MetaBatty

The Great Computer Company that Never Was

Gateway, a company once poised to take on Dell and HP as a major, innovative supplier of PCs and laptops for home and office, is soon to be no more. Ten years ago they were on a roll, landing customers as the hip alternative to plain-old Dell, expensive IBM, and sub-par HP. (Well, in the PC market, anyway. The first iMacs were just about to be introduced to the world)

After hanging on for the last few years, it was announced today that Taiwan's Acer Computer, a virtual no-name in the PC market 10 years ago, is acquiring Gateway. And for only $710 million.

This is billed as a shot across the bow of Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought IBM's PC unit in 2004. It will certainly up the ante in the computer marketshare wars, but more importantly it is another sign of the emergence of formerly smaller economies and markets becoming competitive on a global scale, and outstripping American rivals with better management, marketing and prices in the PC market.

Acer is able to acquire Gateway because the company stayed focused and patient, and delivered quality products for many years. At the same time, Gateway tripped on almost every step, trying to move into markets where it had no experience or brand recognition - especially TVs, where it copied Dell (who had its own problems trying to break additional markets, and has since pulled out of many as it tries to right its own ship in light of intense competition from outside the US). I am sure Gateway tried hard to recapture its former glory, and honestly I had not thought of the company in a couple of years, but to me this news is another nail in the coffin that will hold the US PC industry.

And another reason to consider buying a Mac. ;-)

You won't believe it

Yahoo Mail is down again.

Hey, what do you know...

Yahoo Mail is down....AGAIN.

Why do I still use Yahoo Mail?

Is it just me, or does it seem like Yahoo Mail is crashing/down at least once a week lately? It's not that I need constant access to my email, but these persistent crashes, system errors and downtimes at Yahoo are getting pretty frustrating - I want my mail when I want it.

Which makes me wonder why I continue to use Yahoo Mail. I began using Gmail in December, and opened a .Mac account (which I really never use) at the same time (not to mention my office email address which hasn't changed in three years). Either of these seem to work anytime I access them - wait, Gmail was down once about month ago - and they do the same job as Yahoo. Sometimes better.

Yahoo's spam filters can barely keep up, letting spam creep into my inbox daily. The new Yahoo mail interface isn't as good as Gmail's - or nearly as well integrated with sister applications like Calendar & Contacts & Apps (Office). And Yahoo's overall look, feel and presentation isn't as slick as .Mac. Overall, it's just not a very good email system when compared to the competition (free or otherwise).

I know that I continue with Yahoo Mail because I have used that address longer than any of the others - about 8 years, as opposed to 8 months. Parents and family have it memorized...Old friends I haven't talked to in years probably still have it stored somewhere... Getting rid of it now could mean I lose touch. Perish the thought.

But then again, in college and a few years after that, I changed my home address and phone number almost every year, and people still found me. Time to get rid of Yahoo and join the 21st Century?

Let me know what you think by email....send it to my gmail account.

Made the switch...and it made the news

As I mentioned in a posting from last month, I decided to make the switch from PC to Mac. After 22 years of using PCs running a Microsoft operating system, I retired my 6-year-old Dell Dimension 4100 PC and, instead of buying another Dell, I went to the Apple store on Christmas Eve and purchased a new MacBook Pro.

(for those wondering why I was at the Apple Store on Christmas Eve and not with my family, the Colorado Blizzard ensured I was not going anywhere this holiday season)

In my earlier post, I listed all the reasons why I was making the switch. Long story short, I knew Vista was coming, and reached my breaking point - I had considered buying a Mac for a couple of years, and the problems that I saw with Vista, coupled with the advanced years of my Dell, told me it was time. The best part - I beat my personal deadline of Jan. 30, the day Vista became available to consumers.

But the real kicker is this - I was interviewed by a reporter (whom I have worked with in the past) from the Rocky Mountain News on Tuesday, Vista launch day, for an article he was writing about local Denver computer users' thoughts about the new version of Windows.

You can read the article by clicking here.

Here is the portion of the article in which I was mentioned:

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Ryan Batty, a local spokesman for Sun Microsystems, said Tuesday's launch of Vista inspired him to go out and buy a new MacBook Pro from Apple.

"I have used Microsoft since 1984, when I was 10, and for the first time ever, I am 100 percent Microsoft-free," said Batty, who bought his Mac on Christmas Eve. He was tired of Microsoft operating systems and decided to pass on Vista.

Besides, Batty already owned an Apple iPod digital music player, which he enjoys. Friends were buying Apple computers and touting them. So he decided to take the plunge on a Mac.

"I love it," he said.
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In all fairness, I should have said that this was the first time in my DIGITAL life that I was 100 percent Microsoft-free. But you get my point.

Store this, Apple

DISCLAIMER: This whole post is a little foward looking. Many homes today do not have high-speed Internet connections, due to cost, availability, etc. I am writing this from the standpoint that most people who will buy the products/services mentioned here have high-speed Internet access, wireless network routers will get faster, and that network service providers will continue improving network speeds for faster downloads over time. I know the company I mention here is counting on it... That said, this argument doesn't include all sides of the argument, it is just my rant on what I believe is an oversight and/or perhaps unnecessary requirement that hinders my digital life.

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Apple yesterday announced several cool new products, including the new iPhone and Apple TV. I am very excited about the iPhone, but won't go into that here. What I want to talk about right now is Apple TV.

Basically, Apple TV lets you stream your movies and TV shows from iTunes (on your computer) over a wireless connection to a Apple TV box connected to your widescreen HD TV (which are now in 1/3 of all US homes). It also allows you to preview and download movies and TV shows directly to your Apple TV box - all through that wireless connection. With 40 GB of storage (which is less than some iPods provide today), Apple says this will allow you to store up to 50 hours of content. However, if you are downloading movies and shows in high definition/high resolution, the amount of time/content goes down considerably.

The Network is the Computer

My question is, why does Apple TV need this storage capacity at all? I work for Sun Microsystems, which touts the vision "The Network is the Computer." One general interpretation of that vision says that if people are connected through the network to computing power, the average home user does not need to have their own storage and processors and software on a big home computer or, worse, multiple computers - they just need access to the network via a simple device, through which providers can give them all of these services, content and more. Google provides applications for office productivity for free, through a Web browser. Yahoo and others provide free email. Apple and other companies provide free or low-cost storage over the network to store and back up all of your data (from music to photos to documents to movies). NBC and Disney provide content. Almost everything an average user needs is available and stored over the network, and that increases every day.

I believe this vision applies to the new Apple TV. If Apple thought more like Sun, or even Comcast or Qwest, we wouldn't need a ton of storage on Apple TV to download and store our programs.  We could access everything over the network.

Forced to Buy More Storage?

Why make customers go through all the pain of downloading and storing their movies and TV shows at home? As resolutions go up, and the number of movies and shows you own goes up, your need for data storage at home will go WAY up. Which means you will have to keep buying more storage devices and capacity for your house. That's costly, even as storage prices drop, and it's risky - what happens if your   storage devices are damaged and lose their data?

Why not have everything available over the network? You can still "own" your copy of The Incredibles, you just don't need to buy more and more storage capacity to store your copy at home, along with the other movies you own (not to mention if you want to back up all those copies, which you pretty much have to do if you want to protect them). You just buy access to that content, from the providers, over the network.

Instead of an arbitrary 40GB of storage, you could have a small amount of storage to cache, let's say, 20-30 minutes of video, in case the connection is slow, to ensure constant streaming. Once you start watching, it begins downloading 20-30 minutes ahead of where you are in the program, in case your connection is slow and it can't stream in real time. And it could save the previous 20-30 minutes, so you could pause, rewind, etc. It could even do that for your top 10 videos, without needing a fraction of that 40GB. Would you really need the entire video sitting in storage on the box? 10 videos? What if you want to own 100? Where do you put them all? Right now, you would have to buy a separate storage device and keep them all there (not immediately available).

And if you need to download a copy of The Incredibles to your iPod or iPhone, so be it, they still have the built-in storage capacity to handle that when you are not on the network. Let Apple or Disney or some central content or network provider store it (and back up copies in other locations, in case of disaster), and you buy permanent access to the movie over the network...which you can then access from anywhere, if you bring your Apple TV box along with you and have a network connection (which, essentially, owning an Apple TV box presumes).

Released from House Arrest

This means that Apple TV becomes mobile - not just something I can use only at home. I could bring my Apple TV box with me when I travel and watch my programs from anywhere in the world, as long as there was a decent Internet connection. And if I didn't want to bring the box with me? Watch my programs through a Web browser or iTunes, on any device connected to the network (laptop, iPhone, etc).

I Know I am Missing Something

There are probably very good reasons why Apple TV is designed this way. The people at Apple no doubt looked into this (or are looking into it for future versions), and decided, for good reasons, this was the way to go. It's just that the idea of having to personally store AND back up all of the movies I would want to "own" over time is mind boggling. Why not let Apple and/or Disney/Paramount/etc do all that storage and back up for me, and provide me with access to the content I have paid for?

Please, Just Sell Storage to the Providers, not Me

From a Sun employee perspective, doing it this way sure would make it easier for us to sell our enterprise storage products to the big content and network companies, instead of letting Maxtor and Seagate get all that action from home users. I really, really would prefer to not have to keep buying new, bigger storage devices - both for cost and convenience.