Steve Jobs and Openness - Compatible or Incompatible?

The fact that Apple targets only the high-end market does not necessarily mean it is evil. It has succeeded in maintaining high quality by not supporting openness.

But change is something that's constant.

Apple might want to change that trend while trying to continue maintaining and improving quality, by clearing a path for openness.

The question is whether their new leadership will be prepared for this.

Do you think change is coming?

Quoting:It has succeeded in maintaining high quality by not supporting openness.

And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a car.

Linuxsavvy: Apple already changed, they discounted the iPad2 even before it was released, and recently also offered older phones (3GS / 4 or what have you) with discount

Now, take a "true" quality brand like Volvo, and you see they almost never offer discounts. Apple OTOH does, which means the also target mid-end these days. Also true because other companies offer tablets which are more expensive / (hardware-)capable then iPad2.

hkwint wrote:Now, take a "true" quality brand like Volvo, and you see they almost never offer discounts.

I think Mercedes, BMW, or Audi would be a better example here. Volvo is pretty middle-of-the-road, and you get a lot more car for your money than with these three luxury brands. Volvo is also a Chinese company.

> Volvo is also a Chinese company.

They are? Since when?

From their history page at:

[url=http://www.volvogroup.com/group/global/en-gb/volvo group/history/Pages/history.aspx]http://www.volvogroup.com/group/global/en-gb/volvo group/his...[/url]

you will find links to the following information:

Volvo was incorporated in 1915 as a subsidiary of AB SKF, the Swedish ball bearing manufacturer.

The Volvo Group has its origin in 1927 when the first Volvo car rolled off the production line at the factory in Göteborg.

AFAIK, they've always been a European corporation.

Wow, that link doesn't work. Let me try isolating it. Nope. It still won't recognize the link properly. Oh well.

Quoting:> Volvo is also a Chinese company.

Quoting:They are? Since when?

Volvo has been fully owned by a Chinese company since August of 2010.

See Geely's past Press Release on this event found at http://www.geely.com/news/Global/MediaCentre/PressReleases/31907.html

- Historical information about Volvo's ownership, including its current owners, the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, is found at http://www.mycarforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2669554

- Recent news about China's Geely Automobile is the piece 'Volvo owner Geely denies interest in Saab' found at http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111006/COPY01/310069916

OK. That's the car division, which was sold to Ford several years ago. I thought you meant the parent company. I agree that Volvo cars are now owned by a Chinese company. And I guess since the discussion was about their cars, that's apropos.

The only reason they dropped the ipad2 price was so that in reviews of Android tablets, reviewers would say, "Yeah, it's great....but with the ipad2 coming out so cheap, you should wait for the ipad2."

Of course at that low price, no one could get an ipad2 for more than two months after its release because of the demand.

Definitely not the high end of the market.