VOA慢速英语:Apple's Lion Is Latest to Join Download-Only Trend

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. The release is download-only.
苹果Mac电脑最新版的桌面操作系统称为Mac OS X Lion。苹果公司称，这种最新升级的OS X系统有超过200个新特征。但是一个明显的区别就是公司将如何销售它。这次发布只提供网络下载。

Apple says Lion is coming to its App Store in July. 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.
苹果公司称，Lion将于7月在应用商店上市。价格为29.99美元。没有使用目前版本——Snow Leopard的用户就要多付30美元才能下载这个新发布的版本。

Last year, Apple had more than five hundred million dollars in sales of its desktop operating system.
去年，苹果公司桌面操作系统的销售额超过5亿美元。

Experts say download-only software is getting more common.
专家称，网络下载软件越来越普遍。

Dave Wolf is Vice President for Strategy 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.
大卫．沃尔夫是华盛顿Cynergy系统的策略副总裁。他的公司帮助软件设计者开发和出售产品。他称，许多人使用最多的计算机其实是手机。

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.
下载软件到智能手机上的用户总是希望软件可以快速和方便的升级。现在，大卫．沃尔夫称手机也促使人们对计算机产生这种预期。

DAVE WOLF: "I think this is a case where we’re seeing the same consumer demand, say, in a phone market moving to the desktop and the same consumer demand moving into work in the enterprise."
大卫．沃尔夫：“我觉得从这种情况下可以看出一样的消费者需求，例如，从手机市场转向电脑桌面，而同样的消费者需求也会转化成企业的工作。”

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.
可下载程序意味着更少的跑到商店购买软件。但是那也意味着依靠实物产品销售的商店将出售得更少东西，包括大部分电脑游戏。而且并不是每个人都有高速的网络连接来使下载又快又方便。

But Dave Wolf says the cost savings are a big help to small businesses trying to reach a wide market.
但是大卫．沃尔夫称，节省成本对试图开拓广阔市场的小型企业是非常有帮助的。

DAVE WOLF: "I think it’s a boon to small software companies and entrepreneurs who have incredible ideas and want to get them out to market.”
大卫．沃尔夫：“我觉得这对那些拥有惊人的想法并想将它们付诸实践的小型软件公司和企业来说是有益的。”

He says the Internet radio service Pandora, for example, can offer free music because it has no costs of selling discs in stores. This week Pandora began selling shares of stock to the public.
他说，例如互联网电台服务公司Pandora可以提供免费音乐，因为它不需要负担在商店卖光盘的成本。这一周，Pandora开始向公众出售它的股份。

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.
接下来的应该就是把软件储存在个人电脑上了。很多公司转向云计算。这样做是通过在大型数据中心中将软件储存在别人的服务器,以达到省钱的目的。

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.
这样，人们可以通过任何设备很容易就使用他们的音乐库或者其他的应用。苹果的iTunes用户还无法使用。现在，苹果公司认为它有一个名为iCloud的云计算解决方案。

And Microsoft has developed Windows Azure. This platform is for businesses and software developers to use Internet-based applications.
而且，微软公司已经开发了Windows Azure。这个平台式为了帮助企业和软件开发者使用基于因特网的应用.