Is there no larger contingent of armchair corporate CEOs than Apple fanatics? Let’s examine the so-called wealth of opinion out there and see how it measures up.Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Back in 1996, I had the opportunity to travel with a friend to San Francisco, where he was going to visit Stanford and Berkeley as potential grad school locations. I went for two reasons:
- To leave the early-spring bitterness of Toronto for a five day trip to Paradise;
- To make a pilgrimage to Cupertino, headquarters of Apple Computer!
Admittedly, the second goal was the most important. After all, what kind of Mac Geek would I be if I couldn’t claim to have placed my hands on my own Kaaba?
So it was with great wonder and awe that I approached 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino. The headquarters are a ring of six buildings with a central park where well-heeled employees caper and play when they’re not busily manufacturing world-beating computer products.
It wasn’t until I was standing before the receptionist’s desk that I realized my error. In all my excitement and anticipation, I had neglected to plan for this moment. To this day, I kick myself for having been so stupid; I blame it on youth.
Do you have an appointment?’ The receptionist asked.
‘Well, no”, I answered. ‘I’ve come from Toronto to see the corporate headquarters. You don’t offer tours?’
The receptionist looked as if I was the eight millionth person to have come here and asked. Perhaps I was. ‘Do you know someone here?’ She offered, for the eight millionth time.
And that ended it. I was allowed to walk the lobby, take some pictures of the inner sanctum through a plate glass window, and buy some funky trinkets at the company store. It was, when all was said and done, a very dispiriting experience.
I felt let down. Rejected by a company that I had adored, admired, respected.
Well, let’s not make too much of this. I continue to advocate the Mac, and I still respect and admire the company. But these days, it’s for more mature, dare I say, rational reasons.
Apple Computer is a publicly-traded business. The purpose of a business is to generate profit for shareholders. The purpose of a business is not to cater to the needs of a minority of fans.
This distinction appears to be lost among some in the Macintosh community. This is a group of folks who grapple with what they would love to have Apple do, as if they were Apple’s only customer. So without further ado, here is a sample of some recent armchair CEO-ing for your enjoyment… with commentary.
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iCheap. This extensive discussion on Macintouch is just one of many places where Mac users seek an inexpensive ‘headless’ Mac. They cite market share as their primary argument for Apple adding a sub-$500 computer to their product line. Surely, they argue, if there were a very inexpensive Mac on the market, all the fence-sitters and secret Windows-haters would finally make the leap. How many forum-posters have uttered those words, ‘I’d go Mac, but they’re too expensive’?
Repeat after me: Apple is a business. Sure, the iCheap might convert a few Windows users, but it would also convert a lot of iMac and eMac users, and Apple needs those margins to stay competitive. Let’s not forget the clone debacle of the mid-nineties. Power Computing, Motorola, Daystar and others made cheap Macs, and they came this close to putting Apple out of business. The last thing they’d do is risk that kind of danger again.
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Licencing FairPlay. MacRumors.com recently hosted this well-discussed tidbit about RealNetworks’ offer to licence Apple’s DRM software for its music store. As we have learned, Apple has rejected the offer, preferring instead to stand alone as the only service offering protected AAC files for play on the iPod, and for sale online. Many people decry the decision, pointing out that Real will now likely take on Microsoft’s WMA format. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, goes the logic.
Hogwash. Repeat after me: Apple is a business. To quote a recent story on the subject , Apple is the undisputed king of the music download business. Real’s share of that market is so vanishingly small that it’s not even worth mentioning; Napster is the boogie-man in this story.
And let’s never forget the main point of the music store and the FairPlay format: to sell more iPods. And it’s working: Apple is now selling more iPods than all their Macs combined. Because Apple is a business, their focus on making money rather than playing ego games with other companies means they don’t have to dilute the brand with other services. That’s what Apple has always been about.
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Charging for OS Updates. It’s the annual belly-acher’s reunion. Since the introdution of OS X, Apple has released a major yearly update to the OS, and each one has been a solid, clear improvement over the previous version. It started with the original Cheetah release, and went a year later to the free 10.1 release of Puma, which cleared up so many of the initial OS’ growing pains. But with a solid baseline, Apple started improving on the original, with Jaguar and finally Panther, which brought tremendous performance and feature improvements. But the latter two releases cost $129 a pop (and that’s US dollars!).
Repeat after me: Apple is a business. For those who complained that they were forced to pay for these upgrades… grow up. I’ve got Apple’s 2003 Annual Report on my desk here, and on page 32, it says the company spent $14.7 million developing Panther, and $13.3 million developing Jaguar. You can’t just eat that and expect to stay in business.
Most companies can run their business, and the only people who care are Wall Street analysts. For Apple, however, the story is vastly different. As sole guardians of the Macintosh platform, a critical error that puts them out of business means the end of the Mac. So, like a pack of berserking mothers-in-law, we worry and muse aloud about what we would do if we were raising the baby.
Fortunately, this baby is doing just fine, thank you. Having made it through the recession as the only computer company (along with Dell) to turn a profit, Apple chose to innovate instead of insulate. The new OS and the iPod are just the beginning; we should all sit back and enjoy our role as spectators more than critics.
About the author:
Aaron Vegh is a newsletter editor and freelance publisher based near Toronto, Canada. His machines include a Fedora server, Gentoo laptop and his beloved G4.
Apple is absolutely a business, and its most important responsibility is to the shareholders.
However, this doesn’t mean this analysis is correct. I strongly disagree that “iCheap” would be a bad policy, and there are many rewards to be reaped by a larger user base.
In fact, in one form or another I partly or totally disagree with almost all of these points, and still from the very same perspective: Apple is a business with a responsibility to the shareholders.
I agree with it all, It seems more and more people want something with high quality yet want that high end product to be free, or at low quality level prices.
While this is good in theory it just doesnt work to sustain a company over long period of time due to fluctuations in the economy.
That’s an old Myth.
It’s NOT true.
Each Cloner was paying a license to Apple. Each Cloner through it’s sales was expanding the Macintosh Market. Apple’s Marketshare EXPANDED when they had Licensed cloners.
Why they were shut down, was because they were eating Apple’s Lunch.
They were producing BETTER Macs, cheaper.
After shutting down the last cloner, Motorola. It took Apple over a year to produce a Power Mac that beat the performance of the High End Power Towers and StarMax systems.
This was NOT about Money. Apple was making money on EVERY sale of a clone, and not incurring ANY cost.
And making more money as the expanded base bought MacOS Upgrades. My Power Computing PowerCenter 132 came with MacOS 7.5.2, I bought MacOS 7.6 through 9.0 for it as they came out.
Apple made money every time.
And if that computer could run MacOS X, I’d have bought a copy of THAT for it too.
Microsoft is NOT a Computer Company, and they are the pretty darn successfull, with decent margins.
Apple has never learned the Free Market adage of making less profits on MORE unit sales. They prefer to have high margins on low unit sales. OK.
Just don’t lie and say clones were killing Apple.
Apple was killing Apple by not licensing back their better Power Mac Designs, or competing with the cloners on the open market.
Their idea of winning the competition was sinking all the competitors by pulling their license.
We have less advanced Macs than we might have, thanks to that.
Cloners would have pushed Motorola and IBM (not to mention that Processor Company Apple bought shares in and shut down), to come out with faster processors.
We might easily have PPC Chips as fast as Intel, if we had manufacturers to sell them, and push for their development.
That processor company was Exponential, and I’m an Apple Stock Holder.
I agree with you Phuqker. Last year I wrote this: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4037 and I still believe that it might be a good idea to use an off-shoot spin-off company to deliver cheap “Mac-like” PCs with OSX for the masses (with updated specs of course, that article is a year old). Kinda like bringing back the “clones”, however under a very pre-defined and Apple-driven company, taking decisions that wouldn’t put the higher end Apple products in danger.
Here are updated specs for that last year’s article:
Low End
1 GHz G4 + 128 KB cache (that’s the new G3 with the G4 instructions)
256 MB SDRAM PC2700
32 MB ATi Radeon 7500 AGP 2X
30 GB ATA-100 Maxtor disk
2 USB 2.0 + 1 USB 1.0 on keyboard
1 FW 400
USB keyboard, USB optical mouse with wheel and 2 buttons
built-in stereo speakers, line in, line out, mic, onboard audio
24x-dvd/cdrw (combo drive)
56k modem
ethernet
2 free PCI slots, 1 occupied AGP
slot for airport extreme
US $299
Higher End:
1 GHz G4 + 256 KB cache (that’s the new G3 with the G4 instructions)
256 MB SDRAM PC2700
32 MB GeForce4-MX AGP 2X
40 GB ATA-100 Maxtor disk
2 USB 2.0 + 1 USB 1.0 on keyboard
1 FW 400, 1 FW 800
USB keyboard, USB optical mouse with wheel and 2 buttons
builtin stereo speakers, line in, line out, mic, onboard audio
32x-cdrw-dvd (combo drive)
56k modem
ethernet
2 free PCI slots, 1 occupied AGP
built-in WiFi/Bluetooth antenna + slot for airport extreme
US $399
I had the impression, after discussions here and there, that it was mainly PC users who were dying for these things.
You have any links or prooof of these claims, or should i just take your word for it?
I am curious how you think that Apple could make money selling such a system when other companies are losing money selling computers with the same configuration but at a higher price?
Have you looked at what you can get from Dell or HP for $399? It’s pretty much nothing.
Well mostly, you stated the obvious truth but the comments you make sound more like a non Mac users. Most Mac users defend the price of the hardware and usually state that the yearly updates are well worth the money (which they are).
You misunderstood. You didn’t read the article that I link. These “PCs” would NOT be by Apple, they would be by a spin off company under the supervision of Apple. And they WON’T be Dell/Apple-quality, they would be white box PCs pretty much, but just with a bit of polish. That article was written last year when the Switch campaign was on its forte. It was suggestion on how to get more PC users to switch.
Please use the right subject line when replying.
iCheap would mean a bigger market share, not necessarily a bigger revenue for Apple because of the lower margins. Market share is more important in the long term, bigger revenue on the short term.
I hope Apple will also think in the long term if it wants to attract cocoa developers.
I don’t agree on the Fairplay issue. If Apple’s goal is to sell more iPods surely having more music available would be good for them, no? And since they have publicly stated that they lose money on every song sold through iTunes, why not let Real incur some of that cost? The only reason I can think of that they wouldn’t want to do this is that they feel that Real’s service is not up to the Apple standards.
That’s precisely what we do best: minding other peoples’ business.
“This is what Arsenal / the Labour Party / Apple / your sister should do.”
It’s a sign that a lot of people care, which can only be good.
IMO lots of non-Mac people are vocal with their Apple-advice too, so it’s not fair pointing your finger at the Mac lovers only.
Apple can build an OS that can compete in both server and desktops, using linux 2.6. There are a lot of demand for this outside USA.
Along with this:
Cheap IA32 machines, to compete with Dell/HP.
Powerfull IA64 servers, including aplications servers.
Apple Softwares.
Apple can take 95%, if not more, of linux market. Just take a look at their server and compare it with both Red Hat and SUSE. If I had an Apple Linux, with all their easy to use tools and great desktop, running on pc hardware, that’s what I would recommend to our customers/clients. If I had to replace an old server, well, I would put an Apple at first place. They would loose to Dell/HP just if the price was too high.
They have the chance now, they have Unix expertise, they have Aqua, they have de development tools, they have a lot of good apps and they have the muscle to do that. If they want to recover the market share they had once, the time is now.
If they do nothing or refuses to do that, well, I think that they will be in troble. In one side you have Microsoft, the almighty of computing. At another corner you will find linux, growing fast. And when you talk about hardware, outside USA (mainly in development countries), Mac hardware if virtually unknow.
Apple has nice computers and software that have failed in the market.
Apple has nice media toys that have been a stunning success in the market.
In the future they will be making more of one and less of the other. You figure it out. You do not need a Mac to use the iPod. That should be your first clue as to where they are headed.
Jobs sees the writing on the wall – digital media, not computer hardware. Think about it – what is his other job?
Mac fans will soon join the ranks of Amiga and Be oddballs, clining to “what coulda been”.
…and I’m sure lots of others do too. Apple has to change their luxury PC strategy because their market share is slipping fast. A cheap, headless eMac priced between $499-$599 would be an excellent way to increase their userbase, and therefore increase OSX upgrade sales, iSight sales, .mac subscriptions, iPod sales, Pro Suite software sales, Apple monitor sales, etc. They have to start thinking about their hardware kind of like digital satellite providers and cell phone providers and game consoles and printer manufacturers do; razor-thin margins (sometimes even a loss) on the hardware in order to sell add-ons and services.
That’s my armchair CEO advice for the day.
And why would Apple go in for this? What immediate advantage would Apple get for using linux over darwin?
not only that, but it is possible to cut costs and pass those savings to consumers by using generic parts
imagine what it would cost to build a clone Mac with a motherboard in generic ATX form factor, generic ATX case, ATX PSU, socket 370/athlon heatsink and fan, with 7 PCI slots, generic USB peripherals like keyboard and mouse?
but boots OS X, royalties paid to Apple.
apple would still get $ for the OS X sold on it (and moto and ibm for the powerpc sold on it).
i don’t think anyone remembers it now, but i do remember there was a company attempting to introduce POWERPC 603 at super fast speeds for the time — and cloners were willing to buy it but apple closed the cloners.
Some of us don’t care for sugar coated cases.
if Palm could split to hardware and OS it’s too bad Apple didn’t follow suit.
NO ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT HP/COMPAQ IBM and EMACHINES would sell AMD processors.
maybe today first tiers like Dell, IBM, Emachines, etc. would be offering Mac clones
> Apple can build an OS that can compete in both server and desktops, using linux 2.6.
No thanks.
Eugenia, So you are referring sub-brand spinoffs like Dimension by Dell and IBM’s Ambra line.
That model has a proven track record for failure. Dimension was reabsorbed back into Dell and name was used for their consumer model. IBM completely axed the Ambra company and I believe they laid everyone off.
I certainly hope Apple doesn’t go down that road.
“Is there no larger contingent of armchair corporate CEOs than Apple fanatics?”
Yes, Apple haters and wannabees.
1. iCheap — People who are too cheap or too poor to buy a Mac.
2. Licensing FairPlay — people who claim the iPod is too expensive or no good but still want the power of the iPod, iTMS, and iTunes
3. OS Upgrades — this complaint I hear most frequently from PC users who have no clue. They think XP is significantly different than 2000 but that Jaguar and Panther are just Service Packs. They think we are charged for security updates, that updates are always restricted to new versions, that we are forced to upgrade, etc…
Basically, this article is crap. You act as if you’ve come up with some new angle on preaching what Apple should or should not do… when really this is a thinly-veiled and poor rationalization for being an armchair CEO yourself. What’s the point?
From: Joerlei P. Lima
And when you talk about hardware, outside USA (mainly in developing countries), Mac hardware is virtually unknown.
It’s probably not unknown. However, in a lot of countries outside the U.S., the cost of purchasing a Mac – once exchange rate *and* reasonable overheads are factored in – is many hundreds of $ extra. Whether it’s reasonable profit or not is beside the point, in that rather than doing up a PC with the same specs and getting a similar price, the PC ends up costing less – sometimes a lot less.
Now despite that, Apple makes a fair % of their revenue on international (outside U.S.) sales. Which shows that Apple is a U.S. company with U.S. centric issues. Their units around the globe only have a small amount of latitude to market and distribute Apple’s products differently than in the U.S., which is likely a big factor in their continuing lack of success. This is changing, but too slowly.
This armchair’s comfortable…
Apple’s overall OS market share took a dive as part of the incredibly poor quality of the clones. The only one that came close to having decent systems was Power… and even those systems were horrible. We tried them instead of Macs from Apple and they were a constant source of crashes and bombs.
Apple’s computers from the same period were very stable in contrast.
The clone debacle was just that. Licensing fees aside Apple was and is FAR better off without them.
> incredibly poor quality of the clones.
That’s why my suggestion is about an Apple-derived company, directed by Apple and helped by Apple engineering.
computers. they are already on the verge of being relegated to a niche machine. 1.8% of current sales worldwide is niche.
10.1 was not free unless you met certain circumstances.
Apple did not provide it for download free. You had to pay 19.99 to order a cd or some select retailers got a limited distribuition of discs they could give out for free.
that did not help folks living in areas with no access to a store that had them…or the folks that made it to a store after they ran out of the free copies.
For a minute there I thought you were Joking!
The Linux Kernal is great because it is GPL, it supports lots of hardware, and is free, but for apple to dump Mach in favour of Linux would be suicide. Mach/Darwin provide an integrated MicroKernal for OSX, while Linux is a Monolithic Kernal with Modular Drivers. I know what I’d prefer.
If Apple really did want to head down the GPL path, they’d be much better starting with HURD, since it is closer to Mach than Linux and can be scultured in a way that Apple Requires simply because it is less Mature than Linux.
But why would they want to head down the GPL path anyway? Darwin with Mach is OpenSource, and although the Licence is more Proprietory than BSD or GPL, it still garners development and improvement from the OpenSource community.
Most of the Linux Market is the domain of System Operators who want a reliable system that They have complete control over. A company like Apple would not only not be accepted, they would be completely rejected, except for a few “Linux for the Desktop” Groupies.
Also the whole OpenSource Philosophy is “Diversity”. Without Diversity the OpenSource Movement would stagnate to such a degree that people would stop upgrading thier computers and the whole industry would colapse; just like what Microsoft is Heading towards.
Apple is doing a classic shift to a high-end niche market in response to the rising quality of commodity products.
they have clearly taken the decision that they will not compete with low-end vendors (i think Steve Jobs said this in a conference call recently), so where can they go?
come on, this is old buisness school stuff: when commodity products improve, the high-end products must shift themselves up-market to maintain a differentiation.
this is why it was so important for Apple to trumpet things like 64-bit computers. they help them move higher up and further apart from those less expensive (but pretty darn good) Dells.
when Dells go 64-bits, Apple will have to think of somethign else to move up-market again. etc. it is neverending.
the problem (read “The Innovator’s Dilemma”) is traditionaly that consumers will stop moving upward with the high end vendor. they’ll switch down to something that is still cheap, and has gotten pretty darn good.
even today … how many choose Dells and how many choose a dual G5?
“computers. they are already on the verge of being relegated to a niche machine. 1.8% of current sales worldwide is niche.”
In this regard, you are speaking off them as strictly a hardware manufacturer, yes?
1.8% worldwide is not niche. It is sixth place. Dell and HP lead. IBM, Gateway-eMachines, and Toshiba follow. Then Apple. Everyone besides Dell adn HP are in single digits for marketshare %. And all other vendors are in the fractions of a percent.
“10.1 was not free unless you met certain circumstances.”
Yeah, if you owned 10.0. Oooh… what horrible requirements. Did you expect it to be free if you hadn’t bought 10.0?
“Apple did not provide it for download free. You had to pay 19.99 to order a cd or some select retailers got a limited distribuition of discs they could give out for free.
that did not help folks living in areas with no access to a store that had them…or the folks that made it to a store after they ran out of the free copies.”
What are you blabbering about? Something from almost 3 years ago that was very equitable is going to kill Apple’s future? Whatever.
Why would people be even interested in using this? Most people would discard a linux-based x86 MacOS as being incompatible with Windows straight away, and ignore it. And among linux users, there’s plenty of people who actually believe in the whole open source philosophy, who wouldn’t touch it. Then there’s people like myself who despise Apple’s application-based GUI (with shared menu bar, etc), who wouldn’t touch it with a forty foot pole. I’m perfectly happy with my Debian linux system – I’ve got all the software I want or need, I’ve got a fast, powerful, customizable desktop, and I’ve got it all for zero cost. Now Tell me what advantage paying a few hundred dollars per year in updates would provide to me, or any other linux user out there, compared to what we’ve got now.
Well, in many ways I agree with him on the various topics but this one i have a problem with. This icheap thing needs to be split into two seperate things, because their is 2 seperate issues here.
A large group just wants a headless imac (a new cube if you will). A basic computer like the imac or emac without a monitor. The arn’t looking for it to be massively cheap. Something in the 750-1000 dollar range, same as a current emac or above, just no monitor, they arn’t shooting for it to cost less. It’s just that the monitor with it is a huge negitive, especialy with the emac.
The other side is those who want the cheap mac. This would be similar to above but insanely cheap. I support the computer above (miniPowermac) but not so much the cheap computer. Apple like you say is a business. Though this is why it would make so much sense for either. Those who are the armchair types like he was talking of, those who are the elitest mentality, don’t want to see either. From a business standpoint you cannot argue against it. A dip in sales from your other product for a massive growth in another is worth it. Also as was hinted by the author apple has said they want to hit 5% in sales. Such a model is the only way to achive that. Also he some how brought the clones into this which had nothing to do with it. Apple is still making them. The only reason why the clones hurt them is because they were not making money on hardware, which after all is what apple is, a hardware company.
At any rate you should not mix those who want a headless imac with those who want a cheap mac, because though often the same they are very much not the same group.
The rest of his comments where solid.
“Fortunately, this baby is doing just fine, thank you. Having made it through the recession as the only computer company (along with Dell) to turn a profit”
how can one write such patently false material.
one, dell and apple are not just computer companies: they are retailers that sell software from third parties, they sell services, they sell entertainment devices, they run stores, etc etc etc…in addition to making and selling computers.
so, of all the major corporations that sell computers as a major element of their business, only those two made a profit during some recession that the writer refers to.
the recession in japan? the tech downturn after the massively inflated spending that led up to the Millenium? be clearer please.
profit? as in yearly profits? quarterly profits?
so the writer is a thorough industry analyst that is telling us that the following have not had profit “during” some recession…(I presume recently):
IBM: wrong they have had profits
Fujitsu
HP
Siemens
Acer
Toshiba
Panasonic
Emachines
Abspc.com
Polywell
Unisys
the point is there are many computer companies that made a profit in most of the quarters in recent years.
Dont spread distortions.
Your peevishness is so telling.
This comment is frequently made and frequently udnerstood by most everyone but you. Why?
To clear up your questions: US recession of course. Retaling software and services has nothing to do with it. Yes, we are talking major players.
At the time (we have gotten past the recession you realize), eMachines was both unprofitable and not major. Unisys is not a PC manfuaturer, they are a systems integrator. Panasonic is not a PC manufacturer, they are a consumer electronics company, etc…
The point you are missing is that in the past decade when everyone has been predicting Apple’s demise, we have seen tens of PC manufacturers come and go…. We are getting down to just 4 of them soon…
actually yes,
“What are you blabbering about? Something from almost 3 years ago that was very equitable is going to kill Apple’s future? Whatever.”
it already has (along with many other bad moves).
there has been much discussion over recent years about the cost of going to OS X. For a classic mac os user, you had to pay to get the beta….apple did not provide it free.
if you bought 10.04 (still beta actually), 10.1 was only free if you happened to be fortunate enough to be first in line at a store that had the discs in stock. otherwise you paid.
you have paid each year to get updates.
you paid in many cases to upgrade old macs (pre g3) so that you could run os x.
you paid in many cases too for all new third party software because it either didnt run in classic mode or ran with too many issues.
you paid for new third party hardware in many cases because legacy equipment did not work with x…especially the huge commitment many mac users had put into scsi over many many years. apple just said hey, lets move to firewire, so what if you have thousands invested in scsi scanners and hard drives etc etc.
add all that up and you have the Switch Campaign alright: its called 5% of market was Apples when Jobs launched the iMac and now it is 1.8% six years later. The Switch Campaign is to move to Windows.
not, major? Emachines sells more machines than Apple.
When exactly was this recession you speak of? Please provide a beginning and end date.
And all of the things that apple does matters: in fact if Apple did nothing but collect investment returns on their 4 billion dollar hoard of cash they would make more profit than they have been in recent years from all of their other operations combined. the fact is they have many divisions that are losing money…Macs now being the main one most likely. they need that cash/investments just to cover other losses.
ipods saved apple this previous quarter, not mac sales.
add all that up and you have the Switch Campaign alright: its called 5% of market was Apples when Jobs launched the iMac and now it is 1.8% six years later. The Switch Campaign is to move to Windows.
You obviously know nothing about marketshare. Apple could sell the amount of computers year over year and if the computer market swells without them getting much of the increase, then their own marketshare goes down because of it. This has no affect on their actual installed userbase. Apple has maintained a 3 million plus in Macs sold year to year these last few years. The Apple Stores have claimed that %50 of their sales go to new (previous Windows) users. So I would venture to say that the Switch campaign worked out as planned.
The Windows marketshare will fall to that of Linux in the end. Consumers always go for the cheapest alternative and Linux is “good enough” for daily computer use today!
Jobs during the last shareholdes meeting says clearly that the concept of a cheap portable computer for Apple is stupid, so they develop iPod.
Than, Apple already has an iCheap product: iPod, that it sells better than what f***ing portable computer and/or digital media player of other companies.
The primary differect between Apple and any other computer companies is this: JOBS IS A GENIUS! 😀 Nothing more, nothing less. Not Carly Fiorina, not Michael Dell (bleah…).. Bill Gates in any way. 🙂
The only thing that other companies (and their users, like you) is a GREAT ENVY! Big smacks for all! :-*
PS Yes, I’m a Mac Zealot with a new VERY CHEAP iBook 12″! 😀
Actually you are quite wrong.
Apple sold more macs in 1999 than they did in 2003.
their volume is going down in macs as well as their share of the overall market.
“Apple has maintained a 3 million plus in Macs sold year to year these last few years. The Apple Stores have claimed that %50 of their sales go to new (previous Windows) users.”
actually, those two things together seem to say that people are leaving the platform about as fast as they arrive (to maintain the recent 3m rate, down from the highs of iirc 4.5m).
i think it is likely that they are trading users at this point. value shoppers have probably gone to dells, and some new affluent buyers have arrived to might the high-end products.
but this niche will have to move too. combine a slightly better linux (or 64 bit windows) with a slightly faster opteron and the G5 stops looking so extreme.
it might become a bit of history repeating itself, as apple waits for the g6 to move them upmarket again … or?
i wonder what happens when the pc side gets fast, cheap, and supported 64-bit machines ….
@Author: YES, I AGREE APPLE IS BUSSINES
Conclusions:) (:as from NOT Apple loving person:)
1. Apple customers agree to buy broken product more than once.
Apple releases OSX versions in very quick fashion. 10.0 and 10.1 never worked as it should (And the only way to fix them is upgrading to new major release, where software you used is found likely to be incompatible). But Apple still charges for new release (???$). Cycle of upgrade is shorter than one year.
2. Apple customers are still thinking that Apple is open source, I for once agree with the author: APPLE IS BUSSINES
No, it’s not. The only things Apple made open sourced are Darwin (should be PC compatible, but supporting only few very old and obscure PC hardware, chances you find compatible machine are close to 0%) and Quicktime Streaming server (which I once even thought to use but as I was reading license I stoped at 1/4 where license become even more ****ed up than M$ EULA), and few parts of contributions to KHTML, which I still think were the parts that they felt that they will make their life easier with using base KHTML in future
They haven’t opensourced Aqua, Quicktime (sorensen) or any patented technology (nor should they, at least I compliment them for that, that fact really makes me happy).
Sooo, is Apple even a little OSS-friendly? Hell, no. Not even a bit more than in times of OS9.
3. I felt let down. Rejected by a company that I had adored, admired, respected
Apple users probably think that Apple cares about them. Face it, author said it,…
That story made me laugh. Thanks:)
I don’t know what author expected going into company. Cake and cookies maybe, along with a nice chat with mr. Jobs???
4. iCheap?:)
Yeah, and what it will run? Probably not OS9 (This one is now OS DEAD). OSX is still dog slow on machines with specified characteristics. That would make very bad publicity for Apple, there’s a little life fact that says that people mostly buy cheapest. Even the most selling Apple brand is always the cheapest of the line (do not confuse iBook and Powerbook or iMac and Gx, they are completely different product)
But then again, wait year or two when current G5 is outdated (and including the fact that it would be decent to run OSX version being current in that time). iCheap would be possible.
———
This is just a little rant from a ex-longtime Mac customer, who is now happy (or Macless) and very amused with such logic as it was shown here
btw. Apple made more patent and other legal confusion than any other company (M$ included).
“Jobs during the last shareholdes meeting says clearly that the concept of a cheap portable computer for Apple is stupid, so they develop iPod. ”
wouldn’t that be the iBook? for a cheap portable computer.
I don’t think anyone is connecting cheap and portable together for something they are looking for. If it’s a desktop it stays on the desk, if it’s a laptop it moves around. Is there some group planning lan parties with macs or something?
I would agree with Jobs that a cheap portable computer would be stupid, but no one has asked for one far as I know. Cheap computers yes (some have asked). Lesser function computers yes. Portable, well they have laptops. Though a iBook hooked into a real monitor and keyboard might make a nice slim computer.
“if you bought 10.04 (still beta actually), 10.1 was only free if you happened to be fortunate enough to be first in line at a store that had the discs in stock. otherwise you paid.”
No, I got it free. CompUSA and every Mac reseller in my area were burning dics.
“you have paid each year to get updates.”
No, I haven’t. I didn’t pay for 10.1 and I haven’t paid for 10.3 yet.
“you paid in many cases to upgrade old macs (pre g3) so that you could run os x.”
No, I didn’t. I abandoned anything pre-G3 way before OS X. I still run OS X on a 400 MHz iMac DV edition by the way.
“you paid in many cases too for all new third party software because it either didnt run in classic mode or ran with too many issues.”
No, I didn’t. I have slowly bought new applications as I felt they were worth upgrading for. Otherwise, I ran alternatives that were free, used Classic which I never experienced major problems with, or I rebooted into 9.
“you paid for new third party hardware in many cases because legacy equipment did not work with x…especially the huge commitment many mac users had put into scsi over many many years. apple just said hey, lets move to firewire, so what if you have thousands invested in scsi scanners and hard drives etc etc.”
No, I didn’t. SCSI was abandoned long before OS X, buddy. Even with 10.0 the only device that I had that didn’t run properly was a FW CD burner. I bitched at the manufacturer and 3 months later, they had a driver. When 10.1 was released, the OS included a better driver. I have 2 printers, a scanner, 2 external HDs, an external CD burner, and a few other peripherals by the way.
“Emachines sells more machines than Apple.”
No sh!t, they just passed them this year. Where are you from? The recession was in 2000.
“And all of the things that apple does matters”
huh?
“in fact if Apple did nothing but collect investment returns on their 4 billion dollar hoard of cash they would make more profit than they have been in recent years from all of their other operations combined.”
And? What’s wrong with that? Although it’s not true, but whatever…
“the fact is they have many divisions that are losing money…Macs now being the main one most likely. they need that cash/investments just to cover other losses.”
What divisions are you speaking of? They don’t have a “Macs” division. They don’t have losses, right now, fool.
Actually you are quite wrong.
Apple sold more macs in 1999 than they did in 2003.
their volume is going down in macs as well as their share of the overall market.
Actually you’re wrong. Apple has been pretty consistent (with the numbers on most of their product line shifting) selling anywhere from 700,000 to 800,000 units per quarter year over year. 1999 stands the fact of the iMac craze and nothing more. Look at the sales of iPods, they’re phenomenal, but that too will subside eventually.
http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html
“1. Apple customers agree to buy broken product more than once.”
Nope. Never broken for me. I research what I buy, I know what I buy, and I have been satisfied with everything I have purchased from Apple except that crappy LC back in ’93.
“2. Apple customers are still thinking that Apple is open source, I for once agree with the author: APPLE IS BUSSINES”
Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I always knew that Apple wasn’t open source and I accurately perceive the benefits/disadvantages of incorporating OSS into proprietary code.
(Do you even know what you are trying to talk about? You do know that Apple goes back to the seventies, right? That most Mac users didn’t give a crap about OSS until 2000, right?)
“3. I felt let down. Rejected by a company that I had adored, admired, respected”
I have never felt that Apple or Jobs have any feelings for me. They just happen to make the products I want, have the best philosophy, and I like them. I’ve never expected or felt they should feel anything in return.
Are you sure you aren’t laughing at yourself? These views do not seem typical. They hardly seem stereotypical… hardly rational…
“OSX is still dog slow on machines with specified characteristics.”
Nope. No problem running 10.3 on a 400 MHz G3 iMac. It keeps getting faster.
“there’s a little life fact that says that people mostly buy cheapest”
No, cheap people buy cheapest. Smart people buy the right product for their needs.
“Even the most selling Apple brand is always the cheapest of the line (do not confuse iBook and Powerbook or iMac and Gx, they are completely different product)”
What are you talking about? There is no proof of this. In fact, what proof there is suggests the oppostite — frequently the highest end G4s sell out quiker than the low end, same for PBs, etc…
You don’t seem to know Apple the company very well at all.
of course icheap is a bad idea!
the lower emac that business’s looking to replace wintel boxes could consider is dirt cheap. the only place a cheap box would fit in would be the hacker at home
CompUSA and every Mac reseller in my area were burning dics.
????
:D:D Thanks, this is a good one.
I still run OS X on a 400 MHz iMac DV edition by the way.
To translate this in PC language. Yeah, my WinXP are running great on my Celeron 233.
SCSI was abandoned long before OS X
Yeah, right, tell that to the owners of those big Linotype-Hell scanners or those with having older (but not really old) green Protools (not free, those with hardware).
read apples own sec filings and you will see that their low end imacs and ibooks always outsell the pro models.
come on.
1999 with onboard scsi.
that was just a few months before the release of OS X and those mac models were supposed to be supported fully by os x.
apple was sued over this issue and settled to the favor of the other party.
i owned a beige g3 with scsi onboard and it never worked in os x.
Yes, CompUSA and Mac resellers WERE burning dics, buddy. If you missed out on it, that’s not my problem.
You claimed current Apple hardware still could not run OS X properly, I told you that my Mac (which is the lowest supported device) runs it quite well. I could care less about what you run.
And I could careless if you bought an expensive Linotype scanner… That you’ve been stuck with for, what?, 15 years… That’s your problem. However, Apple’s hardware had abandoned SCSI well before OS X. Because the company making your ancient scanner couldn’t produce a driver, that has nothign to do with the validity of my statement: SCSI was already deprecated in the Mac world by then.
So what is your point? That you have a personal issue. You claim this is no longer your issue, but all Apple users. I’m telling you: i don’t have any of your issues and you still seem to cling to your’s.
SO what?
They had already deprecated it? The drives were no longer SCSI. Yes, they cater to the graphics market… But anyone in the graphics had 5 years to consider moving away from SCSI peripherals.
people often go by the seat of their pants. they think that apple should (or should not) produce a low-end box without any hard numbers. people who don’t trust apple tend to think apple is wrong (again) in not producing a low-end box, and people who trust apple take apple’s very decisiion not to make a low-end box as proof that it would never work.
but what if ….
what if apple did some really good market surveys and discovered that the size of the mac market is just stable at 3m units a year?
the logical move then would be to shift those 3m units up market a little bit and make more money on each one. charge those committed few (it _is_ a business after all) just as much as they can bear.
those other folks aren’t going to “switch” anyway, so lowering prices would just lower the bottom line.
(but that’s just a what-if. i tend to think that the market is somewhat elastic, and that it would be possible to sell more low-end G4s without canibalizing high-end G5s)
imac bubble or not
in 1999 apple sold over 3.5 million macs
in 2003 they sold just over 3 million
http://www.macminute.com/2003/12/20/10k
“Mac sales declined 3% year-over-year to approximately 3 million units”
so they sold less than they did in 2002 as well.
all of this well past the recession of 2000 that someone mentioned.
mac sales are declining against their own historical norms and they are shrinking even faster against worldwide pc sales.
From: TheSeeker
there has been much discussion over recent years about the cost of going to OS X. For a classic mac os user, you had to pay to get the beta….apple did not provide it free.
The Mac OS X Public Beta (announced September 13th, 2000) cost US$29.95.
Now, while Mac OS X 10.0 was arguably beta quality, it was not released as a beta and cost US$129.00 for all users. That’s an important distinction; I feel that 10.0 was beta quality as you do. But since it’s not in my prerogative to make such decisions – because I don’t work for Apple and Mac OS X is not my product – I’m not terribly upset about it.
So, had you bought both the Public Beta and then Mac OS X 10.0, your cumulative cost at this point is US$158.95.
if you bought 10.04 (still beta actually), 10.1 was only free if you happened to be fortunate enough to be first in line at a store that had the discs in stock. otherwise you paid.
Mac OS X 10.1 shipped on September 25th, 2001. The US$19.95 was a blanket shipping + handling charge for those that didn’t get free copies from a dealer (and ordered it online or over the ‘phone). The issuing of free copies to dealers was not executed correctly by Apple, resulting in some dealers giving out all their copies within minutes of opening on the 25th… and others not getting any or getting pathetically low amounts.
That the upgrade was free – or essentially free – was seen, and still is seen, as an admission by Apple that Mac OS X 10.0 was not up to scratch.
Cumulative cost now US$178.90 (assuming that you paid to get the CD).
you have paid each year to get updates.
Incorrect. Apple has already made it clear they have perverted the accepted versioning system to preserve the 10.x major version number for as long as possible, for marketing reasons. As such the each 10.x revision is a new major update to the OS.
This standard was incidentally first set by Microsoft with Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0) and Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1). Now, they had upgrade pricing (which Apple has not had for Mac OS X major releases to date), but also, Windows (non-upgrade edition) costs somewhat more.
This perversion means that all “service packs” and other updates are point releases (10.x.y), which are free to download and always have been to date with Mac OS X.
Whether you’re an individual or a business, you only upgrade because you want to upgrade, or because applications you need drive you to upgrade. There are happy 10.2.8 users out there that will likely continue to be happy for years, because they have no need to upgrade.
Cumulative cost – assuming you have bought 10.2 and 10.3 – is now US$436.90.
you paid in many cases to upgrade old macs (pre g3) so that you could run os x.
This is despite reports of the large body of OS 9 users out there, that last I checked outnumbered OS X users.
“You paid in many cases to upgrade old PCs so that you could run Windows XP, and will do so again so you can run Windows Longhorn if the rumoured specifications are true.”
It’s easy to _say_ it, but…
you paid in many cases too for all new third party software because it either didnt run in classic mode or ran with too many issues.
I have heard a quoted figure that 85% of OS 9 software runs in Classic with either no issues or only minor issues. Of course, the old adage applies here as a disclaimer: “lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
Upgrading to carbonised – or even rewritten – versions of software for Mac OS X was an extra cost of upgrading – and a very significant one in professional software – in stark contrast to other platforms to date. However, since Mac OS X is a completely different operating system from Mac OS 9, I’m not sure how this could have been avoided.
you paid for new third party hardware in many cases because legacy equipment did not work with x…especially the huge commitment many mac users had put into scsi over many many years. apple just said hey, lets move to firewire, so what if you have thousands invested in scsi scanners and hard drives etc etc.
Can’t argue with this one. A lot of support, even for non-legacy devices, went away in OS X and still hasn’t come back. SCSI was a particularly sore point in Mac OS X until the latter 10.2.x releases, and even then it’s not exactly improved back to ‘OS 9 standards’.
Apple lost a number of customers – publicly – over this move. Hopefully a move that they will not repeat. But I’m cautious to watch MacFixIt for a little bit after a major OS update from Apple to know what I’m getting into…
add all that up and you have the Switch Campaign alright: its called 5% of market was Apples when Jobs launched the iMac and now it is 1.8% six years later. The Switch Campaign is to move to Windows.
You can disagree with me, but I believe that Apple’s marketshare % will remain in the doldrums for the next few years, but then – provided they continue with their good work on Mac OS X, and depending on the state of Longhorn – will be able to increase it. Because with a few more years of work, Apple will finally be in a position to offer all their products competitively.
Of course, whether they _will_ increase it or not is another matter, and Apple have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory more than once before…
os x came out supporting g3 macs back to the beiges.
so you do not own the oldest mac supported (maybe for the current version of os x, panther 10.3…that i have lost track of).. 233mhz g3’s were supposed to be fully supported by os x and apple told those buyers that when they bought in 1998 and 1999. it was untrue. apple implemented features like a dvd player and quartz extreme that left those users with the slowest os gui on the planet. and again, folks that bought big macs in 1998 and 1999 were told they would have support for scsi and did not get it.
they are abandoning apple because of it. i am one of them. i know many more personally. and market stats show the grand trends as well.
Apple is repeating the mistakes made by themselves and others before : they think they can create a market of their own on products that are becoming commodity very fast.
ipod is great little device but plenty of other devices do just the same thing : it plays music files. With more of this devices being released every month, iPod will eventually get real competition. There are plenty of designers out there and they don’t all work for Apple.
For the moment Apple think it can become the MS of music distribution thanks to the ipod and the store ? They don’t realise that the market is just one year old, that they are open to the US only and that similar services are being started everywhere, distributing the same thing. How long do you think it will take for Microsoft to offer compatibility with their format to everyone ? It’s done already. What is going to happen to Apple market dominance ?
Also, what choice do you think the music industry will do ? Depend on one distributor only or multiple distributors that compete by compressing their margins ? That was an easy one. Remember, they own the content.
Furthermore, competition will also come from devices that apple won’t be able to compete against like 3g(or wifi) phones, streaming flat fee (or ad funded) music stations, displaying album covers and allowing to order the tunes to dowload on the device or at home on the Windows PC. Apple will be on its own, fighting against a whole new market.
It’s happened before to Apple itself but to others as well. Palm has escaped irrelevance by accepting that handspring and Sony (and others) compete with them, and Psion has done the same by escaping the device market (where they didn’t license early enough) to the mobile OS market where they live essentially of license fees. Why ? because Microsoft has flatened their dominance by letting others do the device design work, making colour and high res screen happen faster than Psion and Palm could afford to do.
iPod is on a market where the current dominance will be impossible to maintain, especially if everybody else does the same around a different standard. Where is the differentiation ?
Apple faces a similar challenge on the PC market. Linux already offers to people like wallmart the sale arguments of “rock solid OS” and new announces of new linux preloaded makers are increasing in frequency, with the push that Linspire and others are making on the OEM market. But even if Linux doesn’t happen, Windows alone will do it : it can now run in units that look like VCR or Hifi (thanks to Shuttle and others) and offers a range of hardware price levels that Apple will never be able to match, being on their own !
I use a Powerbook because it’s a fine machine that didn’t have matches (imho) a couple of years ago, but last time I got in a shop, there were plenty of laptops looking just as good, doing just the same, as similar prices, cheaper or more expensive.
Apple doesn’t do such a good job for share holders because it’s not creating the right conditions itself to be there for a long time. It will soon have to rely on a creative gamble to avert the effect of strong competition on all its markets. its making a lot of money now but also the same mistakes as during their golden age number one : there is nothing that they do that cannot be done by someone else.
what if you live in Burundi Northern Finland?
what about tens of millions of Americans that live in relatively rural areas without major retail stores around?
the closest store to me that sells apple products is about 90 miles away. a 180 mile drive roundtrip versus a free download? guess what i would pick? apple chose not to make the dl available free to save money to preserve shrinking profits.
right now anyone can go to ms site and download the full beta of windows xp 64 bit edition free. Free.
i can dl dozens of linux distros free.
apple did not provide me with a free 10.l upgrade. I had to pay 19.99 to order a cd to avoid a 180 mile drive.
Quit quibbling and dont buy all the marketing smoke and mirrors.
ipod is great little device but plenty of other devices do just the same thing : it plays music files. With more of this devices being released every month, iPod will eventually get real competition. There are plenty of designers out there and they don’t all work for Apple.
For the moment Apple think it can become the MS of music distribution thanks to the ipod and the store ?
actually, i think they are ahead of you. i think they (steve jobs) know that they will lose control of the segment, and are just trying to maximize profit before they do.
the ipod (like the mac8375has become a cach cow, and they are milking it.
Sorry for another answer:)
Nope. Never broken for me. I research what I buy, I know what I buy, and I have been satisfied with everything I have purchased from Apple except that crappy LC back in ’93.
So, nothing good after iMac 400DV. I see.
Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I always knew that Apple wasn’t open source and I accurately perceive the benefits/disadvantages of incorporating OSS into proprietary code.
First, sorry if you felt offended. I was reffering of the most Mac users that appear on forums (they always argue about OSS). Author was the first one to point clearly the fact that APPLE IS BUSSINESS.
(Do you even know what you are trying to talk about? You do know that Apple goes back to the seventies, right? That most Mac users didn’t give a crap about OSS until 2000, right?)
No, I was only there from Quadra to G4 (last models of them)
I have never felt that Apple or Jobs have any feelings for me. They just happen to make the products I want, have the best philosophy, and I like them. I’ve never expected or felt they should feel anything in return.
Sorry if you felt offended, … again.
Again, most of the other mac crowd on forums do resemble this author.
Are you sure you aren’t laughing at yourself? These views do not seem typical. They hardly seem stereotypical… hardly rational…
I’m a happy person, always laughing, but never to my self:)
Maybe ending of my message was not clear enough. Yes, I probably should include “my personal views”
Nope. No problem running 10.3 on a 400 MHz G3 iMac. It keeps getting faster.
🙂 If you’re happy, I’m happy. I will just forget that Quartz needs some graphics hardware that your computer hasn’t got. And the fact that Quartz powers the OSX.
p.s. I still work on Mac G4 Dual 1.25 OSX 10.3 (not mine, I realised that it comes cheaper to rent them for that little need, and I have success in avoiding most of the Mac related jobs), and I can say for sure. THAT G4 IS DOG SLOW.
But I believe you, your computer suits your needs.
No, cheap people buy cheapest. Smart people buy the right product for their needs.
What are you talking about? There is no proof of this. In fact, what proof there is suggests the oppostite — frequently the highest end G4s sell out quiker than the low end, same for PBs, etc…
Hear, hear. That comes from a guy that bought iMac 400DV
errm,… well,… sec filings, most of the mac owning people I know.
You don’t seem to know Apple the company very well at all.
Yes, I see I should ask expert as you. Being a Mac fan (like you) until I got burned pretty hard.
Unboard SCSI — SO what?
You obviously don’t know how costly this hardware is. And being left out of the time with such a money waste is preety hard for a person.
But you as the proud iMac 400DV owner with two printers, two FW harddrives and a scanner (you gotta have big table or are you hanging these peripherals on the wall:) WITHOUT LEGITIMATE OSX (beta, was sold as beta and if some retailer burned you a copy, well… it was illegal) would really have trouble to understand such little thing.
Apple doens’t need a sub-$500.00 mac, they have the iPod. Let Dell and eMachines make the sub-$500.00 crap.
If market share is about selling low-end under-powered pc’s, then let it be Windows based. Add in viruses associated with Windows, and the lack of fun multimedia software makes not worth it.
If you bought the DP for $29.99, you got 10.0 for $100 (they dropped the 29.99) so you need to recalculate a little.
As I said, the point remains, the article begins complaining about armchair CEOing and most of you are fully engrossed in it again. Retarded.
As I said, the point remains, the article begins complaining about armchair CEOing and most of you are fully engrossed in it again. Retarded.
some people watch football.
Apple sold the following in each year:
93 3.3 million
94 3.8 million
95 4.5 million
96 4.0 million
97 2.8 million
98 2.7 million
99 3.5 million
00 4.5 million
01 3.0 million
02 3.0 million
What does this tell us? Apple isn’t dying off. They are preserving essentially the same sales but experience natural cycles in hardware and software which means that some year they will have sales spurts and others they will have shortfalls. However, these numbers do not indicate any decline.
i am not trying to run apple
i am commenting on history and trends.
i am not recommending any course of action.
apple is probably doing all it can to milk their name as long as they can.
fact remains they are out at sea in the Doldrums when it comes to a future in making hardware computers.
i sure hope they are working hard at porting their software to other platforms is all i would say.
>actually, i think they are ahead of you. i think they (steve jobs) know that
>they will lose control of the segment, and are just trying to maximize profit
>before they do.
>the ipod (like the mac8375has become a cach cow, and they are milking it.
Of course you are right. So they are even further down the curve. So either something really exciting comes out of their labs or they will soon find some use for their cash pile.
and in technology it certainly is.
in the same time frame Dell has moved to being $40 billion dollar company
MS was a $1 billion company in 1990 and is over $30 billion now.
to sell fewer Macs in 2003 (3 mil) than they did in 1993 before the internet revolution, is a pretty hard failure.
It makes Apple irrelevant in computing technology.
a steady decline from 2000 to now is not a cycle, it is a disturbing trend and the main reason Apple is doing all it can to rebrand itself into an entertainment company.
What does this tell us? Apple isn’t dying off. They are preserving essentially the same sales but experience natural cycles in hardware and software which means that some year they will have sales spurts and others they will have shortfalls. However, these numbers do not indicate any decline.
fwiw, the average for the ten years you quote is 3.5m
so they are below their own ten year average, even now, with the strongest product (G5) that they’ve had in years. if this isn’t a decline (as you say), and they are going to pop back up above 3.5m … what is going to do it for them?
they’ve got everything an apple loyalist would say they need (a completed Mac OS X, cool lcd imacs, powerful g5s, competitive notebooks).
if you aren’t going to try low-end headless macs, what are you going to do?
(i personally think they are accepting a slowly shrinking niche, as long as it lets them maintain high margins.)
how many people have bought macs because they were educated in school, high school, and college on macs?
if apple isn’t in schools they will have what as a base left?
apples share in american schools is now below 15% and most of that is at the elementary school level.
so go off to 7th grade through high school and college and get a job and buy a computer you are going to buy a mac like you used when you were 12 yrs old or are you going to buy the Windows PC you have used for the last 10 yrs?
keeping a stagnant sales volume has devastating real world implications.
“So, nothing good after iMac 400DV. I see.”
Who said I haven’t purchased anything since? I named my low end system, presumptious one.
“First, sorry if you felt offended.”
Don’t know why you think I’m offended. I just think you’re wrong. Could care less.
“I was reffering of the most Mac users that appear on forums (they always argue about OSS).”
Still I don’t think it apples, even if you aren’t referring to me. Most Mac users don’t care. They may add it as a benefit, but they still rationalize udnerstand the mixture of proprietary and OS.
“Author was the first one to point clearly the fact that APPLE IS BUSSINESS.”
So what? It’s not relevent to my critiques of your comments.
“No, I was only there from Quadra to G4 (last models of them)”
Right, which is way before any OSS, so why do you think most Mac users consider it the second most important argument?
“Sorry if you felt offended, … again.”
Again, not offended. Why do you think my disagreeing with you belies that I am offended.
“Again, most of the other mac crowd on forums do resemble this author.”
Baloney. Ask Mac users if they think Jobs and Apple owe them something and they will provide the rational answer: NO.
“I’m a happy person, always laughing, but never to my self:)”
You don’t sound happy
“I will just forget that Quartz needs some graphics hardware that your computer hasn’t got. And the fact that Quartz powers the OSX.”
Quartz doesn’t power the computer, fool. Are you one of those people who just looks at looks? I have most graphic effects turned off.
“Hear, hear. That comes from a guy that bought iMac 400DV”
Now you are claiming I’m cheap because I bought an iMac in 97? You don’t know sh!t. It’s not my only machine. I purchased it so that a freelancer I was using at the time to support my graphic design studio could assist me. it was the right machien for the job, clueless one. And it still serves well for basic needs.
“errm,… well,… sec filings, most of the mac owning people I know.”
SEC filings have never broken out individual models of Powerbooks, iBooks, and PMs so you are simply lying. What we do know is via availability reports and such… adn it’s usually the high end which is less available.
“You obviously don’t know how costly this hardware is. And being left out of the time with such a money waste is preety hard for a person.”
I do know exactly how costly it was. I was advising for/against, laughing at, and bewildered by some of the ludicrous hardware fellow graphic designers were buying in the mid to late 90s. Sorry you don’t know how to purchase well.
“But you as the proud iMac 400DV owner with two printers, two FW harddrives and a scanner (you gotta have big table or are you hanging these peripherals on the wall:) WITHOUT LEGITIMATE OSX (beta, was sold as beta and if some retailer burned you a copy, well… it was illegal) would really have trouble to understand such little thing.”
That’s JUST what I’ve got on the iMac. I have 2 G4s and a PB too. No, it was not illegal buddy. You simply showed up with a blank CD and proof of purchase and they happily burned it.
why call people fools when you claim to have bought a iMac 400DV in 1997? imacs werent even made in 1997, much less a 400mhz dv version.
sec filings from apple do break it out into
powerbooks
ibooks
imacs and emacs
powermacs
so wrong again.
now who would be looking ****ish now?
For those of you who are saying Apple is dead because it sold a few more Macs in 1999 and 2000 than they did in 2003, I just have to wonder, do you follow the economy at all? Consumer spending is down in all industries since those heady “it’s a new economy!” days. The American economy sucks right now.
“to sell fewer Macs in 2003 (3 mil) than they did in 1993 before the internet revolution, is a pretty hard failure.”
So now you are abandoning the declining market theory, I see….
“It makes Apple irrelevant in computing technology.”
That’s a funny one. Please poll anyone and tell me how many people agree that Apple is irrelevent in computer technology.
“a steady decline from 2000 to now is not a cycle, it is a disturbing trend and the main reason Apple is doing all it can to rebrand itself into an entertainment company.”
Hup, spoke to soon… the decline theory returns! Baloney! It is a normal cycle. It’s actually quite conformant with 3 years up, 3 years down, 3 years up…
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/04/14/unitsales/?lsrc=mcrs…
“iPods up, Power Macs down
iPods continued to represent a huge success for Apple, both sequentially and year-over-year. Apple sold 807,000 iPods during its second quarter, 909 percent more than the same quarter a year ago and 10 percent more than it did during its last record-setting quarter. That provided a total of about $264 million in revenue for Apple.
Power Mac sales, which includes Power Mac G4s, Power Mac G5s and Xserve boxes, did not quite match expectations. Apple had hoped when the Power Mac G5 shipped last year that it would be able to sustain about 200,000 units sold per quarter — they exited the quarter with 174,000 Power Mac units sold. Power Mac unit sales were up year-over-year by about 12 percent, although they dropped 19 percent sequentially. Apple attributes that low number, at least in part, to backlogged orders of the Xserve G5. If supply had not been constrained, it would have been closer to 190,000 units for the quarter, according to Apple — about 5 percent off its 200,000 unit goal.
PowerBook sales totalled about 157,000 units — $336 million all told. Forty-eight percent of the Macs Apple sold during the second quarter were portable units, between the PowerBook and iBook. Those PowerBook numbers did represent a 19 percent sequential drop, however, and a 5 percent year-over-year drop.
Consumer sales good and bad
Apple sold 217,000 iMacs and eMacs for the quarter, racking up about $252 million in revenue. That’s down four percent from the holidays and off 15 percent year-to-year. Apple’s hoping that its new eMac system — updated with a host of faster components and an improved architecture — will have a positive effect as the company begins to court the back-to-school market.
The iBook sold very strong for the quarter. Unit sales were flat sequentially, which is a victory, as calendar Q4 sales usually uptick with holiday and end-of-year shopping. That still translated into 201,000 iBooks sold for the quarter, worth about $223 million in revenue, up 51 percent year-over-year. Apple attributes the strong iBook market to continued demand for systems equipped with the PowerPC G4 processor.
Peripherals and other hardware not directly CPU-related contributed $272 million to Apple’s top line revenue, while software — Panther, iLife ’04, and Apple’s professional applications, including FileMaker — totaled about $213 million in revenue.
Where in the world … ?
Predictably, the Americas were where Apple saw the most units sold and revenue. Combining North and South American revenue figures, Apple made $881 million in that region with 361,000 units sold. That’s a seven percent unit sales uptick compared to the same quarter a year ago, and a 29 percent revenue improvement over the same time last year.
Europe was Apple’s second biggest regional market, moving 187,000 units and contributing $449 million to Apple’s bottom line. Unit sales grew seven percent compared to the second quarter of 2003, with a 33 percent revenue improvement.
Japan continued to slide, however — Apple sold 76,000 units in the region for the second quarter, worth about $173 million in sales. Sequentially, Apple’s sales almost stayed flat, but year-over-year the company saw a 29 percent drop in unit sales. Apple Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook told analysts that he’s not happy with those numbers and said that Apple’s taking steps to help sagging sales in the Japan region.
Apple’s retail operations pulled in 70,000 units for the quarter, contributing about $266 million in revenue. That’s 25 percent better unit sales than the same quarter a year ago, with 43 percent higher revenue for the same period. Apple will continue to open new retail locations throughout the year, bringing its total number of retail stores to 88, including a new location in London, England.”
do you think that comes from outer space? as a corporation, apple has a duty to report to shareholders and the market what they do to some degree of detail.
they reveal sales by category and they also break down sales by region etc.
all of that data in that article comes right from Apples SEC filing.
“fwiw, the average for the ten years you quote is 3.5m”
yes
“so they are below their own ten year average, even now”
yes
“with the strongest product (G5) that they’ve had in years.”
And it’s limited in availability, experienced delays, manufacturing, and support issues. The G5 doesn’t change Apple’s sales numbers. The cycles and the strength of Apple as a whole does.
“if this isn’t a decline (as you say), and they are going to pop back up above 3.5m …”
THis is what I say it is… the low end of a cycle.
“what is going to do it for them?”
Continue to keep them a profitable thriving company.
What’s Gateway’s merger with eMachines going to do for them? Kill them quicker.
I would love to see a low-end mac! It seems that there is a hole in their existing product line because of this. Many people do not want to buy another monitor if they already have one, but that is exactely what they have to do if they get an eMac/iMac. There is no other Mac at the low-end that does not include an integrated display. If there was a single cpu g4 with 512mb of ram that cost around $799, I would buy it and I think alot of other people would as well. Since there isn’t, I had to buy a powermac, but I dont think all consumers would have done the same thing.
so go off to 7th grade through high school and college and get a job and buy a computer you are going to buy a mac like you used when you were 12 yrs old or are you going to buy the Windows PC you have used for the last 10 yrs?
If you know anything about computers at all, you wouldn’t worry about such silly nonsense. Computer illiterate folks might use that analyses to make their purchase, but the more wiser folks would make an intellectual decision on a computer purchase based on their needs, not what they used in school or at work. Are you telling me that since you learned how to drive with a Ford Tempo in Driver’s Ed Class that you’ll base your car purchase on that experience? I think not!
Anyhow, the Mac is not going anywhere the same as Windows is not going anywhere the same as Linux is not going anywhere and son on.
And it’s limited in availability, experienced delays, manufacturing, and support issues. The G5 doesn’t change Apple’s sales numbers. The cycles and the strength of Apple as a whole does.
earlier you said that “natural cycles in hardware and software” drive sales numbers. i agree (leaving aside the word “natural” because it isn’t determined by rainfall or anything, but by business planning).
so i was wondering, i am still wondering, if they are going to go back up what product will do it for them?
“why call people fools when you claim to have bought a iMac 400DV in 1997? imacs werent even made in 1997, much less a 400mhz dv version.”
97, 99 whatever. I’m a fool not not caring what year it was? You are stupider than you sound.
“sec filings from apple do break it out into
powerbooks
ibooks
imacs and emacs
powermacs
so wrong again.”
Dumbass, I am discussing Somebody’s orginal comment: “Even the most selling Apple brand is always the cheapest of the line (do not confuse iBook and Powerbook or iMac and Gx, they are completely different product)” So I fully understand that Apple breaks out PBs, iBooks, iMacs/eMacs, and PMs, but he said not to compare them. So I thought you were saying high end PM to low end PM, high end PB to low end PB, high end iMac to low end iMac.
In which case I am 100% right. They aren’t broken out. And the high end is usually a bigger seller than the low end.
As Somebody says: there is no good reason to compare iBook sales to PBs… they are different markets and do not reflect the cost factor in a consumers purchase.
Stay with the discussion, man.
I might acctually consider getting a Mac if I could test out the development tools that come with it. Since I don’t have any friends that own a Mac I can’t ask them. And when I have gone to stores they always have the Macs locked down for obvious reasons. Also I have gone to an Apple store to see if I could try it out but they would not install the Dev tools for me. I don’t know if this is normal or just one unhelpful sales person. Anyone have any suggestions on ways to get sales people to open up the systems for poking around?
Damn, you guys have a lot of free time to spend on your favorite company to ‘hate’!
LOL!
“so i was wondering, i am still wondering, if they are going to go back up what product will do it for them?”
It’s not one product. It has to do with software upgrades.. maybe not even their own (like Office, or Photoshop, or Quark). Or maybe it is an OS update. Or maybe it is their software.
It also has to do with pricing.
It also has to do with hardware as well… but it doesn’t bounce down because of a bad product… and it doesn’t bounce up because of a good product.
If you get a large number of users upgrading one year, and a killer product comes out the next, that year may not be good because many have already upgraded. So the rebound and decline has as much to do with 3-5 years ago as it does right now and tomorrow.
Not to mention that these cycles can be affected by the strengths and weaknesses of other alternatives. It isn’t one strong product or one bad product… These are regular ups and downs with many, many factors.
You don’t sound happy
But I am.
I’m Macless now:))
btw. Higher end models get sold out before low cost mostly for two reasons. Low cost models are bought on stock while higher models are bought in precalculated lower number. Believe me, I know more than one reseller. And I had history with waiting preordered higher-end Macs always listening to the same old story.
So now you own 2 more Macs. Yep, and every ./ geek is big (:and dates a lot:) when it comes to punch talk.
@Jargon: LOL. That’s the nicest part of the day before going home.
actually you are a bit off
2003 was one of the greatest years ever for all american stock markets.
our economy grew at over 4% for the year
it grew at 8% in the fourth quarter.
unemployment is at 5.4%, less than the average since oh about 1960 or 1970.
PC shipments are up 16% year to year currently. apples are down 3%.
the slight downturn we had in the USA is over my friend…long over.
The real point of this whole post (and forgive me if someone already said this I couldn’t bear to read much past 40 something post) is that its fun to speculate about what Apple should have done or should do. There are so many points in the past where you can say they missed a great opportunity where they could have dominated the market – or if only they would do this or that now they could dominate the market.
I have my own thoughts of course about what Apple should do – but really what is interesting is how fasinated we are all with Apple. If only every person that feels compelled to post their opinion would buy an Apple they would have a huge market share. Of course I am waiting for the 3 button mouse G5 power book…
unemployment is at 5.4%
LOL, it would take for our whole country to be unemployed several times to get to this number:) (:sorry, couldn’t resist:)
btw. It’s sad the nuber is too huge. And whole outsourcing might make it bigger.
I wouldn’t laugh.
Unless you live in Cuba, I’m almost certain whatever country you are from you have a much higher unemployment rate. Just because 5.4% of 290 million is bigger than your whole country doesn’t mean anything. It is the percentage of your whole workforce which is unemployed that is significant.
Boy, can’t believe I’ve been arguing with someone about technology who laughs at America’s unemployment rate.
“actually you are a bit off
2003 was one of the greatest years ever for all american stock markets.
our economy grew at over 4% for the year
it grew at 8% in the fourth quarter.
unemployment is at 5.4%, less than the average since oh about 1960 or 1970.
PC shipments are up 16% year to year currently. apples are down 3%.
the slight downturn we had in the USA is over my friend…long over.”
You have to be kidding me. You have to be a die hard republican to think the economy is great and their isn’t an un-employment problem. Go to a college career fair and see how great things are. There isn’t companies even there. I’m graduating with an engineering degree from a top university, and unless I want to go into sales their isn’t crap for jobs. Those who graduated over a year ago often still have yet to find a job. I probably won’t find a full time permanant job till all those who have been laid of over the last 3 years get jobs and the market opens up for grads.
Things have got better, but the economy and employment rates still suck massively. Just because some people are making lots of money doesn’t not mean everyone is.
Actualy it is higher, 8% (if that report was accurate), as I researched just now.
Boy, can’t believe I’ve been arguing with someone about technology who laughs at America’s unemployment rate.
Boy, you are stupid aren’t you. What I was reffering was “large number of people being in such small percentage and size of our country”.
if you all cant read statistics than i dont know what to say for your engineering degree.
5.5% unemployment is fantastic and few nations have it that low. we have historically been higher ourselves.
if you dont have opportunity where you live than move somewhere else. there is no santa claus that gives out the goods just cause you make a list.
are you in PA?
move to VA. its 3.4% in VA. many parts of the state are at 1.9%.
the fact remains 2003 was a banner year for the american economy, wether it was recovering or not. the major stock indexes had one of their highest yearly increases ever.
Question: how many of these iCheaps are willing to purchase software. These people are already too cheap to purchase a full priced eMac or iMac, what on gods green earth is going to make them buy the software when they can download it from the local warez site?
The fact is, there is no use having a massive user base without a decent number of users who are not only willing but able to purchase the third party software off vendors who provide it.
The Windows base is large enough to have a huge number of cheapskates because there is also a large number of companies who are willing and able to pay for software, also, you have a reasonable number of users willing and able, but even so, that still doesn’t get away from the fact that the vast majority of software used by people in the Windows world is pirated.
please dont toss out oddball opinions without some data to back up your wild assertions
“the vast majority of software used by people in the Windows world is pirated.”
where is there any evidence of that?
where is the evidence of any major software company being put out of business due to pirating?
how is that all of the major software houses and game houses etc turn such handsome profits and have such humongous sales figures if the “vast majority” is stolen from them?
be realistic.
That 5.4% unemployment number was manufactured by reclassifying sectors of the population that used to be considered unemployed. And even with that reclassification, long-term unemployment remains at its worst in 40 years. (Here’s a source http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040426/topstories/35917.shtm…)
Consumers just aren’t spending as much money on computers as they were during the dotcom boom, that’s natural and an obvious link to lower Macintosh sales. With gas prices rising (and vehicle gas mileage dropping), now isn’t the time for consumers to drop $1600 luxury computer. (Yet they’ll gladly plonk down the money for a 10 mile per gallon road tank, go figure.) Maybe the key is advertising. SUVs are aggressively advertised, you can’t turn on the TV without seeing an endless stream of commercials telling you that you absolutely need an 8,500 pound tank to haul your latte and cell phone to the office…oops I mean through the Amazon rain forest and up the side of Mt. McKinley…yet most people I talk to about computer purchases have no idea what Apple is offering and have never even seen the iMac. When I show them pictures of it on the web they are blown away, but why should I have to show them? Shouldn’t Apple put some commercials together to let people know what’s out there? Those “switch” ads didn’t even show the computer or the OS at all, just some strangers blathering about how great it is. (Remember how much success OS/2 ads had with that same strategy?) If they would put together some commercials that show how awesome the iMac is and the sleak, oozing window effects of the Dock and Expose and Fast User Switching, people would be a lot more interested than they are. Just put one ad on during Friends each week and the other on during Survivor, and you’ve pretty much got the entire TV viewing audience informed of your products. Apple is doing a terrible job of this right now. Nobody but followers of the industry know what Apple’s up to with its PCs. If all they’re advertising on TV is the iPod, is it any wonder why Mac sales are down?
I’m not too cheap to buy an eMac, I just hate CRTs and don’t want one in my life. The eMac’s CRT is small (16 inch viewable) and it’s a freakin CRT, yuck. I would actually buy an eMac if it were exactly the same price but didn’t have a monitor and I could plug it into the 19 inch flat panel I already own. I am willing to pay $799 for an Apple without a monitor, but right now Apple requires me to pay at least $1,200 to get one. That’s stupid. And that’s a big difference to someone who doesn’t have a lot of extra money.
“The bare minimum for our economcy to be sustainable is 3.5. Big deal. ”
Your statement is simply not true. Our population growth is NOT, repeat, NOT that high. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t get into an argument about this, but our population growth over the past 10 years has been about 1% per year (do the math). 1% real growth could sustain us. Easily.
As for the article, it was just flamebait. This guy has zero credentials to tell us whether Apple’s strategy is good or not, and has no information to point to. The issue is immensely complicated from an economics standpoint, and he’s given us excuses, not information.
I could just as easily say:
1. iCheap wouldn’t siphon off existing computers. (why not? Because I said so!)
2. Licensing FairPlay would sell MORE iPods, thus increasing their bottom line.
3. Microsoft’s model works just fine for selling an OS. Why can’t Apple use it?
What I just wrote has just as much justification, and just as much proof. The article quality of OSNews is hitting roughly the same level as the comments.
-Erwos
We’ve all (all us Mac fans) got ideas about the product that would be perfect, that Apple has to make. I wish they would take whatever quantity of the fastest G5 they can get and make a super fast super expensive workstation. Certainly there are people that don’t care about the cost and aside from that we’d get bragging rights. Others want a headless iMac and swear that they’d buy one and millions of others would too. The fact is that if Apple makes that headless iMac or the super fast workstation, most of us proponents won’t ACTUALLY fork over cash and buy one. Even if they did, they have to make money on it. Apple is a business, like the article so eloquently pointed out, and they do have people who are paid the big bucks to figure out what to make and they generally know their business quite well.
Anybody see the “I Love Lucy” episode in which Lucy and Ethel get in the salad dressing business? They’re selling great salad dressing but they’re not paying attention to the bottom line. They’re actually selling at a loss. Ricky asks how they’ll make money and the answer is, “volume.” If you’re selling something at little or no profit, volume only magnifies the mistake. That was clones and that might be what happens with a headless iMac. They’re rumors about one of those and if Apple can put huge margins on it, maybe its a winner. But it has to make business sense. The eMac obviously took lots of buyers from the iMac, it had to make sense.
>>The eMac obviously took lots of buyers from the iMac, it had to make sense.
The eMac was a product Apple (Jobs) did not want to make and once they made it, they did not want to sell to consumers. Before the eMac was created, Jobs proclaimed the CRT was dead. But the 15-inch iMac was too expensive for many schools to justify and they complained loudly, so Apple grudgingly obliged by creating the eMac, and even then they ONLY sold it to educational institutions. It wasn’t until they were deluged with consumer demand for one that they opened it up for sale to the masses. The case of the eMac proves Apple (Jobs) is not above missing the obvious; he had NO idea the eMac would sell as well as it did. He may be a genius but he does often live in an ivory tower that’s isolated from the wants and needs of the public.
10.0 had problems with SCSI. We found that our SCSI devices worked just fine with 10.1 and above…so I really don’t know why there are a couple of complainers here spreading fud about failure to run scsi on X.
Many manufacturers, Adaptec being one, actualy had provided some 10.0 drivers as well.
“i owned a beige g3 with scsi onboard and it never worked in os x.”
Actually the requirements for 10.0 stated G3’s except for the beige models. I actually have a 10.0 box laying around somewhere that lists that on the side panel.
who’s grown tired of these comments sections when it’s an Apple related story? I saw 10-20 posts (and I’m being generous here) that were on topic, the rest was just a bitchfest. There used to be quality discussions on OSNews comments, gone are those days I suppose.
We all wish we could have more control over companies, and you’d think shareholders would. Unfortunately the end goal is not to please the customers, the general population, nor the shareholders. The end goal is to make money, if money makes shareholders happy, then the shareholders are pleased.
Are Apple’s products perfect? Certainly not. Did this iBook cost them nearly as much as it cost me? Of course not. Does that make it not worth it? OSX has not cost me a dime yet, and I’ve grown to like it, possibly more than Linux even. The integration between the OS and the hardware is intense, making the whole system seem much more complete.
As for the slow dual 1.25ghz g4… oh come on. It’d run circles around this ibook, and I have NO speed problems with this thing (except maybe bootup).
kaiwai: Question: how many of these iCheaps are willing to purchase software. These people are already too cheap to purchase a full priced eMac or iMac, what on gods green earth is going to make them buy the software when they can download it from the local warez site?
Question: How many people after buying an “expensive” computer have enough money left to buy software?
Honestly… Different people have different needs, desires, and resources, just because they don’t want to buy an “expensive” computer doesn’t mean that they can’t afford one or that they don’t want to pay for software. They may have a certain amount “preset” for themselves for how much they can (or will) spend on software/hardware.
As a result, if they spend too much on hardware… They can’t (or will choose not to) spend much (if anything) on software.
Also… Just because a person is cheap (because they can’t or won’t spend money) doesn’t mean that they’d do something illegal. (Like pirating software)
For example, with the people I know, the people who are the most likely to pirate stuff are the people who are always buying the “expensive hardware”, because they don’t have enough money left to buy software. The people I know who buy cheap computers are frequently (not always) pretty wealthy but have a set amount they are willing to spend. However, they also always pay for their software.
So there’s an example of it being the other way around.
you are patently wrong.
i owned a beige g3 266mhz and each and every os x from apple up to os x 10.2.4
the beige was supported by earlier versions of os x…at some point the passed onto requiring a g3 with usb ports which the beige did not have.
You do not have a box that says that. In fact the manuals talk all about how you have to install os x in the first 8gb of the first partition that cant be over 8gb with the beige g3s.
why would you make something like that up?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25176
that talks clearly about installing os x on beige g3’s but only adds support for pci based scsi cards….not onboard scsi.
wow people will say just about anything i guess. your fud is exposed.