Drunkard #1
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I don't know what got into me. A thousand apologies, it won't happen again.
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Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
Mac versus PC
- Thread starter LancelotSA
- Start date
The (in)accuracy of your assumptions is what brought this whole line of discussion about.
This is the way it's structured.
Apple - Reseller - Core, supplier - iStore's - ZaStore - Project3, Digicape, ect.
Anybody with a @apple.co.za e-mail addie = core
In that order. Core, the holding company has nothing to do with Apple (being run by Steve Jobs) they are a reseller and nothing more.
Both I and VertigoZA used to work for them.
Apple - Reseller - Core, supplier - iStore's - ZaStore - Project3, Digicape, ect.
Anybody with a @apple.co.za e-mail addie = core
In that order. Core, the holding company has nothing to do with Apple (being run by Steve Jobs) they are a reseller and nothing more.
Both I and VertigoZA used to work for them.
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Drunkard #1
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My point is that if Apple didn't like the look of Core, they wouldn't have signed their "exclusive wholesaler agreement" or whatever it's called. They chose Core to REPRESENT them in South Africa. The exclusive bit makes Core more than just a reseller, they're Apple's official "image" in SA. Core follows Apple's rules, in exchange for exclusivity and some other perks. Likewise, company structures aside (BTW who owns ZA Online (Pty) Ltd), Apple has chosen to exclusively list ZAstore as it's online reseller. That makes them more than just an online store, they are Apple SA's only officially recognised online store.
I must then assume that Apple SA wants users to think of ZAstore as the official store. Why else would they list ZAstore exclusively. In a similar vein, Apple USA wants South African users to think of Core as Apple's official representative in the country, why else would they let Core trade under the Apple SA brand.
So if my assumptions are flawed, you should blame Apple and Apple SA for creating the impression of officialdom with regard to ZAstore.
Edit: I just realised, you want me to say that Apple is price competative based on USA prices. Well I won't say it.
Apple SA (Core) refuses to accept responsibility for their exorbitant, uncompetitive prices. It's either them or Apple USA. There's nobody else involved (and i don't think that customs taxes Apple imports more than PC imports). Either way Apple is to blame: If they're charging Core excessively, that's their fault, and if Core is charging excessively then Apple should "have a word with them". Apple USA holds all the cards here. They appointed Core and they can un-appoint them, and they control the supply and pricing of stock. Maybe they don't want their product to be competitively priced here. Maybe they don't want market share, why else would they let their products be sold at such exorbitant prices.
Either way, Apple USA has a strong influence on pricing here, and they're obviously happy with the status quo. So if they don't want be to buy their products, who am I to argue.
I must then assume that Apple SA wants users to think of ZAstore as the official store. Why else would they list ZAstore exclusively. In a similar vein, Apple USA wants South African users to think of Core as Apple's official representative in the country, why else would they let Core trade under the Apple SA brand.
So if my assumptions are flawed, you should blame Apple and Apple SA for creating the impression of officialdom with regard to ZAstore.
Edit: I just realised, you want me to say that Apple is price competative based on USA prices. Well I won't say it.
Apple SA (Core) refuses to accept responsibility for their exorbitant, uncompetitive prices. It's either them or Apple USA. There's nobody else involved (and i don't think that customs taxes Apple imports more than PC imports). Either way Apple is to blame: If they're charging Core excessively, that's their fault, and if Core is charging excessively then Apple should "have a word with them". Apple USA holds all the cards here. They appointed Core and they can un-appoint them, and they control the supply and pricing of stock. Maybe they don't want their product to be competitively priced here. Maybe they don't want market share, why else would they let their products be sold at such exorbitant prices.
Either way, Apple USA has a strong influence on pricing here, and they're obviously happy with the status quo. So if they don't want be to buy their products, who am I to argue.
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Tell that to the lawyers, oil executives, billionaire's, doctor's, wine makers and architects who are my clients.
*gasp* How many thousand machines are they each running? We've talking corporates here, not small companies. Let me know when Mac support corporate systems like AD and Exchange properly.
Oh but Vista is a lost cause, sorry
I'd disagree with that. I wsn't a fan of Vista to start with, but having run it for a year now, I'm impressed. Given the right amount of RAM, it's solid and fast, and has plenty of little things that make life easier, compared to XP (in that respect it is still catching up to the Mac).
By the way, saying that whatever app was used in Lord of the Rings or whatever movie is kinda meaningless. Most big movies use several effects and production companies running a huge variety of software. It'd be fair to say that MS Word was used in most recent movies.
And by the way...Lord of the Rings's greatest software breakthrough was the use of Massive to run the digital armies. And Massive runs on (you guessed it) Windows and Linux.
No, I don't have those sort of issues. I have had driver issues, yet, but not in the last year or so. I occasionally have an issue with Maxthon when I load more than 150 browser tabs, and Maxthon's display gets a bit messed up, but I just close it and re-open it, and it restores all the tabs.
You must have been extraordinarily unlucky. I've used the XP disk in restore mode maybe 2 or 3 times, and that was due to corrupt boot files or partition tables due to hardware failure.
That's neat, and I really like that.
Talking about hardware: a friend of mine is the layout artist at a local magazine. Last week, his Mac popped its power supply. He took it in to Apple, and they've told him they don't have spares and will only have it ready later this week. In the meantime, he's having to do his deadline work on a borrowed machine (with outdated files, because the repair place has all his data).
If that were a PC, he could have walked into any nearby computer shop, bought a PSU off the shelf for R350, put in into the machine, and he'd be working again. Same applies to most other PC components.
d0b33
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morebroadband
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A little birdy landed on my shoulder and told me that Core is struggling to resign their agreement with Apple USA. Although Core has exceeded their sales targets set by Apple (These started from a low base, but Core has managed to exceed them), Apple has been reluctant to resign this for a while now. The little birdy didn't know the reason for this reluctance so we can only speculate..?
In addition it is also worth pointing out that Core has lost many of their very competent employees, and there is no sign that this exodus will end.
The Apple resellers in SA are very unhappy with Core, and that is being diplomatic!! Something is bound to change, the sooner the better.
d0b33
Honorary Master
Let's hope the change occurs before snow leopard ships, I wanna get an aluminum macbook with ilife and snow leopard bundled.
Why?
Let me rephrase: I like Maxthon because of the feature set. I also use Opera (which virtually never crashes), and IE 7 or 8, which hasn't crashed for me yet, but because it's short on the features I need I don't do much in it. I occasionally use Firefox too, but it doesn't appeal to me.
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d0b33
Honorary Master
Maxthon is the equivalent of lipstick on a pig(no offense to pigs)
I used it years ago and still today it's an unstable browser using the IE engine which has poor web standards, there is a name for maxthon users.
It's so bad I would recommend you use Safari-Windows version as a browser.
You do know it's radically different from the version of years ago, huh? The newer versions are much more stable, and as for web standards, as long as I can view the web pages I need to see, I don't care. (And you do know IE8 is faster, more stable, and with better web standards, don't you?)
Thank you for the kind recommendation of Safari. Sadly, I tried Safari. It was almast as fast as Opera, but feature-wise, severely limited. I use a browser that has the features I need.
Come on, if you're saying things like that, I can't discuss this issue with you anymore as I'll be simply wasting my time.
"Meaningless" ... Did you actually understand what I wrote? Did you
follow the conversation? Nope.
Sorry, end of discussion.
I'll give you a clue, if you don't use the software - don't comment on it.
SlinkyMike
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@LacelotSA: 9 pages so far - topic have the desired effect? 
@LacelotSA: 9 pages so far - topic have the desired effect?
Yeah, guys who are clueless commenting about issues they don't know anything about, eg Claymore.
(Mr Claymore does not use FCP, did not use Adobe Premiere, nor Matrox RTX Etreme, etc) yet he
comes with an attitude he knows about these things. Then he wonders why Apple is so popular with
media houses, and when told that Apple brought expensive software to ordinary people
and made it affordable, he says it's meaningless. Can't argue with someone who either
can't help but ignore the train of logic or derails it purposefully.)
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charlie_82
Expert Member
@LacelotSA: 9 pages so far - topic have the desired effect?
I'm sure there's more to come...
It's like trying to get someone over to the dark/light side
Ou grote
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charlie_82
Expert Member
Er...did you read what I said? I'm saying it's meaningless to brag about any particular piece of software being used in a movie because there's so much software used in movies that your chosen one is just one of many.
I think it's great that Apple brought some software out cheap. Yippee.
Ummm...I've already said Macs are popular with media houses. I don't deny it. What's your point?
I don't need to use the apps to know about them and about the industry. I used to market and support Adobe and Aldus products for the South African Adobe/Aldus/Apple distributor.