Title:
Apple's Lion Is Latest to Join Download-Only Trend
in Software
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Apple's new version of its desktop operating system
for Mac computers is called Mac OS X Lion. Apple
says this latest OS X upgrade has over two hundred
new features. But one big difference is how the
company will sell it -- only by download at its Mac
App Store. The price is twenty-nine dollars and
ninety-nine cents. Users without the current
version, Snow Leopard, will have to pay an extra
thirty dollars to download the new release. Last
year, Apple had more than five hundred million
dollars in sales of its desktop operating system.
Experts say download-only software is getting more
common. Dave Wolf is a vice president at Cynergy
Systems in Washington. His company helps software
designers to develop and market products. He says
the computer that many people use most is their
mobile phone. People who download apps to
smartphones have come to expect quick and easy
software updates. Now, Dave Wolf says phones are
shaping expectations for other
computers.Downloadable programs mean fewer trips to
stores to buy software. But that can also mean fewer
sales for stores that depend on physical products,
including most video games. And not everyone has a
high-speed Internet connection to make downloads
quick and easy. But Dave Wolf says the cost savings
are a big help to small businesses trying to reach a
wide market. "I think it's a boon to small software
companies and entrepreneurs who have incredible
ideas and want to get them out to market."He says
the Internet radio service Pandora, for example, can
offer free music because it has no costs of selling
discs in stores. Pandora began selling shares of
stock to the public in June. Next to go may be
software stored on individual computers. Many
companies are moving to cloud computing. The idea is
to save money by storing software on somebody else's
servers in large data centers. This way people can
easily access their music library or other
applications from any device. This is not the case
for users of Apple's iTunes. Now Apple thinks it has
a solution with a cloud-computing service called
iCloud. And Microsoft has developed Windows Azure.
This platform is for businesses and software
developers to use Internet-based applications. For
VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villarreal. For daily
news and information plus activities for English
learners, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
