THE COMPUTER GURU'S
INDUSTRY RANTS AND RAVES
by Steven Salemi
"...a disposition so crabbed
as to make Alexander Pope and
Dr. Johnson seem sunny by constrast..."
Does
anybody know if the much-lauded, frequently-hyped, oft-editor's-choiced
Epson Stylus Color 800 can REALLY print reds -- like cherry reds,
fire-engine reds, blood reds? Everything I try looks slightly
orangey to me, and for a color snob like The Guru, this just won't
do. I've also noticed that black characters printed in smallish
type (4-8 point) come out with fuzzy edges -- not acceptable.
People are dutifully impressed by the 800's photo printing capabilities,
which are impressive (I suppose); so impressed they miss the serious
problems with faint-hearted reds and fuzzy type. The Guru didn't
miss it, and either did my office assistant, whose eyes are almost
as sharp as The Guru's.
Mind you, this is a top-of-the-line, 1440-dpi printer that everyone
thinks is wonderful. I'm dubious. The Epson's most frequently-cited
competitors, the HP DeskJet 800 family, are often pooh-poohed
because they can only print 300dpi color, but those 300 dots look
great! The reds are REAL RED and the type is sharp as a tack,
laser-quality. Epson is playing a specsmanship game here, and
unfortunately, they're having some success at it.
"Wow, 1440 dots HAVE to be better than
300!" These are the same morons who think that a guitar amplifier
that goes up to "11" has to be louder than one that
only goes up to "10," or that ANY video monitor that
has a .25mm dot pitch is better than ANY video monitor that has
.28mm or .30mm (or heaven-forbid, an aperture grille or LCD panel
or something).
Sun
Microsystems is building new factories and learning centers everywhere
-- but why EXACTLY is their business so strong? Where are the
revenues coming from? Don't get me wrong, I like and respect Sun
-- the Company, The Management, and The Products. Scott MacNealy
is a real mensch, and I'm one of the few who apparently
regret that Sun didn't buy Apple awhile back. But how is all this
new business being generated for Sun? What, exactly, are they
selling, and to whom? Proprietary Sun OS workstations and servers,
in a shrinking market that's hot for Compaq and Dell and HP workstations
and servers built on Intel Processors and Windows NT? Are they
making a lot from Java licensing fees -- whilst blasting Microsoft
for its "Windows Everywhere" strategy? What gives here?
After all, fellow competitor and one-time workstation rival Digital Equipment Corporation is
suffering the agonies of the damned...
When
is Apple going to get its shit together? Ousting Mr. Amelio probably
wasn't a bad idea, but what's this about Jobs wanting to revoke
Mac Cloning Licenses to companies such as UMAX, Power Computing,
and Motorola? If you recall, this step was supposed to SAVE Apple,
not bury it. Well, I guess it would be rather difficult to yank
Motorola's license -- after all, Motorola makes the PowerPC
chips found in all new Macs! If Apple is having credibility problems,
the last thing they should do is renege on their commitment to
Mac licensees. This could be yet another "last nail in the
coffin" for Apple; one must admit, it sure has taken a lot
of nails to keep that corpse locked up! Night of the Living Dead,
indeed...Jobs has recently asked Apple customers to "trust
me for a few months," which sounds reasonable, but then,
I've been told by certain women of my acquaintance that they never
trust someone who asks to be trusted...the thinking being...if
you're really trustworthy you don't have to ask...or something...
Editor's Note: Apple has gotten
it's shit together.
Build
or Buy? Time was, you could save a bunch of bucks by building
your own system instead of buying one off the shelf. Recent industry
publications seem to support this view still, but apparently they
are just repeating old industry saws, inhabiting old paradigms.
Do the math, friends, and you will find in many cases that it
makes MUCH more sense to buy a machine off the shelf than it does
to gather parts and screw them in (and, possibly, up, ha-ha) yourself.
Why build a generic clone machine with questionable components
for $ 1,100 when Compaq will sell you a nifty little multimedia
Presario with CD-ROM, modem, speakers, warranty, the works --
all for well under a $ 1,000? (Okay, the Presario has no expansion
slots -- not one -- and no free drive bays, but hey, that's a
different subject).
I can think of only a few scenarios where it still makes sense
to build a system instead of buying a good system from a major
manufacturer such as Toshiba. The first
is when you want to build a really high-end and/or specialized
system, with carefully-chosen or unusual components and/or specifications
unavailable in off-the-shelf systems. The second, of course, is
if you want The Guru to build one of these systems for you!, in
which case your system will be imbued with excellent energies
unavailable from your typical Computer Chop Shop...
Chip
wars! Used to be Intel had the entire market cornered; now we
see healthy competition from Cyrix and (especially) AMD. Not only
is the market getting more competitive, but (not surprisingly)
it's getting more interesting. Suppose you want a 233Mhz
system. Well, you can buy a box with an Intel, AMD, or Cyrix chip
inside. But hold on -- the chips and motherboards aren't interchangable.
The AMD and Cyrix chips are chips, just like older, slower
Intel Pentiums. But Intel's Pentium II processors are modules,
not chips. Cyrix chips top out at 233Mhz; AMD's (currently) at
266Mhz, while Intel is shooting for 300Mhz (and beyond) with the
Pentium II modules. Will AMD and Cyrix move to 300Mhz, and if
so, will they retain the chip form factor, or will they clone
Intel's Pentium II module? If they clone the module, will Intel
sue them? Or will they cross-license the module technology from
Intel (like they did MMX technology) in order to stay out of court?
Stay tuned...
Are
56K modems a bust, or what? I'm not saying the technology doesn't
work -- it does -- I'm talking about the whole standards thing.
Sometimes I believe computer companies never really learn from
their mistakes (people don't, so why should companies, which are
comprised of people?). The marketplace says again and again,
"We demand standards." And so what does the modem industry
do? Foist two incompatible modem standards on the world, and expect
us to pick and choose between them...all the while waiting for
the "official" 56K ITU standard to be decided, so we
can all upgrade our modems pronto so they won't be rendered
obsolete overnight. U.S. Robotics, Hayes, Motorola, all of those
companies should be ashamed of themselves for this blunder, this
monstrous marketing-technology gaffe...the mistake is obvious
from all the advertising (and cash rebates), which border on the
desperate. Stop wasting our time, guys, and fight your own standards
battles before you ship product, not afterwards...