Apple Death Knell #30: "Apple Is In Decline"

October 6th, 2003 at 3:00 PM - News by Bryan Chaffin

DING! DING! DING! That sound was the Apple Death Knell Counter going off again. The Apple Death Knell Counter (ADKC) is a collection of death pronouncements for Apple throughout the years. Issued by journalists, analysts, pundits, business executives, and the like, there have been innumerable "Apple is dead," "Apple will soon be dead," and "Apple is dead if they donit do this or that" statements issued by all sorts of people who have been proven time and again to be wrong. The purpose of the Death Knell Counter is to collect these statements for posterityis sake, so that as Apple continues to thrive and prosper, we can remember them.

Today we have Death Knell #30, and it marks the second entry into our list by Rob Enderle of the Giga Information Group. In October of 2002, Mr. Enderle issued comments about Apple saying the company was being "driven into obsolescence" (see our full commentary for more information). Yesterday he had an editorial published by TechNewsWorld.com that offers up a new Death Knell.

That piece, titled "Apple, Linux and BSD: The iOtheri Platforms," offers advice to people who have grown tired of Microsoftis perpetual security problems, and are curious about other platforms such as Apple, Linux, and BSD. While Mr. Enderle is somewhat complimentary to the Mac platform, calling it the strongest alternative on the desktop, he also specifically says Apple is in decline, and also declares that there are more Linux applications than Mac apps. From his editorial:

The disadvantages associated with moving to the Mac platform include the cost. This platform doesnit use industry-standard AMD- or Intel-based hardware. While the hardware is generally better looking, youill pay a premium to get high-performance machines. On the other hand, there are few viruses that attack Mac OS X , and the platform generally is as reliable as the other Unix variants.

While there are compelling arguments for moving to Apple on the desktop, the Apple server is very interesting technically but not very practical. The things that make an Apple PC compelling -- user interface and industrial design -- donit play well on servers, adding up as simply unneeded cost.

Migration costs are lower once you are on the server platform, but for enterprise-class tasks, you are generally limited to Unix management tools, which tend to be expensive. The biggest long-term problem with moving to an Apple platform is that the company is in decline, which means you might have to migrate again at some point to another platform. Despite this, the Mac is a solid platform and looks damn good on a desktop.

You can read the full article at TechNewsWorld. Check out our Apple Death Knell Counter for a list of folks who have been wrong so far.