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The problem with this line of arguing is that Apple's entire marketing strategy is about how an Apple is better than a Windows machine. Thus, their product, con

by fnid 17y ago

The problem with this line of arguing is that Apple's entire marketing strategy is about how an Apple is better than a Windows machine. Thus, their product, contrary to what you are saying, is not hardware, it's software. Their ads say nothing about hardware manufacturers, they say everything about Windows. It's not Mac Book's are faster than Dells. It's Apple's are more secure than Windows. It's about Windows 7 vs Apple, not HP vs Apple. Therefore, inhibiting a consumer's ability to run that product, which is OSX as much as it is a physical device, is vendor lock-in. It is vendor lockin, because they are saying, "To run our product, OSX, you must buy Mac Hardware." And before you argue that OSX is not a product, they do in fact sell OSX: http://store.apple.com/us/search?find=osx http://store.apple.com/us/search?find=osx

jsz0 17y ago
Marketing has little or nothing to do with reality. "requires a Mac with an Intel processor."
- fnid 17y ago
  Yep, exactly. That's the vendor lock-in part. Requiring one of your products to use one of your products is vendor lock-in.
  - invisible 17y ago
    I think that's a slippery slope to go down as far as what is predatory vendor lock-in and what is not. It is most definitely vendor lock-in if you had to use an iPod ($200) with a Mac because the software only works on Apple hardware ($600, can break and may need to be replaced within a year). Whereas with OSX, you purchase it with the intent to use it on your Mac that already came preloaded with an older version of OSX. Does the software work on PC? Sort of, but it's unsupported. Should they be forced to support it? Probably not, because it may heavily impact their business model, bottom line, and stability. What if they don't want the no-name-brand manufacturer to make customers think their product (OSX) sucks? The fact is that Microsoft locks in customers by mere quantity. OSX has prestige and quality, but it requires the customer to acknowledge they don't have a genuine choice in hardware vendors unless they want to manipulate it into working (although I do think Apple's license is dumb with regard to saying it can't be (pre)installed on a PC).
    - fnid 17y ago
      I think you are simply biased against microsoft and pro apple. What Apple is doing, if they are intentionally not working on ATOM is essentially what Microsoft would be doing if it didn't allow its software to run on apple hardware. Vendor lockin, whether intentional, or simply because the vendor doesn't care to make their products work with others, or whatever, doesn't change the vendor lockin.
      - jsz0 17y ago
        It's not that they don't care -- it's not their business model. I believe a company should have the right to control their own products as long as they are not breaking any laws.
        fnid 17y ago
        Okay, that's fine, but it's still vendor lock-in. I don't know why it's so hard to understand. If you buy a product and use it and then you can't get out or switch or use the product with some other hardware or whatever, it's vendor lock-in. You are locked into that vendor. If you buy a Mac and put a bunch of files on it that only work on a Mac and your Mac crashes, you can't restore the backups to a windows machine or an ATOM processor machine. Thus, you're locked in. Thus, vendor lock-in. It's pretty cut and dry really.
        jsz0 17y ago
        Bad example: Apple has an HFS+ implementation for Windows included in their BootCamp package. There are various utilities for Windows that can also access HFS+ volumes in userspace including MacDrive, TransMac and HFS Explorer. Additionally Linux supports HFS+ and Apple's own HFS+ implementation is open source. (you could actually boot Darwin on any PC and access the data that way) Anyway.. All closed source software is inherently vendor locked. If that's the point you're trying to make I agree. It seems we were talking about how a company chooses to sell their closed source software which is a different issue. For example, if I had all my data on an NTFS formatted drive I would need a Windows computer to read that data (ignoring for now there are other ways of doing this via third party tools -- but none of them are developed or supported by Microsoft) My choice is HP, Dell, Acer, etc but I'm still vendor locked to Microsoft. Same deal. Microsoft abstracts their vendor lock away from hardware in the PC world -- in other areas such as the Zune, Xbox 360 they also include hardware. Open source is the only way to be free from vendor lock for people who are concerned about it. For the most part there are simple work arounds in the closed source world so it's not usually a major problem. (which is why most people don't care I think)
  - godDLL 17y ago
    No, that's a fact.

by fnid 17y ago

jsz0 17y ago

Marketing has little or nothing to do with reality. "requires a Mac with an Intel processor."

fnid 17y ago
Yep, exactly. That's the vendor lock-in part. Requiring one of your products to use one of your products is vendor lock-in.
- invisible 17y ago
  I think that's a slippery slope to go down as far as what is predatory vendor lock-in and what is not. It is most definitely vendor lock-in if you had to use an iPod ($200) with a Mac because the software only works on Apple hardware ($600, can break and may need to be replaced within a year). Whereas with OSX, you purchase it with the intent to use it on your Mac that already came preloaded with an older version of OSX. Does the software work on PC? Sort of, but it's unsupported. Should they be forced to support it? Probably not, because it may heavily impact their business model, bottom line, and stability. What if they don't want the no-name-brand manufacturer to make customers think their product (OSX) sucks? The fact is that Microsoft locks in customers by mere quantity. OSX has prestige and quality, but it requires the customer to acknowledge they don't have a genuine choice in hardware vendors unless they want to manipulate it into working (although I do think Apple's license is dumb with regard to saying it can't be (pre)installed on a PC).
  - fnid 17y ago
    I think you are simply biased against microsoft and pro apple. What Apple is doing, if they are intentionally not working on ATOM is essentially what Microsoft would be doing if it didn't allow its software to run on apple hardware. Vendor lockin, whether intentional, or simply because the vendor doesn't care to make their products work with others, or whatever, doesn't change the vendor lockin.
    - jsz0 17y ago
      It's not that they don't care -- it's not their business model. I believe a company should have the right to control their own products as long as they are not breaking any laws.
      - fnid 17y ago
        Okay, that's fine, but it's still vendor lock-in. I don't know why it's so hard to understand. If you buy a product and use it and then you can't get out or switch or use the product with some other hardware or whatever, it's vendor lock-in. You are locked into that vendor. If you buy a Mac and put a bunch of files on it that only work on a Mac and your Mac crashes, you can't restore the backups to a windows machine or an ATOM processor machine. Thus, you're locked in. Thus, vendor lock-in. It's pretty cut and dry really.
        jsz0 17y ago
        Bad example: Apple has an HFS+ implementation for Windows included in their BootCamp package. There are various utilities for Windows that can also access HFS+ volumes in userspace including MacDrive, TransMac and HFS Explorer. Additionally Linux supports HFS+ and Apple's own HFS+ implementation is open source. (you could actually boot Darwin on any PC and access the data that way) Anyway.. All closed source software is inherently vendor locked. If that's the point you're trying to make I agree. It seems we were talking about how a company chooses to sell their closed source software which is a different issue. For example, if I had all my data on an NTFS formatted drive I would need a Windows computer to read that data (ignoring for now there are other ways of doing this via third party tools -- but none of them are developed or supported by Microsoft) My choice is HP, Dell, Acer, etc but I'm still vendor locked to Microsoft. Same deal. Microsoft abstracts their vendor lock away from hardware in the PC world -- in other areas such as the Zune, Xbox 360 they also include hardware. Open source is the only way to be free from vendor lock for people who are concerned about it. For the most part there are simple work arounds in the closed source world so it's not usually a major problem. (which is why most people don't care I think)
- godDLL 17y ago
  No, that's a fact.