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Why iPod Can't Save Apple
MadMirko writes "MacNN quotes an article from Money Magazine titled Why iPod can't save Apple, which says 'the buzz on the digital music player and "swank" storefronts are masking an ebbing bottom line, noting reduced CPU sales (resulting a shrinking marketshare), decreased profits (in part due to the lower-margin iPod and little-to-no profit at the iTunes Music Store), failure of the iPod to drive CPU sales, failure of the retail stores to increase marketshare, hidden retail store costs, no operational income, and little value in the stock.'"
Passion clouds vision.
Paying $3000 for a $1000 computer is real smart. yep
I disagree with your assessment.
:) For what it's worth, I have a Mac and I really like OSX but I can't see myself switching exclusively until Apple decides they want to compete more on the low-end scale of computing.
If Cadillac's ran on something other than common gasoline, which you then had to pay more for and could only get at a few select gas stations, then maybe your analogy would be correct.
The Mac's biggest issue is a prohibitive cost of entry and maintenance - and I'm not talking about expensive hardware. To make the switch you're forced to to buy software that will only be transferable to another Mac. If something comes out for a Windows PC only (and considering their marketshare I'd imagine there's more than a few programs that fit this description) and there's no Mac equiv, then you're stuck.
If I get a PC and decide to upgrade or buy new I don't have to worry about high costs of the upgrade. If you buy a Mac then you have to make a big initial investment that sticks you on the Mac path unless you want to outlay the same large investment to switch. Considering the shrinking market share of the Mac, this just isn't good business.
But what do I know... I run BeOS so I guess I like being stuck with dead-end software.
Apple as a company will probably never go away.
Apple as a manufacturer of PC's most likely will. At least as they exist now.
Everythings wrong with their current business strategy. Expensive machines, limited upgrade potential, vendor lock in, increasing lack of third party interest.
So a top of the line dual G5 mac is really cool today. What about next year? Can you upgrade the CPU on a mac? You could upgrade an intel/amd proc for about a quarter the cost of the machine, motherboard and cpu.
OS/X is nice, but not nice enough. Apple has turned to the iPod, if not as a source of revenue, but as a source of hype. Noone out on the street is talking about the G5 or OS/X. They are talking about the iPod and iTunes.
Personally, I'd love to see Apple open up the platform to third party hardware vendors. I'd switch if I could "roll my own" mac, pick up a decent motherboard from Gigabyte, hell maybe even a G5 clone from AMD, etc..
I'm not going to pay for a fancy shmancy brushed aluminum case or color matched mouse. Maybe I would, if I knew that the next machine I put together can reuse the case.
It'll probably happen one day. Hopefully by the time it does OS/X isn't some obscure relic in the industry, and there's enough interest that vendors actually produce compatible products.
The Amiga should have put Commodore on top of the industry, it didn't.. Apple should, and no doubt is, gleaning whatever lessons they can from that.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If you're going to ingest hallucinogens, at least - offer us some.
Ahhhh, spoken like a true Linux user: Wanting someone to give you something for nothing eh?
Not at all - I plan to eventually puke in your lap! I call it giving back to the community.
On a more serious note, how about the Mac user community getting "something for nothing" by having FreeBSD as the base for their OS. That "something" is huge. Essentially the OS is replaced, and skinned with OSX and its little suite of apps. This will carry Apple much further than System 9 or whatever would have. It's nice about Konqueror and all that but let's get real - Apple was saved technically here. Now, can they do it financially?