MACs and PCs don’t mix. An intense and long-running rivalry has kept miles of clear water between Microsoft and Apple, the key protagonists in desktop and laptop computer software.
Computer users also fall into two distinct camps. A little like Londoners who will swear undying loyalty to living “norf” or “sarf” of the river, Apple users look down their noses at people they think settle for a second-rate system.
On the other hand, PC users, by and large, think there are more important things in life than computers. Why waste precious time, they quite reasonably conclude, on anything else if the PC is cheap, if it does the job, and it is acceptable to most other people?
News yesterday that Apple is to configure its hardware in order to allow users to run Microsoft Windows, therefore, comes as something of a surprise. Yes we know that both sides have developed products that mimic programs favoured by aficionados on the other side of the divide. Microsoft’s Word and Excel products, for example, have long been available in Apple Mac-compatible formats.
But yesterday, it seemed, Apple started a new chapter by opening its arms to the real Microsoft McCoy, the Windows XP operating system. Yet not only does this look like a new chapter, it appears to be defined by a spirit of acceptance and co-operation that has rarely, if ever, existed before now.
It is too early to go out and and buy the metaphorical hat in anticipation of Apple/Microsoft nuptials, however. Far from suggesting that the two are edging together, here may be evidence of growing commercial rivalry.
Apple, it may be argued, embraced Microsoft software in the way it did yesterday only because it thinks itself strong enough to do so. Previously, you might assume, Apple had to erect barriers to Microsoft because it feared it would be overrun if it did anything else.
Yet if Apple is now happy to allow Microsoft operating systems to rummage around in its hardware, it might presage a fresh push for sales and popularity from Apple itself. It was intriguing to note yesterday that Apple pointedly said it would not offer sales support to those who chose to run Windows XP on Apple Macs. Apples loaded with Window XP, it added, would be as vulnerable to computer viruses as any PC running on the same operating software. Was that just a way of reminding computer users that Microsoft gets attacked by viruses more than Apple? Since Windows XP is rapidly coming to the end of its shelf life, this uncharacteristic spate of co-operation may be little more than cosmetic anyway.
The launch of Microsoft Vista, the successor system to XP, has been much delayed. But it will not be long before Vista takes over as the standard Microsoft operating system. And with Vista, Microsoft is hoping to rise to the challenge presented to it over the last decade by the resurgent Apple.
Two of the key selling points of Vista are that it is less prone to contracting computer viruses and that it is more conducive to the receiving and watching of music and video. These, as every iPod-toting, iMac-using member of the i-generation knows, is land-grabbed and largely occupied by Apple.
But it might not always be so. It might not be Microsoft that leads opposition to Apple. Other participants, including Linux, will play a part. The old boundaries in computerland are being redrawn.
Net profits
AMAZON and eBay apart, internet trade is still thought of as small but fast-growing. Not any more. Consolidation of local newspaper chains is being driven by their loss of classified advertising to the internet, particularly in jobs and house sales. Now DSG (formerly Dixons) is to remove the Dixons name from high streets altogether and concentrate on using it as an internet brand.
At first sight this seems counter-intuitive because the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury and Waitrose have become top internet suppliers by extending their store service online. In consumer electronics, however, the online market share is bigger. As people often buy one thing at a time, it is also fiercely price-driven. If Dixons is to gain a big share of that market it must sell at prices that would not pay in the high street, without having to make excuses for undercutting itself. Expect more such rationalisation.
French defence on the attack
OH WHAT a tangled web the players in France’s defence game are weaving. The plot, however, is pretty simple. The French Government wants to create one huge European aerospace and defence corporation that can beat anything American and will, quite naturally, be controlled from Paris.
So far it has EADS, the Franco-German aircraft operation that owns 80 per cent of Airbus. But Daimler-Chrysler owns 30 per cent of EADS, as much as the French state and Lagardère combined.
The next step is to merge EADS with Thales, the defence electronics company where the French state has a 27 per cent stake. But Denis Ranque, who has built up Thales, making it the number two defence contractor to BAE Systems in the UK, has other ideas. Other suppliers to EADS feel the same way. The last thing they want is to turn EADS into a continental monopoly, whoever runs it.
After 24 hours of hectic activity yesterday, the two sides appear to have played out another draw. Daimler-Chrysler and Lagardère each sold 7.5 per cent of EADS, supposedly maintaining balance. But this raised the relative influence of the French Government’s 15 per cent and Lagardère’s stake was sold exclusively to French investors whereas Daimler’s was just put on the international market.
At the same time, however, Thales has strengthened its independence by buying Alcatel’s space interests ahead of the latter’s merger with Lucent of America. The deal, mostly for shares, raises Alcatel’s stake in Thales above 20 per cent. Any financial or industrial benefit seems incidental.
Plane talking
FL, the airline-based Icelandic venturer, always said that its stake in easyJet was held purely as a long-term investment. Having trebled its money in two years and sold, it probably feels it has done exactly what it said. Much of the recent rise came, however, as other investors gambled on an FL bid, even if the founding Haji-Ioannou family still owned 29 per cent compared with FL’s 17 per cent. Clearly, someone was conning someone or conning themselves. Is this market abuse? Probably not. It is ugly and unfortunate, though.
