Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware
IBM/Sony Apple's biggest threat?
Adrien Lamothe, writing for ONLamp.com, thinks that Apple has gotten itself into a position where their real
competition isn't the likes of Dell but rather Sony and IBM. Is he referring to Sony's VAIO series of machines? Nope,
he thinks that the Playstation III which will sport IBM's Cell processor will blow Macs out of the water.Somehow, I doubt it considering that the Playstation, while computer like, has been designed to be a gaming machine. Want to do all your Internet surfer via your game console? I don't.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
David Chartier said 9:23PM on 3-24-2006
I really wish people would stop making outlandish product comparisons to Apple simply because a company is coming out with a buzzworthy new product. The PSP and iPod? Now a gaming console and a Mac?
What next... the iMac is going down in flames because a new Maytag refrigerator has a built-in LCD?
Reply
Andy said 10:34PM on 3-24-2006
In other news, blenders now have motors that run THREE TIMES faster than that in many vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners are clearly on the road to obsolescence.
Reply
weeee said 1:08AM on 3-25-2006
There's one main reason this won't happen: sony software sucks. (yay for alliteration!)
We'll see, maybe they'll pull out something fantasmagorical for the PS3, but I doubt it. Either way, in the battle for the digital lifestyle, more competition = more goodness for the consumer, including me.
Reply
dan said 1:25AM on 3-25-2006
I have been advocating the merger of Sony and Apple into a company called "Snapple"
Reply
Stern said 5:22AM on 3-25-2006
Why wouldn't I want to surf the web using a fast machine running Linux? It would certainly improve the user experience over my Mini, where doing anything at all is preceded by ten to thirty seconds of watching a spinning ball.
Reply
Carniphage said 7:52AM on 3-25-2006
There is some very muddled thinking in this article. The games business is nothing like the computer business. Sony lose money on each console. The more they sell, the more they lose. The only way to make that up is to charge sofware creators a premium on every software unit sold. This ONLY makes sense for games, which sell (theoretically) in mass market numbers. If someone did make desktop applications for the PS3 - Sony would be uninterested.
Yes the PS3 could run an iMovie clone. But would you pay $90 to buy it when Apple give it away?
Sony have become a business who just don't get it. ATRAC, Rootkits and now the PS3. It will be awesomely powerful, but the cost of games development is so extreme that many developers will fold, or simply not bother.
Reply
Richard said 10:15AM on 3-25-2006
There is a real Apples to Oranges comparison going on in that article. The market for Cell processors and for personal computers are two very different beasts, and may have been one of the reasons Apple unhitched its wagon from the PPC.
Sony's biggest problem is their desire for lock-in; Apple does this to in some instances (iPod + iTMS = FairPlay), and has been fairly open in others (QuickTime). Lock-in is very hard for Sony to pursue in the personal computer market because anybody and their aunt can make a Windows PC, but for every failure in the consumer market (MiniDisc) they have had success in others (BetaCam->BetaCamSP-DigiBeta). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but on the consumer side, PlayStation excepted, their historical performance has not been that good.
Apple's biggest enemy is Apple. There are a lot of stupid things Apple could do to harm their future prospects, and the biggest one is this: ignoring the customers. Many Apple solutions are 80% solutions. Front Row is a classic example: it works (most of the time), but a lot of people are asking where the DVR capability is. Compared to Windows Media Center, it is lacking in some functionality, but the problem is it is the functionality buyers are looking for and there are competitors who will give it to them today.
Reply
Mikey said 1:58PM on 3-25-2006
No, of course no one wants to do their internet surfing from their console, but no one really wants to do their internet surfing from home anyway, well when it comes down to it, no one surfs the internet anymore. Everyone I know has this opinion:
Web surfing: Work PC.
E-mail: Work PC for work.
Social communication: Mobile Phone
iLife style stuff: Home PC.
Games: Home and portable Console.
Sony have the right idea because the PS3 will be the home hub for digital entertainment, they have stated they will use the power of cell for people to do video editing for home movies. I'm sure they will copy the whole suite of iLife for the PS3 using the aquisition of the sonic foundry technologies as a base.
I think that Apple will loose out in the long run until they start marketing macs as 'giant ipods' or 'home ipods' because most people, normal average people, not people in the blogsphere.. Dont care about word processing, dont care about the web, most hardly ever use the keyboard. What I want to see are Macs that boot into front row by default and the esc or menu button gets you into the 'computer' part, with an option in system preferences as to what interface to always start with, but front row is the default.
For most people the sooner you get that 'computer' part out of their lives the better, yes everything is a computer nowadays, but what I mean by that is a traditional jack of all trades PC/MAC with a WIMP interface. No one really likes that, do they? Files, folders.. It's all too much like work.
Since sites like ebay and ents24.com have been on mobile phones, i've noticed everyone I know use the mobile phone for this stuff and the PC is a media machine.
P.S. No one cares about that intel switch either. That advert is boring.
P.P.S I'm not a sony fanboy, all I own is a PSone, whereas with Apple I own an iMac, Powerbook 12, iPod 40gb, and tons of apple made accessories.
Reply
Jon Hendry said 9:36PM on 3-25-2006
Stern writes: "Why wouldn't I want to surf the web using a fast machine running Linux?"
Well, for starters, it's likely that the Playstation will only work with accessories and peripherals from the Playstation aisle at BestBuy.
Reply
Adrien Lamothe said 12:42PM on 3-27-2006
The article doesn't state that Playstation 3 is Apple's biggest challenge. If you actually read the article (and it appears that some of the more opinionated posters here haven't,) you will discover there are several dynamics impacting Apple's business prospects.
The Cell processor will be used in machines other than just Sony Playstations. Regarding PS 3, Sony does intend to use Playstation 3 as a hub for digital entertainment, just as people are doing with Mac Minis and Front Row. The new Sony VAIO laptops come with a docking station supporting S-Video, and a remote controller is included.
Both Apple and Sony have long coveted the home digital entertainment market. They have been on a collision course for several years. The battle will finally occur within the next year. Apple has the initial edge (stated in the article.)
Reply