OS and Software > All Things Macintosh > Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n

reply to leXicon5

Re: Apple to charge to unlock 802.11n

At least they have a valid reason.

"I’m not going to claim to understand this next part, which really just makes no sense to me at all, but the claim Apple’s making is that it _can’t_ give you the 802.11n-unlocking software for free. The reason: the Core 2 Duo Macs weren’t advertised as 802.11n-ready, and a little law called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature for one of its products. Hence, said the Apple rep, the company’s not distributing new _features_ in Software Update any more, just _bug fixes._ Because of Sarbanes-Oxley. If this is an accurate statement of Apple’s position, which as an attorney (but not one with any Sarbanes background) I find at least plausible, this is really crazy."

»backstage.ilounge.com/index.php/···c2d-mac/

I call BS on the SO excuse. I've downloaded plenty of software from Software Update that has enabled features that were not there before.

quote:

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According to the editor, the fee stems from a law called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature of an already sold product without enduring some onerous accounting measures.

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"Unfortunately I deal with SOX at work and it is a PITA."

Makes me glad I'm with a private company.

reply to MacWin
I'm in the software business. I can see the reasoning here. It could very well stem not so much from SOX (as it's called), but also existing contracts with gov't pricing schedules. This is a legitimate concern.

SOX rules prohibit you from selling "future features" with an existing sale. For example, if I were to sell you a piece of software, I have to represent what it does TODAY. I cannot give you "future" features. Most Software companies work around this with maintenance fees. You basically cannot sell what you do not have.

So, my guess is Apple is going to sell this as a new feature. Therefore, they can't give it away.

Stupid, but blame the accountants, Enron, MCI, and all the others that SOX came from.

reply to bbarrera
Advertising unavailable features is ALSO a violation.

"Advertising unavailable features is ALSO a violation."

Shhh the people on the front page thread might hear you and then what would they be able to bash Apple about.

What's that???

Easy enough

tell Application Airport

{give me my draft N}

end tell

Someone will find a way.
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It's a SYN, not to ACK your packets.

reply to russotto
then how did directv get away with sellng its hr-20 hddvr that had the connections for ota,network,ect... but did not work because they needed to be enabled via software updates once they got the outher bugs fixed.

reply to sporkme

reply to nolancj

The idea is that the software is not currently capable of doing things it can do in the future. The upgrade is an add-on after the fact in a development of doing something better, but you're not specifically hiding a current feature. It's also much more difficult to prove in software than it is in hardware.
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You're so vain... I bet you think this post is about you.

There are 2 things here:

1. Maintenance fees are how software companies (larger ones mostly) sell new features.
2. Small companies (like parallels) will fly under the radar with regards to these issues. They're also not a public company.

SOX has created a paranoia within companies, espeically those caught in finance scandals, stock option issues, revenue reporting problems, inventory tracking problems, etc.

SOX requires that adequate controls be put in place to manage ALL of the financial reporting within an organization, and requires the officers of the company to attest to their accuracy.

What that has done is put Finance in control of many, many companies. A BAD thing in my opinion. A few bad apples (Enron, MCI, etc), have ruined innovation and freedom in large public companies, in my humble opinion.

reply to The Dv8or
$5 probably will barely (if at all) cover the transaction fees and administrative costs for setting up a system just to collect and account for these costs. In all likelihood, they'd lose money on the deal. It sounds as if this went up the wrong chain or someone raised an alarm from legal and given that they are currently under the SEC's magnifying glass for screwing up recently, they are not taking any chances.

Of course it's silly, and Apple has to know that it will get nothing but bad press out of it. In other circumstances, they probably would just release the software upgrade simply as adding "compatibility with the new Airport extreme", like the WPA upgrade.

reply to yabos
Parallels, Inc. is privately held, thus SOX doesn't apply to them.

Apple's unlikely to go private, but it's not impossible. They'd need some deep-pocket investors.

reply to nolancj

reply to The Dv8or