Once upon a time, you had two fundamental classes of journalists. One group worked for regular newspapers or broadcast facilities, plying their trade; the others were employed by the supermarket tabloids, offering up gossip, real and otherwise, about various and sundry celebrities, political figures and notables from the business world.

While there are gray areas, in which some media outlets cross both lines with equal fervor, that constitutes the way most have characterized the press, at least until recent years.

These days, it is often difficult to know where responsible journalism ends and tabloid coverage begins. Even formerly respected publishers have decided that profits are more important than a respect for the facts.

Certainly the life and times of Steve Jobs would seem to be fodder for such coverage, which is, unfortunate, considering that he is also CEO of a huge multinational corporation with roughly $30 billion in annual sales and over 30,000 employees.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

Related Articles:

• Newsletter #459 Preview: The iPhone 2.1 Update: Did Apple Finally Get it Right?
• How Much Does Steve Jobs Really Do for Apple These Days?
• Newsletter #499 Preview: The Latest iPhone Rollout Shows Apple Hasn’t Lost its Mojo
• Newsletter #477 Preview: No, the Sky Isn’t Falling at Apple
• Newsletter #456 Preview: The Apple Class Action Lawsuit Report

It appears that no company is immune from economic woes. Toyota, now the world’s largest automaker, was once thought to be bulletproof, yet the company is about about to suffer from the first financial loss in its history. Apple appears to be cutting back on production for this quarter, although it seems certain they’ll still report decent profits.

That takes us to Microsoft.

Stung by tepid sales of Windows Vista, with more and more companies sticking with XP and refusing to upgrade, there are published reports that the world’s largest software company may also be looking to shed bodies from among a roster of over 90,000 employees.

Although nobody wants to see people lose their jobs, some folks who resent anything with the Microsoft label on it might just feel it serves them right. Besides, you can always hope that whatever personnel are cut from the ranks will have sizable golden parachutes, so they can sit back, play golf or do some traveling with their riches.

Or maybe I’m just being too charitable.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Never Accept the Inevitable!
• Newsletter #468 Preview: A Casual Look at Snow Leopard Versus Windows 7
• Microsoft Remains Divorced From Reality
• Does Windows 7 Make a Difference?
• More Silliness About Apple

Over the years, some eager-beaver would-be tech writers have been busy proclaiming the imminent death of Apple. Now it’s fair to say that they came close to being correct a time or two, because Apple did some pretty foolish things during the late 1980s and early 1990s that nearly did the company in.

However, through a combination of luck, perseverance, and building lots of great products, Apple managed to confound the doomsayers and keep the company alive. Today, more people have Macs on their radar for near-future purchases than ever, and the figures are equal to or higher than those of most of the biggest-selling PC boxes.

Forget about the Zune, where most of the sales are apparently being rung up on last year’s model, with lots of leftovers being sold at fire sale prices. This season, it’s still all about the iPod, with the iPhone being the icing on the cake.

Yes, there are still a number of alleged tech pundits who trash Apple’s products, all-too-often with misleading and downright erroneous information.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• The Microsoft On-The-Skids Report
• The App Store Report: What About an Exit Button?
• Does Windows 7 Make a Difference?
• More Uncritical Media Assumptions
• Never Accept the Inevitable!

Let’s take a trip back through time, to the 1990s, where the words “Apple” and “beleaguered” were usually described in the same sentence, rarely more than a few words apart. I suppose you could say that there was a death watch too, with lots and lots of publications waiting for Apple to bite the big one, or just go bankrupt and get swallowed up by another company. In a few years, the name would remain, but everything else would be history.

Of course, it didn’t turn out that way, although Apple came mighty close to the precipice for a while, as it began to hemorrhage money in the mid-1990s. This all happened before they succumbed to the famous Steve Jobs sales pitch (notice I didn’t say “reality distortion field,” but you get the idea) and bought NeXT.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• The Products Apple Shouldn’t Make!
• The End of the Bunker Mentality
• Does the World Really Need Mac Clones?
• The Mac OS Clone Myth Revisited
• The Mac Clone Controversy Rears Its Ugly Head