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Blog: Apple Needs an Infrastructure Lesson - from Mr. Cue

by , 4:20 PM EDT, August 7th, 2008

Apple's iTunes is well run and has a great performance record under heavy loads. However, the team that built MobileMe needed a better infrastructure implementation, according to Chuq Von Rospach in his blog. That's why Eddy Cue is taking over.

Chuq Von Rospach, a former Apple employee, dissected in detail the MobileMe fiasco. "The ultimate failure seemed to be more capacity planning mistakes than anything else, if I'm guessing right. but the ultimate failure was not being willing to tell Steve 'we aren't ready' and taking that heat. They thought they could release and make it work, and guessed very wrong (or thought they were in good shape, which is worse)," Mr. Von Rospach explained.

Because he still has connections at Apple, Mr. Von Rospach was able to glean some tidbits from sources that explained why MobileMe got off to a rough start. "One of my sources opined that Apple clearly wasn't too savvy about all the progress made in infrastructure over the past few years. If this insinuation is indeed true, then there is no way Apple can get over its current spate of problems," according to one of the sources."

Key was the observation that Mr. Cue runs his own IT infrastructure, outside of Apple's core IT group. He can do that because he understands the network architecture necessary to makes iTunes work.

"Eddy's real specialty is to be able to take what Steve asks for, implement it, hit the target dates, make it work, and KEEP THE DAMN THING A SECRET UNTIL STEVE ANNOUNCES IT. That's a big reason why his team is self-contained. It also means his people can do what needs to be done to implement things that never existed before and which don't fit into normal IT 'this is how we do things' standards. He and his teams spends most of his time off in uncharted territory where a need to be innovative and flexible is a must, and yet they have to do it on huge scales."

Wise words indeed from a former sysadmin at Apple -- who believes that now that Mr. Cue is in charge, MobileMe will get fixed.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Guest
Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:44 pm Subject: Chuq's a good guy

Too bad he left Apple (after working many years there) but his contacts in the company and blog make for interesting reading!


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:02 pm Subject: Who told you iTunes has "Great Performance"?!

To date it has to be one of the worst pieces of software and the machine behind it a control freaks wet dream. I was updated to version 7.6.2 against my wishes and now I have lost music, duplicate tracks all over the place (multiple libraries that I did not create), it won't stay registered with Apple, anything played through it is distorted, no volume. album art is usually or gets changed after I fix it to be wrong again. Playing track in the Finder or Toast really shows how bad iTunes is. And what I am reading about 7.7.1 bricking 3G's shows that the problems are still coming.

Apple get your Sh^t together!!!!!!!!!


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Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Thu Aug 07, 2008 10:09 pm Subject: Re: Who told you iTunes has "Great Performance"?!

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
To date it has to be one of the worst pieces of software and the machine behind it a control freaks wet dream. I was updated to version 7.6.2 against my wishes and now I have lost music, duplicate tracks all over the place (multiple libraries that I did not create), it won't stay registered with Apple, anything played through it is distorted, no volume. album art is usually or gets changed after I fix it to be wrong again. Playing track in the Finder or Toast really shows how bad iTunes is. And what I am reading about 7.7.1 bricking 3G's shows that the problems are still coming.

Apple get your Sh^t together!!!!!!!!!


Your problems are far from the norm. You have something else going wrong.

EDIT: Ahhh. Should have checked first. It is Farmerbob posting negatives again.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:02 am Subject: I hate MobileMe

I'm so glad MobileMe is getting fixed. I really can't stand it, so much so that I want to go back to .Mac, which worked.
Part of the problem is that I'm not a computer whiz, so I never know if the problem is me not fixing a permission (like when my email addresses don't auto fill) or if it's the damn MobileMe. For instance, I got a reply email from someone I don't know and didn't send an email to- but it was an email I had forwarded on to a friend. So how did this random other person get it? He was asking who I was and why I was emailing him....
I want .Mac! I want it want it want it!


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:00 am Subject:

Personally, I think that this is Apple's version of Border Control for access to the iPhone Universe. As I believe that governance is part of the equation, I say hurrah!

In fact, I just posted on this aspect of the topic:

iPhone Universe: Network Borders, Kill Switches and The Core Location
http://thenetworkgarden.blogs.com/weblog/2008/08/iphone-universe.html

Check it out if interested.

Cheers,

Mark


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