The Forgotten Failure of Apple's PowerTalk 138
DECS writes "The series of articles Why Apple Will Change TV compared how Apple is poised for success in areas where Microsoft is currently failing. But circumstances are subject to change!
Just over a decade ago, Apple began facing serious legacy problems with its platform, with many parallels to today's Microsoft. Examining Apple's dramatic fall provides a series of notable platform lessons that no company should ignore.
A look back at the forgotten failure of Apple's PowerTalk:
Apple vs. Microsoft in the Enterprise"
3 valuable lessons? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Don't try to sell a futuristic product that doesn't quite work yet; instead, talk about it while selling as existing product that can compete in the current market.
2. Don't attempt to fire conceptual ideas at an imagined market; instead, craft finished products that solve real problems and can support a sustainable market.
3. Ship a functional product and then constantly refine it; Real world use and years of ongoing refinement create enormous value for a product.
Now, according to their lessons, google with all their betas must be a rightout disaster, shouldn't it?
Re:3 valuable lessons? (Score:5, Interesting)
Either way, Google is all about pushing the "constantly refine it" part. Web apps make for instantaneous, compatible upgrades.
Re:3 valuable lessons? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Unless its a Weber Grill, products that "fail to catch fire" are generally considered to be a good thing.
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My Weber grill has yet to catch fire.
The charcoal I put inside it does catch fire, though. Quite easily (and, unfortunately, the occasional steak, too).
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Google is pushing the envelope? Please. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Pushing the technological envelope"? Wake up and stop drinking the kool-aide.
Google search? Search results 90% of the time are astroturf sites and spam blogs. I've completely given up trying to find product reviews via google, for example.
Froogle? Search for some computer component part number. Let's say the same # is used by sewing machines. Click on "Computers" without cl
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The correct way to do this kind of thing would be to use automatic custom addresses.. i.e. username+uniqueID@gmail.com, then create a filter.
Your points, though valid for the most part, really don't indicate anything about pushing the envelope or not. For instance, your rant on MS live mapping.. I have never seen it, and if it is better, why do you think that it *is* better? Precisely because they se
Re:3 valuable lessons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, according to their lessons, google with all their betas must be a rightout disaster, shouldn't it?
Significantly different market. Google has the cash, time, patience, and talent to instead throw 100 products at the wall and see what sticks. Because we're talking web services and not hardware, they can accept a 20% success rate, or lower, and that would be fantastic.
That said, Google would do well to invest more energy in promoting the products that look on the verge of success, like mail. Already Yahoo has come out with a product that many think is now better than gmail (though I don't), in part because google's been dragging its feet with gmail, *and* it has stagnated for over a year.
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Those are not 3 lessons. It is the same lesson and I do not agree with the conclusion. If companies never tried something on the edge or what I consider catagory 1 or 2, we would have far less technology in the world right now. Catagory 1 and 2 can and do lead to number 3. Companies that only want to release number 3 are waiting for the trend to be
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Name the Google products which:
I'm having trouble finding examples. I'll admit, sometimes I have trouble figuring out where Google is making their money. Google Talk, for example-- there aren't ads in their chat client. Are they just making money from collecting info from my chats somehow? I'm not sure. But it works. I'm in the market for that service. It continues to be refined.
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This one didn't work out so well when Osborne Computer Corp tried it.
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The jury came in on that one; that's a myth [wikipedia.org].
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> 1. Don't try to sell a futuristic product that doesn't quite work yet; instead, talk about it while selling as existing product that can compete in the current market
What google product is futuristic and doesn't quiet work yet? Every google product works, right here, right now. Even if they are in beta, the Google product works.
> 2. Don't attempt to fire conceptual ideas at an imagined market; instead, craft finished products that solve real problems and can support a sustainable market
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Rule #2 could also be stated "follow the trail that someone else blazes". Microsoft is very good at that. Microsoft had plenty of mail servers to copy when it was creating Exchange. They started by implementing other people's computer languages. They purchased a clone of CP/M to sell
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I have yet to find a Google beta product that didn't work or that was difficult to understand exactly what it did. PowerTalk is another story. I never totally understood what it did (what it was supposed to do) and it didn't work. And I was a Mac power user (i.e. religious fanatic fanboy) at the time who would have bought almost anything Apple was selling within reason. And I didn't understand PowerTalk.
Similarities are small (Score:2)
AppleTalk back in the day (Score:2)
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Yeah but which tuner? (Score:5, Insightful)
Analog NTSC? Great, except that it'll stop working in a few years, and the quality is abysmal by modern standards.
ATSC? You get high-def, but you need an antenna, and even then you only get the big networks, which is a big step down to people used to 100+ channels of cable.
Clear QAM? It lets you use cable, so no antenna, but chances are you'll still only get the major networks, and it's arguably a greater pain in the ass than ATSC: many cable companies (Comcast, I'm looking at you) strip the metadata from their clear-QAM channels, making things like program guides really painful to use. And at the end of the day, you'll still be stuck with only the major broadcast networks, because those are the only ones that the cablecos are required to broadcast unencrypted. Everything else requires a proprietary converter box.
The solution would be CableCard, but there are still a lot of areas where you either can't get one, or are treated like shit and get a degraded level of service if you do. (And you pay several extra bucks for the privilege of renting the card.)
Given the state of the market right now, I wouldn't ship a computer with a TV tuner in it, either. If the FCC were to get its act together and really make CableCard the standard, and eliminate proprietary converter boxes, then I think you'd see an explosion in the types of set-top boxes and DVRs. I have no doubt Apple would be at the top of the list.
Re:Yeah but which tuner? (Score:4, Insightful)
One alternative is just downloading all my TV shows from the iTunes Store (or BitTorrent, if I only want to watch popular stuff the day it comes out). To do that quickly you'll need a cable modem, and to get a cable modem for a decent price you might as well subscribe to some sort of cable, and that brings us around to square one again.
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What kind of TV tuner would you have them install?
Analog NTSC? [...] ATSC? [...] Clear QAM?
Um, all of them?
And why the heck aren't ATSC-available channels not part of BASIC cable?Re: (Score:2)
And unlike good 'ol analog NTSC, where the transmissions down the cable line w
All of them! (Score:2)
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I think you're missing the point here. Apple doesn't want to play in the existing cable/satellite/OTA arenas. They are already heavily dominated by entrenched
Your TV tuner is built into your digital cable box (Score:3, Informative)
Digital cable tuners are supposed to include a FireWire output. All Macintosh computers have FireWire inputs. So if you're a subscriber, you should already have an appropriate tuner. Or are you talking about over-the-air?
Re:Your TV tuner is built into your digital cable (Score:2)
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Have you asked your satellite provider what you can do to get it enabled and working with your computer? Or has the satellite provider already refused and are you locked into long-term commitment so that you can't use the stick [wikipedia.org] of switching to the competitor?
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It'd be interesting to see if the Apple TV thing works over here.. they'd have to provide content (something they failed to do with the ipod video - you still can't get videos on itunes outside the US), and hardware to interface with th
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I think that's going to be a bit of a challenge for Apple outside of the US, at least for English language programming being sold to English speaking countries. For US programmes they'd either have to make a deal with the studios to get the international rights (which might get expensive, as selling the rights to Apple will dilute the value of the programmes in foreign markets) or they'll have to deal with each rights holder in each individual market they want to enter (which
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You have to ask for such a box (Score:2)
It's illegal if 1. you asked for a cable box with FireWire and 2. Adelphia denied it.
The FCC's requirement went into effect in April 2004 [macosxhints.com].
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http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2004/octqtr/pdf/ 47cfr76.640.pdf [gpo.gov]
It only applies to HD cable boxes (if your previous cable boxes were non-HD, that would be why they didn't include FireWire), but it's been in effect for ~2.5 years now. On mine, local HD channels and most non-HD digital-cable channels are available over FireWire as MPEG-2 transport streams with AC3 audio.
(On a related note, the recently-r
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USB uses an error correcting protocol, and Firewire doesn't - firewire guarantees a steady transfer rate; USB, because of the error correction, does not. Thus, Firewire, or IEEE-1394, as it is otherwise known, is better for video transfer.
Plus, Firewire is standard output on a
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"All DTT products that support EyeTV use USB 2.0 only. That means your Mac has to have built-in USB 2.0 ports...
USB 2.0 products are what manufacturers currenly make, so that's what we support."
Ah well, one lost sale for them.
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Re:Your TV tuner is built into your digital cable (Score:2)
Re:Your TV tuner is built into your digital cable (Score:2)
Who says?
"All Macintosh computers have FireWire inputs."
Yeah. Do they support the video formats over firewire that these tuners are supposed to provide? Where is iPVR? I guess the mac doesn't have support for this after all.
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http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2004
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No TV Tuner, etc (Score:1)
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How much do you watch (Score:2)
First of all, Apple has said ITV is just a workingname and the final name needs to change.
Secondly, what appeals to me about this device is that it's pay-as-you consume, inste
A bit excited are we? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's with the excited exclamation mark? In something purporting to be a news story/blurb i usually expect a recitation of facts combined with a calm statement of opinion. Shouting makes it sound like either a rant or something intended as a dire warning. Are you a fan of microsoft who is vehemently denying that apple will actual
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iTV and the iPod and iTunes (Score:1)
iTV (Score:2)
Sounds a little to me like the Airport Express was with audio (it was a box that you could attach to your stereo and then stream music to it, wirelessly) except that where the APE was purely "push" because it didn't have any interface on the recieving end, iTV will be able to "pull," browsing the libraries of the computer
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I have three Airport Expresses with the audio ports enabled, and I can chose to stream music to any of them.
I can't see why they'd place a limit on the number of iTV devices you can have, although it may be that you'd need to pair a computer with a device, as there might not be enough bandwidth for a single computer to stream multiple movies to multiple devices simultaneously.
Key chain (Score:2)
We forgot also OpenDoc (Score:4, Informative)
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Same data, different conclusion (Score:5, Interesting)
Exchange started out life in the X.400 world. (If memory serves, Microsoft bought an X.400 product from someone else and GUIfied it.) This meant that even before the advent of the Internet Connector you could connect to Exchange using "standard" X.400 protocols. (I say "standard" because X.400 is so large and messy that pretty much everyone who implemented it was forced to deviate from the specifications in one way or another.) Not easy, but doable, and more to the point, doable from any platform able to deploy an OSI network stack. As Exchange shifted towards SMTP things improved to the point where Exchange was able to connect to existing facilities with little effort. (The article is wrong, BTW, in claiming that modem SMTP was around when Exchange first shipped. It was around but Microsoft chose to ignore it.)
AOCE, OTOH, only provided vast, arcane, incomplete and poorly documented Mac-specific API. The underlying protocols weren't documented at all. We tried hard to figure how to interface with this mess, even sitting down to discuss our issues with Apple folks at one point, but eventually gave up. And I'm talking a group of people who developed successful gateways to X.400-1984, X.400-1988, cc:Mail, Microsoft Mail, Novell MHS, and GroupWise among others. Either we are fools who got incredibly lucky several times over, or AOCE was an unmitigated disaster. And I don't think we were lucky fools.
But Apple learned their lesson. As the article points out, they now leverage open standards whenever possible. You can talk to a lot of Apple's new stuff over protocol. Sure, the APis are still there, and some of them are pretty nasty, but in a lot of cases you don't have to use them. Apple is also very active in various standards organizations (I wish they had had more success with Bonjour in the IETF, but that's a different matter).
Microsoft, OTOH, has utterly failed to learn anything from their experience with Exchange. They still roll their own whenever possible. They don't document the protocols they use, only the APIs, and of course those are only available on Windoze. I used to see lots of Microsoft people at standards meetings but not so many any more.
Of course things can change, but once things are headed in a particular direction they tend to stay on that course, even if it is a bad one. Everything I see about Microsoft says to me that they are on the wrong course and aren't doing anywhere near enough reinvention to correct it. The exact opposite appears to be the case with Apple.
Re:Same data, different conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
However, what really killed it, IMO, was that one of the premises it was built upon, was soon to be shown as false. Few people seem to remember it, but at that time, it was not at all clear that the Internet would take over the world completely. Networking yes, but it was widely believed that the Internet would be an interim solution, soon to be replaced by ISO OSI protocols like TP4. And of course X.400/X.500 etc etc. In addition, Apple still had a dedication to AppleTalk. And there were existing proprietary mailsystems like QuickMail.
The idea was that PowerTalk users would have adapters that would enable a workstation to use legacy mail systems. In hindsight, this of course is a totally stupid idea, today we would put such gateway functionality at the mailserver. But with the following prevalence of plain SMTP/POP/IMAP mail, this capability would just constitute deadweight in the PowerTalk software.
The idea of an in-basket on the desktop, and send-mail capabilities in all applications is in a way something that we still miss today. And if you think about it, it is in a way just a GUI rendition of old Unix ideas, with the ~7mbox (= in-basket), and
In my opinion the user interface principles as they were strictly defined even up to AOCE are still unsurpassed, no interface has ever had the same completely natural feel. Windows, OS X, KDE, GNOME - nothing comes close to the interface as it was back in good old System 7.
I sure wish there was an open source project to take the lessons learned back then, and make a new X11 based GUI that puts them to effective use, while trying to retain some fundamental simplicity.
-Lasse
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tip-toeing (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I don't think Steve Jobs is very interested in conquering the enterprise desktop these days, he's got his eyes fixed on potentially a much bigger pie - becoming the digital media hub of people's homes.
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For years, Steve Jobs has mentioned this "digital media hub" and how it would be the next market place. In this interview [alwayson-network.com] he discusses it. With Apple, it appears they have bet their long term strategy around it.
Like the development of OS X, Apple is taking small steps towards that goal. For argume
Too Ahead Of Its Time (Score:2)
Something like this today might actually work if done properly and without having to buy special hardware.
Really, this is a cyclical corporate problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
"But we're [insert company name here]!"
I know it looks innocuous, but let's see that in action!
1988, IBM was having big problems with management bloat, a stagnant product line, and a poor customer experience. But if you asked someone there 'Why would I buy from you when I could buy from Compaq or some other less expensive, more innovative competitor?' the response was invariably, "But we're IBM!"
In 1998, SGI started shipping their coolest, most important product ever. The $15,000 Windows NT workstation. If you asked an executive at SGI 'Why would I pay $15000 for a Windows NT machine with a nice graphics card when I can build a whitebox with an Nvidia Riva TNT card for far less money?', the response was "But we're SGI!"
Today, ask a SUN exec 'Why should I pay $X for a solaris workstation when I can buy assemble a box for $500 running Linux that will do the same thing?' What do they say? "But we're SUN!"
It's been my experience that this becomes a problem at most sucessful companies, and if you pay attention, you'll see it's cyclical. The company adopts this mentality, loses customers, re-vamp's their product line, customer service, etc. Gains customers, becomes successful again, and ultimately repeats their mistakes and do the whole thing over again.
Sad.
-Runz
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Kinda, but not as bad as IBM's PC division. In the mid-90s I was using a SPARCstation ELC -- one of the early SPARC machines, and it could run rings around a '286. Problem was, the '486s were just coming out, and could wipe the floor with an ELC (especially the dic^Hskless ones we had). Sun still had the edge in graphics, as long as you could get by with four-bit greyscale. The ELC had a 17" monitor with 1152x900 resolution, back when cutting-edge PCs were
Coral cache link (Score:2)
Even that is rather slow
Enjoy the articles but take them for what they are (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Enjoy the articles but take them for what they (Score:2)
Engineering vs Marketing (Score:4, Funny)
The authors understanding of what marketing is, is wrong. I think it would have been more correct to say that Microsoft Sells.
The classical defination of marketing is to find out what a customer needs and then produce that for them.
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Microsoft is a great promoter and seller, but rarely do they offer the best product in a class. When they do, it's usually because they've repressed any competition and there are no alternatives left. In other cases, they spend a lot of money building a solution for a market that doesn't matter: WinCE and WMA are two good examples. Lots of development and refinements in order to deliver PD
I only have one question... (Score:2)
So, who gets to be Spock?
Unnecessary criticism (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple addressed PowerTalk and OpenDoc (and various other initiatives) by moving to a completely different operating system. They saw the fundamental shortcomings of their ideas and their approaches and addressed them. Now, they are leveraging all the potential of OS X's *nix core in a myriad of ways.
They didn't forget the failure. They addressed it.
The iTV is back-asswards (Score:2)
Besides, it seems pretty dumb to have to have two machines turned on just to play movies. Something like a Viiv designed to sit under the TV makes more sense. Or a PS3. The movie should be stored on the device c
There may be some reasons for 2 machines. (Score:2)
I think the reason apple is going the route of having the Itv be a seperate machine is two fold: 1. It keeps the cost of Itv down, and 2. It may help sell a few more macs.
--C. Alan
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The mac or PC does not have to be in the same room as the iTV and your TV since it can stream via WiFi. What am I missing here?
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What you are missing is a Wireless 802.11n device. Apple is waiting for the new standard before releasing Itv. It will be the only way they will be able to have enough bandwidth between the Itv and the base computer to push across a broadcast quality picture.
If only there were such a device.... (Score:2)
Yeah, if only Apple could come up with a small, pocket-sized device [apple.com] that included a hard disk to store movies. You could plug it into your Mac, download a movie of of some online video store [apple.com], and then carry this tiny device into your living room, and drop it into a dock connected to your television [apple.com]
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Any device capable of playing movies should be capable of downloading and storing them too. Apple's solution is just half-assed. They'd be better off modding the Mac Mini with a TV out and a FrontRow interface so that the thing functions under the T
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Why does a user have to own a traditional PC of any kind in order download or play movies?How many people are there that want to download video off of the internet, but don't already ow
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Who said they didn't? But if you have to forkout $299 for a device that plays streamed content, I know which one I'd pick if the choice is a kick ass console or some dumb terminal. Apple should strike a deal with Nintendo or something.
Besides, I'm saying that the whole arrangement is silly, whether it's an iTV or an XBox 360. Why does anyone need two devices turned on just to download and play a movie? The TIVO has a LAN and a harddrive. The PS3 can play mus
Re:Apple vs. Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
You probably didn't mean to phrase it that way, but you're totally right. Note the lack of Zune rumour sites, and general lack of enthusiasm over the Zune when compared to the iPod.
Now, as for the marketshare aregument: you're also right. Apple's marketshare has fallen since 1994/5. It has also improved since 1997/8. Moving past statistics, one can look at the Wall Street perception of Apple. In 1996-7 Wall Street saw Apple in a death spiral. Their market share was swirling down the toilet, they were losing ground in the education and enterprise sectors, and Windows 95/98 was generating a much bigger buzz than anything Apple was producing. Then Apple turned around: they got Jobs back at the helm, released a product that created a media sensation (iMac -- for examples, look at Newsweek's and Time's coverage of it) and started inching away from the edge of a financial cliff. Following that with Mac OS X, and the iPod, Wall Streets prediction of Apple's future is pretty damn bright.
You mention Microsoft. I say don't bother. They don't really compete. Apple makes personal computers and iPods. Microsoft makes an operating system and a game console (and soon another iPod "killer"). With the exception of the forthcoming Zune, there's not really much competition between the two. People cite Mac OS X as competing against Windows -- often referencing Vista -- but it's not really. Mac OS X only runs on Macs (officially.) Windows runs on commodity hardware. Apple makes Mac OS X to bundle with their hardware. Microsoft makes Windows because it's the cornerstone of their business. There's far less competition than people think.
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Re:Apple vs. Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
One thing I find noteworthy here is that, if Microsoft were really were making a business out of selling a superior OS, Apple wouldn't really be a threat to them-- at least not any more than Dell is a threat to Microsoft for offering Wordperfect with their computers. In a lot of ways, Apple's switch to Intel should have been a happy day for Microsoft, since it essentially turned Apple into another vendor of hardware for which Windows could be sold.
The real problem is, "producing superior operating systems" hasn't been Microsoft's core business for years now. Instead they've been riding off of vendor lock-in. And so, just like W.I.N.E., Apple is a threat to Microsoft simply by giving users an option of running Photoshop (and other software not present on open-source operating systems) without buying Windows. The mere existence of an alternative is a serious threat to Microsoft's business model, a model which consists mainly of vendor lock-in. Microsoft can't afford to let users have any choice, or they'll lose market share.
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WTF are you talking about?
Every single home user that bought a PC with Windows made a choice to not buy a Mac with OSX and the same the other direction. Both platforms are readily available for anyone in the world to cho
You have found the solution (Score:2)
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The point of this article, and the lesson from countless years of business case studies, is that mature products are easily reproduced by cut rate competitors, and the only way to stay ahead of those competitors is to con
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Since Microsoft has lost billions of dollars over the past few years in the game console market with their Xbox line, and just recently posted another $1.6 billion loss in that division, I'd say the word success isn't relevant in this market either.
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There is no doubt that the iPod is the higher profile product, but while that may eclipse the computer side for many, it doesn't mean the computer sales are tanking. Quite the contrary, Apple's share of the portable market is up to almost 12%, and the last market share figures show their share has incre
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