Monday, April 10, 2006

Cringely Pinches His Loaf

Columnists and pundits in the computer industry are somewhere near snot in the great scheme of things. You know it serves a purpose but you have a hard time explaining what it is, even to yourself.

Columnists divide among predictable lines.

The Lickspittle. Paul Thurrott, railing against IE7 one minute as if he were web standards' Joan of Arc -- but as soon as he gets an exclusive on the Beta 2 preview, conveniently forgetting every critique.

The "Consultant." Rob Enderle, making predictions which have no foundation in reality or precedent, but whose outcomes invariably favor his clients and his own stock portfolio, if the two can be considered separate entities.

These two are maddening because reading their idiocy, you get the impression they genuinely believe what they write, despite the absence of facts or a frightening inconstency with what was said just a week before.

And then there's The Dvorak School of faux rockstar gonzo journalism. Bloviate as outrageously as possible as often as possible and your editors will be too afraid to fire you for incompetence. Politics without the risk of accountability. Unfortunately guys like Dvorak don't have the balls to eat a shotgun like Hunter Thompson did when he realized he peaked years ago.

Cringely started out reasonably scholarly, but realized that these days farting gets attention. This week's elevator SBD is no exception. Boot Camp works, nothing useful to write about it because it works, just a plethora of assholes posting photos of XP and Vista running on iMacs. Think think think Cringely, the PT Cruiser isn't paying or itself.

Wait! Got it. Predict that Apple will turn around and sell OS X for whiteboxes. Never mind the fact that we all know Microsoft and Linux have had to spend decades working against guessing what the hardware can and can't do. Forget everything we understand about Apple's only economic model, the one they founded the company on and the one which has sustained the company through three turbulent leaderships and two platform changes.

Here's what Robert X. Cringely knows, but also knows he can't sell columns telling you:
  1. Apple makes its profits selling hardware bundled with software. The clones were killed when it became clear the cloners were directly competing with Apple's desktop market instead of filling the server market they were chartered to make affordable.
  2. Apple sells only enough software to demonstrate proof of concept (barring niche video apps) and allows third party vendors to build their empires writing the killer apps. The number of third-party software packages Apple's poached over the years is miniscule compared to Microsoft's seemingly insatiable need to fill and dominate every Windows market.
  3. Apple avoids any distribution channels which don't show instantaneous and accurate sales figures. iMacs left Sears, iPods left HP, and Apple would rather pay the most outrageous storefront leases than trust another company to sell their products again.
  4. Apple's hardware partnerships are complex and many-reasoned, but largely depend on what it does for Apple's margins. IBM might have been able to deliver a laptop G5 by 2007, but they could never fab entire laptops for what Intel was offering. And Lenovo was the writing on the wall for IBM's future as a hardware company.

The above can be summarized as follows:
  • Entrenchment is more important than short-term growth.
  • Depend totally on no one else's frameworks, technological or economic.
  • Let your product differentiate itself and others will evangelize it for you.
  • Smile a lot.

Dear "Bob," let's cut to the chase. The Internet is a completely valid medium for doing what you're doing right now. The part you're missing is that usually, a webcam and a credit card are involved, and you're expected to lick the jizz off your fingers afterward.