I certainly don't know enough to say for sure, but now it all makes sense to me. For a long time I've been hearing rumors about MacOSX on x86 (intel.) It makes sense in one way since OSX shares so much with FreeBSD, and FreeBSD runs on (among other chips) x86. But it never seemed quite right because Apple's margins are so high on their machines, why would they want to enable cheap Intel based computers? This bit of speculation sounds right to me. This is the "digital hub" that Job's keeps mentioning in a sort of metaphoric way. Here's my further speculation. If apple made a cheap x86 based, airport/ethernet ready computer (an "internet appliance", or "thin client") that would netboot into a remotely hosted OSX session I think they might really have something. For their bottom line, at least, if not for the full good of the customer. What if you bought this really cheap, stylish Apple machine (couple hundred bucks) and then you pay Apple (or Apple/earthlink) $x/month for broadband access. It would seem to you like a regular computer set up. The difference would be that your operating system and programs (but not data) would be running on servers operated by Apple. You would never have to mess with any software. They install, upgrade and keep everything running. Literally ANYBODY could use this machine. But the question is, how much is $x/month?
I can't imagine this working if it has to involve Earthlink. Are they in some kind of jv with Apple? We were with a great little ISP on the Cape who was bought by OneMain.com which then in turn was bought by Earthlink. It has been the absolute worst Internet experience of our lives...email that takes days to be delivered, email that never gets to us, but doesn't bounce back to the sender either, inability to dial in for days at a time and, of course, you can never get anyone on the phone and if you do they say they're having some problems and are working on it. I'll stop ranting now, but ugh.
Apple made a large investment in earthlink a year or so ago (I forget the exact number, but I seem to recall it giving apple around 5% of the company.) It's still not entirely clear why apple made this investment. I wonder if there are any nationwide ISP's who people are completely happy with? As these companies try to build out their broadband base (which for earthlink would mean dsl) they have routinely dropped the ball in other areas. So, yeah, I'm not too surprised to hear a horror-type story about earthlink, but they do have the technical expertise to do a large scale project like this. Whether they will pay close attention (or even any attention) to customers has to do with how much money it seems possible for them to make. Dial up customers are pretty low profit, so service is bad. This is unfortunate, but true.
But in any case, the really important point is that they have groovy orange ads.
yes, its all about the ads. and theyre for the earth, man. did you see the ad for att recently -- 7 bucks for long distance and dial-up plus 7 cents a minute long distance. i dont know what their normal long distance plans are but essentially they are giving the dialup away for free.
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- jim 3-11-2001 8:43 pm
I can't imagine this working if it has to involve Earthlink. Are they in some kind of jv with Apple? We were with a great little ISP on the Cape who was bought by OneMain.com which then in turn was bought by Earthlink. It has been the absolute worst Internet experience of our lives...email that takes days to be delivered, email that never gets to us, but doesn't bounce back to the sender either, inability to dial in for days at a time and, of course, you can never get anyone on the phone and if you do they say they're having some problems and are working on it. I'll stop ranting now, but ugh.
- guest 3-13-2001 7:50 pm
Apple made a large investment in earthlink a year or so ago (I forget the exact number, but I seem to recall it giving apple around 5% of the company.) It's still not entirely clear why apple made this investment. I wonder if there are any nationwide ISP's who people are completely happy with? As these companies try to build out their broadband base (which for earthlink would mean dsl) they have routinely dropped the ball in other areas. So, yeah, I'm not too surprised to hear a horror-type story about earthlink, but they do have the technical expertise to do a large scale project like this. Whether they will pay close attention (or even any attention) to customers has to do with how much money it seems possible for them to make. Dial up customers are pretty low profit, so service is bad. This is unfortunate, but true.
But in any case, the really important point is that they have groovy orange ads.
- jim 3-14-2001 12:32 am
yes, its all about the ads. and theyre for the earth, man. did you see the ad for att recently -- 7 bucks for long distance and dial-up plus 7 cents a minute long distance. i dont know what their normal long distance plans are but essentially they are giving the dialup away for free.
- dave 3-14-2001 12:43 am