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Re: Apple Conquers Rome - Photos & Video

__/ [ none ] on Sunday 01 April 2007 18:12 \__

> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> > Apple's big push for taking over continental Europe took place today,
>> > first by conquering Rome. The first true Unix based retail store in
>> > Europe. The excitement of modern computing coming to Rome is shown here:
>> > 
>> >
http://www2.macitynet.it/immagini2/applestoreroma/opening1/source/9.shtml
>> > 
>> > more here:
>> > 
>> > http://www2.macitynet.it/immagini2/applestoreroma/opening1/
>> > 
>> > http://snipurl.com/1eoo4
>> > 
>> > pre-opening video here:
>> > 
>> > http://www.youtube.com/v/JTahMHrwYQ0
>> > 
>> > directions to the store here:
>> > 
>> > http://www.apple.com/it/retail/
>> > 
>> > to check and see when Apple is coming to your country check here:
>> > 
>> > http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/international_retail.html
>> > 
>> > enjoy!
>> 
>> They could have been in Rome a long time ago. If only they didn't insist
>> on being the exclusive hardware vendor...
> 
> yes, but that insistence has proven a huge competitive advantage. the
> huge flock of geeks in that top photo shows people really want Apple
> products. you never see that behavior for windows or linux since the
> quality just isn't there.


I beg to differ. I occasionally read about hardware problems with Macs, which
are only made worse by poor (e.g. unresponsive and slow) support. When
components and support are a monopoly, it is natural to expect them to be
poor. I can think of one guy whose blog I read. Two new MacBooks of his went
titups just months apart and support was abysmal, which led to ranting in
public. I sometimes read about software issues as well, but that's another
problem. A few months ago, a guy whose Apple laptop I needed to help with
had a severe monitor issue that lasted for a long time. Support just wasn't
quick enough. Limiting oneself to a single company is risky. No competition,
no service.

Sorry if I have drifted off topic, but the main issue here is opening one's
door to other OEMs and sharing the burden/channels. Michael Dell asked Steve
Jobs if he would make his new x86 OS X available for Dell PCs. Jobs
declined.


> apple has has 100's of "outlets" in Italy since the 1980's, but this is
> the first true Apple "Store".
> 
> http://www.apple.com/it/retail/romaest/
> 
> All the other places to get OSX in Italy is here:
> 
> http://www.apple.com/it/buy/


I am very happy for Apple, don't get me wrong. I think that /any/ saturation
is the market would help everyone tremendously. But Apple is not an Open
Source company. To make matters worse, Apple shares with almost nobody. With
Gadgets, it took the food out of one developer's mouth and it's one example
among many. Hardware is virtually a monopoly and the iPhone shows that Apple
wants total control (no third-party applications) over its products. Sharing
does not just mean sharing the revenues and diluting the income. Sharing
means working /together/, making the products more appealing and thereby
attracting more people to obtain a large userbase. Good products that evolve
slowly and good products that reach few people just lose the battle at the
end of the day. Linus and RMS, for example, could not challenge a
well-established company like Apple without other people's help.

-- 
                ~~ Best wishes 

Roy S. Schestowitz      |    "Error, no keyboard - press F1 to continue"
http://Schestowitz.com  |    RHAT Linux     |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
  5:20am  up 21 days 12:23,  5 users,  load average: 1.06, 1.41, 1.22
      http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project

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