Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

steveblank.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 307 posts

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

#291

Post by cfjgvjh »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #272
strictnein wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original statement was that the Mac Pro was a fancy computer case, nothing more. You state: > "For starters, there is the core that acts like a heatsink. Then there is also the smaller profile." Which is exactly my point. > "The Mac Pro clearly has more capable hardware, why is that not enough?" In what way? Seriously. You said it was "off the shelf" components and then it somehow has more capable hardware? How do…

>Which is exactly my point Which is what? It was not just the case, the guts are also different. I never claimed they are unique, but they surely are different. You can downvote me all you want, but saying the current Mac Pro is iteration/just a case and not a different product is wrong. >In what way? Seriously. You said it was "off the shelf" components and then it somehow has more capable hardware? How does that wo…

>the guts are also different. I never claimed they are unique, but they surely are different.

Just because they're different doesn't automatically mean that they're better.

>I know I've said this before, but if you go to http://apple.com/mac-pro/, you can clearly see how it is more capable compared to older generation.

What's the point of comparing with the older generation? The technology has advanced, of course it'll be more capable. Unless the user needs to stay in the Apple ecosystem, the Mac pro should be competing with the PCs of the "current" generation.

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

#292

Post by LaSombra »

glhaynes wrote: post #256
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alexa is the perfect example of a product that could have been made by Apple but wasn't, and which ticks all those boxes. And not just those. Apple's big strength isn't hardware, it's ecosystems. The hardware was always just a front end to a network of unique systems, markets, and services. The latest Apple offerings seem to have forgotten that. Watch is primarily a shiny widget, not the thin client the iPod and iPad…

It could also be that Apple doesn't see Alexa as something they need to compete with — that Siri on existing devices (and especially "Hey, Siri") addresses that niche for them.

But they needed to compete on cars?

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

#293

Post by kkarakk »

dcole2929 wrote: post #198
usaphp wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's not hard at all to put together a machine for less than a thousand dollars that would be competitive with the machines Apple sells for three thousand." That's a complete BS, I want you to give me an example of that. Less than a thousand dollar desktop vs 3000$ mac. Now re laptops. My PC friends keep telling me that MacBooks are overpriced And that you can get a faster PC laptop for half the price, but as soon…

it's actually pretty easy. The biggest cost associated with building a new computer are cpu/gpu. A half decent mb goes for around 150. $700 worth of cpu/gpu will let you place most anything out on high settings. Yeah if you are looking for a titan you're gonna end up paying more than $1000 but even still that computer is going to absolutely take any high end mac desktop to the wood shed for still probably half the pr…

other companies are moving into this space iirc. external gpu case manufacturers are targeting apple with a pretty perfect idea+execution. macs already have high resolution screens, just lack the gpu processing power to drive games on those resolutions. wolfe/bizon tech are working in this space

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

#294

Post by unscaled »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #235
alex- wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author called out, specifically, how Azure was in his opinion keeping Microsoft relevant "Nadella got Microsoft organized around mobile and the cloud (Azure), freed the Office and Azure teams from Windows, killed the phone business and got a major release of Windows out without the usual trauma. And is moving the company into augmented reality and conversational AI. While they’ll likely never regain the market do…

> got a major release of Windows out without the usual trauma I haven't been following the Windows world closely when Windows 7 was released - but wasn't that the least traumatic OS release in a long while?

Windows 7 was a 'tock' release to Vista's 'tick', so I can see why the author would not consider it major. Then again, Windows 10 was also probably a 'tock' release to Windows 8's tick (considering 8.1 was essentially a service pack).

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

#295

Post by unscaled »

rayiner wrote: post #132
the_watcher wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they have. I know there is a lot of institutional hatred for Microsoft from the tech sector that will take a while to overcome. But you'll be able to call changes "skin deep" forever if you choose to explain anything positive away as marketing only.

They haven't managed to release a flagship Windows phone for more than a year, Windows 10 is still a disaster, and Surface Book's execution was incredibly botched. Yeah, there is some good stuff for developers, but their consumer-facing segment is still in shambles.

The smartphone ship has sailed long time ago, and no matter what magical flagship Microsoft releases, they would never gain dominance or even notability in the mobile space. Nadella himself as admitted as much. They're probably not going to focus on winning that lost battle, just as they're not going to try to beat Google with Bing.

With all the great execution of Windows and Office, Steve Ballmer bled a lot of money on other businesses, constantly trying to overtake incumbent with generally inferior products that offered too little differentiation. Don't forget the Zune, the Kin and the early Windows phones, Bing, Microsoft Stores and so on. Almost no new line of products released by Microsoft during the Ballmer years actually managed to gain market - the Xbox being the sole exception, since it actually managed to differentiate itself well. At the same time, Microsoft was very slowly, but also very surely, bleeding market share at markets they traditionally dominate like desktop browsers and consumer OS.

I think Tim Cook at the very least didn't get any embarrassing failure on his name yet, and iOS is not stagnating the way Internet Explorer, Office and Windows Mobile did.

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

#296

Post by unscaled »

the_watcher wrote: post #90
protomyth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a look back, Steve Ballmer was responsible for a lot of the success of Microsoft. He mostly got hate because people hated Microsoft. I'm don't think Ballmer's list of accomplishments at Microsoft is fully appreciated particularly compared to the good press Tim Cook as enjoyed.

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…

> However, Ballmer was simply inarguably an effective CEO from the perspective of investors.

Reasonably effective, but not inarguably, since investor basically care only about one thing only: RoI. Under Ballmer's reign, the stock generally remained flat. Microsoft paid dividends, so investors still got some RoI, but not even close to what they could get on Apple in the same era. Under Nadella the share prices went up by 50% (100% really if you count from when Ballmer announced he'd be leaving), so Nadella is inarguably a more effective CEO for short term investors by several orders of magnitude. Nadella's strategy may be slightly more risky, so Ballmer might be an arguably better CEO for risk-averse long-term investors.

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

#297

Post by itomato »

mikhailt wrote: post #194
kimar wrote: post #32

Funny that the article fails to mention Jony Ive as the obvious successor to Cook. Doesn't it look like Apple has its next "creative CEO" all prepped up?

I'm curious you think it is "obvious"? I've never heard anyone say this of Ive until now with your comment. Jobs did make sure Apple has no power to ever get rid of Ive for any reason, ensuring him an unbreakable tenure. However, to me, it's far more obvious that he will never take on the CEO role because I think he's prepping to retire from Apple in the next few years as there's a reason we've been seeing less and l…

Next CEO will be an outsider.

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

#298

Post by itomato »

snowwrestler wrote: post #277
itomato wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some unsolvable engineering dilemma related to port position, or was it cost-motivated? This is the point. If an engineer had shown this piece of work to Steve, do you think they'd still work at Apple?

> If an engineer had shown this piece of work to Steve, do you think they'd still work at Apple? Yes. And it would not have been an engineer, it would have been the industrial designer. The whole point of the design is beautiful seamless surfaces and curves. That's why the charging port is underneath. Which is exactly where the battery door was, BTW. Steve Jobs is the guy who added a useless pointless screw (it liter…

Talk about invoking "His Presence".

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

#299

Post by SysArchitect »

usaphp wrote: post #275
SysArchitect wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What keyboard has the arrow buttons you are talking about? When I place the wrong finger on my touchID and press the home button once, it shows me the pin entry to get into the phone. No multiple presses, nothing. First bad read, shows the pin entry.

The new keyboard on macbook and external keyboard has a different layout of arrow keys [1] vs the older macbook pro keyboard [2] [1] - https://www.evernote.com/l/ABV1fPm7JnBO76pqevjy990uALmIK39uZ... [2] - https://www.evernote.com/l/ABVer15u9rhODaV3U5QafcRx8eVu3HVq6... As for the touch ID - try double clicking the home button with a finger that has no touch ID, it does not show a PIN entering screen. I used to double…

Double clicking brings up Apple Pay. Clicking once with a finger that doesn't have TouchID brings up the PIN entry screen.

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

#300

Post by astrodust »

pier25 wrote: post #288
astrodust wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the bind Apple's in. The market for the Mac Pro is very small, and it's also extremely demanding, they're never happy. The iMac has a much broader appeal, the market is demanding but not to the same extreme. Many designers use these machines because they've got great screens and acceptable levels of performance. I'm not sure Apple can win in the Mac Pro space without losing a ton of money. HP and Dell make hig…

> they're never happy It's hard to be happy with that little trash can. The tower models were great. It's a shame Apple stopped updating those.

I know many people were happy with how small, quiet, and powerful they were for the sorts of things they were doing: Audio engineering and video editing.

They're not powerhouse workstations like they used to be where it's all about performance.

Post reply on HN