they feel they have something other people don’t. And to that accord they would be right, they are in the top 10% of the world, or the bottom 10% depending on how you look at it which means 1 in 10 people they come in contact with doesn’t own one. I think that makes the Apple owner feel somewhat special and feel good like “hey you should buy one too”.  And believe me out of the hundred people I know, the 9% that own one tell me every day I should buy one in one comment or another.  If I get told to buy another Apple I’m going postal!

Honestly when you break the parts down at the manufacturer level, Apple is making no less than 50% margin, maybe 40% which is a ridiculous markup compared to what Dell, HP and other places are making  but hey, people are paying the Apple tax. God bless ’em, I’m too poor to afford one.

Make no mistake about it, Apple loves their markup. So much in fact they have a monopoly.  Wait, didn’t people say Microsoft had a monopoly and sue them years ago?  Hmm, maybe I should start a class action law suit demanding the freedom to run the OSX operating on any hardware I want.  If any lawyers read this contact me, I’m in.

Stop Before You Respond

For those of you Apple fan boys that are about to start going on and on about OSX and how great it is, my wife could honestly care less.  She sits down at her computer to just work, that’s it.  She doesn’t play in iPhoto, iMovie, iCalendar, i this and i that.  She doesn’t have an iLife, she has an rLife (real life).  She writes email, does word processing, uses Powerpoint and during Christmas shops online for my presents.  That’s it.  Nothing more.  Thus, stop before you even start to write, I’m not listening, but if you want to buy her iBook or my Powerbook email me.  I’ll gladly part with both of them for a very large some of money (well, they are Apple’s right?).