Apple releases new... everything

[furuoshiki]

Which is why I re-iterate PLAY BIG OR GO HOME.

You know you are playing with big dogs that are capable of getting the best. This is why the software companies that are most versatile set their prices high because there is a price premium for versatility (since it makes you less reliant on consistent updates which means less long-term revenue for the software company.) They know the big dogs will pay top dollar for low aggregate costs in the long-run.

However, with government intervention this can all change and this price-setting can be put to an end, allowing younger companies to utilize experience curve effects and be competitive in the long-run. But as a small firm you have to know WHEN and WHERE to be cheap.

Part of being cash-strapped yet smart about it is knowing when you have to cough up the big bucks to prevent you from having to cough up even more cash later on. There is no possible way that there is such a grandiose difference in choices for application suites for firms.(10K vs. 200K???) Perhaps if you gave a realistic example then I could visualize it more.

Let's say Marks Gears LLC needs an application that will enable it to index all of it's inventory in real time. It will cost 10K for a custom program and 50K for a more universal one. Aggregate cost over 5 years will end up being 200K for the lower priced one while costs will only be 100K for the one that is 50K upfront. Marks Gears has a goal of over-taking Barry's Gears LLC in the next 5 years. Marks decides that cutting costs is most important than future planning to get over his competitor so he takes the 10K application.

Barry's gears decides to take the risk of paying for the 50K one in an effort to gain a long-term advantage over Marks and other competitors. The "X" factor: As it turns out 3 years later a valuable update appears in the 50K application that makes inventory checking almost 200% faster. For Marks this update is not available. For Barry it will only cost 10K to update. At the end of 5 years Barry only ends up spending just under 100K while gaining a valuable increase in sales due to using the higher efficiency program.

Marks has spent over 200K and now faces a huge problem, because not only has he fallen behind Barry, but now Barry wants to buy him out. The"Y" factor:(Apparently the people who made Barry's software said that they could easily merge all of Marks information into Barry's database in the event of a buy-out; However, the reverse would never be true.)

Game Over Marks.

Note: There is no "X" or "Y" factor in Marks application because it is limited, outdated, archaic and therefore a dead weight.

Adapt = Survive
Stagnate = Die

Using programs that cannot merge, or be flexible as a small business = SUICIDE!!!

Part of competition is long-term strategic action. If a firm is not capable of this you can kiss them goodbye!!!

They say something like only 25% of firms survive past the 1st year. That number becomes 5% towards the 2nd year. Then it becomes 1% around 5 years. Perhaps those 1% are the ones thinking long-term???

[blubart]

are we talking about the real world or some imaginative world? cause the reality definitely isn't as simple as you are proposing it here 
i could easily pull 3 examples out of my ass where the one with the initially cheaper program "wins"

[furuoshiki]

Man I tried to be as realistic as possible, this is a slight deviation of a scenario I encountered in real life but it was with auto-mechanics and electronic systems that they used to analyze car damage. But I guess it wasn't convincing enough

[bloody000]

go, go kill COBOL, tell them to switch to Java or something.

[zherok]

PLAY BIG OR GO HOME.

What is with you and cliches? =/

I agree that your example is too simple. You're assuming that the costs of future proofing are always made up in the long run, and that it's always possible to know what to future proof against in the first place.

[mgz]

Which is why I re-iterate PLAY BIG OR GO HOME.

You know you are playing with big dogs that are capable of getting the best. This is why the software companies that are most versatile set their prices high because there is a price premium for versatility (since it makes you less reliant on consistent updates which means less long-term revenue for the software company.) They know the big dogs will pay top dollar for low aggregate costs in the long-run.

However, with government intervention this can all change and this price-setting can be put to an end, allowing younger companies to utilize experience curve effects and be competitive in the long-run. But as a small firm you have to know WHEN and WHERE to be cheap.

Part of being cash-strapped yet smart about it is knowing when you have to cough up the big bucks to prevent you from having to cough up even more cash later on. There is no possible way that there is such a grandiose difference in choices for application suites for firms.(10K vs. 200K???) Perhaps if you gave a realistic example then I could visualize it more.

Let's say Marks Gears LLC needs an application that will enable it to index all of it's inventory in real time. It will cost 10K for a custom program and 50K for a more universal one. Aggregate cost over 5 years will end up being 200K for the lower priced one while costs will only be 100K for the one that is 50K upfront. Marks Gears has a goal of over-taking Barry's Gears LLC in the next 5 years. Marks decides that cutting costs is most important than future planning to get over his competitor so he takes the 10K application.

Barry's gears decides to take the risk of paying for the 50K one in an effort to gain a long-term advantage over Marks and other competitors. The "X" factor: As it turns out 3 years later a valuable update appears in the 50K application that makes inventory checking almost 200% faster. For Marks this update is not available. For Barry it will only cost 10K to update. At the end of 5 years Barry only ends up spending just under 100K while gaining a valuable increase in sales due to using the higher efficiency program.

Marks has spent over 200K and now faces a huge problem, because not only has he fallen behind Barry, but now Barry wants to buy him out. The"Y" factor:(Apparently the people who made Barry's software said that they could easily merge all of Marks information into Barry's database in the event of a buy-out; However, the reverse would never be true.)

Game Over Marks.

Note: There is no "X" or "Y" factor in Marks application because it is limited, outdated, archaic and therefore a dead weight.

Adapt = Survive
Stagnate = Die

Using programs that cannot merge, or be flexible as a small business = SUICIDE!!!

Part of competition is long-term strategic action. If a firm is not capable of this you can kiss them goodbye!!!

They say something like only 25% of firms survive past the 1st year. That number becomes 5% towards the 2nd year. Then it becomes 1% around 5 years. Perhaps those 1% are the ones thinking long-term???

But none of that matters overstretching your financial means as a company will drive your company into the ground much faster the compromising your needs until you can afford to fill the void completely

[furuoshiki]

It also goes back to that 1% success rate. If you can't plan for the future and cut costs at the same time you are fucked either way. Only firms that know when to cough up the big bucks will survive past 2-5 years.

[sdedalus83]

Horseshit.

The vast majority of small businesses can get by just fine with prepackaged software(and in some cases commissioned custom add ons for prepackaged software), no matter how tied they become to a platform because of it.  Only when a piece of software will form the basis of a medium or small firm's operations is it ever worth doing the development in house to ensure long term operation of a single system.

The need for legacy support will never go away because providing operational stability for businesses is far more important than appealing to the aesthetic sensibilities of geeks.

[furuoshiki]

Dude it's not about aesthetics...it's about having your app programed by a fly-by-night company that used a language that isn't at all common. For example I overheard one company next door to my job today talking about how they use Ruby or some shit and the only programmers that they were able to find for a problem they need solving preferred to work in "C" only or something. On top of it I overheard a speaker conversation where some a-hole software geek was saying:

"Why the fuck are they using Ruby? That shit is gay I don't fuck with Ruby. That shit is useless and their shit is probably fucked up. I wouldn't touch that shit because I don't want to be held accountable for that piece of shit language's fucking mistakes...My friend already went through that shit so we only touch programs made with languages we know in depth."

What do you think is going to happen when the original dude disappears and you need to use another software engineer or company who isn't familiar with that language? You are fucked.

I know next to nothing about programming languages but it sounds awfully a lot like construction and renovations. The same shit goes down. Other professionals critique the previous guy's shotty work and complain about the shitty medium being used. No matter the industry it seems like shitty and incomplete patchwork is always the issue. But you have many more welders than software programmers. And unlike a home improvement job, lay persons often understand next to nothing about the problems that can occur with these languages.

And just like home improvement doing a shitty foundational job and using shitty materials will give you a shitty result down the road.

[flaresignal]

Dude it's not about aesthetics...it's about having your app programed by a fly-by-night company that used a language that isn't at all common. For example I overheard one company next door to my job today talking about how they use Ruby or some shit and the only programmers that they were able to find for a problem they need solving preferred to work in "C" only or something. On top of it I overheard a speaker conversation where some a-hole software geek was saying:

"Why the fuck are they using Ruby? That shit is gay I don't fuck with Ruby. That shit is useless and their shit is probably fucked up. I wouldn't touch that shit because I don't want to be held accountable for that piece of shit language's fucking mistakes...My friend already went through that shit so we only touch programs made with languages we know in depth."

What do you think is going to happen when the original dude disappears and you need to use another software engineer or company who isn't familiar with that language? You are fucked.

Er... this sounds more like a case of "if you use Ruby, find people that understand the language", not a problem with the original developers' decision to code in it. Ruby, like Python, operates at a much higher level than C, and it's hardly an uncommon language for certain tasks (Ruby on Rails for Web development, etc.).

[sdedalus83]

You're talking about guis and scripting and db design.  None of that has anything todo with the need for legacy app support.  Yeah, you hire an IT tech to handle little day to day shit, but you don't build payroll, accounting, image indexing, drafting, db management, etc. etc. programs from scratch.  And OS producers have to have legacy support for those kinds of apps because they're big, complex, expensive programs which nobody but the very biggest companies can afford to replace every couple of years, much less build and maintain independently.

[bloody000]

Sooooo, it's fashionable to be an idealist now?

[flaresignal]

And OS producers have to have legacy support for those kinds of apps because they're big, complex, expensive programs which nobody but the very biggest companies can afford to replace every couple of years, much less build and maintain independently.

That, and other large companies throw fits when their own flagship commercial software breaks.

[iindigo]

Apple has actually historically forced companies that make applications for Mac OS to adapt. First example was the transition from Mac OS 9 to OS X. OS X is 100% different from OS 9, and although Apple provided a library to ease the transition (Carbon), a lot of rewriting still had to be done.

Second was the PPC --> Intel transition. This wasn't as big of a deal, though, unless your program made use of a lot of endian-specific code.

Third is actually in progress. In either the next iteration of OS X or the one after that, Apple will drop support for increasingly obselete Carbon. As a result, many ports of professional applications are having to be written to use Cocoa instead (including the Adobe creative suite). Thus far, no software companies have complained about it and are simply complying.

[bloody000]

because corporations don't give a fuck about macs.

[flaresignal]

Apple did a lot to ease the transitions, though. The processor switches (68k to PPC, and then PPC to Intel) came with emulators that could run older code and cross-compiling for both processors with universal binaries. OS 9 kept right on shipping with Classic until the Intel transition, and Carbon's dead-ending was pretty much announced with lack of 64-bit support in Leopard two years ago with time to spare.

Microsoft seems to be following the same emulation tack with "XP mode" in Windows 7, so that could do a bit to free it from some of its legacy encumbrances.

[fohfoh]

Apple has actually historically forced companies that make applications for Mac OS to adapt. First example was the transition from Mac OS 9 to OS X. OS X is 100% different from OS 9, and although Apple provided a library to ease the transition (Carbon), a lot of rewriting still had to be done.

Second was the PPC --> Intel transition. This wasn't as big of a deal, though, unless your program made use of a lot of endian-specific code.

Third is actually in progress. In either the next iteration of OS X or the one after that, Apple will drop support for increasingly obselete Carbon. As a result, many ports of professional applications are having to be written to use Cocoa instead (including the Adobe creative suite). Thus far, no software companies have complained about it and are simply complying.

There's a big difference in individuals changing over and a corporation changing over. I've stated before, the down time in which a corporation needs to learn a new program is just not worth it in many cases. Put it this way, mac may have forced people to change. As an individual it sucks. A corporation however would just get mad and move on. For instance, some individual with a mac is forced to change. Ok fine. A loss of maybe a couple hundred dollars for time wasted figuring things out. I'm talking about an individual, maybe doing business who will grumble, mumble then start to say things to make themselves feel better about the change (It's superior code or something.). A corporation would lose much more than that if they were required to change. instead of the couple hundred, they would lose a couple thousand MULTIPLIED by each worker. You find that most companies will ask these questions (instead of the casual user) like, "Is it stable? Will it run my programs?". If a program was phased out due to either an OS change or a drop of a program... you don't get a good image for that OS or software. Corporations need things that just work and also are familiar in interface. A few hours is usually already too much. We're talking about people who either move at speeds of $100-300+ dollars an hour, or a group of minions moving at 20-90 dollars an hour.

[PowerMac]

because corporations don't give a fuck about macs.

Obviously they do care, otherwise they would not bother updating their applications each time Apple makes a major change to the platform.

[bloody000]

because corporations don't give a fuck about macs.

Obviously they do care, otherwise they would not bother updating their applications each time Apple makes a major change to the platform.

"They"?
This "they", does it mean the few companies that make/sell software on macs, or the vast majority of corporations that provide almost everything in your life?

[flaresignal]

This "they", does it mean the few companies that make/sell software on macs, or the vast majority of corporations that provide almost everything in your life?

Who said they were mutually exclusive?