<p>“Only to support Windows, not to support legacy Mac OS’s.”</p>
<p>If they ever did that, then it was before my time. Virtual Machines to
run Windows have been around for quite some time including PowerPC.</p>
<p>“But it’s much more commonly used for in a business environment.”</p>
<p>Do you have some evidence for this? I’m on my fourth Palm Desktop
product, the Garmin iQue 3600 and this device seems to me to be much
more of a consumer product than a business product. Most of the people
that I know that used to use Palm products bought them for their own
personal use. Of course most of those people have moved on to the
iPhone.</p>
<p>“Not Office 2000.”</p>
<p>Yes, Office 2000. It’s not currently for sale but consumers certainly
did buy the product and would like to move them from their old
machines to their new machines to save the $400 for a new version.</p>
<p>“And those colleges tell you not to buy 64-bit Vista in that case.
Besides, many people just buy a computer for college through the
college.”</p>
<p>They might. But then again parents and students may just buy a
computer for their kids without checking limitations at their
colleges.</p>
<p>Cisco won’t be providing support for VPN x64. They have a new product
in beta that will support Vista x64 but they are currently waiting for
Microsoft to fix a few bugs before they can get the product working.</p>
<p>“So I’m guessing the OS they’re giving away for free with the
development tools is going to be 32-bit?”</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it’s 32-bit or 64-bit. I would guess both as they
are the old Server Operating Systems which have been around for
many years. This program is for verified students. Anyone can
download the Express Editions of the development tools. And they
come in 32-bit, 64-bit x86 and 64-bit itanium.</p>
<p>“And common anti-virus software does support 64-bit. Some of the most
common (and bad) anti-virus companies, such as Norton and McAfee,
support 64-bit, as well as more competent anti-virus software, such as
Kaspersky’s products.”</p>
<p>The salesperson at the store told me that not all antivirus products
support x64. One company that I looked at in 2004 provided x64 support
but only under an enterprise license.</p>
<p>“Java’s available in 64-bit. Flash is available if you use 32-bit
Firefox, so I’m not sure that’s such a big deal”</p>
<p>To use Java in a browser, you need a small browser plugin piece.
Users have asked Sun to do this piece for many years. They have
declined to do so to this point. I downloaded the source code to try
to build it myself and found that they require some proprietary and
expensive tools to build it.</p>
<p>I use 64-bit Firefox when I’m on Windows x64. It’s annoying to
drop down to 32-bit when I need something that requires Java or
Flash. Internet Explorer has the same problem. Microsoft shipped
it five years ago but hasn’t fixed the plugin problem since. I
know how to fix it but I haven’t had the time to put the project
together.</p>
<p>“I thought that meant you were having problems with iTunes in x64.”</p>
<p>Well, you must have missed the next sentence:</p>
<p><i’ve been=“” running=“” itunes=“” on=“” x64=“” for=“” several=“” years.=“”></i’ve></p>
<p>“I know, that’s why there are driver problems in Windows. The OEMs are
primarily hardware companies. Software that they create is rarely
good.”</p>
<p>Microsoft should do a better job certifying the drivers.</p>
<p>“1. Anti-virus isn’t necessary; it’s just supposed to alleviate
everyone’s unfounded fears about viruses.”</p>
<p>That’s a ridiculous statement.</p>
<p>“2. There’s a lot more DRM in Apple’s software than Microsoft’s
software. DRM is a pervasive component of the Apple software
ecosystem. iTMS is a perfect example of that.”</p>
<p>Then they’re doing DRM the right way with respect to performance.</p>
<p>“3. Nobody is forced to buy a computer with an expensive graphics
card. Just because Apple doesn’t offer a good graphics card on the
MacBooks doesn’t mean every other laptop in that price range shouldn’t
offer one either.”</p>
<p>My point was that the hardware graphics requirements for Vista are
higher than they are for MacBooks thereby requiring a higher level
of graphics performance from the hardware or resulting in subpar
performance. Which contributes to power consumption.</p>
<p>“It’s not just the hardware companies though. The hardware companies
were not inclined to move because of all the legacy software dependent
on 32-bit OS’s. I’m sure that the backwards compatibility in XP x64
was not perfect.”</p>
<p>Many companies had tracking websites on x64 software and hardware
support. HP, AMD and Microsoft maintained these sited. AMD wanted x64
to succeed because they had it and Intel didn’t and they wanted the
competitive edge. The engineers at Microsoft did it because they are
engineers. But there wasn’t enough marketing and product management
effort from Microsoft to make it happen smoothly.</p>
<p>XP x64 explicitly breaks backward compatibility in several ways.</p>
<p>“Yes, they do. It’s part of their narrowly defined experience. They
control every aspect of the hardware and software. Microsoft moves
much slower because it has to support a much wider array of hardware
and software.”</p>
<p>They control the software platform and they are free to break
backwards compatibility. In fact, they did. Hardware is one issue
that’s solved with product management, marketing and leadership. They
have control over the operating system. Apple came up with a number of
technical solutions to achieve seamless integration with 32-bit and
64-bit Mac OSX. They even provided a nice compatibility solution for
PowerPC applications. We did this at Digital Equipment Corporation
when we had to support VAX while migrating over to Alpha.</p>
<p>“That probably has something to do with their MobileMe service failures
following the release of the 3G iPhone.”</p>
<p>Their site completely dies when they do a product launch. And it’s
frequently slow during the day. I’ve been using their site for years
and it’s consistently slow.</p>
<p>“The quantity doesn’t matter, when the Apple stores have their RDF.”</p>
<p>You brought up their stores. I think that the stores help but they
are very sparse throughout the country.</p>
<p>From your article: But the secret formula may be the personal
attention paid to customers by sales staff.</p>
<p>John Mauldin (financial consultant) wrote about his experience with
his cell-phone company. He was spending about $300 a month for service
yet he had to send one of his staff down to the store to stand in line
for an hour only to get non-service. She convinced him to get an
iPhone. What absolutely floored him was the level of service at the
Apple Store. And he’s looking at replacing the computers in his office
with Apple systems.</p>
<p>“Exactly - the RDF does it’s thing without any help from the
salespeople. In fact, they contribute to the RDF with that kind of
sales pitch. It helps to provide a stark contrast between the Apple
stores and Best Buy or Circuit City.”</p>
<p>What’s funny is that Best Buy sells Apple products. The only reason
for buying Apple at Best Buy is if you don’t have an Apple Store
nearby as the Best Buy service for Apple products is the same as
the Best Buy service for all of their other products.</p>