People do realize that Apple is about to take over the world?

[IJ Reilly]

We've talked about this in other threads, but my problem with Bill's Billions is that he now appears to be attempting to do with charity what he had already done with technology -- which is to use his clout to move it in the direction he thinks it ought to go, and to hell with everybody else. Just look at the way the Gates Foundation is pushing smaller schools. Hardly everyone in teaching agrees that smaller schools are a cure for educational ills -- but if that's what Bill thinks, then smaller schools it is. The man always was, is and probably always will be, a major control freak. He feels a need to dominate in everything he does. This not necessarily a good personality trait for a philanthropist to have.

 

[California]

As far as my commenting on your charitable instincts then yes I am sorry. I spoke out of frustration due to what I believe was your slander on Mr Gates and that is uncalled for. Me personally, will not criticize those unless I hold myself to the same standards as to that which I am criticizing

I would like to hope that you think it would be charitable for Mr Gates to will his fortune away for the greater good but apparently you dont feel that is charity as he would not have to sacrifice in giving it. Never mind he is donating millions and possibly billions currently

Dear dukebound

Apparently, my instincts that Gates' "charity" is nothing of the sort are right. He's propping up old media -- a distinctly NON charitable enterprise -- by buying up newspapers with his money.

Made today's front page of DRUDGE: http://www.drudgereport.com/flashbg.htm

DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN AUG 20, 2006 16:01:02 ET XXXXX

BILL GATES "CHARITY" FOUNDATION FINANCES NEWSPAPER PURCHASES

The BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION declares its noble mission is to bring "innovations in health and learning to the global community."

But the world's largest philanthropic organization also is among the organizations that collectively loaned nearly $400 million to MEDIANEWS GROUP INC. -- for the acquisition of newspapers in California and Minnesota!

"I thought this foundation was all about starving kids, not starving newspapers," mocked one Seattle insider.

MORE

The GATES FOUNDATION loaned an unspecified amount to MEDIANEWS, along with GENERAL ELECTRIC.

In April, MEDIANEWS agreed to buy four newspapers, including the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS and CONTRA COSTA TIMES, from MCCLATCHY CO. for $1 billion. MEDIANEWS also bought California's MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD and the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS in Minnesota. It also own the DENVER POST.

The move into funding media acquisitions was unusual for the BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION, whose donations usually go to health and anti-poverty purposes.

In June, financier Warren Buffett announced he would donate an estimated $31 billion to the GATES FOUNDATION, bringing its total endowment to more than $60 billion -- which could easily save every newspaper in America!

Developing...

 

[ghall]

Well, Bill Gates give a lot of money to my school, but what whould you do if you had that kinda money? I don't think of him as a generous man, I think of him as a man who gives away his excess cash. If he were truly generous, he whouldn't live in a giant mansion. He'd live like a normal person, giving away most of his money, keeping just enough for him and his family to live, own a nice medium-sized house, with all the comforts that most people enjoy. Instead, he just gives away the money he doesn't know what to do with.

 

[steamboat26]

the other thing is that bill gates is going to give away almost all of his money when he dies. I think that 0.1% or some really small number like that will go to each one of his kids (which is still a nice chunk of change), and the rest will go to charity.

 

[ghall]

the other thing is that bill gates is going to give away almost all of his money when he dies. I think that 0.1% or some really small number like that will go to each one of his kids (which is still a nice chunk of change), and the rest will go to charity.

That's like 6 billion to each of his kids (assuming I did the math right).

 

[IJ Reilly]

the other thing is that bill gates is going to give away almost all of his money when he dies.

You mean, he wasn't planning on taking it with him?

 

[TedSlawski]

2.66MHz loss leader

I think that as opposed to Dell offering a low end loss leader Apple is offering a high end loss leader. The 2,66MHz Mac Pro, according to many things I've read, has a price that comes close to the price of the parts. That's the reason for the "low end" video card, just modifying the enclosure, no second optical drive, a smallish SATA hard drive, 1gig of RAM. It's all the bare minimum to get 2-dual core Xeon processors in an Apple box for $2500. It runs Windows, so a lot of hard core Window's gamers will grab one (according to some people they alteady are) and up the video card, lots of small operations that need a lot of horse power will look closely at this. Have you checked the SETI scores? the smattering of Macs has turned into almost solid Macs at the top. So ole Steveo breaks even or loses a little on the 2.66, the machine with the best price point and increases market share by a little, 'cause all those peopel are probably going to mess around with the OS and be sold on what a great box this is, even if their primary use is Windows.
I don't think Apple is after Dell, just a few percent of market share, which over the long run is a large pile of cash. It's kinda like the cheap Porche that was sold in the US a few years back, how many of those peopel went back to driving a VW when it was time to trade and the cheapo was no longer available? Anyway, this is a screamin' deal, you're not likely to see again, grab one! When the 8 processor machines come out in the new enclosure we'll be back to the old price structure with a medioce machine, like the single 1.8GHz G5 tower, three years ago. If the dual 1.8 had been in the first lineup, I wouldn't have waited for the 2Gig and shelled out another $600, would you?

 

[IJ Reilly]

I was with you right up to the last couple of sentences. I don't think Apple will be going back, as you suggest. They have to hang tough with the PC market and offer the latest-and-greatest Intel processors in Apple boxes at competitive prices. Unlike the days when the processors families were so different, and x86-PPC performance claims could be made and not completely verified, Apple's hardware now has to go right up against everybody else in Windows World or suffer in the comparison. Apple can compete with Dell in the high-end market, where the margins are better I expect, but not in the low end, where hardly any money is to be made anyway.

 

[TedSlawski]

Hope you're right

Boy I hope you're right but I don't see what they can do without dropping quality. The PC compainies, with their "of-the-shelf" cases, MLB's etc. are going to be cheaper than a custom machined aluminum (or plastic, for that matter) enclosure and a made to order MLB and attention to acoustic detail, high RAM specs (the list goes on) every time. Yet Dell wants, I think, $3100 for the same config. and that is using off the shelf PC parts. If they added the price of the Apple enclosure to their cost, it would go way up. So my point was that Apple is intentionally losing money on this machine. Porshe doesn't need to compete with the Ford Mustang, It just offers a car once that the upper income Mustang driver can afford. A lot of them will buy the Porche and some of them will go back to Ford when the price goes up and some will stay with Porshe, as they anticipated. I don't want Apple to downgrade it's stuff to try to get a 50% market share. Jobs once said (keeping the car analogy) that Apple had the same market share as BMW and that was fine with him. I think this is a move to show the Camry drivers a BMW. I'm sure they will keep prices as low as they can to keep the twice as expensive as a pc myth busted but I think they will move to the point where a comparable high end machine like the $3100 Dell dual Xeon is not a hell of a lot cheaper than a Mac (if at all). I think they will move closer to the Dell price and make a decent profit on a high end machine, once they've made their point by dramatically under pricing this machine. Who would have noticed if these machines were the same price as Dell, nobody, 'cause they wouldn't check Dell's prices for a machine like this, they would make the assumption that Apple was over-priced. This pricing woke a lot of people up, I don't think they need to keep this kind of price differential once they've got the attention of their intended new audience.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Could be, but I've never seen Apple do the loss-leader thing before. They've always been very protective of their margins, which have long been the envy of the industry. One thing is certain, it will be very interesting to watch this going forward.

 

[TedSlawski]

Yeah

I truthfully expected a single dual core Conroe at about this speed as the middle choice and was fully prepared to shell out the $2500 middle machine (had arranged my trade in before they were even announced) price for it and was quite joyfully shocked to see a dual Xeon box as the middle machine. I have never been so pleasantly suprised by Apple in my life. Went the other way a few times, bought a IIvx right before the Quadras came out, ordered the non existant 500mhz dual G4 etc. So, if they have found the secret to exceeding their customers expectations, right on! and my stock portfolio thanks them as well, almost sold it at the bottom right before Steve came back but figured, it's only money, I'll wait a bit and see what the 'ole Job's magic brings; apparantly a lot!

 

[golferjh3]

No, not really.

 

[dukebound85]

Dear dukebound

Apparently, my instincts that Gates' "charity" is nothing of the sort are right. He's propping up old media -- a distinctly NON charitable enterprise -- by buying up newspapers with his money.

Made today's front page of DRUDGE: http://www.drudgereport.com/flashbg.htm

DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN AUG 20, 2006 16:01:02 ET XXXXX

BILL GATES "CHARITY" FOUNDATION FINANCES NEWSPAPER PURCHASES

The BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION declares its noble mission is to bring "innovations in health and learning to the global community."

But the world's largest philanthropic organization also is among the organizations that collectively loaned nearly $400 million to MEDIANEWS GROUP INC. -- for the acquisition of newspapers in California and Minnesota!

"I thought this foundation was all about starving kids, not starving newspapers," mocked one Seattle insider.

MORE

The GATES FOUNDATION loaned an unspecified amount to MEDIANEWS, along with GENERAL ELECTRIC.

In April, MEDIANEWS agreed to buy four newspapers, including the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS and CONTRA COSTA TIMES, from MCCLATCHY CO. for $1 billion. MEDIANEWS also bought California's MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD and the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS in Minnesota. It also own the DENVER POST.

The move into funding media acquisitions was unusual for the BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION, whose donations usually go to health and anti-poverty purposes.

In June, financier Warren Buffett announced he would donate an estimated $31 billion to the GATES FOUNDATION, bringing its total endowment to more than $60 billion -- which could easily save every newspaper in America!

Developing...

I don't really care anymore or have cared about you trying to prove me wrong so you are not going to change my perception about this matter.

This little thing on the foundation buying newspapers hardly questions my beliefs on his charity. Maybe there are clauses that these papers fund the foundation and help find more sponsors. Who knows. HOWEVER, you are presenting only one side of the arguement and that is pretty bad....present both sides of the intentions of the foundation and then report back. No more of this really biased stuff you just posted.

What you just did is just like trying to get an opinion about America from the view of lets say Iran at the moment. Hilarious, just hilarious

 

[waynesun]

Still seems like a long time off. I was over at the WinCustomize.com forums today (from Googling icons for my ObjectDock ) and there were a lot of WinXP fanboys there. One guy was complaining about his experience with his OSX 10.4, which was obviously full of BS. Guess they can't get over the sluggishness and delay of Vista. There are always Ubuntu and hardcore Linux users, though. I know lots of people who still think "Macs Suck". It's a cool thought, but apple's still got a long way to go for world control.