Apple's Colossal Disappointment?

Mudzy writes "Michael Roberson, founder of Linspire, has an article at The TechZone talking about Apple's 'Colossal Disappointment' for not porting Mac OS X to PC after they announced the move to Intel processors. He discuss why this could be a mistake." From the article: "Instead of a brilliant strategic maneuver, it's a step necessitated by IBM's inability to keep pace with Intel. It seems Apple was tired of losing the gigahertz competition to the PC world. Apple had been promising faster computers for some time and had not been able to deliver them. In addition, they were frustrated at IBM's inability to produce a fast low-powered chip for laptops."

Comments

Apple isn't stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the heck would they? If they did they most certainly would no longer be a hardware company.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[peawee03]

if they could produce enough stable drivers to support a wide range of hardware

That's the problem right there. One of the issues that I understand Apple has much less of is the fact that there's only a limited number of hardware and software combinations, and Apple knows how the OS will interact with the hardware, because it knows all the details on both.

Quite possibly, Apple's defination of "stable drivers" is quite more strict than yours (and mine as well), so that "It just works" is a reality, and to really protect hardware stability, they need to control the hardware platform so that the software behaves as expected.

Then again, they could just be control freaks for the sake of being control freaks.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[ja2ke]

Considering Apple has stayed in business for the past 30 years as an innovator (versus leveraging off of someone elses hype and innovations) I don't think they're lousy businessmen at all.

They make profit, they drive the market (and open new markets & massively expand existing small ones - iPod, consumer video), and seem generally content with their size.

If by "where they should be" you mean "Apple should have 95% of the marketshare like Microsoft," then I think you should go back and re-think some details. Apple is in a pretty good place, and has been so for quite a few years at this point. To varying degrees, Apple has been doing pretty well since their first return to decent profitability with the 2nd generation G3 desktops, followed by the generally steady climb up starting with the iMac (dotcom bust notwithstanding) and going through to their current situation with the iPods, Mac mini's, and current iMacs. I don't think they're in a bad place.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[piecewise]

Your critique of Apple's bread and butter couldn't be more wrong, but thanks for playing.

1. Apple has many breads and many butters: Macs and iPods. They are both strategically important to the company's continued success. Software sales are a big business, too, and that's important to them.

2. Macs aren't reserved for the "bowels of marketing or tech document department[s]." A good number of students use them, lots of movie stars, bankers, lawyers, doctors, stock brokers, artists, writers, teachers, politicians, programmers..... (a light should start flashing in your head.. That's your idea light.)

In fact, the Mac has continued to dramatically outpace PC market gain.

3. If Apple's opportunity were closing EVERY DAY, then how have they forged such a comeback? The truth is, there is no abstract definition of when a company gets hot and when it doesn't. Solid innovation with great marketing at an affordable price is a formula for success. Besides, if their window were closing every day, why has the Mac's market gains continued to SPEED UP? Wouldn't that mean the window continues to open?

4. I know what an "executive wannabee" is, I think, but I don't know what it has to do with Mac OS X.

5. Ah yes, a new Windows is on the horizon. Vista! Longhorn! All of 18 months away and short on features compared to OS X Tiger (and Leopard). The truth is, more and more consumers are moving to Mac OS X in droves because they're sick of Windows treating them like second class citizens in the OS world, they're sick of crap security and viruses, and they appreciate the incredible design that went into their iPod and iTunes music store.

6. No offense to my audience here.. but I don't think Linux is on any march to "critical desktop mass." Your argument seems to be that the Mac is doomed and that droves of people are lining up to buy Linux boxes and compile a window manager. Um... you might want to find your way back to earth. Find out if anything hit Discovery on your way back, if you like.

7. Apple, like them or not, is a cultural icon more than ever. They are one of the world's top brands - and that is something that will fuel growth for 10 years. Brands are a powerful thing.

Anyway, next time you want to go on a rant, back it up with some facts. Don't just make absurd comments.

Windows vs. Mac increasingly less relevant

[Ohmster]

Not sure I understand this, and it seems to be a relatively old story (last month already)...it seems to be more Michael Robertson's disappointment rather than Apple, with a tinge of sour grapes in the air. Anyway, the world is rapidly changing to make the whole Windows vs. Mac box competition to be relatively less interesting. With more applications and services moving off the desktop and into the network, the battleground is increasingly shifting online. Apple has already leveraged this move by becoming the number four vendor of personal computers, right behind Gateway on the recent numbers. Now they just need to start to race Microsoft to making more of their applications web-optimized and OS-agnostic. iTunes is a basic step in that direction. The portals are not standing still though...Yahoo!'s acquisition of Konfabulator is in my view a move toward making this new reality happen faster. More on that here: http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/07/on_yahoo_acquis.htm l

Apple sells _computers_, not just software

[CdXiminez]

Apple is in the business of selling computers, not OSses. They're not going to support computers they didn't make themselves.

Blaming IBM's capabilities misses the point

[Ho Kooshy Fly]

Look IBM has world class fabs for SoC's, can do low power, high performance computing and have major mind share in the ASIC world. Their high volume/high profit market is not what Apple is selling. They did the PowerPC 970 for Apple and d they are the highest volume runner, which for IBM is the proverbial drop in the bucket. It adds more visibility but not revenue.

If Apple delivered more product or *gasp* payed IBM to develop low power processors for the laptop market, they couldn't complain. Should Apple have paid IBM for development when getting it from AMD/Intel in the x86 world would be free? No, but people should believe that it was because their vendor was incapable. It was just the Apple itself isn't significant enough to justify chip development with low payoff for IBM.

-Ho