Re: Faster List Checking
Re: Faster List Checking
- Subject: Re: Faster List Checking
- From: "John C. Welch" <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 19:36:29 -0400
On 05/30/2003 18:51, "George Anten" <email@hidden> did proclaim:
>
> 1) Are they doing a decent job of servicing their customers.
>
> 2) Are they taking the steps to work on corporate growth over the long
>
> term, not doing stupid things to look good next quarter?
>
> 3) Are they coming up with new ways to use their strengths to make money?
>
> 4) Are they innovating so that they don't stagnate?
>
>
Apple's user base is growing at a rate less than the PC market (I don't know
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of any source that says otherwise). Apple has not converted 3/4 of its users
>
to its current OS (and arguably to its latest hardware). Apple that's quick
>
to publish successful numbers (from QuickTime downloads to Music Store
>
sales) has been reluctant to release Switcher numbers.
But it's growing it. And, it's growing it in areas that aren't preaching to
the converted, which it has NEVER done before.
As far as OS conversions, that NEVER happens fast, with radical change. Not
even Microsoft could pull that off.
>
>
> Stock prices don't mean a company is successful. It just means that analysts
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> like the company.
>
>
A public company relies on it stock price to accomplish a huge range of
>
things (from employee retention through options to borrowing money to
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acquisitions.) In our economy, we happen to rely on it for gauging financial
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success of companies. Apple does a whole bunch of stuff to maintain/improve
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its stock price, including its cash reserves of ~ $4 billion. I don't think
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the stock price is as ignorable as you posit.
It is as a measure of how correctly the company is doing. Microsoft
frequently has a better stock price than IBM, but which company is more
critical to the computer industry? IBM by far. If Apple laid off half its
workforce tomorrow, and sold off the hardware division, their stock price
would increase by a HUGE margin. And they'd be gone in a year.
Stock price is only *one* indication of a company's success, and it ONLY
matters at all if you are publically traded, and then, only really to the
people who own stock in you. If you play to the stock price, you lose
customers, and you're gone.
>
>
> Apple is doing the correct things to make sure that they are going to be
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> here for many years to come, not just next quarter.
>
>
I agree.
>
>
> So, like any company that doesn't kowtow to the analysts, their stock is in
>
> the terlit.
>
>
Actually, AAPL has seen quite a bit of improvement over the last few weeks.
Mostly because analysts understand the music store. Apple's doing nothing
that out of the ordinary.
>
>
To bring this back on topic, if that were even possible :-) many a corporate
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buyer/manager are intrigued by various Apple technologies, including
>
AppleScript, but shy away from them for reasons that are entangled with
>
Apple's size, market share, viability, etc. And that's a shame.
Actually, it's because Apple's AppleScript tools are still sub-par, and the
overall corporate attitude towards AppleScript *sucks*.
Sure, I can use Studio to make a nice UI. But when you need to debug, you're
stuck with a pretty version of printf() statements. Bzzt! Amateur tool, do
not pass go. Yes, I can hook into all kinds of applications, but for text
processsing that isn't tedious beyond belief, I have to use shell, Perl,
etc. If I have to use Perl and shell for critical chunks of code, and the
Apple AppleScript dev tools are still not good or reliable enough, then why
use AppleScript at all?
Worse yet, *APPLE* doesn't support AppleScript across the board. Sure, in
the OS, (but not consistently), and in some of the low end iLife apps. But
when it comes to the stuff that Apple says is "Pro", there's no AppleScript.
That says, (and it may be unintentionally), that at the "We eat our own
dogfood" level, Apple regards AppleScript as a toy. As not a "Pro" language.
So if Apple isn't willing to support AppleScript, why should a corporate
customer risk their workflow on it?
john
--
"Nuts!"
- General Anthony McAuliffe, surrounded in Bastogne
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