The Department of Justice should take a hint from the Microsoft suit: Don't go after Google.

Easy to agree with conclusion of this article at Slate, but not the premises...

“The antitrust prosecution against Microsoft was misguided. To be sure, the government had the facts right—in the late 1990s, the software giant looked unbeatable.”

You think they are beatable now? Apple, the only serious commercial competitor switched to Intel processors, and the majority of Apple computers now dual boot to Windows, or run virtualization software that runs Windows in a window. These copies of Windows which must be purchased separately actually make more money for MS than the copies bundled with a new computer. Apple isn't a competitor, it's a partner.

'When Gates learned that Intel was building a chip that would let programmers deploy enhanced graphics within non-Microsoft operating systems, he wrote to Intel CEO Andy Grove, "I don't understand why Intel funds a group that is against Windows 95." Intel stopped developing the chip.'

And what has changed now, other than they have learned to use the telephone rather than e-mail for these communications? Everyone now depends on Intel, for almost all computing where Microsoft has an interest. The exceptions are fringe, and not insurmountable. Yes, if everyone replaced every PC with an iPhone Microsoft would be in trouble, but that's not about to happen. I'm quite sure that everyone at the Department of Justice that has an iPhone (and there are probably quite a few) are using them to connect to machines running copies of Windows and Office that together cost more than the iPhone itself. While there is a huge infrastructure needed to earn Apple what it makes on that iPhone, for Microsoft, all they produce is a tick mark on a spreadsheet somewhere where DoJ keeps track of how many Windows/Office licenses they “need”.

“The theory behind the prosecution was that Microsoft's mobster tactics would raise the price of software and slow down innovation. But that didn't happen.”

How do you measure something that didn't happen? This reminds me of young people who say things like “If it weren't for Microsoft we wouldn't have the PC as it exists today.” Maybe not. Maybe we would have something more reliable, using less power, not prone to spyware or pop-ups, free from spam. There a lot of innovations that simply didn't happen because both Microsoft and Intel sucked all the oxygen out of the room. The threats posed to MS/Intel by either Google or Apple are all future tense and speculative.

“It got beat anyway. Many of Microsoft's assets turned out not to matter, because upstarts like Google and old foes like Apple found ways to innovate around them.”

With MS still holding majority share in all of these areas and making enough profit every year to buy thousands of small businesses, you have a very creative definition of “beat”.

“Windows and Office—that it was blind to opportunities in new markets. Microsoft couldn't make a Web e-mail system like Gmail, because that would have threatened Outlook.”

But that's exactly what they are doing. “Hotmail” as they used to call it is the equivalent of Gmail in almost every respect that matters... only your get a few more features from it if you happen to be using Windows and Internet Explorer. Office Live will give, again, steadfast Microsoft supplicants like the DoJ full online versions of their favorite applications. The advantage of Google products will evaporate overnight. What's the primary difference between the Google way of doing things and Microsoft way? Google doesn't lock you into a single OS or single Office suit. Microsoft does. Advantage Microsoft.

“Yes, the first iPod didn't work on Windows. In time, it would help render Windows irrelevant.”

Get back to us when Slate or the Department of Justice replace all their desktop PCs with iPhones.

“Google has the resources to keep fighting these fights, and eventually it may win. But nothing in Google's history guarantees success.”

Now you're talking sense. Google's market share could evaporate almost over night. Transition from Windows to Android or anything else could take years (ask the Europeans). Google has the resources to fight Microsoft's well entrenched monopoly now. But setbacks in search would see most of these efforts that threaten Microsoft starved of funding.

“Varney has said that antitrust enforcement is a key tool for regulators to keep the economy running smoothly. But in the tech business, antitrust regulators are often too slow, fighting battles long after they've ceased to matter to consumers.”

I don't know about Varney's politics, but her statements about technology smack of cluelessness. If DoJ is like other federal agencies I've worked with, the top several layers of entrenched bureaucrats are clueless about technology as well. It's not clear they understand the law either. As far as the economy goes, this is a bad time to accuse anyone in Washington of understanding it. Remember that unemployment in Washington is hovering around two percent.

Microsoft Changes 'Laptop Hunter' Ad After Apple Complains | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Brian: The main reason you can't run OS X on a PC is that Apple doesn't want you to. Apple could claim unique use of hardware when they ran PowerPC chips, and they could have done some fairly interesting high end things in that realm, but they chose to make Apple computers more like PCs, and in fact there is very little difference in the technology. There are supercomputers made from PowerPC chips, all the game consoles use them (for speed) and there is a lot of commonality in PowerPC and the chips used to build IBM mainframes. But no, they weren't “good enough” for Apple.

Now, to show I'm an equal opportunity hater... It's clear now that Apple's (or Jobs' anyway) goal was to comoditize the Apple computer, make it MORE like a PC, and thus cheaper to stamp out by the thousands in some far away country, just like Dell and HP do. Other than unibody Aluminum enclosures and chicklet keyboards, there is less and less that is unique about an Apple computer with every revision. Apple is instead turning to innovation in total user experience, making computer, multimedia, phone, and online products that seamlessly (or more seamlessly than the alternatives anyway) integrate.

Why does Microsoft have to advertise products (PCs ) that they don't even make and hardly mention the part of it they are responsible for? Well, I think that question answers itself. There is nothing new and exciting about operating systems, any of them, and there isn't really much that is new an exciting about the hardware either. We are finally approaching the cliff that turns our interaction with computers into something akin to our interaction with TV sets and refrigerators. A greater reliance on hardware standards (an idea pushed early on by Microsoft of all companies) has made the technology differences in PCs (including Apples) minimal which means that the OS has less covering up to do. That coupled with a greater reliance on the Internet, means that prices on both hardware and software will continue to erode. This will force both Apple and Microsoft to make uncomfortable changes to heir business models. Microsoft is responding by becoming more of a network player. Apple is playing a move ahead by concentrating on non-PC technologies, while at the same time milking the high-end market for all it's worth. Neither of these strategies are sure bets however.

As details of discreet vs integrated circuit boards and variations on Dolby are no longer the subject of talk by any but the most fanatical audiophiles, in a few years nobody will be talking about which operating system you use. There may never be an OS XI or Windows 8, or if so they will go unheralded by most people. There will also be less talk about losing all your e-mails, personal photos or music files, because most of that stuff will be “online”. Even most large businesses now forbid employees from storing important thtings on the local hard drive. E-mail and documents worth saving go on networked drives, making the desktop system easily re-formatted with no backup-restore. You have to wonder why you would need a $400 OS for such a task.

In the early 90s when some of my mainframe colleagues proclaimed PCs just a fad they were right, it's just that the fad lasted a lot longer than they thought it would. Thankfully it is coming to an end.

Where’s Steve? - Cringely on technology

“The only thing worse than being talked about,” said Oscar Wilde, “is not being talked about.” That has until recently applied in spades to Steve Jobs of Apple, a guy who, when I’ve interviewed him, has always asked what other people have said about him, “especially the bad stuff.”
This is a spooky read.

Bullish Cross: How the iPhone and Poor Apple Management have contributed to the Downfall of Apple

"The underlying problem with the subscription method of accounting is that it makes Apple's financials appear radically weaker than they actually are. And as any experienced market participant knows, the market rarely trades on reality. Stocks trade on appearances, they trade on fluff, they trade on generalities regarding the health of the economy—what they do not trade on, is reality regarding fundamentals. Especially if teasing out that reality requires anything more than looking beyond the surface."

Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements - Wikipedia

I just found a reference (click title link) to this info in a Slashdot posting:

System/370

All sensitive instructions in the System/370 are privileged: it satisfies the virtualization requirements.

Motorola MC68000

The Motorola MC68000 has a single unprivileged sensitive instruction:

* MOVE from SR

This instruction is sensitive because it allows access to the entire status register, which includes not only the condition codes but also the user/supervisor bit, interrupt level, and trace control. In most later family members, starting with the MC68010, the MOVE from SR instruction was made privileged, and a new MOVE from CCR instruction was provided to allow access to the condition code register only.

IA-32 (x86)

(Main article:X86 virtualization)

The IA-32 instruction set contains 17 sensitive, unprivileged instructions[3]. They can be categorized in two groups:

* Sensitive register instructions: read or change sensitive registers and/or memory locations such as a clock register or interrupt registers:
o SGDT, SIDT, SLDT
o SMSW
o PUSHF, POPF
* Protection system instructions: reference the storage protection system, memory or address relocation system:
o LAR, LSL, VERR, VERW
o POP
o PUSH
o CALL, JMP, INT n, RET
o STR
o MOV

The Slashdot article here, concerns a new Google initiative to allow direct execution of X86 code from within the browser (and most likely the end goal would be a faster web based desktop replacement (which is a good goal). My comment:

Thanks for your comment and the links. Every time I run across an article like this and sigh, wishing I had the technical cojones to explain why it is that we were doing things like this on mainframes in the 80s with complete safety... and continuing to wonder why Intel couldn't just COPY the damned concepts if they can't figure out how to implement them from scratch.

Our world continues to be saddled with a half assed operating system running on a third rate architecture and for no other reason that technology takes a back seat (or maybe it's more like back of the bus) to marketing, bribery and collusion (with an unhealthy dose of buyer ignorance thrown in for good measure).

I continue to hope that good technology will win out eventually, although I'm almost convinced at this point that it will have to come from some country that hasn't been bought out by the Borg.

I wonder though, and maybe you know, why isn't the Power-PC mentioned in the Wikepedia article. I would assume because of its origin that it is closer to the 370 than to the Intel architecture in being fully virtualizable, a concept apparently not on the "roadmap" that Steve Jobs kept referring to in his rationale for Apple's switch to Intel. The Power-PC represented our best hope of escaping the Intel monoculture and I'd like nothing better than to once again have a mainstream non-Intel (and non-Intel-like) choice when I pick my next laptop.

Of course if Intel had a deserved (I'm being generous) third of the market then what Google is doing with this initiative would be dead in the water (as it probably should be).

Apple Could Also “Figuratively” Take Over the Laptop Market if MacBooks Were Free | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

And if a few other things were true.

Company Weakness or Systemic?

I have a few stocks in the tech sector I like to compare with each other.  I'm no fancy investor, but all of these companies have appealed to me at one time or another and it is interesting to watched their fortunes wax and wane.

At times like these you expect everything to go down a bit.  But what to make of a stock that has long led all the rest suddenly sinking to near the bottom?   At the same time, IBM and Microsoft, and old monopolist and a new have doggedly held their ground to come out on top.

Do these companies really deserve these valuations, or is it more about perception of non-technical stock analysts making sweeping generalizations (eg: high-end Apple products may no longer be in great demand)?

Apple Unveils Ultra-Thin Notebook - WSJ.com

"Investors seemed to be unimpressed by the new products: Apple shares dropped more than 6% Tuesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market."

Yawn.

Who Is Really Hurt by Apple Rumor Sites Closure? - New York Times Blog

Several publications where asking questions such as this in the last few days and my response to those I responded to were consistently that Apple was the victim of a self inflicted wound, and to extend the metaphor, considering the companies situation possibly a fatal one.

As a dedicated blogger, I take seriously my right to exaggerate an issue beyond all normal sensibilities.

But as if to prove my extreme point of view, yesterday Slashdot posted an article titled
'Apple Lawyering Up On "Fake Steve Jobs"' and whether they (Slashdot) were attempting to go along with a joke already well underway or were themselves fooled by the publicity stunt, the readers were certainly up in arms with only a few pointing out the more likely explanation for the FSJ postings.

Checking back today on those "dialogs" started by NYT and others what I find is mostly negative comments about Apple. People are very much inclined to accept the notions that Apple is the mini-me to Microsoft when it comes to screwing, or screwing with their users.

So whether it was a misguided legal department, the PR department being on vacation or a vindictive Steve Jobs, Apple has succeeded in neutralizing whatever "good guy" image it once had.

I'm not the only one who thinks Apple will exit the computer business as soon as it can do so without too much embarrassment, so maybe as a phone company, or music publisher they'll be forgiven for treating fan sites like a cheap date or that tacky one night stand with open source.

But a three legged stool with one leg removed cannot stand. So presuming Apple's ability to handle public relations re-awakens, what will they get into next? I mean it's not like music companies can just hop into the airline business is it?

Is it?

Apple: Zune outselling iPod on Amazon

When you've nailed the analysis, I can't think of any reason not to brag about it (quoting myself):

I imagine it has a lot to do with Apple not allowing retailers of their products to compete with one another on price.

If I'm going to buy an Apple product online I might as well buy it from Apple where it can often have it monogrammed and gift wrapped for free. If you could get them significantly cheaper at Amazon I'm sure they would be selling more of them.

Add to that the fact (I think) that you can ONLY buy a Zune from retailers, not directly from Microsoft:

http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/wheretobuy.htm

and I really don't think there is any validity to this comparison.

I do think though that Apple's lead in this area will die a slow death unless they do something new to differentiate themselves. At the volume the innards for these things are being cranked out by whatever godforsaken country they are coming from, there is just no way for any US "maker" to claim a leadership position.

They are positioning themselves as a general purpose upscale consumer electronic company (some might call this painting themselves into a corner).

Keep an eye out for the iBeam (a small white radar detector that once you're stopped will actually try and talk the officer out of giving you a ticket), the iContact, a knobless no-moving-parts stereo entertainment center that you control by staring at various parts of it and the iCUP for which no product details have been, uh, leaked.

Slashdot | Google Phone Rumors Solidifying

I've had a Sprint based Razr phone for almost a year and at the other end of the spectrum a Nokia 1100 via Tracfon for a couple, and I've played with an iPhone long enough to know that I can live without one.

I too like the Nokia flashlight feature (mentioned in the Slasdot discussion). I also like that it has a standby life of a month or more (in my experience) and can quickly be turned off and on, unlike the newer phones that must "boot" into a mode that can drive the display even to do something as simple as plug in to recharge.

I love the fact that I can check e-mail browse the web and so forth with the Razr, but the screen is too small to get much out of it (and the iPhone, to me isn't that much of an improvement, I have a Nokia N800 that serves about the same function as the iPhone in that regard).

My main use for a phone is, uh, talking on the phone, and unless I'm in a run down diner on the Interstate in the middle of nowhere, I'm not all that far from being able to check my mail and read the news on a real computer. Like most cell phone users I also own a laptop that does just fine in most Wifi locations.

All that to say, there may be a gPhone that competes with the iPhone, but iPhone users have shown that money isn't the issue with them. They'll stand in line to pay exorbitant prices for an untested product just for the status alone, and I'm sure many of them would do the same even if an equivalent service were available for free.

If the eventual gPhone has none of the features of the iPhone it will serve as a business-model-ending device for pay as you go services as Tracfone T-mobile, etc. Millions of people will buy them for emergency phones in the car, for their kids to take to school, for a spare when the battery on the iPhone dies, and so on. A dirt-cheap (production wise) phone will be almost as big a hit as an "iPhone killer".

Devil in these details: How will ads be presented? In the iPhone format, on the screen of course, possibly annoying the h*** out of you while you are trying to do something else. On an N1100 type device, maybe you would hear a 5 second ad at the start of a call you make, and your callers could be subjected to such a thing too. Tying up a real 10-digit phone number costs money. I don't know how much, but it isn't zero. A totally free phone will have an issue with rapidly using up these numbers for (as mentioned above) phones that get stored in a car and rarely used. Maybe such a device will have a two step process to call. (1) call an 800 number (provided by Google) followed by (2) an internal ID to get to the phone. This could tie in with the GrandCentral acquisition (which I'm already using and impressed with). Finally, an "iPhone Killer" phone that is free, has a large display and other state of the art features is going to be treated like any other free thing: carelessly. It will be subject to all sorts of physical abuse and people will be ordering replacements like they are dim-sum. What could have marginally been an ad-supported device could quickly become a sink-hole for any company who tries it.

So, as usual, I think many of they "analysts" have their heads up their a**es and are either dreaming, or engaging in typical stir up rumors to pump up the stock price tactics. Oh they wouldn't do that would they?

Regardless, when the gPhone does arrive, if it arrives, I hope it has a flashlight too!

Amazon MP3 Music Downloads

Amazon MP3 Frequently Asked Questions
Which computer operating systems are compatible with Amazon MP3?

You can buy songs from any computer with a web browser capable of downloading files from the Internet. The MP3 files you purchase will download directly to your computer and are compatible with any system that can read the MP3 music format. The Amazon MP3 Downloader is a tiny application that is required for purchasing and downloading an entire album and is currently available for Mac and Windows operating systems. If you use Linux, you can currently buy individual songs. A Linux version of the Amazon MP3 Downloader is under development, and when released will allow entire album purchases. For more information, please visit the Amazon MP3 Downloader Help page.

Good news everyone.

** UPDATE **

I downloaded two songs using Linux. Works great!

You need a special utility to download an entire album, but that utility is not available for Linux (yet). Promised RSN.

Someone somewhere asked hadn't Amazon figured out how to create zip files yet. Possibly they don't want to count on users being able to deal with them and are rolling whatever file packaging they are going to do into a "foolproof" interface they supply. If that's all that's going on, it shouldn't take long. One less proprietary OS dependency for me (I've bought music through iTunes, but use Linux software to serve and play them).

Get with the program Apple! Don't become just another Microsoft mini-me! (Lock-in)

Memo: Microsoft threatened to shut down Mac Office

No surprise here:

March 05, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Microsoft Corp. threatened to dump the Macintosh version of Office 10 years ago during talks with Apple Inc. because the move would "do a great deal of harm" to its rival, according to a memo made public in a recently-settled antitrust case.

The 1997 memo from Ben Waldman, at the time the head of Microsoft's Macintosh development group, to then-CEO Bill Gates, urged Mac Office 97's release. The suite, which in June 1997 had not yet reached beta, was eventually released as Office 98 in March 1998.

But Waldman understood that the next Mac Office was a stick that could be used against Apple. "The threat to cancel Mac Office 97 is certainly the strongest bargaining point we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately. I also think that Apple is taking this threat pretty seriously," Waldman said in his e-mail to Gates.

Do we want Mac in the enterprise when we have Linux?

"Larry Dignan recently posted a piece on Mac in the enterprise (The eternal question: Can Apple go enterprise?). I think a better question is actually why we would want Apple to bother with the enterprise when we have Linux? This assumes, of course, that you're in the market for a Windows alternative. However, Apple has done such an incredibly nice job moving into the world of consumer electronics that I say, 'Let them stay there!'"

Apple - Support - Discussions - MacBook Close and shut down .

Every now and then I take a look at the Apple discussion boards to see if there are any major problems affecting Apple users. I concluded long ago that the most common problem for these things, particularly laptops is overheating. For some reason, even though there are all sorts of failsafe mechanisms both hardware and software to deal with an overheating processor, nonetheless, what often seems to happen is the processor itself, after screaming for help in various ways, does all it can do in the realm of self preservation and just stops.

One can only assume after all the hand waving and shrugs from people who claim to work for Apple that much of this is totally beyond their control, it ain't your friendly Apple COMPUTER company any more you know.

But this visit to the Apple discussion forum took me to a post for someone who WANTS his computer to just suddenly stop. Apparently this guy has never used a computer of any kind before and expects to just turn the thing off like a TV set. Well, that WOULD be nice wouldn't it, but the notion of a purely "appliance" PC has never had enough traction for a successful implementation, even though some have tried.

More surprising, Apple employees missing in action on this discussion forum. Sometimes they seem to monitor the thing and sometimes they don't, although they seem to monitor quite carefully for disparaging remarks about Apple, while ignoring actual customer problems. But in this case, even other helpful Apple users seem to be ignoring this quite easy to answer question. Either that, of Apple users have become more computer illiterate than ever. Has the forum become so useless that the guru users have stopped visiting it?

I'm still quite sure that in spite of strong laptop sales, all the DOA and seriously messed up systems that Apple is shipping will cost them mind share sooner or later. I think laptops sales are strong for everyone making computers as more people switch to laptops from desktops, and with much higher margins on laptops this is good for everyone's bottom line. Yes, quite a few more people are buying Apple computers to run Windows, but this is will be a short lived phenomena if many of those people have bad experiences compared with earlier experiences with Dell and Compaq etc.

Anyway, I wrote and explanation for why computers don't shut down instantly. An Apple person should have been on staff to do something as simple as that... heck you could almost automate the process. Maybe one day soon there will be computers that can be just shut off, by under-the-covers elimination of the distinction between shut-down and sleep modes for example, but that's another story.

My-ESM Research - iPhone margins smaller than reported, claims analyst

"Apple hasn't invented anything really new here. Multi-touch already existed; Apple did not invent it. What they have done is what they are famous for -- they have improved something. The touch-gesture vocabulary, the excellent integration of touch into every aspect of the iPhone's operation, and the overall simplicity of operation is what is really new. And it is very, very good!"

Apple - Thoughts on Music

"In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system."

Apple Fixes First Flaw From 'Month Of Apple Bugs' - News by InformationWeek

"A day after LMH unveiled the QuickTime flaw, a Mac developer posted his own patch as part of a response to the bug-a-day project. Landon Fuller, who works on the DarwinPorts project, said he stepped in as 'part brain exercise, part public service.' So far, he and other researchers have published fixes for 20 of the 23 bugs listed on the Month of Apple Bugs site. Earlier this month, Apple declined to confirm any of the Month of Apple Bugs vulnerabilities and only issued a standard statement saying, 'Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users. We always welcome feedback on how to improve security on the Mac.'"

Closed, secretive, non-responsive, Apple-Microsoft II?

Apple: Computers Are Sooo Last Year - Forbes.com

"'Outside PCs, I think the company is, or has the potential to become, dominant. The PC market is growing slowly, and Intel-based Mac sales have hit a wall, unfortunately for investors,' Seyrafi says. 'Apple just has a much stronger position with consumer appliances than they do with computers.'"

Analysis: iPhone a 'wake-up call' for the industry

I'm glad they put that in quotes.

According to figures quoted by Steve Jobs during his keynote, 957 million mobile phones were sold in the U.S. last year. (That compares to 209 million PCs.) Just a 1 percent market share would mean selling around 10 million units, the Apple CEO figures—and that happens to be Apple’s goal for 2008.

But get this:

While it will be some time before the full effects of the iPhone will be felt, Apple has strong feelings on what its impact will be. “It will do for the phone market what the Mac did for personal computers,” Joswiak said.

Uh... and what exactly is that? This is one of the few times when I think the acronym "ROFL" might be appropriate.

I'm just about the only person I know who uses an Apple computer and I'm sick and tired of the fact that it is easier to use, more reliable (etc. etc. etc) getting absolutely no traction from my Windows using friends. If a Microsoft representative came to their homes to personally tread on their private parts they'd have no problem paying for the experience.

Apple "addicts" or "Mac Addicts", as they call themselves have true brand loyalty. But most Windows users are oblivious to what brand of anything they are using. It's "just a PC" and for most people it will be "just a cell phone", "just a music player", and so on.

One Slashdotter today referred to the US as the "third world of electronic gadgets". Do most Americans even know this?

What would be great for Apple at this point would be some new wave of American isolationism (not out of the question that this could happen, but I wouldn't place a large wager just yet): "Samsung, Nokia, LG, Sony and on and on, you guys all go experiment on the Asian and European market. Once you get something that works, bring it over here and we'll slap an Apple logo on it."

That must be the fantasyland (pun intended) that Apple is moving into. And once 2008 comes along and they've captured ONE PERCENT of the cell phone market... what next? Refrigerators? Window unit air conditioners? HEY! Office furniture! No wait, that's too limiting, HOME furniture! Your imagination is the limit.

Never mind the fact that there most certainly is going to be a tech retrenchment soon, and based on the "wonders" from CES, VERY soon, I think it's time for some mergers. Didn't someone let slip a joke about an Apple/Google merger? I think it needs to become non-joking material.

The most versatile company in America right now is (drum-roll, and in spite of my, um, non-fan status) Microsoft. Maybe this is Apple's attempt to diversify better too, but frankly, I don't think they are that well positioned. As dominators of only one market (online music) which has hardly gotten off the ground yet (really, when you look at the numbers it's peanuts) they are not in the same league with Microsoft. Microsoft is diversifying from controlling both the Home and Office software market to getting into portable devices (poorly at the moment) entertainment equipment (XBox is at least viable as a profit center), they compete in the online service and advertising business with Google, Yahoo, etc., and they claim to be moving into business consulting and a few other things (although I have my doubts still that they have the stomach for it). No American company is going to make hardware PERIOD. Intel and IBM have nice businesses designing chips, and AMD isn't going anywhere for a while, but in terms of end user products, we just slap the label on the box, uh, I mean we ask the nice people in Singapore to do that for us before they ship it to the customer.

So Apple, is a BRAND, and name recognition is a good thing. The Apple brand is a rising star as is Google, while a lot of older brands are sinking or stagnating. Marrying off one of these rising stars with a company that is otherwise in decent health could have some great synergistic effects.

Matchmakers matchmakers make me a match: Let the speculation begin. Who's it going to be? Apple-Yahoo, Google-Apple? Sony could use some diversification too at this point, and IBM... it's been a while since they tried to get into the consumer business, are they over embarrassment about the PC Jr? They could have course OWNED the PC business if they had taken it more seriously, was that failure so colossal that they can never think of the possibility again? A tech retrenchment might make strange bedfellows.

After all, the most fun part of the roller coaster ride is that big drop. Everyone hold your hands up and start screaming!

Update: I forgot to mention... some say that the BIG news today from Apple was their name change, from Apple Computer Inc. to just Apple Inc. I tend to agree. Maybe I should have just titled this post that way, but I got such a jolt from the two quotes in the Yahoo article that I couldn't stop myself from just linking it.

I even went over to one of the Apple forums to throw cold water on the iPhone thing and found them already shivering over the name change. Oh yea, more on names:

*here*