Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#201

Post by throwaway420 » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:46 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #71

throwaway420 wrote: post #61

It's a little weird for me that a company supposedly in "maintenance mode" has been ignoring the Mac for so long. Even a 5th rate computer company can manage to come out with a new model once in a while. How did Apple get to the point where a company in "maintenance mode" ignores a big product line like this for so long? Is Apple not capable of executing on more than 1 project at once?

> a big product line There's your mistake - next to i-devices, the Mac is simply not a big product line. It's something they need to have around for ecosystem developers, and something of a brand exercise in other sectors. Nothing more.

I am perfectly aware that when compared to phones and other devices, Macs make up a small percentage of Apple's income. But it is still a massive business.

Apple will be fine either way in the short term. Hell, they have enough cash saved up to run their company for many years even if they make zero income. But their brand reputation is starting to get tarnished when their ecosystems don't get supported. In the long run, having people wondering how frequently the ecosystems they buy into will be supported is a concern.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#202

Post by nsp » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

boulos wrote: post #115

zekevermillion wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like Apple has uncovered a new kind of product microeconomics -- luxury commodity, a commodity product where luxury pricing increases demand. It's a cheap way for consumers to signal upscale fashion. (This is me appreciating the enemy's skill from afar. I do not personally like Apple products. Just as I prefer wearing paint-stained sweatpants and 10-year-old extra-large t-shirts, as well as running linux…

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic, but that's called a Veblen Good ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good ) and many luxury items follow the same pattern.

Nitpick, luxury goods and veblen goods are distinct concepts. Veblen goods are generally considered theoretical (with the possible exception of things like stocks). For Apple laptops to be Veblen goods, you would have to believe that they would sell fewer laptops if they were cheaper, not just makes less money. You could make the case that it's all brand fetishism and Apple would sell fewer MacBooks than they do now if they cost $500 rather than $1000, but i find that fairly implausible.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#203

Post by alex- » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

herbturbo wrote: post #187

alex- wrote: post #178

Their is a feeling that CEOs of these large companies are completely responsible for the direction a company takes. I have never served as a CEO, but I can't help but imagine that large share holders are also very dominant figures. One of the attributes that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates appeared to share (I have never met either) was a massive amount of trust/faith to run their respective companies (eventually). I imagi…

> I imagine that this must translate to the board room where they were provided the freedom to pursue avenues that a newly promoted CEO would just not be allowed to do. The author also mentions Disney, which is a company that was sliding into obscurity until Bob Iger took over. As a newly promoted CEO he executed his vision and put Disney right back on top. I can't imagine Disney's board was particularly forward thin…

You are right, it must be possible to execute on a vision while keeping shareholders, who don't share your vision happy.

But I still feel that it must be harder than having carte blanche with the organisation. Maybe I over estimate the different levels of freedom provided to different CEOs.

Or maybe the ability to generate this freedom/trust/faith is one of the skills that ultimately helps define a successful CEO.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#204

Post by yuhong » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #199

the_watcher wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Ballmer got hate because Microsoft's consumer products consistently flopped. The stuff that those of us who flipped to Apple while he was in charge used (Zune, Windows Vista, original Surface, Windows Phone) were consistently underwhelming. However, Ballmer was simply inarguably an effective CEO from the perspective of investors. He grew the enterprise business consistently (which has a huge amount of value for l…

> Ballmer was simply inarguably an effective CEO from the perspective of investors. I'm not so sure. Imagine Microsoft had a lazy/disciplined CEO who said, "Windows and Office development only. No Bing, no XBox, no Azure, no Windows Phone, no Nokia". Would the shareholders be richer now?

Especially with declining PC sales.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#205

Post by oddevan » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

IBM wrote: post #172

jasonsync wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those devs and I'm sure every dev shop has been itching for a significant Macbook update for quite some time. Macbook PRO hasn't seen a significant update since 2012. Just minor speed bumps and force touch in 2015. So we're getting one next week - but why not sooner? That was one of the takeaways from this article. Pace of innovation has slowed under Tim Cook.

4 years is right on schedule for redesigns of the Macbook Pro. Not sure how the current narrative about Macs being neglected got started, but they're not behind at all if you look at the previous cadence between redesigns. The Macbook Pro also got a minor speed bump in May 2015. The only difference this year is that Intel has been having problems delivering on time (and without problems).

> The only difference this year is that Intel has been having problems delivering on time (and without problems).

That is the entire difference. You're correct in that this is the expected time between redesigns, but we also haven't gotten a spec bump in over a year. That's unusual, and it's giving real fuel to the usually-overblown "[product] is so stale!"

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#206

Post by adekok » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

Apple bought Siri, and then largely did nothing with it. The founders left, and started another AI startup: Viv.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/09/siri-creator-shows-off-fir...

That AI capability could have been Apples.

Instead of concentrating on user experience as a whole, they concentrated on "look and feel" of devices, along with UI.

Those are all good things. But having an iPhone with a useful AI would be a killer.

Instead, Google is pushing hard in this area. And will likely do well. Because they're a data analysis company. Not a "pretty picture" company.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#207

Post by dmix » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

I really like the dichotomy Steve Blank uses between "process" people and "creative" people. I've only been working in tech companies for ~10yrs but all my experience working in companies have shown me that the more a person is obsessed with processes and structure, the less they contribute to the real business value (product, design, marketing, etc). Not only in their own time investment in the company but in their influence on others around them, which tends to be high because they usual get managerial roles somehow.

These are the people who obsess over flaws in how work is done rather than the work itself. Which has it's place in larger companies but even there it really needs to be balanced, much more in favour of outward work.

Being a front-end dev I've had to work with many 'product managers' who spent a big chunk of their time on the process stuff and most of the product ideas were just shots in the dark without backing it up with data or experience, or otherwise entirely reactionary to local customer issues or the bosses moods, rather than with a strong vision or focusing on high level trends in customer behaviour. Largely, I believe, because they spent a lot of their finite resources focusing on the wrong things (internal optimization rather than external, ie talking to customers, value prop).

There are many many traps that startups can fall into and this is a big one. Especially when companies get VC and start adding non-core team members, then feel the need to bring in managers.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#208

Post by iakh » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #197

mikeryan wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MacBook, Mac Pro, iPad Pro, iPhone+,MacBook HDMI Dongle, iPhone Headphone Dongle, Apple Pay, Apple Music, Apple Pencil. These are primarily iterations or extensions of existing products, not new products (in the blue ocean sense) as seem to be defined in the article. This is the complaint the article makes with "execution" executives. As products they're all mechanisms for increasing revenues on existing (re: stagnan…

> These are primarily iterations or extensions of existing products, not new products Some much more than others. If you apply this logic consistently, the only new products Steve Jobs introduced were the original Apple (II), the Mac operating systems, the iPod and iOS. Everything else was an iteration, right?

  These were not just product transitions, but radical business model transitions – new channels, new customers and new markets–and new emphasis on different parts of the organization

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#209

Post by sbuttgereit » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #175

sbuttgereit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that primarily uses windows, that's not my experience at all. Windows 7 was great; Windows 8 was a parade of misguided user experience experiments, Windows 8.1 was at best a patch over 8 (I still needed third party extensions to make the experience decent). Windows 10, I no longer need third party extensions, I no longer need the VMs for Linux that I use to keep around with the WSL. Honestly, I've been ple…

But is 10 significantly better than 7?

Not particularly, I would think, for the average user. The WSL stuff is a major improvement for me personally, I also recently bought a new workstation class system where I had the choice of 10 Pro or 7 pre-installed and, not having any legacy software issues to worry about, chose 10. I was happy with 7 and am happy with 10. All other things being equal, the newer version would seem to make more sense.

Again, unless you're concerned about the privacy issues or have special need for non-automatic updates/restarts, which really I think are a minority of users, 10 carries incremental improvements in my experience. Having said that, the free upgrade period would have likely been a good thing to take advantage of for the average 7 user... paying for the upgrade now, not so much.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#210

Post by chongli » Mon, Oct 24, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #188

chongli wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laptops are irrelevant to this discussion since nobody builds a laptop from off-the-shelf parts. The issue I'm talking about is gaming performance. Apple sells Mac Pros starting at $3000. These machines use workstation class Xeon processors with ECC memory and workstation class graphics cards designed for double precision floating point computation. These features are irrelevant to gamers. It is not hard at all to bu…

If you read my comment i was referring to mac desktops, laptops were a separate point in a discussion. Nevertheless you are comparing 3 year old Mac Pro with current PCs, at the time when Mac Pro was released it was on par with PC systems that costed around 3000$ as well.

I'm comparing brand new Mac Pros that Apple is selling right now, today. The fact that Apple hasn't updated this product in 3 years is not my problem. I can't believe you'd think that would not be a point in my favour.