Skip to main content

Too greedy

You know, I'm a Mac fan. I mean I like PCs too, but I'm typing this on my trusty powerbook and have bought a lot of ipods for the family, and other Mac computers.

But sometimes, I feel that Apple is just too darn greedy, and too petty to see the long term benefits. Or perhaps they don't have the ability to strategize and play out the long term to their advantage. See this article. Honestly, what would happen if they allowed others to sell computers with their software on it?

Two extreme possibilities: 1) they die because people realize they can buy the software on cheaper hardware that works as well 2) they survive and do well because people start using their software, on all sorts of hardware, at the prices of their own choosing. Two very different outcomes for Apple, but either end result benefits the consumer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Youthful Reminisces

These past four days have been a trip down memory lane. I'm going to try to organize some of the memories for blogging, though not all in this post. My parents, M and I took a road trip to Hualien, partly as a family get-away, and also to introduce our Taiwanese hometown to a group of my brother's ( Albert Wu see here and here ) students from France. Albert and his wife are jointly teaching a course in history in Paris, and over the last few weeks they have been taking their students on an abroad research-coursework-fun tour of Taiwan. If you know my father, he tends to try to get involved in some way with any of his sons' projects, and from our perspectives, it's great to get his help and/or just advice (from time to time). My brother and his wife planned a historical, social justice introduction to Taiwan (I wrote about a visit to Dadaocheng ). Important components to understand the complex identities and mindsets of Taiwanese today involves understanding the Ea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Did X say that?

I was cleaning out old draft emails when I came upon these quotes. 1. “Set your goals high; make friends with different kinds of people; enjoy simple pleasures. Stand on high ground; sit on level ground; walk on expansive ground.” 2. In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit . -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965) Both quotes resonated with me, and both quotes provide profound, provoking, prose projecting providence. But for the first quote I'm not sure who to attribute, and for the second, while I'd like to imagine he said that, I'm not really sure if Dr. Schweitzer did (because I have never met him!). In the internet age, I think it really behooves one to critically analyze everything read online. Does X make sense, did X say that? Sometimes it...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goodbyes

It's hard saying goodbye. A good friend of mine is leaving Duke to return to Paris. He was fed up with the physics program here, and after securing a position in France, decided to return home. It's unfortunate that the department here could not do more to help, as he was genuinely bright; unfortunately he was suffering from depression, probably induced by the stresses of the PhD program as well as the dull boring city of Durham. In general how does one say goodbye? You don't really, especially if you're good friends. You just end up saying hello less often. At least that's my take. Unfortunately, more on goodbyes, it's goodbye to Duke's NCAA hopes for this year. We were outplayed by LSU. Sure the refs were really not entirely fair (from our point of view of course), but they closed our top scorer down. It was a fun run, and I enjoyed watching them play, especially since I thought they played such great team basketball, but it's over. Such a somber posti...
Post a Comment
Read more