A response to your recent article on Apple in the Star

Mr. Olive,

In general I like your articles but your grasp on technology trends is iffy at best.

You got the facts wrong on the plans ($50 minimum.) Your historical analogy is, in general, problematic because the computer industry and smartphone industry are different (different distribution channels), the technology is at a different stage of maturity even as the hardware capability is at a similar stage, the relationships between the software licensor and the manufacturer are different (proprietary versus open source), technology law is more restrictive (jail breaking), and the Internet exists.

Computers are now more consumption devices than production devices. Then it was great to be able to do desktop publishing and automate tasks. Now it is great to watch stuff made by others and read ebooks written by others.

Tight high quality integration in an internet world of many technologies is more of a sell than it used to be (witness the failure of both desktop linux and symbian) a problem that continues to bedevil open source "container philosophy" designs (the software is built up with nested containers from different sources)

The iPhone and by extension the iPad will continue to do well in places where historically apple struggled because these are not computer products sold to IT departments directly or through computer stores- these are telecommunications products promoted by phone companies on behalf of apple (even the iPad because it necessitates a data plan)

RIM's problem is they made pagers and they make phones. They don't make computers and the quality of their smartphone product in comparison to Apple shows that. Their competitor is selling a computer through their distribution channel. Google is doing what apple did but the only advantage they have on Apple is manufacturers (Sony,LG) pushing the product- which isn't key. If Rogers pushes product A doesn't matter what LG pushes. With its single exclusive vendor strategy in markets, Apple punches much above its weight for its market size in terms of a distributor pushing its product.

Finally if you have an iPhone you are more likely to buy an iPad. Match that across the product platforms and you will come across opportunities for cross selling that none of Apple's competitors have.

Look back at every product that was supposed to be an "iPod-killer" and how the ipod has dominated the market and then combine that with the thought that the iPad reaches, through telecom companies, and apple's existing channels, a much larger worldwide market than the original iPod. And consider that when apple's mobile ad-serving platform is rolled out, apple will make a lot more money per unit of iPhone os shipped than rim and google combined.

I see LG wants to have its own app store. So we will have an LG app store layered on a google app store? That is about to turn into an integration nightmare. And given that Android is open source why would you/manufacturer, give all your money to google?

I see many lifelong windows users in the office gush over the iPad and also see that our IT dept will support the iPad now, having rejected the Mac and the iPhone.

The appropriate market is to the time of the Apple II not the Macintosh, and this time the IBM of old isn't there and control over software is a lot more intrusive

( not that I like software controls- just saying the analogy is problematic.)

Regards

Hari

Trying to write

They say dreaming isn't enough
And rhyming is for wimps
I say trying to write anything
Is trying to turn into a turnip

Difficult to do
if there is nothing in the fridge
to compare one to

Sleep is a bore
and waking is taken
By slowly twisting turning
Not turning quickly enough
Into aforementioned turnip

But I aforementioned carefully
For the ongoing transformation
May have caused hurtful feelings
(even overhead luggage to move)
in the turnip I am coming to be.

This morning

This morning like every other
Is an impending disaster
I feel like a wobbly train packed with people, hurtling away, on a
wobbly rail.

Tales Of Baz: Vermont wedding

Maurice,

If parties are tennis matches, then I am a man for the fifth set.

The party was dying and I was there at the end blowing at embers, trying to get a fire going.

My heart set on a game of drunk table tennis. I had managed to prise the promise of that from the bridegroom, Patrick.

I walked out to the drunk bus and confirmed that the good man could indeed drop me at my hotel at the end of it all.

Then the party petered out, table tennis was done (1-1) and most good people had left and so I left, carrying my suitbag, my totebag, and my best worldly cosmopolitan farewell on my sleeve, to go to the drunk bus,

but it had left.

I stood looking into the deep dark night.

I trudged back disconsolate wondering whether I would ever get back to my hotel, whether I would get back to the airport, whether I would ever get back to Canada. I nearly burst into a rendition of "Air Canada, our home and native line", hummed to the tune of O Canada, a somewhat popular song in these parts.

But I kept my music within and mumbled about, now sounding craven, now sounding brave.

The groom wished me a good luck as if I were at southampton dock sailing on the unsinkable Titanic. He said something about an inflatable mattress somewhere. I laughed heartily and spoke of the stars above and the grass below me, invisibly tipping my hat to dear old Robert Louis.

But it was clear there was no curvaceous creature around to provide creature comfort ... and I was in a barn in Vermont, missing my date with the Hilton hotel.

O Canada!

There was a sofa-like sofa-like sofa and I fell asleep on dreaming of a California blonde I once knew in Kobenhavn. Thank goodness for the summer ... It was not hot and there were no horses in said barn. If there are to be no creature comforts, let there at least be no creatures.

But that was not to be. Half way through my nocturnal adventure, Dave Carlson crept in and spread himself all over the floor. He had been getting to know Ginny on a comforter somewhere on the muddy manure.

It wasn't raining and so it shall remain one of life's great mysteries why he decided to show up to share the barn with Baz and leaving Ginny tossing, turning, dreaming in the mud.

I'm convinced he introduced himself as Cunningham.

And so we come to six thirty in the morning.

I awoke that morning with the inner thighs of my trousers clinging to my inner thighs. It was no accident - the two had been in close proximity all day long. There had been sweat. They clung to each other like long lost lovers in some remote barn in Vermont.

I, on the metaphorical side of this lonely ring, was left to wrestle with inadequate description, a lack of reliable transportation, and a general feel that Michael Jackson, up there in heaven, had probably
forsaken me.

I went to the reception of the inn, was treated with kindness and respect, and made to feel entirely human, the re-creation of the man from the barn-borne beast. I ordered breakfast, ate heartily and tipped generously, a huge deal, considering the cheap bastard I've always been.

I begged a ride to my hotel from Warren, a man who dishes out deadpan humour, like it's on fire-sale, for free.

Still unsure as to who I actually got to know at the wedding, I slunk around looking at the scenery, the gorgeous Vermont scenery, and tried not to stare at the gaggle of people rushing off to dive into lake Champlain for an early morning, freeze it all off and slosh about.

I wondered whether Warren would really take me. Would I ever see the Hilton again, and the suitcase that it contained?

Then I started writing this note, in the lobby, somewhat washed up, in the best sense of that phrase, and I wondered- is this like export
sales ?

But not touching

But not touching

Perhaps the bowels of hell are quiet like this
in the moment before the blade hits the neck
the silence of the bomb drop
the strangeness of a slow, said the onlooker, motion movie of a
stiletto moving towards its passion

In the morning of forever
The eternal wait
is madness, not human

I have a black shelf. I must have style. We broke one of my fancy chess pieces as we moved around gloating about said stylish shelf. I need superglue and I'm bummed that the pieces were not made of metal but of carefully painted plastic. Terrible.
But I still feel very well. Very well.

Macca is singing "So glad to see you here". oh yeah.

How many hours until I snuggle up on a lie-flat seat to tokyo? I don't know- I should be counting those bourgeois minutes down.

Life is about my eyelids that are threatening to seal themselves shut.

I was watching a young woman getting arrested, on the opposite platform, for, I think, breaking into a ticketchecker's booth, and then getting
on a train, then looking around, feeling tired, trying to drown myself
in the comfort of a song, I looked at a young man with buckteeth smiling into the air, then looked around at the rest of the
compartment, at the sullen emptiness of it all, the bedraggled glum
faces looking into their business, and I felt a depondency, as if we
have been abandoned on this earth, without god and religion, to our
painful vices. I thought of an unreasonable and boorish ticketchecker
once whose block I wanted to knock off. I wanted to beat him black and
blue and red, so he'd never behave that way with anyone again. And so I knew I was as bad as all that and the rest. All this playacting of being good until I'm dead and I still will be the same, human.

But, we must persevere with our castle building, mustn't we?

Last night, last night

Last night I prepared to file my taxes. I also scanned in most of the paper documentation I have. I was preparing to rid my house of junk as the pest control is in on Monday to treat the place for bedbugs. Last night I barely slept because of the fear of getting bitten by bedbugs and repeated bites by those very same creatures - and so I am late to work. As I was waking up I was dreaming about a politician that he was a good man and that he understood the pain of the people but he didn't have the words to express his passion - that he didn't know how to lie
This was Imran Khan, sportstar. I awoke wondering why is was important to lie in order to express another truth.

Listening to Macca

I must be getting old- picking my favourite songs seems to be about drawing comfort from songs I liked to listen to, the comfort of songs I can hum to.
Paul McCartney's 'Flowers in the Dirt' is one album that I know is not virtuosic and yet I listened to it as a teenager so much so that I find it easy to listen to all the songs one after another, with little desire to switch songs, jump around and, as usual, try to get as much out of the available time.

I face the following challenges

I face the following challenges
1. Insomnia due to bedbugs
2. Debt that won't die
3. Inspiration to write that has died
4. The weather, which has, despite all my efforts, jacked my mood.

And yet, for some reason, I don't feel like my life is in need of
repair. Strangely enough, I still feel on the up and up. Maybe it's my
running regimen that is yielding good results.

Recently I read 'Mystic Trudeau'- an excellent book about an excellent
man.