Hi there Fronties~ ,

I am probably a fair bit older than your Dad?

I go back to the days of 80 column punched cards, mainframes and dumb terminals!

If you looked at IBM, Apple, and ICL (a much smaller British outfit) they had a business model that sold both hardware and software. Other outfits like Compaq, Digital, HP and so on just did hardware as their main business model.

Then there were people like Corel and Lotus who did applications only...............

Bill Gates came along with an "operating system only" approach, and at first lived off IBM? It was a new business model, and it worked! (that is probably why he is the richest individual on the planet?)

He relied on others to provide the hardware and just went for the OS and a few applications (Office, for example?)

The problem that MS have, is that they are too dominant which is the same anti-trust situation that IBM faced back then............... and Standard Oil before that. The Apple situation is rather interesting, in that they provide a service that requires you to use their hardware?

I mentioned Polaroid, they make money out of selling the consumables, not the hardware and have never attempted to defend their hardware.

I guess that the anti-trust legislators don't like you trying to have both, so Apple get a slapped wrist and Polaroid are ignored?

My conclusion is that Apple have an outdated business model and really need to decide where their income is to come from............ but that is a problem they have had for some years IMO.

Cheers,

Johnno