HP folds like a cheap card tabular array while RIM says“Maybe you ’ve hit bottom , but I have n’t attain bottom yet ! I got a ways to go!”Google just put a lot of money down , but is there anything in its hand ? lastly , the Macalope asks a dyad of initiate to edit out out the penny - ante crap .
Facepalm
What a week ! First Google buy Motorola and nowHP is spinning off its hardware business , killing the TouchPad , andpossibly expect for a purchaser for webOS . What ’s next ? Microsoft uncover Steve Ballmer is in reality a woman ? The Macalope ’s not sure he can handle that .
Boy , it seems like just the other twenty-four hours we were laughing at how badly the TouchPad was selling . Hey!It was just the other day!(The Macalope have sex that bit . ) Apparently HP noticed that , too . Andfreaked the blaze out .
This is peachy , though . Now we have an experimentation grouping to match our control group . Because , when it descend to the mobile business , RIM is kinda like HP — just without any shred of ego - awareness . While HP ’s cover its face and cry “ Uncle ! ” , RIM ’s doubling down like a gambling junkie . Now the party is ostensibly trying tobuild its own music servicing .
RIM , honey . Do n’t .
Read more …
This really is a study in contrasts , is n’t it ? One company faces defeat and offer its complete and utter yielding . The other settle to continue down a destructive path that can only end in a dumpster at a rest point outside Calgary , waking from an alcohol and drug - fueled tear , with a knickknack store Mountie costume around its ankles .
Now the question on everyone ’s mind is “ what ’s next for webOS , the niggling OS that could n’t ? ” ( double , for those restrain score at home base : Once at Palm , once at HP.)Nicholas Carlson , Dan FrommerandMG Sieglerthink Facebook should buy webOS . The Macalope supposes it could work : Web operating system , WWW - base social net . Personally , the horny one ’s not existent into Facebook because he has no desire to reconnect with people from grade schooling ( kids can be so brutal when your antler commence coming in ) . But he would detest to see webOS simply become flat on the vine while there are other less deserving operating systems still on the market .
Still , as with Google , the Macalope does n’t understand why these company — whose core business is not operating system of rules and computer hardware sales — call back they have to make operating arrangement and ironware . It ’s pretty questionable whether or not this has in reality act out for Google . AsHorace Dediu notes on the up-to-the-minute instalment of The Critical Path , Android is purely a justificatory move , and protecting your survive business model is n’t as interesting as build unexampled commercial enterprise . You know what they say the best defense is .
Saturday Special: “Do no evil” is a cookbook!
Rebecca Lynn suppose we shouldexpect Google to provide loose Android phonesbecause of its Motorola skill ( tip type O ’ the antlers toDaring Fireball ) .
Since Mobile River is undergoing the most rapid technology borrowing in history , Google need to own the “ last Swedish mile ” to the eyeballs .
Does it ? Microsoft never get into the computer hardware business , and yet it somehow still owns the desktop operating - scheme market place . Of course , it ’s easier to switch hunt locomotive engine than it is to switch operating systems .
The Macalope remember being brusquely lambast , five old age ago , about how operating systems would before long be idle because the Web was the new operating organization and soon we ’d all be associate all the metre and it ’d all happen in the internet browser , dude , and Apple and Microsoft would be swept aside by this new paradigm . And yet here we are in 2011 , and the biggest name in doing it all on the entanglement is not only pouring dollar mark into developing an operating system , it ’s get into the hardware business . Weird .
But here ’s what I trust . Google ’s business is search advertising . Everything they do is an effort to get search .
So , just recrudesce a free operating arrangement was n’t enough . They have to develop an operate systemandhardware and give both away for devoid ( which is sure to make their Android OEM partner real happy ) in Holy Order to make $ 10 to $ 20 on each Android possessor over the two years they use their equipment .
sound like an amazing business . Good fortune with that .
The thing is , though , some carriers arealreadygiving away Android - base telephone set for complimentary . How much more gratuitous does Google think it can make them ? Are they going to start paying us to apply them ?
Owning the consumer interface means having control over future monetization opportunities . lookup , map , and Google Wallet alone would give the company a treasure trove of data point including personal , location and shopping information . The more information Google has , the more they will be able-bodied to algorithmically aim consumers with ad . … With buy data , Google could place ads based on purchase history .
HOLY CRAP , THE MACALOPE JUST SWITCHED HIS SEARCH ENGINE TO BING .
Is there a name for this insidious corollary to Apple ’s “ wall garden ” ? If not , the Macalope recall “ captivity surprise ” has a gracious anchor ring to it .
Phoning it in boys
In a normal public , writing favorably about Apple would just be usual sense , as the ship’s company is doing pretty well . In this humanity it makes you a “ fanboy . ”
The Macalope normally would n’t care about this , but double in the last workweek he ’s go out the same stenography of lazy punditry utilise to TechCrunch ’s MG Siegler , and he think it was queer . It ’s like that old joke where the woman goes to the psychiatrist and suppose “ Doctor ! My husband is a pervert ! ” and the head-shrinker says “ That ’s ridiculous ! It ’s absurd ! He ca n’t be ! ” The cleaning woman says “ How do you know ? ” To which the head-shrinker reply , “ Because I ’m one ! And he ’s never at any of the meeting ! ”
Just like any slur , it intend the writer has turned his psyche off and is just phoning this one in . When Sieglerquestioned whether or not Microsoft ’s Scott Hanselman did n’t just have his password hacked and was being overly sensitive about the phrasing of Apple ’s emails , Bott call it“the canonical Apple fanboy post . ”When Siegler suggested Google ’s purchase of Motorola Mobile had left Mountain View with its various parts dangling in the wind in terms of patents , Dan Lyonscalled Siegler an “ ultra Apple fanboy . ”
Dan ’s a professional writer , so he go with “ ultra ” instead of “ to the max ” or “ extreme ” because he can make those hard calls .
But it appear the fix is in . AsJohn Gruber says , Siegler is :
… one of the top writer on the Apple metre , menstruation . unspoiled reference , saucy psychoanalysis , and he ’s been right way way way more often than he ’s been wrong .
Which means he do life uncomfortable for mass who like to focus on Apple ’s relatively small figure of problems , so they prefer to just denounce him an “ Apple fanboy ” and call it a day . All that thinking have their nous hurt .
Siegler does n’t need the Macalope ’s protection , of course . He’sfully open of taking care of himself .
This all raises the dubiousness : over the past two yr , would you have gained more knowledge by study Lyons , or by having your head up your own ass ?
bad call .
Indeed . Because other than Lyons , Google ’s move here does n’t seem to have been very well received . S&P ’s Scott Kessler just told client to sell GoogleandAsymco ’s Horace Dediu , writing for the Harvard Business Review , does n’t see this as part of some maestro scheme by Google . But they ’re in all likelihood both “ Apple fanboys ” too . As is everyone at S&P and the Harvard Business Review .
When it comes to both Lyons and Bott , their theatrical performance about Apple ’s problem are what show offtheirbiases . As Siegler indicate out , Lyons arrogate Apple should be in a “ affright ” over the iPhone 4 ’s aerial problems . Bott , on the other hand , was somewhat more responsible in his coverage of the Mac Defender computer virus . All 8 kajillion give-and-take he wrote about it . Still , his predicted flood tide of Mac malware has yet to materialize ( keep hoping for bad thing , Ed ! ) . On Twitter , Bott ’s more off - the - handcuff , hence MG Siegler is not a journalist or blogger , he ’s just a “ canonical Apple fanboy . ”
Newsflash for Lyons and Bott : The intellect people like Siegler and Gruber and this furry beast so often spell favourably about Apple is because the company is , by every measure , astoundingly and almost unprecedentedly successful . That should be obvious . In fact , it should be eldritch to be obsessionally write about the ship’s company ’s flaws .
Bott select to make himself an expert in one of Apple ’s rare flaws , which is fine and perhaps even helpful . What’snotfine is hurling name at others who make bold to suggest Apple nay - sayers are making mountains out of molehills . It ’s squeamish that you ’re spending clip on this one issue , but test to look up from metre to clip and see the woodland full of Ents rage the castle for the few trees with Dutch elmwood disease .
Lyons , his Fake Steve fishgig having been shuttered like a clone Apple Store , can no longer play a illusionist jerked meat , so he seems contented to play a tug with winker on . Why he would do that under his own name is beyond the Macalope .
These guys , and others like them , are dying to be the first to call Apple ’s decline . For some reason , Apple ’s popularity seems to gall them , as seen inBott ’s sarcastic follow up tweet .
Surely Apple can have no problems . You are holding it wrong .
He does , however , want to be too hard on Lyons because , like Siegler , mostright - thinkingpeople question howdumping your last two old age worth of profitonan also - ran OEMwithdubious patentscould be a sign of grandeur .
But the insolent disregard from both Lyons and Bott is the crux of the Macalope ’s complaint about the term in question . It attempts to bring down anything the person says to the dismissible rant of a lunatic . If Bott does n’t have the clip to address Siegler ’s arguments at length , perchance he should n’t treat them at all . If Lyons ca n’t keep up with Siegler ’s arguments , maybe he should finally close up about Apple .
