I'm just a lowly engineer, so such decisions are way above me. I can
only hope that the decision makers know what they are doing.
If you believe that Apple can create products at the same price as a
pc knockoff company down the street, you are going to be constantly
disappointed. Apple does not build hardware; it builds systems.
That includes the software. Our overhead (such as my paycheck ;-) is
always going to be higher because we have to pay for all the
development costs. And because are systems require unique parts,
created at a much lower volume than in the pc world, our hardware
costs are also going to be higher.
We hope that the additional price our customers pay is justified by
the fit-n-finish that we put into the systems.
As you say this OT, so I should not comment further on this.
Edward Moy
Apple
On Jun 8, 2005, at 8:48 AM, Joel Rees wrote:
On 2005.6.8, at 01:57 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi Sherm. For those who don't know me, I'm the perl maintainer at
Apple, and I admit I keep a low profile on this list. But I
wanted clear up a few things:
Well, Ed, I'm not Sherm, and I don't have any claim to fame, but I
wish you could clear up why Steve would do something as insane as
inserting Apple into the x86 monoculture.
I'd have no complaints if Apple were offering Mac OS X86 boxes as a
second line. I don't buy the megahertz myth, so I have no problem
paying a little higher price for the PowerPC Mac Mini compared with
an x86 of similar clock, even with the FSB rate a tenth of the CPU
clock instead of a half. On the contrary, low average power on the
Mac Mini fits it into the Japanese power budget just fine.
The most frustrating part of Mac OS X is the lack of product range.
For instance, I'd love a PPC box the size of the Mac Mini at half
the spec and loaded only with Darwin, but with an extra NIC, for
$300. (I'd by three at $200 each, but I'm trying to make a point
here.) The current speed/power is only a serious detriment to a
bunch of critics who won't be buying Macs anyway.
(And, just between you and me, but I don't see why Steve is so
enamored of Pentium M, especially without seeing whether iNTEL can
actually push that piece of junk up to 64 bits.)
Anyway, if you by any chance have a communication path up high
enough to reach whoever decided that PowerPC had to be dropped, I'd
appreciate it if you could be so kind as to pass on a request to
keep the PowerPC line going as long as it doesn't just totally
bleed red ink across multiple quarters.
--
Joel Rees
The master plan in open source is simple:
The user figures out what he or she needs and does it.
