Posts by IAmTheMillipede 17 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2013
Selling X% more into a market that grew by X+(a lot)% is strong evidence that your products are losing popularity. Apple sales have failed to grow at the same rate as the smartphone market for several quarters now. Spinning it to say "we sold more than last time" is deceptive.
"You may be surprised at the ways people can utilize new technology for all sorts of purposes you haven't thought about. Why not conduct a trial with some keen users to see what they can accomplish?"
Mostly because of the money and time such a program would consume. If a dept. manager came to us and said "I would like my staff to be able to do X" and a tablet did X well, we could justify the purchase of tablets and they would absolutely get them. That just hasn't happened. Instead, we get vague requests for "tablets" with no reasons attached. As CIO I have a responsibility to gather a more precise definition of the need and help find the best solution.
When it comes to requests for tablets, there usually isn't a definable need. When there is, so far at least tablets are not the best solution. We have certainly tried. There are samples of every generation of ipad save the most recent, several android tablets, etc in our lab. They just don't stack up against more traditional solutions for any valid business need so far.
My department gets requests for various tablets including I pads all the time. We would love to make people happy. Problem is, there is simply no justification for such devices to be used in our business. They are clumsy and much slow to perform business tasks with, incompatible with critical business applications, and expensive to purchase and expensive to support.
If tablets did anything better than our existing equipment, they would absolutely be in the hands of every employee. We continue to research each proposal to try and find ways to leverage new technologies, but tablets just aren't a good fit.
One exception may be the Surface Pro. With its ability to run all the software our offices use, it is a much better candidate. We are doing a pilot program with outside sales (since they can benefit from a more portable solution unlike positions).
Anyone told HP that IT Managers and CIOs don't make decisions beyond "Yes sir" (To which Department tells them to do something) and How High? To any other C level that comes barking."
Wow.. glad I am not CIO wherever it is this happens.
Too bad for such a company, they will never compete with one that uses an IT department properly.
"The 64bit processor will have more relevance in a couple of years time, but it makes sense for Apple to introduce it now so that by then most of their iDevice range will be using it, making software development easier."
Ermmm.... What?
As a developer for some 30 years now, let me assure you the transition from compiling for 32 bit architecture to a 64bit one is literally changing one or two switches on your compiler (or clicking a button if you're using one of those new fangled GUIs). I have done literally dozens of "conversions" from 32 to 64 bit builds and never spent more than a couple minutes on it.
Never in history has any corporation forced its customers to prepay for tech that does nothing for them, just to make clicking said button easier for developers. The situation with the apple products is simply this: the consulting firm Apple pays to develop their CPUs finished a 64 bit version and Apple decided it would make good marketing sense to throw it in now despite it actually being useless. From the silly nonsense I've heard spouting from the iHoles of their devoted, seems they were right.
Apple has been dumbing down technology so cats and grandmothers can use it for years now.
I for one applaud their commitment to the lowest common denominator. Its a refreshing break from the tired old approach of increasingly powerful products. Some people (and pets!) just want to be dumb and happy, dammit. If Apple could find a way to also profitably encourage obesity they would have the whole thing sorted for us.
The only effective solution to this problem is education. Using a complex and potentially dangerous system such as the internet will always be troublesome for those who remain ignorant of its workings. Apple products are a perfect example of how the "walled garden" serves only the company that controls the walls. Dumbing things down to the Apple level just helps a corporation create dependant customers, people who sadly miss out on some amazing things that can be done by anyone given a bit of guidance.
I dont think you can expect your email to be private just because many people do not understand how email works. Email simply is not a medium that provides privacy. By design, it does not work that way.
A realistic comparison would be shouting at your recipient across a large hotel lobby full of various staff members, other guests, and quite possibly criminals. Email provides fairly equivalent privacy. Regardless of how you or anyone else feels things should be, that is the reality.
Maybe my 15 years of working as an email admin has skewed my perspective, but I find it insane that anyone would ever expect their email to be "private".
It seems many folks do not realize how many different places along the path of a typical email that their message is stored, logged, scanned, recorded, inspected, etc.. All in plain text and able to be seen by not just the many servers it intentionally passes through but also any other computer on any of the dozens networks it traverses.
I am not saying I necessarily support Google, but if the case against them is based on an email user having some "expectation of privacy"... well that isn't much of a case.
How innovative! Apple has done it again!
The experience of their new word is seamless and fluid. The perfect balance between two root words allows focus on what really matters. This is the market dominating word that we all are about to find we cannot live without.
Haters will always hate, but clearly Apple's new word has set the gold standard yet again.
In America, the iPhone is sold at Walmart and commonly found in the hands of people that live in mobile homes and wear sweatpants due to having become so obese that fixed shaped clothing is no longer a viable option.
Dont know if it has some sort of luxury status elsewhere in the world, but a slightly rusted "vintage" 80s Trans Am would probably be a better analogy for us murricahns.
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