Somewhere, someone is wrong on the Internet
Picture the scene.
At the edge of a wood bordering the high mountain plain, a creature stands eating the last of the autumn RAM chips that have fallen from the magic trees that produce them. He must store up energy to survive the long winter that has already left the ground covered in a dusting of snow. As he chews slowly and thoughtfully, the pixies begin to nestle into his fur — a home they will claim until the spring thaws come.
Suddenly, the great beast pauses. He lifts his be-horned head and sniffs the wind. Alerted, the pixies burrow deep and his thick coat sparkles with their dust.
An ill wind is moving in from the southwest. The lesser beasts — the silken-furred jackalopes and hairy manelopes — have smelled it now too, and they bolt haphazardly into the forest.
But the Macalope breathes deep. He knows this smell. He knows what it means.
Somewhere, Rob Enderle has written something about Apple.
And he knows what he must do.
…
OK, that’s not exactly how it happened. The Macalope was getting some RAM chips and soda out of the pantry when he got an email from John Gruber saying “You want this one?” But his fur is full of pixies (they’re an excellent exfoliant).
Sooo, Mr. Enderle. What. To. Do. About. You?
You see, it’s fairly obvious what he’s doing here. As the horny one has noted, he’s come to realize that Rob is not as stupid as he’d have us believe. No, Rob is playing a part. It’s doubtful he truly believes what he writes about Apple. Lord knows no one else does.
Many an astute reader has wondered why the brown and furry one would reward such trolling with a link. Well, it’s not like traffic from the Macalope is really going to win Rob that coveted set of steak knives from the International Jackass Institute. And, really, you’re asking a creature with a Mac for a head not to respond to this? Clearly this is what the Macalope was born and bred for.
Plus, this one is like a quotation buffet. Take a look.
Unfortunately, the key part of the message for the new MacBook TV ad was the claim that it had the notebook computer that was the most green. Greenpeace almost immediately, and clearly opportunistically, branded Apple again as an environmental problem company, offsetting significantly the message Apple was trying to convey.
Right. Because we know how consumers just eat up those Greenpeace press releases.
In addition, the new Apple MacBook touchpads have been reported as broken, something that goes along with a number of other perceived quality problems with Apple’s latest products…
Perceived by who, Rob? You? Certainly not Apple customers. They sure beat the pants off your buddies at Dell. Crappy physician, heal thy crappy patient.
…most of which seem to be priced substantially more than the US$800 price ceiling that was identified at the Phoenix Technology conference I attended a few weeks back.
These ceiling comments are based on observed buying behavior after the economic collapse and, if true, given how expensive Apple’s PC products are, would indicate Apple is having problems selling its new PCs.
According to several guys down at the video place, Rob’s mustache exceeds the ceiling for tackiness for anyone not actually a ’70s porn star. If these ceiling comments are true, it could indicate that Rob was actually a porn star back in the ’70s.
No, what Rob means is that these comments would indicate that Apple might have problems selling its new PCs. Rob frequently seems prone to these leaps of logical faith when talking about Apple.
There is increasing speculation that there is a lower-cost Apple netbook coming, but it may arrive too late to offset Apple sales volume problems.
Sales problems we have shown conclusively through the use of third-party comments about their prices possibly being too high in this economy and through the use of Doug Henning-style magic! (Again, mustache.)
And what does this even mean, anyway? The Macalope keeps hearing people wondering aloud whether any price cuts by Apple will come “too late”. Apple has literally 8 million metric buttloads of cash on hand (no, you look the actual number up) and margins that offer a comfortable padding to cut into in hard times. Try that with a netbook, Rob.
Apple has substantial reserves, and there is little chance it will go under…
Go under? Go under what? The bleachers and make out with Anne Hathaway? That’s more likely.
Rob, having proved absolutely nothing, now brings it all not home.
…but it needs some lower-priced products in retail and simply may not have enough time this year to boost its 2008 numbers in the fourth quarter.
OK, so, after numerous years in the black and beating estimates quarter after quarter, Rob wants us to think that Apple suddenly has no idea how to sell computers. Well, it’s possible they’ve priced themselves out of this market.
It’s also possible Rob’s just doing it again.
You know which one the Macalope believes.
…
It’s the second one. Just so there’s no confusion.
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[…] The Macelope’s take: Somewhere, someone is wrong on the Internet […]
I hate Rob Enderle with a passion bordering on insanity.
The “go under” comment was the best. Well done! š
now that’s a post that’s been a long time comin!
Keep em up!
@Jason, I love him as long as he gives us paragraphs like:
> According to several guys down at the video place, Robās mustache exceeds the ceiling for tackiness for anyone not actually a ā70s porn star. If these ceiling comments are true, it could indicate that Rob was actually a porn star back in the ā70s.
Pure gold.
I hate Rob Enderle (aka the Fudmeister) so much that I won’t click on that link to his crappy article.
I’m getting bored of making fun of teh Enderle but The Macalope wins with the phrase
‘(no, you look the actual number up)’
Keep an eye out for when he conveniently ignores Apple’s next sales figures.
A traditional courtesy of the jackassed blowhard, of which he is so noble a member.
dude. Pixies?
That first graf is one of your best.
Oh. And thanks to Mr. E for bringing the woodland creature out of (ahem) some type of furry and as yet unexplained stupor, the lineage of which remains unimportant (unless it recurs, of course).
Here. Have some sweet feed. You earned it.
Does Enderle ever mention to his readers that he has been employed by Dell as a consultant? Seems a real conflict of interest to me.
[I would have checked myself, but I am not giving Enderle even a tenth of a cent by increasing his page view]
“Go under? Go under what? The bleachers and make out with Anne Hathaway? Thatās more likely.”
That’s so not fair. I have to work today. Also, I completely lost track of anything else you wrote.
Loved the post.
Amazed that you were able to completely disregard his mention of Dell’s new man-appropriate netbooks. Unsure if this quietly damns Dell’s earlier netbook attempts, all netbooks in general or Apple’s notebook lineup (anodized aluminum is the new pink.) Maybe the GDGT guys will pick up this thread.
All in all, a nice start to my day.
Even though Enderle is a pretty wide target, this was a fine read, Macalope. You have a sharp wit and a sharper tongue (wait, does a Macalope *have* a tongue?)
You have a typo on the second to last line:
“You know which on the Macalope believes.”
Should be “one”
I agree with Gruber’s comments from this morning.
I think Enderle’s brain can’t comprehend that the consumer computer system market can be heterogeneous. On the one hand, you have the commodity side with Microsoft supplying software to low-to-high-budget makers like Dell. On the other hand, you have the premium side with Apple creating completely bundled systems like way back in the early 1980s. Lo and behold, both types of systems can exist in this market and do well.
I would imagine Apple’s fourth quarter won’t be spectacular, but it won’t be a total disappointment. Apple has nothing to lose at this point and everything to gain, and it helps to be resting on all of that sweet cash that is sitting in a Nevada tax haven.
I was struck by the notion that gender is the main factor in whether one buys a netbook: an ultra-thin, 12-inch screen product that will appeal to men more than earlier, smaller-screened products will.
Silly me, I figured how you intended to use a netbook would make the difference in what screen size you wanted, not whether you were male or female (or a Macalope).
You should be paying Enderle, he’s like your Ed McMahon. He line’s ’em up and you knock ’em down. Pure gold.
Whatās funny is this post was read by *two* professionals other than the Macalope. They each found separate typos and there was yet a third all three of us missed. Editing!
I missed that typo, too. I just read it as “one.”
I am so proud that I have not clicked on Enderle’s link.
Still, like a broken clock he will eventually be correct. That will be annoying.
“Go under what? The bleachers and make out with Anne Hathaway?”
Awesome.
Now what the hell is the deal with the male/female differentiation dude throws in there. That’s just fucking confusing. Are smaller screened Dells pink and frilly smelling of lavender and jasmine?
I… think I just got stupider trying to figure that out…
…goodness, why would anyone want to make out with Anne Hathaway? I would hope that Apple has better taste than that.
Charlize Theron, on the other hand….
I am thoroughly amused not only by the the Macalope’s seemingly infinite supply of Enderle insults, but its ability to write fantastic openings to posts of this nature. Very nice.
I also thought I’d read a mention from old Steve Jobs about having something like 18 billion in the bank with no corporate debt…but alas, I’m unable to track down the article. Sigh.
Every time I hear the name Enderle, I only read crap from this guy. Why does anyone listen to his trolling? On Usenet, we had these nice ASCII-art warning signs āDonāt feed the trollā posted from time to time under troll postingsā¦ Too bad you cannot stick such things onto (Enderle) Web pages.
Enderle praises 12″ notebooks from Dell. But in my opinion 12″ devices are no (small, ultra portable) netbooks, or my 12″ iBook and PowerBooks were netbooks, too. Funny: He thinks, 9″ or 10″ netbooks are for women, while 12″ are for menā¦
Actually, I had bought a new MacBook or Pro this winter. But I cannot work with glossy screens and all the reflections on them. Unless Apple fixes this horrible glossy screen disaster real soon, I have to buy a new notebook from a different vendor (and get to used to Linux on the ādesktopā). I had the money to buy an Apple, but I donāt because of glossy products. Price is not sooo important for me, the quality is, and Appleās is quite good most of the time ā but just not with their current glossy displays.
I think the best part was that he complained bitterly about the high prices of Macs, then came up with the only non-Mac notebook that competes with Mac notebooks — the $2600 X301.
You mean that’s a reasonable price for a great computer that you like, Mr Enderle? It’s a good thing you worked so hard to prove your point.
“Sooo, Mr. Enderle. What. To. Do. About. You?”
IGNORE. HIM. Stop giving this tard broadcast time. Even if it’s to mock him. Enderle is an attention whore of the highest order, modeled after his lord and mentor, the infamous John Dvorak. Let Enderle toil in obscurity working on some doomed music strategy for Dell. Good grief, the guy is reveling in the attention his trollish rants attract.
STOP GIVING IT TO HIM!
Sheesh.
Me, I dream of an Enderle-free Internet…
baaaaa! baaaa!
Isn’t is obvious yet? Rob Enderle is simply the Ann Coulter of tech; intentionally spouting grossly incorrect (or simply gross) nonsense because he doesn’t actually have anything to say and desperately needs attention.
>Apple has literally 8 million metric buttloads of cash on hand (no,
>you look the actual number up)
OK.
$24 billion
$1 million (in ones) = 1 metric ton.
So, the math is easy. 24 thousand metric tons of cash, if it so desires it.
But this information allows us so FINALLY figure out what metric buttload is.
24,000 metric tons = 8 million metric buttloads –> 1 metric buttload = 3kg = 6.6 lbs
Wow. That’s much more than I thought.
Don’t forget, the Enderle Group is Rob AND his gerbil!
The Macalope keeps RAM chips in his pantry? Are they next to the chocolate chips?
“I wonāt click on that link to his crappy article”
Don’t worry, the ‘elope has done the heavy lifting with his Mac mounted horns… weeeeeeeeeeeee…… thud.
CEOLAF: The buttload is a unit of volume.
Guess how big 6.6 pounds of one dollar bills is?
The internet says a dollar bill’s volume is 0.06890922 cubic inches.
A dollar bill is estimated (by the internet, again) to weigh about a gram. Thus 6.6 pounds is just under 3000 bills. (Call it 3000 for ease of math.)
That makes for about 207 cubic inches of dollar bills (assuming perfect packing); more realistically we can double that, but let’s be conservative and call it 300CI.
300 cubic inches is just under 5 liters, or well over a gallon.
I think that’s a pretty significant “buttload”.
The link to the Enderle-Ballmer emails discovered within the āVista Capableā lawsuit: Priceless!
http://www.techflash.com/Enderle_Microsoft_Ballmer_conflicting_reality34812539.html
Enderle shills for BOTH msft and dell!
He needs to add this disclosure for all his commentary:
Disclosure: I shill for MSFT, DELL, and other Windows companies.
Call 800-EYE-SHILL for rates.
Hey, as long as we’re pointing out typos, “But the Macalope breaths deep.” should rather read “But the Macalope breathes deep”.
I’m just sayin’.
You overlooked a plum in the cornucopia of quotes, horned one. “Dell brought out its second netbook, a 12-inch model more appropriate for men…”
I’ve already got 12 inches of fun (a PowerBook G4 12″, I mean). My wife says a 17″ would be too much trouble.
But you know, Rob completely forgot to mention that he’s working for Dell in this article. Funny, that.
http://www.enderlegroup.com/profile_rob.htm
http://www.techflash.com/Enderle_Microsoft_Ballmer_conflicting_reality34812539.html
In the whole vast configuration of things, I’d say Rob Enderle’s nothing but a scurvy little spider.
Dear Mr. ‘Lope. The sad part of all this is that Enderle is considered credible enough to be paid for his opinions. The industry and financial analysts pay heed to that dreck.
I’d weep, but in the grand scheme of things it just doesn’t matter. Enderle is being paid by Dell to try to put out the Apple forest fire with an intellectual glass of water. I really hope they’re paying him well.
For those scoring at home, that $24 BILLION in cash (or cash equivalents).
And what does that net you, per share, in cash? $27 per share of AAPL’s price is pure cash.
What would it take to burn through all that cash? Well, for the sake of the Enderle’s in the audience let’s say that instead of selling however many units it sells per quarter Apple, I dunno, just GIVES IT ALL AWAY. For free. All of it.
NOW how long would it take Apple to “go under”? TWO YEARS.
Apple could give away everything it previously sold, keep doing R&D, pay all the staff, pay for all the gear, for TWO FREAKING YEARS.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Enderle.
> Perceived by who, Rob? You? Certainly not Apple customers.
You mean, aside from stories on AppleInsider , MacNN , CNET , and ArsTechnica , as well as a Apple Discussions thread with over two hundred posts?
Yeah, I’m sure it’s just like ROUSes — I don’t think any problem (real or perceived) ever existed.
Enderle has proven himself time after time to be every bit the jackass you allege. But facile, dismissive, and ill-supported remarks like this on your part don’t exactly demonstrate your wisdom, either.
/HR
Dang. WordPress scrubs links inside brackets. Would be nice if there were a way to preview before submitting. Anyway, here they are in plain text, in order:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/03/apple_investigating_problems_with_macbook_pros_glass_trackpad.html
http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/11/03/macbook.trackpad.problems/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10082310-37.html
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/11/03/apple-rep-were-looking-into-macbook-pro-trackpad-issues
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1763231&tstart=0
Oh, and as of this morning, a Google search on “macbook touchpad problem” turns up over 1.2 million results (including some very old articles); “macbook pro touchpad problem” yields about 880K results.
Henry, the problem with stories on MacNN and comments on Apple’s support forums and Google searches is that they’re not a valid statistical measure of the quality of the product. Customer satisfaction surveys are.
For example, when the Macalope was on CNet, his pieces would sometimes get posted to multiple properties owned by CNet, jacking up the hit count. The same is true now that he’s on Macworld. His pieces get republished on PC World and other properties owned by IDG.
We go through this every time Apple comes out with a new product. The Macalope’s not denying there are problems – of course there are. The question is are they worse than they are with any other new product?
The only valid statistical indicator of Apple’s quality is the customer satisfaction numbers. We don’t have fail rates because Apple would never publish them.
Also, look what Rob’s doing there versus what you’re linking to. You’re talking about just the MacBook while Rob slips in “…a number of other perceived quality problems…” in an attempt to say Apple’s just pumping out crap across the board without any link or explanation. Apple’s customers don’t agree.
I believe his 70s porn moniker was “The Earl of End.”
About that “’70s porn star” mustache; I thought he’d swiped a photo of Peter North or some such thespian without proper credit. As other people have noted, ‘ethics’ is a six-letter word being applied to a four-letter kind of guy.
I’d actually have (some) respect for the Robber if he’d stick a parenthetical after his first mention of Dell, e.g., “(Fair disclosure: I am a paid consultant for Dell and have been since MM/YYYY. I have also been employed by Lenovo, HP and the Tooth Fairy, but never by Apple.)”
But I think he knows the effect that would have on even the most gullibly shill-friendly reader.
Journalism is no longer a profession.
Have you seen Enderle recently? He looks about 50 years older and 100 pounds heavier than his profile pic. This committed shill lifestyle sure takes its toll on aging and despite his increased poundage, he is as ever, a lightweight.
Enderle is useful in one way. IF you always believe the opposite of anything he says, you will be well informed.