Glenn asks:

> I'm afraid I don't understand the subject line of the post,
>  "Good ideas don't last very long."  What's the "good idea"?
>  Copying Apple's distinctive design -- even as far as having 5 colours --
>  to confuse the general public?

The "good idea" is having a "hip", all-in-one, ready-to-roll out-of-the-box
unit that kids, college students and families would like to buy, oriented
primary towards the internet and games.

But as to confusing the general public, fooey on Apple. If that were really
the case, Mercedes should have been suing Ford, GM, and all of the Japanese
car makers that made their cars look and feel like Mercedes, at one third the
price. More than that, all of the PC manufacturers that put their PCs
together in rectangular beige boxes that are completely identical to one
another should all be furiously suing each other. You can't tell one box from
another until you get within a few inches, close enough so that you can read
the label.

In the case of the beige, boxy PCs, no one is suing anyone else because
everyone agrees that they all have no "style", or "taste", or whatever.  They
are a purely functional design. Apple has its cart upset because they believe
that they have "style" -- and no one else has any.

Tough luck. A sense of high style and no style at all seem to me to rank at
exactly the same level: a wholly subjective judgement, incapable of carrying
any weight. All that you can quantitatively measure is the shape and color of
a box. Given that there are hundreds of competing brands of PCs out there
that are already indistinguishable -- and not confusing the customer -- Apple
would seem to have no case. Only sour grapes.

Wirt Atmar