Apple: The New Microsoft

[Pastiche]

Looks like Apple is going to try to buy back ARM. Why? Well to shut out the competition of course:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/0...ple-To-Buy-ARM

Apple's nothing like Microsoft.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

Looks like Apple is going to try to buy back ARM. Why? Well to shut out the competition of course:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/0...ple-To-Buy-ARM

Apple's nothing like Microsoft.

You don't know much about this stuff do you? ARM probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for Apple and the Newton. They founded ARM with Acorn.

ARM's market cap is over 3 billion. Why would they buy them when they could just continue licensing ARM's property at a much cheaper cost? If Apple wanted to buy them, they would have to continue to license ARM technology to others in order to get any return on the purchase. It would be impossible to shut out the competition.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by Barnes

You don't know much about this stuff do you? ARM probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for Apple and the Newton. They founded ARM with Acorn.

ARM's market cap is over 3 billion. Why would they buy them when they could just continue licensing ARM's property at a much cheaper cost? If Apple wanted to buy them, they would have to continue to license ARM technology to others in order to get any return on the purchase. It would be impossible to shut out the competition.

Except now they could double or triple the cost to their competitors if they wanted to. ARM has a virtual monopoly on cell phone processors, and if Apple owned it they could price the iPhone way below anything else on the market. For that reason, I doubt this deal would even be allowed to go through, assuming the rumour is even true.

[Pastiche]

You don't know much about this stuff do you? ARM probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for Apple and the Newton. They founded ARM with Acorn.

How did you reach that conclusion when I stated clearly in the post that Apple wanted to buy back ARM.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

How did you reach that conclusion when I stated clearly in the post that Apple wanted to buy back ARM.

From the sarcastic "Apple's nothing like Microsoft" remark.

This was probably floated out there in response to Google buying Agnilux.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Barnes

From the sarcastic "Apple's nothing like Microsoft" remark.

This was probably floated out there in response to Google buying Agnilux.

Pff Google's nothing like Microsoft or Apple.

[Hack&Lube]

Apple is becoming increasingly evil and greedy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20002223-261.html

Reilly, a former executive at Web music-subscription service eMusic, wrote in the e-mail that among Amazon's accomplishments he is most proud was getting under the skin of rival iTunes' on the issue of song prices.

Reilly wrote that "11.5 million tracks (are) available in six countries. All DRM-free which they said couldn't be done just three years ago. How can I not be proud of the Daily Deal that has been so successful it riled the Cupertino beast?"

The "beast" Reilly is obviously referring to is Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple. Last month, Billboard magazine reported that Apple was pressuring recording companies to drop support for Amazon's practice of slashing prices on specific titles and promoting them heavily the day they were released. Amazon called this the Daily Deal.

The labels and their artists would often support the Daily Deal by promoting them on their Web sites. According to music industry sources, Amazon's Daily Deal ended after Apple managers told the labels that any music included in the Daily Deal would receive no promotion at iTunes. In one case, Apple complained to Sony Music Entertainment after seeing material from Alicia Keys on the Daily Deal, according to one industry source.

Apple can throw its weight around like that because it is the largest music retailer in the land, online or off. Is the decision by the labels to abandon the Daily Deal the source of Reilly's frustration?

Maybe, but ever since Amazon launched its MP3 music store in September 2007, the labels have acted as if they appeared to favor the service. In January 2008, Amazon became the first music store to sell tunes from the major labels free of digital rights management software. Then there was the issue of price. Amazon was ahead of iTunes in introducing variable pricing and, at least initially, often sold songs for less than the standard iTunes' price of 99 cents.

Music industry sources have said that Amazon decided on its own to cut prices. The labels don't set minimum prices and as long as a retailer pays the agreed upon wholesale price, they can sell songs at a loss as much as they want. Whether or not Amazon's price cutting was done with the labels' blessing, what is certain is that the record industry wanted another strong player in digital music to help counter Apple's enormous power.

So Amazon tries to sell songs for less than itunes. Apple goes out and tells music publishers that if they allow their songs to be sold for less @ Amazon, that Apple will refuse to do any promotions for them @ itunes, pressuring them to not make their songs available to consumers for any less than what Apple deems the market price. Thanks Apple, we all enjoy your blacklisting and extortion and monopolizing practices.

itunes has already basically forced out my personal favorite digital download/streaming music site from the business - Yahoo Music. I subscribed to their yearly service for 2 years and bought many songs and albums from them until they pulled out due to pressure with being unable to compete with Apple.

The news of Apple buying arm makes me wonder what they will do, I get visions of Intel underselling and pressuring OEMs not to sell computers with AMD processors through underhanded agreements and withholding supplies. Did Apple really have that much to do with the genesis of RISC? ARM was started solely by Acorn with VLSI making the silicon. Acorn was just hurting back in those days after the crash of the British computer market and the decline in BBC Micro sales and Apple sent them a wad of cash. Apple was one of the main partners when ARM was spun out of Acorn in the late 80s though and probably helped in popularizing it. I see why they want to buy back ARM though. Apple is flowing with cash and ARM is a huge money maker.

Anyway, these things, along with how they rip off developers, is one of the reasons I won't do any business with them.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

Looks like Apple is going to try to buy back ARM. Why? Well to shut out the competition of course:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/0...ple-To-Buy-ARM

Apple's nothing like Microsoft.

Completely myopic. Whether Apple is buying ARM or not, the use of ARM processors in phones and mobile devices is absolutely dwarfed by the embedded market, where it runs everything from gas station pumps to cars, to milling machines, home electronics, etc.

Apple would lose orders of magnitude more money by shutting out ARM licensees than they would stand to gain by simply keeping the company as is; it’s already very profitable. This pre-supposes it would get through regulatory restrictions at any rate.

Also, ARM doesn’t fab their own stuff. All it would take is for fabs like Marvel, Samsung, etc, to simply refuse to take on contracts to fab ARM chips, and then Apple is also on the hook for billions of dollars to spin up or purchase their own fabrication facility.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Also, ARM doesn’t fab their own stuff. All it would take is for fabs like Marvel, Samsung, etc, to simply refuse to take on contracts to fab ARM chips, and then Apple is also on the hook for billions of dollars to spin up or purchase their own fabrication facility.

I'm sure Apple has enough money to do that nowadays, nothing's really stopping them from getting their own fab but it's not really their core business. If Apple really wanted a fab, they could have put a huge stake into Global Foundries when AMD spun it off.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I'm sure Apple has enough money to do that nowadays, nothing's really stopping them from getting their own fab but it's not really their core business. If Apple really wanted a fab, they could have put a huge stake into Global Foundries when AMD spun it off.

Yeah, I’m sure Apple has enough money to do a lot of things. If they wanted to corner the whale meat market, they have enough to buy up most of the whaling fleet too.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Yeah, I’m sure Apple has enough money to do a lot of things. If they wanted to corner the whale meat market, they have enough to buy up most of the whaling fleet too.

Good point! They totally should get into whale meat and ivory. I could totally see the shiny white backs of iphones made of real elephant tusk. I'd also buy a Macbook made of real amazonian deforested wood encrusted with African blood diamonds. Every ipod should contain a minimum of 33% endangered species content.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

So Amazon tries to sell songs for less than itunes. Apple goes out and tells music publishers that if they allow their songs to be sold for less @ Amazon, that Apple will refuse to do any promotions for them @ itunes, pressuring them to not make their songs available to consumers for any less than what Apple deems the market price. Thanks Apple, we all enjoy your blacklisting and extortion and monopolizing practices.

And Microsoft gets sued and called anti-competitive for giving away a web browser for free with their operating system...

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

And Microsoft gets sued and called anti-competitive for giving away a web browser for free with their operating system...

The anti-competition suits and rulings years ago had nothing to do with the free bundling of IE, it was the total integration with the Windows Explorer and difficulty in removing it from Windows and the neccessity of using IE to use key features of Windows and the unfriendliness of the environment to alternative browsers. Microsoft is still evil though...although nolonger as evil - just more of the clumsy and ugly cousin. Apple needs to be scrutinized a bit more i this same fashion for their anti-competitive practices instead of getting a free ride.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

The anti-competition suits and rulings years ago had nothing to do with the free bundling of IE, it was the total integration with the Windows Explorer and difficulty in removing it from Windows and the neccessity of using IE to use key features of Windows and the unfriendliness of the environment to alternative browsers. Microsoft is still evil though...although nolonger as evil - just more of the clumsy and ugly cousin. Apple needs to be scrutinized a bit more i this same fashion for their anti-competitive practices instead of getting a free ride.

Perhaps we're talking about different suits or I'm getting them mixed up in my head. They've been sued so many times for this type of thing it's not even funny. I know there was an older suit (IE 4 or 5 days I think off the top of my head) that was about the integration issue. I think there was a more recent one about it being bundled period and that giving them an unfair advantage. The argument was they need alternatives bundled with windows or no web browser included at all. I think the one I'm thinking of was in the EU...

Now that I think of it, I also seem to remember someone raising a stink about windows media player for that reason as well so maybe that's the cause of my confusion.



Anyway... back on topic... if those allegations are true about how Apple is trying to abuse it's position it holds with the iTunes store to keep Amazon out of the market, that's pretty bad.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

Anyway... back on topic... if those allegations are true about how Apple is trying to abuse it's position it holds with the iTunes store to keep Amazon out of the market, that's pretty bad.

I think the truth about the iTunes vs Amazon thing lies firmly between the two stories. It was, in fact, Apple that held the line on pricing when the labels wanted to charge more. It was also Apple that wanted the tracks to be DRM free from the start, but the labels resisted. Apple got DRM-free in exchange for variable pricing in the store.

So really, its been a whole series of tit-for-tat developments on all sides. Amazon has simply been playing spoiler for the most part, allowing themselves to be used as a big stick by the labels against iTunes, in exchange for their business.

Don’t think for even one second that Amazon wouldn’t change business tactics with regard to digital music the second the labels threatened to pull their music. In the Apple-Music Label-Amazon triumverate, Amazon is very much the lapdog of the music labels.

[Barnes]

99 cents per song was the price point Apple thought that all music should be sold and since variable pricing has been implemented, digital music sales has slowed considerably.

Apple wanted DRM off its music in iTunes. The record labels wanted variable pricing.

Amazon came along with no DRM and variable pricing, Apple conceited on the variable pricing if the labels would agree to removing DRM.

It's pretty simple.

I guess freetards could be congratulating Amazon for getting under Apple's skin but in doing so, you are also siding with record labels.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by BlackEleven

Except now they could double or triple the cost to their competitors if they wanted to. ARM has a virtual monopoly on cell phone processors, and if Apple owned it they could price the iPhone way below anything else on the market. For that reason, I doubt this deal would even be allowed to go through, assuming the rumour is even true.

Apple wouldnt do that. That is the closest thing to a lawsuit as you would get.

If anything they are doing this to control the cost of production and to make sure that ARM doesnt try to do what you are suggesting to Apple to make their products to expensive.

It makes sense from Apples perspective to own ARM. That way they could transfer research dollars from other phones into investments they want their by getting around the lawsuits.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Barnes

99 cents per song was the price point Apple thought that all music should be sold and since variable pricing has been implemented, digital music sales has slowed considerably.

Apple wanted DRM off its music in iTunes. The record labels wanted variable pricing.

Amazon came along with no DRM and variable pricing, Apple conceited on the variable pricing if the labels would agree to removing DRM.

It's pretty simple.

I guess freetards could be congratulating Amazon for getting under Apple's skin but in doing so, you are also siding with record labels.

Personally I prefer variable pricing. I am fine with higher profile songs costing more and being able to buy entire old albums or collections for much less. I loved the prices I had with Yahoo with the yearly streaming subscriptions.

Anyone who gets DRM off, regardless of price is my hero.

[Yeah_Baby]

DRM is the devils work.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Personally I prefer variable pricing. I am fine with higher profile songs costing more and being able to buy entire old albums or collections for much less. I loved the prices I had with Yahoo with the yearly streaming subscriptions.

Anyone who gets DRM off, regardless of price is my hero.

Yeah. I have not bought songs before that were listed as $1.29. DRM never kept me from buying music. S Jobs always said that $.99 was the limit and anything higher, you start to think about the cost.

I don't know anything about the Yahoo service but music subscriptions do sound enticing especially the MS model were you get to keep a number of songs each month.