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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave Budde who wrote (137014)	6/8/2001 9:59:59 AM
From: Bob Kim	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Dave, re: This would be death for Apple. I think Apple should reconsider using the x86. Even back in 1994, I heard that Apple/Novell had the MacOS running on x86 in nearly indistinguishable fashion from the Motorola chips. I wonder if Motorola even uses many Macs these days. Also back in 1994 I remember seeing Macs paired with 29K-powered laser printers on the desks of secretaries in the executive area of AMD.

To: Dave Budde who wrote (137014)	6/8/2001 7:35:56 PM
From: Saturn V	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Hi Dave, Thanks for your thoughtful response. Ref < "I can do in in three words: "Ease of Use". While Windows appears on the surface to be equivalent in features to Mac OS there is simply no comparison when it comes to ease of use for the non-technical person. I know many people that gave up on Wintel machines because they couldn't get their apps installed or get their network to work, or had problems when the computer crashed and couldn't figure out what files to fix or remove. Or how to uninstall applications without leaving a mess behind. Ever try to move an application to a different folder on a Wintel machine once it's installed. Good luck if you did. None of these problems exist for these people in the Mac platform. USB and Firewire just works on a Mac. I've never seen them just work on a Wintel machine." > "Ease of Use ". I disagree ! But if you say "Ease of Installation", I will agree ! Apple has been hammering on the "Ease of Use", where the reality is that once properly installed, Wintel is just as easy to use. A new buyer always sees a properly installed machine in the retail store, and when he hears the Mac slogan " Ease of Use ", he loses credibility in Apple. INSTALLATION ISSUES: Apple had an ad campaign, where it spoofed the Wintel IRQ conflicts. Unfortunately this aired well after Win 95 had cleaned up the IRQ mess, and this was a non-issue. So the ad campaign eroded Apple's credibility to the average consumer. However what most people are not aware of is that Windows NT was a nightmare for IRQ conflicts. Windows NT is non- plug and play; and worse, if you make an error, the NT protection mechanisms activate in unpredictable ways, and mess up the system. The only way to recover is to completely uninstall NT, and reinstall, and try again. I have known extremely competent programers and hardware people to waste days trying to resolve trivial problems. Windows 3.1 was much easier to recover from. Luckily Windows 2000 is plug and play, and is a much better platform, and I believe that NT disasters will soon be history. I also agree that Microsoft software can sometimes become a mess to install. This typically occurrs due to shared *.dll libraries. Micosoft, with an 1980 mindset, tried to save memory and disk space by sharing common libraries between applications. Suppose Application A and B, both use a common library xyz.dll. This can work fine, except when Application A works correctly with Version 1 of xyz.dll, and Application B does not work correctly with Version 1 but needs version 2. Thus installing Application A, on top of Application B, will cause Application B, to crash. Worse if either A or B is uninstalled, xyz.dll will be unistalled, causing the other application to malfunction. However this common dll problem can be resolved simply by linking all the .dll's needed within the application itself, and thus preventing interapplication installation conflicts. Hopefully Microsoft finally sees the light of the day, and implements the minor patch for resolving this problem. I admit that Microsoft does not have the mindset for viewing the system from the point of view of a novice. It has the nerdic mindset that " What is obvious to me, is obvious to everyone else, unless they are retarded", or " Why should I bother designing this exotic hardware to be run by nitwits ?". Apple and AOL have done a much cleaner job. Microsoft has the persistence, listens, and eventually does mend its ways. The difference between Wintel and Apple is not compelling any more. In the 80's it was impossible to write decent software for Windows 1.0 and 2.0, due to the 640k constraint. Windows 3 liberated the application developer from the 640k constraint and by early 90's Windows 3 software showed up in droves. The programmer still had to cope with the 16 bit segment constraint, and finally Windows 95 liberated the application developer from this. And plug and play made installation easier for the novice. The net impact of the Windows flaws was that in the early 90's, Apple completely owned the destop publishing market, and most of the educational, school and university markets as well. Its products were definitely far superior. It completely blew that lead during the last several years. Today I do not see it as being able to leverage the minor advantage it has, and to improve its market position.