You're Doing It Wrong
So, by now you have heard Steve Jobs himself jumped in to the fray during Apple’s financial conference call. MacWorld has the transcript. We will condense the report :
... I just couldn’t help dropping by for our first 20-billion-dollar quarter ...
We sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, which represents a 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter
We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, there is no solid data on how many Android phones are shipped each quarter.
In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, “What’s best for the customer – fragmented versus integrated?”
...we are confident that it will triumph over Google’s fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as “open.”
Second, I’d like to comment on the “avalanche” of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months.
First, it appears to be just a handful of credible entrants, not exactly an avalanche.
Second, almost all of them use seven-inch screens, as compared to iPad’s near 10-inch screens. Let’s start there.
The seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad.
The iPad is clearly gonna affect notebook computers. And I think the iPad proves it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
So the more time that passes, the more I am convinced that we’ve got a tiger by the tail here, and this is a new model of computing which, you know, we’ve already got tens of millions of people already trained on with the iPhone.
The moral of the story is that Apple just owns the portable computing market, and for anyone to catch Apple would require them to become... well, better than Apple and that just isn’t going to happen. Anyone paying attention would have been going to Business 101 to listen to Steve Jobs explain exactly what is going on. But then someone who wasn’t Steve Jobs asked this question :
Q: You are the tablet market right now… This is the second time you’ve come on to talk about competition, and I’m just wondering if much like Apple encroaching on RIM’s monopoly in enterprise, if you think Apple is gonna be able to sustain share growth for tablets amid some of those new competitive headwinds. Some of those players may try different things and strategies, like tethering and Flash, multitasking, less content and app restrictions, and subsidized pricing. Just wondered if you think that may create itself a more fragmented market.
To which Steve Jobs answered :
I have a hard time envisioning what those strategies you mentioned are.
There are only two interpretations for this remark :
1. Who let clueless in on this call?
2. Have you been paying attention to a single thing I said for the past 15 minutes?
But Steve Jobs was pithy with a question on Adobe Flash. The same Flash Jobs called - in essence - a steaming pile of crap that will never see the light of day on an Apple portable device :
Q: Any updates on your stance on Flash?
A : Flash memory? We love flash memory.
And an amazing report about the AppleTV - already over 250,000 of them have been sold. We bought one and put it on display in our entryway, and we have to report it is amazing.
But the most powerful thing that caught our eyes was the simple admonition from Steve Jobs to everyone listening in on the call :
You’re looking at it wrong.
Given the recent success of Apple, one would be foolish to not pay heed to this wisdom.
iPhones in Spaaaaaaace!
... wait, what?
Yep. Going where no other smartphone has gone before, the iPhone has now conquered orbital space, and in high-def :
NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Luke Geissbuhler and his 7-year-old son Max thought it might be fun to send an iPhone into space.
After doing some low-altitude testing, the father-and-some team put the phone and along with an HD camera to record the flight inside a hand warmer and attached it to a weather balloon. The Geissbuhlers released the balloon in Newburgh, New York.
When Luke wanted a tracking device he turned, of course, to the iPhone. Because nothing says high-tech and space exploration like the iPhone.
It Got Worse
It would appear Microsoft has - once again - been caught with their proverbial hand in the ol’ cookie jar. Except instead of cookies, the jar held some honkin’ torqued off avians :
Looks like Microsoft has some Angry Birds on its hands -- but not, apparently, in the way that it hoped.
The company caused a stir this morning when an icon for the popular mobile game was spotted in a remote corner of its Windows Phone site, hinting that it would be available for the company's new mobile platform, set to be unveiled in New York tomorrow morning.
But Rovio Mobile, the maker of the game, quickly responded with a tweet: "We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version," it said. "Microsoft put the Angry Birds icon on their site without our permission."
What a shock! Microsoft stealing something without permission? Say it ain’t so, Joe! We find the irony deliciously satisfying given how Microsoft was just moaning about the theft of its own intellectual property (IP) just last week.
But we suspect the anger is going to be short lived. Here is what Rovio had to say a little later on :
nothing to do with if we do or don't, it's just that we decide that ourselves.
Please allow us to translate : We don’t want to slam the door by suing Microsoft, because it may be possible to make a buck off them. We want to keep our options open, but we want great terms, so we are using this as leverage in negotiations for what we hope is going to be a really big check.
We wish Rovio all the best luck with that. We can see why Microsoft was so desperate to have anything popular on the marquee. After all, you can see for yourself Microsoft doesn’t even bring out the top software for Windows Phone 7, even when they completely own the IP behind it.
Tetris?! Seriously?
Call us crazy, but if that is the biggest name Microsoft has, then Windows Phone 7 might be a bigger bomb than Castle Bravo. We will bet gamers are WTF’ing all over the place there is no mobile version of Halo. Nope, no Halo for you, walking-around-boy. Just Halo Waypoint. The only thing Halo about it is the name. Just check out the pathetic list of “games” Microsoft has announced.
We can’t wait to ditch the iPhone so we can play Jet Car Stunts ! Oh, wait. We don’t have to. Jet Car Stunts is already available for the iPhone.
Sorry, Microsoft. Sucks to be you.
Worse?! How Could I Possibly Make it Worse?!
How do you take a horrible security situation and make it worse? Add a can of Microsoft to the mix !
NEW YORK — Shares of Adobe soared in heavy trading Thursday on a report that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed a possible buyout of the company.
A report posted in the "Bits" blog of The New York Times said Ballmer recently met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to talk about Apple's control of the cell phone market and how Microsoft and Adobe could work together to fend off the iPhone maker.
It was in this context that a possible buyout of Adobe by Microsoft Corp. came up, according to The Times.
There is absolutely no reason to believe this is not a true and accurate report. It fits a pattern of past behavior in which Microsoft has engaged, most recently with the courting of Yahoo!. This is the second stunning admission Microsoft has made in the past few days, that being simply Microsoft cannot innovate so it must acquire.
The first? Oh, just a little something Microsoft cooked up to let it seize control of the internet :
Virus-infected computers that pose a risk to other PCs should be blocked from the net, a senior researcher at software giant Microsoft suggests.
The proposal is based on lessons from public health, said Scott Charney of the firm's Trustworthy Computing team.
It is designed to tackle botnets - networks of infected computers under the control of cybercriminals.
Putting machines in temporary quarantine would stop the spread of a virus and allow it to be cleaned.
"Just as when an individual who is not vaccinated puts others' health at risk, computers that are not protected or have been compromised with a bot put others at risk and pose a greater threat to society," he said in a blog post.
Here we have the most clear, concise, tacit admission that Microsoft is completely incapable of writing secure software.
Never once do we see in this report what software is running on the majority of those ‘bot-nets’ to which Microsoft refers. Why, that would be Microsoft Windows. So if one were to assign blame and fault, naturally all heads would turn to Microsoft for creating and - more importantly - sustaining the problem in the first place.
Microsoft should be dropped like a bad habit immediately for even suggesting a guilty-until-proven-innocent model in the first place. All free people should be outraged at the very thought, and disgusted and repulsed that it was ever given utterance in public in the first place. One should not have to ‘prove’ a fit computer to navigate the internet. If Microsoft truly wants that model, then perhaps Microsoft should have to prove it has a secure OS in the first place.
There are two great problems with the model Microsoft suggests. First, who will decide what computers are “healthy” and which are not? And second, who is watching the watchers? We undoubtedly know who Microsoft chooses for the task : itself. We offer up Microsoft’s security track record since November 1985 as the entire case on why Microsoft should never be allowed anywhere near the task.
But then - to combine two companies with abysmal security track records? Exactly what reason does the average victim of Microsoft or Adobe insecurity have to believe the combined companies will get better? Both companies have a track record of security failure after security failure going back at least a decade. They do not have anything to bring to the table which would countenance them being considered experts on security in the greatest stretch of human imagination.
So then who will be watching the completely unfit watcher? We are still convinced Microsoft will suggest AdobeSoft (or MicroDobe) should be given that power. And we are equally convinced Microsoft will suggest it be allowed to self-police. We would agree to this insanity on one condition : AdobeSoft, by force of law, is completely unshielded from liability when a “healthy” computer is blocked, and it pay a minimum $10,000 fine directly to the owner of the computer for each instance.
If Microsoft is at all confident in its ability to organize and run such a system, then let them put up the bond and finance a court specifically for adjudicating the ‘mistakes’ Microsoft’s track record has shown they will make. Let those aggrieved get direct compensation, and let the market take its course. Short of that, everyone who cares a single whit about freedom and security should let it be known they will not stand for such an intrusion by a company more known for its bungling than true security.
Shame on you, Microsoft.
Adobe on Security
Ok, you can stop laughing. We know using “Adobe” together with “security” is cause for raucous laughter. Funny, despite all their protestations about security, it would seem Adobe isn’t laughing anymore either :
BREAKING ITS MONTHLY PATCH CYCLE, Adobe has issued emergency fixes for its Reader and Acrobat software products.
The firm released fixes for twenty three vulnerabilities that exist in its software packages, issues that could have affected machines running Windows, Macintosh and Unix. Not sensational enough? Well, the update is tagged as 'critical'.
The vulnerabilities, which affect a long list of versions - deep breath, Adobe Reader 9.3.4 and earlier versions on the Windows, Macintosh and Unix platforms, and Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4 and below on Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 8.2.4 and below and Adobe Acrobat 8.2.4 and below - could have let a remote attacker take control of systems or make them crash.
Please allow us to highlight a passage from the above paragraphs :
“The firm released fixes for
twenty three vulnerabilities
that exist in its software packages...”
Can we please stop pretending that Adobe even lives in the same zip code as security, let alone the same neighborhood?
We are of the mind the next time anyone claiming to be a ‘security expert’ uses the words “security” or “productivity” or “stable” in conjunction with the words “Adobe” or “Flash” or “Reader”, they be rolled in Alpo and thrown to a pack of starving poodles.
Wherein We Trash InfoWeek...Again.
Perhaps it is time to change the name to Weak Information. We will lay out the case momentarily, but first keep this phrase in mind :
Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
And here is why we were reminded of this phrase :
And that's what makes apps bad for IT -- apps are a lock-in. Once we adopt an app, whether proprietary or purchased, we're stuck with a particular handset and perhaps even a particular wireless carrier.
Seriously?!
We only bring this up because we find the entire premise of IT based on open standards a joke. Do you not wonder, as do we, where all these open and loving IT people were... like, oh, in forever ?! Isn’t this precisely the same people who have been telling us for decades that Macs were bad in IT because strength came through homogenization? You bet your sweet bippy they are!
Then again, in the interests of full disclosure, we admit to being the heretics of the IT world. Silly us, we thought it was the job of IT to integrate the tools the users found easiest to use and made them the most productive. In short, we always thought it was the purview of IT to advise, not command.
Now we are about to drop the nuclear bomb which obliterates the entire premise of this article : enterprise-level tech is all about the lock-in and competitive advantage. What? Do you seriously think Apple or Amazon or Microsoft wants everyone to use their internal systems? It’s about keeping the entire world and dog OUT. And if you believe for even a single minute when Amazon contracts out for a system there isn’t a nuke-proof NDA stronger than Superman that specifically prevents any use other than for Amazon... well, we want to talk terms with you on a gently-used bridge.
Again, here is where the ‘one source’ crowd will show their true colors. They don’t want code from six different sources on any system, let alone hundreds of anonymous sources of various levels of competence and expertise. When a CIO has a problem, he or she wants one phone number and one person at which to vent their corporate spleen. Just like any one of us. They are, after all, human. Well, some of them.
So what is the solution? This :
And that's to design all mobile apps to work within a browser. One would simply go to mobile.whatever.com (or perhaps use the .mobi domain for non-proprietary apps), authenticate, and then, well, that's it. Except for the almost part, and that is the fundamental lack of browser standards in most (Oh, what am I saying? All!) mobile devices today.
We are certain Weak Information has lost their freakin’ minds. So the solution is to turn over your most vital and secure systems to the most insecure, buggy, and undependable software ever conceived by humanity? Seriously ? We thought Weak Information had to be joking, and then we read this :
To be fair, some of these extensions do indeed have value, but silly arguments between vendors, like the Apple/Adobe tiff over Flash, only serve to irritate customers and limit end-user productivity. It's 2010 -- why are we still putting up with such asinine behavior on the part of our suppliers?
Ummm... maybe because Apple got it right with their calling-out of Adobe Flash.
But since when has the word “productivity” even been used in the same sentence as “Flash”? Insecure, yes. Buggy, yes. Worst software you could put on a computer, yes. But “productive”? That is a flight of fancy we just cannot comprehend.
Which brings us back to the thought we originally advanced :
Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
We cannot contrive a single instance where “open” anything in Enterprise-level IT is a great thing. The sad fact is there is a great deal of power and strength in uniformity in certain circumstances. So if some wonk is telling you the tools you use - and Enterprise-level IT is routinely being commanded to integrate - are bad, you must begin to wonder what they are selling.
The simple fact is there has not been a documented instance of insecurity in the “wild” with an iPhone. Each and every reported instance has been with an already ‘jailbroken’ (read : already insecure) iPhone. So if someone is telling you to abandon a documented secure platform, then you should be very, very afraid of what they are selling as a replacement.
