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Apple Should Get Out of Hardware?
SQLGuru writes to mention an analyst recommendation being reported on ZDNet. Despite a BusinessWeek article about Apple's record breaking hardware sales, the folks at Gartner think Apple should get out of the hardware business. Calling for the company to license its hardware to Dell, the analyst company says that gains in Apple's hardware sales are simply not sustainable. From the article: "Apple's margins for its Mac business, currently around 40 percent, are only sustainable because component makers such as Intel choose to prop up the business, Gartner claimed. Given that HP has forced Intel to offer it comparable pricing to Dell, Intel is unlikely to continue to subsidise Apple, the analyst argues. 'As a result of permanently changed market conditions, Intel has been forced to restructure and, in our opinion, cannot go on supporting Apple (or any other customer) indefinitely.'"
Apple makes wonderful machines that work. Dell makes crap. Enough said.
is hardware!
They are coming to flood Slashdot with all kinds of comments.
I for one agree. There really is no difference between a Mac and any PC now. It's all the same hardware in a slightly fancier case that costs you a bit more than a not so fancy case.
Right now Apple's hardware is really limiting as it does not have near the flexibility for a BIY or allowing for a good margin of tweaking.
Apple is a bit different because they have MacOSX to differentiate themselves from other PC OEMs.
Along with designs that are different, no neccasiarly better just different; this allows Apple to charge more and gives Apple an advantage that the other manufacturers currently can't compete against. This may or may not change in the future (Vista closes the gap), but currently I think Apple is going ok. Especially in light of their excellent quarter.
Garner should get out of the clue business. The industry trade press props them up and everybody knows they haven't made a decent clue for years.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
1997 called, they want their Apple doomsaying back!
Dell making apple computers would be a bit like repurposing the old Ford Taurus plant to make Ferrari's. Apple's focus of smaller, quality runs and different chipsets/motherboard config's at least gives Dell something to think about in terms of design. It would be a huge blow to creativity if Dell didn't have the Apple pressure to innovate at the hardware level.
stuff |
"Your Dellpod ship date has been delayed another two weeks."
This used to be the standard advice given when Apple was ailing in the 90's. Back then it was slightly different, as they were suggesting that Apple license out their OS and let others handle the hardware side.
But controlling the hardware is good for Apple. When none of the PC manufacturers jumped onto USB, Apple did. The same with Firewire.
This is why hardware is good for Apple. Because they can innovate like that with the least amount of Red Tape.
Without hardware, they would not have had their successes no matter how awesome Mac OS X - iPod, iMac, their notebooks in general.
Hell, I think they should produce more hardware - like a Newton successor, preferably something small and that can slide into a PCMIA slot to do the syncing and charging.
Anybody who suggests Apple gets out of hardware is smoking something. And it's not the good stuff either.
Apple has always centered it buisness model around hardware. Why do you think they have not put out an offical version of OSX that will run on a generic PC? Its because that would be counter to their primary profit center, selling hardware.
It is kind of like suggesting that GM no longer sell cars.
--C. Alan
Yet, the response is always the same. Apple is a hardware company first, and a software company second. Especially now, where they are selling actual intel PCs with their logo slapped on them. Without the income generated from sales of such hardware (and the ipod), Apple could not survive in this market. Mac OS X is a decent OS, but not good enough to convince companies and schools around the world to spend thousands on software to make the transition away from the more commonly used Windows OS.
Perhaps if Microsoft wasn't so dominant in the software arena, Apple could get out of the hardware business, but until that day comes, Apple will always be primarily a hardware company above all else.
8==8 Bones 8==8
This should definitely not happen. I'm not the biggest fan of Macs, but the presence of apple hardware is the only reason Microsoft doesn't screw over everyone even more.
Long live Apple!
Written on an HP Laptop
Help me get a new laptop - http://nocreditcard.yourgiftsfree.com/?id=3012
Once Apple is out of hardware, the tightly integrated end-user experience is broken, and the star will fall. We saw it before with the PowerPC 4400, a clone-built Apple product that was of shoddy construction and was frought with buggy chipset implementations. Apple hardware is cherished even by users who will run Windows on it - even if it can't get or stay as cheap as Dell or HP stuff, it has cache as a higher-end product.
Seems they tried that before and Apple was in such dire straits Jobs returned to salvage the company and close down the external Mac builders. Let's face it, Apple has survived because the dictatorial nature of product development at Apple means they can establish the trends and bail on those that don't do well, without worrying about maintaining a library of drivers even an orangitan couldn't keep up with (Ook) The PC/Windows path has Microsoft trying to keep an overweight operating system working on a staggering array of hardware combinations. Small wonder very few actually know what the heck is going on with things and most problems are countered with "did you try updating the drivers" or "Have you tried disconecting things until it works" or "You need to do a full re-install"
I wouldn't agree with having Dell make the machines, either. Their quality isn't a shade of what it once was. Dell made their name with competitively priced hardware which was built almost as solidy as IBMs. Now it's all cranked out in China and is as good as anything else cranked out in China, so there's no real advantage over competitors.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is he saying Apple's core business was seeded by Intel. And that without Intel rooting for them, it'll be the pits, so Apple should branch out into other areas?
Actually, Apple has a good name, with solid products like the Macbook, iPod, and OS X. I don't think Apple will have that mcuh of a problem. People don't run to Apple because of price, they run to them because they make decent, user-friendly hardware. Comparable devices are copies of them, and usually more expensive. If prices rise, Apple will go up a bit more, but will that actually drive people away?
Have you read my journal today?
...they want thier stupid apple-should-get-out-of-harware story back.
And why not, have you seen the earning reports? Apple is on the ropes. Record losses, losing market share, constant layoffs, etc. They clearly cannot support their current business model, hell at this rate they will be bankrupt in a year or two.
I would go even further, obviously they are losing money hand over fist on hardware, but I don't think that OSX thing is doing them any good either. And lets face it, the iPod does not have wireless and is pretty lame. Chuck it all and go with the business that has a REAL future. I of course speak of iTunes music store. Look at Napster, they are racking the money faster than they can handle with just an online music store. That is the wave of the future my friends. I only hope Apple has the good sense to listen to reason on this one, and not delude themselves that they are a successful company. The numbers clearly show otherwise.
Finkployd
First, we'll assume that Apple actually wants to continue their high rate of growth, which may not be the case. (eg, Jaguar could take a bigger market if they licensed their name to Ford ... um ... okay, bad example)
The 40% margins are based on what? Because I would think that were Apple to get 20% of the market (over 3x what it is today), the individual costs of the OS are effectively 1/3 per machine in cost, comparatively. And the larger they get, the more sway they might have.
And let's not forget -- Apple on Intel is a form of advertising for Intel. Apple is very, very good at getting in the press, so Intel might be willing to take a smaller margin in exchange.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Apple... going out of business since 1976.
Maryland State Motto: If you can dream it, we can tax it.
Yeah... unsustainable... like a FOX!<Homer/>
That's why I just sold my computer to buy a Mac Mini.
That's why many of my friends have bought a Mac or have a desire to buy a Mac
Before, when they were on PowerPC, they had very little interest for me, but now that Macs are x86 machines, I intend to sell my Cobalt Qube to replace it with a Mini...
People have lost trust in quality of mainstream PC hardware and software, which is a big reason for growing Apple shipments in the first place. Nobody will trust a Mac from Dell. If Apple allows independent licensees at all, it should be a Japanese company line Sony or Panasonic. Even then there are many dangers. Licensees may not ship timely updates to hardware to run the latest releases of MacOSX. Look at how many PCs are still shipped with Intel integrated graphics which will suck on Vista. Does anyone really think the switch to Intel would have gone as quickly with 5 vendors who have their own investment in PPC macs? 3rd parties may not have support on the par with AppleCare and Genius Bar. By providing a complete package, Apple gives you one place which is going to be responsible for any problems you have with your purchase.
This doesn't mean Apple should design and build everything in house. iPod design is already done by several outside companies and I believe Powerbook is designed by Sony. It's just that they should approve what is actually shipped and how its supported to guarantee the quality.
Gartner has made other reccomendations that have been flat out wrong.. Take this with a grain of salt.. On the other hand, how about a pound (1/2kg for non US readers)of salt.
Good thing Gartner is responsible for such great machines that they can... oh wait, they don't make anything but over-priced analysis.
I've had some decently-made PCs out of the 10 or 12 I've owned, but nothing like the quality of my Macs. I switched for home use a couple of years ago with a PowerBook. I added a MacMini last spring and a quad MacPro recently, and they are absolutely some of the nicest machines I've ever seen since I started as a tech in '79.
Apple would be completely stupid to give up that control and differentiation from everyone else.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
A few counterpoints: 1. Apple is a hardware company. They make their revenue from hardware sales, not from software sales. 2. Apple makes superior hardware. Have you seen the inside of the Mac Pro? I have one, and I'm very impressed. The only internal cable is for the IDE optical drive. Everything else is modular. 3. Apple doesn't actually make their own hardware. They design it and have it manufactured to specifications. The motherboard of the Mac Pro was designed by Intel and Apple, but is manufactured by Intel. So, if one would agree with me that their hardware is superior, and one understands that Apple does not manufacture the hardware, how would Apple be limited in manufacturing ability, and how would it help Apple in any way to completely commoditize (if that is a word...) the production of hardware to support their OS? When Apple needs to ramp up production, they can choose an additional manufacturer to support their needs. In addition, since Apple makes a majority of their money from hardware, they would need to redesign their business model to become profitable in the software market. And by the way, is Intel really here to "prop up the market" or are they here to make money? I can't imagine Intel is making deals like those with Apple and intentionally losing money.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
is that Gartner should go out of business permanently. This is just yet another load of BS from them, just like "50% of tech jobs will be outsourced in the next 5 years, and as it JUST so happens we have an offshore consultancy agency. Imagine that!"
Nothing but crap comes out of Gartner, how they are still in business is beyond me.
Monstar L
I could probably count myself among the minions of Steve Job since the release of OS X. (And the demise of the stupid-looking clamshell ibooks) I think there are two reasons the analyst may not *yet* be right in suggesting that Apple give up on hardware. First, with a narrow scope of hardware engineered and produced by Apple, they also have a somewhat narrower support requirement for hardware drivers. I know most of this is done by third parties, but even organizing that effort has seemed to be a headache for Microsoft over the last 10 years. Most people's immediate response when their new video card/audio card/etc doesn't work is to blame it on the OS. While this may not be true, I promise Dell, Gateway, or possibly Windows recieved the support call... not the third party. Second, there is really a lot to be said for the aesthetic and simplicity of the Apple design. They have prided themselves with delivering the customer an experience that does not require a 300 page manual or 5 years of experience to unpack their computer, set it up, and be on the internet with their required peripherals. The aesthetic is part of that. If people can have their software easy, they expect the hardware to be the same. Also, the *status* of an Apple MacBook Pro or PowerBook bares some weight in the business world. It turns heads when an executive flops open their Apple at a table full of Lenovos... I see it every day. When there is another hardware manufacturer that can offer Apple more direct competition, I could see them bowing out of hardware. They'll no longer be "innovating".
They refer to Dell as [i]Intel's closet ally[/i]. It also seems to assume that the Intel transition is at its end game rather than the first move of a more elaborate strategy. I always assumed that the transition was phase one and that Intel's motivation for the transition was to get an OS partner that was willing to run with some of Intel's more proprietary technology that MS never allowed to take off. That in turn might have forced MS into accepting it (Apple competitive reasons) and aid Intel in their fight with AMD. Far fetched but...
http://daringfireball.net/2006/10/gartner_jackasse s
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Is it just me or has Gartner become a shill for certain companies that would like to see Apple and Linux fail?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I think the way Apple manages its brands and image, hardware quality control is going to continue to be important -- if they outsource, they'll need to have a very strong partnership with the 3rd party, and even then there is a lot that can go wrong. Own part of the chain, but allow it to function as an entirely separate division.
Gee with increasing volumes large margins are not sustainable because Apple won't get as good of deals from Intel? Yeah that makes sense.. err wait no it doesn't! As volume goes up, Apple will get better deals from component manufacturers, in general, not worse. Maybe Intel will not cut them as nice of deals, but with increasing volumes, Apple does not need to maintain margins. Most of their costs are fixed. OS development, marketing, industrial design, etc. make up most of their costs, but remain fixed no matter how many units they ship. If they ship twice as many, they can cut their margins in half without being affected.
Either the Gartner people are looking to the very short term or they're out of their minds. The only way to free yourself from the influence of a monopoly is to maintain a complete vertical chain of components, including the one they have monopolized, but separate from their market. Apple doesn't sell their OS to Dell for two reasons. One, it would seriously cut into their hardware sales as people went to what they perceive as cheaper machines and were unable to compete with Dell's market outlets. Two, MS will kill Dell if they tried shipping OS X pre-installed. As soon as Dell had to re-negotiate their OEM licenses for Windows, MS would offer them the choice of being the largest supplier of computers in the US, with the cheapest rate for Windows, or being the most expensive supplier of PCs in the US. Assuming Gartner is 100% correct and Dell took all of that market, they'd still only be selling 13% of the machines in the US and they'd lose almost all of their existing 32% of the PC market selling Windows machines. Oh Dell would love that bargaining chip, but it just might kill Apple.
No, now is not the time for such a move. Everyone who has tried to compete in that market has been killed by MS's lock-ins, even though several had superior offerings at the time. Apple needs to maintain their segregation until either the courts actually stop MS's antitrust actions or until they or Linux has grabbed a bigger chunk of the pie.
They design them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't ALL Apple products built under contract by factories in Asia?
What could they possibly gain by turning their manufacturing over to Dell?
This is not a slam at Apple. I own macs and ipods and I think they design great products. I just don't think there's an "Apple" factory out there churning out the gizmos. Why would they turn to Dell -- a company with a horrible, horrible track record for quality and reliability -- to make their products, when their current business arrangements seem to be working just fine?
$10B in the bank, no debt, 12 profitable quarters in a row, growing marketshare...this needs fixing how, exactly?
The Gartner guys must have mixed vodka with their Red Bull again.
1) Apple NEVER does whatever analysts or other "professionals" say they should do.
2) Apple's MAJOR part of the revenue comes from hardware.
3) The clones did NOT work, remember?
4) Maybe they should license their iPods and upcoming iPhones to Dell as well?
Where are Apple components manufactured?
apple's has a few important differentiators, relative to it's competitors. hardware design is probably one of the more important ones. loosing that is the first step into the abyss.
I was actually imagining the scenario of Apple moving their hardware business to another company for a little while there. Then I saw "Dell" and had to double check the calendar. Nope, not April 1st.
Even if it is possible that moving away from hardware would be a good future move for Apple somehow, the recommendation of Dell seems quirious to me. Yes, Intel is indeed closely partnered with Dell but there's got to be other options. Even just one "or Apple could partner with ______" would have sufficed and kept me reading. Would there even be an advantage outside of manufacturing and infrastructural communication cost savings to be had? And what of the design teams behind Apple's hardware?
All I know is I sure as hell wouldn't let Dell try to do what Apple does so well.
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
Aren't these the same guys that sang to high heaven about how solid of a case that SCO had and that IBM had better settle?
Apple's main advantage is how well the hardware and the software work together. Doing what they suggest would weaken the whole reason to buy a Mac in the first place.
that fartner knows _everything_ about Apple's supply equations. That way they can give stock brokers advice before things actually happen.
"I don't have time to read today's paper, so I get tomorrow's,...(pause)...my stocks have done great."
-Steven Wright
Dvorak? is that you?
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that, in 2003, said "IDS is dead", has "failed to live up to the hype," "is a market failure," and "will be obsolete by 2005." Sure Gartner, whatever.
These guys have little credibility left in my mind.
akad0nric0
This sentence no verb.
If Mac licenses out its hardware, OS X is going to have to support a far wider range of hardware which may restrict advances in the OS in the future.
They'd probably be better off just making version of OS X that can be installed on any Intel based system and keep their premium hardware to themselves. OS X can be installed on VM Ware on Windows already. It's then up to 3rd party companies to write OS X drivers for their hardware.
It's not like companies that sell expensive hardware aren't profitable just because you can buy a $400 e-machine. Mac will profit from OS X on a much wider market and they really won't lose any market with their existing hardware. People buy Mac because of the quality. Not just for OS X.
So they have to decide if they want control or market share. And how much of each.
Work Safe Porn
Apple only has a few computer products and iMacs are probably like 40-60% of sales. Dell probably has something like 20 models.
So while Apple is a smaller manufacturer, they still achieve economies of scale (and high quality) by focusing on a narrow range of hardware.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Subject says it all. Cindy Sheehan speaks more intelligently on foreign policy than Gartner does on technology.
Trusting Gartner's eval is a bit like listening to the white house or congress speak about Iraq; You just know that they have their own agenda and worse, the ones behind it, have zip experience or education.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Wrong. There is no way Apple will want to become just another boutique hardware manufacturer. Not a chance in hell.
So, let me get this straight,
Dell strikes a sweet deal with Intel after opening up it's systems to the AMD line...
HP muscles in and says it will go to AMD (I assume) unless it gets the same deal as Dell.
Dell and HP are in a deathgrip to maintain market share for the corporate and household WinTel platform, and are being nipped at by Lenovo, BestBuy, Walmart, etc, for market share, house branding, and margins
Apple, which has the luxury of owning premium software that can run on multiple platforms, let alone on an x86 platform, and is probably already paying slightly more (due to volumes) than Dell or HP, Apple is the EVIL one here, and should be punished by Intel asking for a higher per unit cost for components, because Apple is more profitable?
I see this as ludicrous as Goodyear asking for Honda to pay [even] more for the same tire as GM and Ford, because Honda can afford to pay it... x86 is a freakin' commodity, like pork bellies, and batteries (SONY, pay attention!!!). It's an important commodity, but fundamentally, a chip is a chip, and it's just that.
Intel is not subsidizing Apple... Intel is subsidizing the big boy PC maker market in order to stave off AMD and maintain market their share. This article infers that Intel will soon ask Apple to help subsidize this partnership, and apple will be in no position to fight back....
I hope Apple says either "AMD called yesterday and built a proto system on the PLUON chip... It ran OSX without mods... doesn't need another Universal Binary... just plug and play" or "You know, you should come over sometime... the boys in the labs, They built a sweet OS X system that uses a CELL chip from IBM.... Obtw, here's our order for 6million Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs... volume pricing hasn't changed... correct?"
... Microsoft should get out of the OS business and stick to what they do best - producing mice/keyboard combos. They should also give a try to making swiss cheese, now that they have expeirience with all those holes in IE.
Slow news so lets chug out the same fodder that was written in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 - gettin' all this? 1991, 92, 93, oh look at the time fly, 94, 95, 96 - slight pause for everyone to write about Apple's imminent deminse - 97, 98, 99, 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, oh hey the leaves are changing let's suggest they do the same strategic blunder that almost sank the company during Spindler's reign because after all, Dells are as nicely designed and integrated as Mac right?
Why do I get the feeling that the overpaid fingers typing this crap are either (a) Windows users (YA THINK?) or (b) Unable to get today's dirt on Paris Hiltons' latest drunken blunder?
Does anybody actually take the advice of the Gartner Group? I have not heard of one suggestion that makes from them. This is just one more suggestion on that list!
Is there any other business on the planet—other than loan-sharking perhaps—where a 40% margin would be considered a failure? Your local grocer is probably surviving on about one-tenth that margin.
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
Sure, my Macbook Pro gets a little toasty when i'm playing games or rendering video, but at least it doesnt explode!
sounds like some iffy analysis to me.
the Intel relationship has not existed long enough to have a baseline from which to make these projections.
for this reasoning to work, Apple would have had to be the beneficiary of subsidies and handouts from its previous processor vendor and other suppliers as well.
does anyone think that a small-quantity buyer like Apple would have the leverage to get those kinds of concessions? why would suppliers prop up a hardware business in this way? this whole Gartner theory defies business sense.
a more rational theory is that Apple needs no propping up in order to make an acceptable profit on the existing margins, and like every other business, will do what it can to improve its underlying costs.
Wouldn't even be that much of a risk to Apple because it's specialized enough not to be a direct competitor. It would just be another option for Apple users with the need for a computer designed to work in harsher environments. Actually the toughbook could pick up a few things from Apple too like the magsafe power connector.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
IIRC, Apple does not make the hardware. Apple designs the hardware, and contracts ASUS (at least as far as the MBs and MBPs are concerned I think, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) to manufacture it. Apple is, as it seems to me, more of a lifestyle and design firm moreso than a typical hardware/software company.
To butcher an old saying: Apple doesn't make the steak. Apple makes it sizzle.
Dvorak, is that you?
Synchronize your calendar and mobile phone via text messaging.
(in millions, except per-share)
Q2, FY'07 Q2, FY'06 Change
Revenue $14,094 $13,428 5%
Operating Income $605 $1,173 (48%)
Net Income $502 $1,020 (51%)
Earnings/Share $0.22 $0.41 (46% )
Now let's look at Apple from their most recent announced results (in their case it's Q4 FY06 vs. Q4 FY05):
Q4 FY06 Q4 FY05
Revenue $4.84b $3.68B
Net Income $546m $430M
Earnings/Share: $.62 $.50
(Slashdot keeps taking out the spaces, which is why this looks funky.) So, even though Dell has a little more than 3x Apple's gross sales, Apple is the more profitable company. Dell's profits dropped by 51% between Q2FY06 and Q2FY07, while Apple's profits reached new records. Moreover, Apple's profitability and market share are both increasing, while Dell's is decreasing.
And Apple would want to outsource manufacturing to a much less profitable and quality-conscious company why?
Crow T. Trollbot
MS supported USB only from win98, afair.
Windows95c, on the install disc. And you could get USB to work on Windows95a and Windows95b with a driver from Microsoft or the manufacturer.
Please, they aren't even pronounced in the same way!
Sooooo...Apple should get out of the hardware business because they're making alot of money? And how is Intel "propping up" Apple? They sell processors and chipsets to Apple just like they do to Dell, HP, Lenovo, and etc. I thought that was called a "business relationship"? Or maybe I'm missing the point...
http://www.bynarystudio.com
Gee, I wonder whether the reason Apple switched to Intel's x86 architecture was because they weren't funded by Motorola/Freespace anymore.
There were of course reasons behind that change, but if they wanted to go Intel why not the Itanium range instead? The really bad side of all this is actually that we are now basically depending on one single CPU provider for all PC:s with a few competitors that are in the backwater. AMD is the biggest competitor to Intel but it's still x86. As it is now it is more a question of how long SUN will hold on to the Sparc processors and how long IBM will stay on the track with their PowerPC processors. Alpha-processors has already been killed as well as MIPS and even earlier Motorola. The HP PA-RISC processors lives on in a way in the Itanium processors, but for how long? (flamebait here) Some of the "dead" processors still lives on the fringe in embedded systems, probably more due to the fact that there have been a lot of people around actually familiar with the quirks of each on assembly level than on other merits.
In all, most hardware vendors seems to end up using the same building blocks (for good and bad) and has to distinguish themselves by allow the parts to play in concert and provide know-how and service to the customers.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I find no evidence that Apple's margins mean they're getting a better deal than any other manufacturer.
Apple is simply able to charge 40% more for the same hardware because people are willing to pay 40% more to get Apple's software. This has been consistently true... even back to when Apple's software was built on top of rotting dogmeat held together by formaldehyde and Reynold's Wrap. Now that Mac OS X is a first-class operating system in its own right, they're easily worth the premium.
You can do the calculations yourself. I did. When I got my Mac mini I was able to find a number of objectively better Wintel-compatible computers for under $300. I put together a package on HP's website. I put together a machine using generic parts and paid retail prices for them. That's 40% all the way down to the low end.
Apple's margins aren't due to any sweetheart deals from manufacturers.
Personally, I would love to see Apple get out of the hardware business. Not so much because their hardware is unexceptional and expensive, but because it's an ergonomic nightmare... whoever is responsible for the keyboard on my Macbook Pro has a special place reserved in hell being forced to climb flaming rocks while his wrists are flayed to the bone. I'd prefer a Thinkpad and a copy of generic OS X to run on it any day.
It's not going to happen though, not as long as voluntarily handicapping themselves like this keeps them out of Microsoft's gunsights.
"the USB move was probably the smartest platform move apple made"
That was a terrible move: very anti-user. Apple would have been much better off phasing out non-USB ports only after the number of non-USB devices had dwindled a lot. What Appel did really screwed the user: making a machine without necessary standard-of-the-day ports in order to force the user to buy dongles or new peripherals because Apple thought that it was somehow immoral for users to use non-USB interface devices. (I've got a nice parellel-port printer I can still use on most PCs because they still have a port. Why? Because the printer is STILL A GOOD PRINTER, and PC manufacturers tend to respond to what the users need rather than Apple, which has fits of forcing morality like this.)
Where were you when the voynix came?
I mean Why?
Apple makes good computers that people like, and Dell makes crap.
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
they're not very credible. apple is a top-5 computer hardware seller again in the retail channel. they're trying to put a spike in what they see as a vampire. pure and simple.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Gartner will say almost anything you want them to say if you fund the study. I've been in IT for 21 years and this is an absolute truth.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Wasn't Apple, like, actually doomed in '97?
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
I like having two buttons on my touchpad. I like my Thinkpad-style pointing stick. I like my smartcard reader. I like my fingerprint reader. I *really* like my docking station. Being able to swap my DVD writer out for a second battery on long flights is awesome. There's in-hardware theft tracking too. Oh, and I have an ambient-light sensor to automatically adjust screen brightness, just like the Mac. No glowing keyboard, but I tend to work in well-lit rooms.
Current-generation Dell laptops have a slick, understated aesthetic. They don't scream LOOK AT ME I AM MISUNDERSTOOD BUT SECRETLY BRILLIANT AND SEXY AND OWN AN IPOD AND LIKE EMO JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, but they are really nice. There's no flashing-blue-light-overload (I'm looking at you, HP), no shiny scratch-magnet surfaces, and no glowing corporate logo on the hood.
A judicious use of the sugar cube technique to remove the extra logos would make Dell hardware a good choice for people who don't identify with meaningless, corporate, glowing-fruit branding.
Apple is a premium hardware maker and designer, but their OS isn't that special, and developers as a whole have rejected it.
Excuse me? I look around at fellow IT developers and quite a few of them have accepted OS X.
Furthermore Apple has done a great job growing really useful framrworks in the OS like Core Image and Core Data. There are an ever expanding group of developers for OSX who have seen what a pretty good development environment (XCode) and a well thought set of frameworks can do for productivity.
I know the Apple fans out there will fight me to their death, but the facts don't match up with you. Apple is slowly making the transition...
I won't fight you, I don't need to - for the obvious progression is to use Windows for legacy apps and switch everything else to the Mac. Bootcamp is Apple's 3270 emulator - it lets you keep using some old applications while moving forward.
Or really parallels is, Bootcamp is a slightly less convinent form of the same thing.
If you think Apple is anywhere close to giving up OS X just as it is exploding in popularity and usefulness then you might have something.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, especially in an IT environment like /., but in the library world Garntner is considered to be a very, very unreliable source. Gartner has the reputation among the special library community (read:Business Research Libraries) as a heavily biased source in favor of current advertisers. If you spend money advertising with Gartner, you get favorable reviews. Don't spend on advertising, you get poor reviews or ignored.
I'm sure this isn't the case 100% of the time. In fact, even if it were common business practice it would make sense to do the opposite just to be able to point a finger and say "See, we don't really do that". None the less, it is the rep in much of the business library world not that it seems to matter to our IT department.
As the title states, consider the source. Valid advice IMHO for anything you read on any topic from any source. Hey, even slashdot lacks a modifier for accuracy. Doesn't that seem strange?
Until Dell and its OEM brethren start producing hardware that are mainstream fashion symbols, Apple will have no trouble maintaining its explosive growth. People in general don't want bloated hardware that does everything they don't need to do. They want hardware that gets the job done, and looks really nifty and suave while doing it. Apple has been able to do a pretty good job of this so far, and while some manufacturers (Dell comes to mind) have made many improvements to the usability of their hardware, they still have a long way to go.
if they wanted to go Intel why not the Itanium range instead?
Because they're not stupid.
Itanium combines the nastiest problems of the very first RISC chips with the complexity and heat problems of the horrid Pentium 4 core, combined with and Intel's special ability to miss the point in instruction set design. I don't believe it has a future even in minicomputers, but for personal computers it would be a disaster.
I've used Itanium, programmed on it, and I hope to never have to do so again.
Code generation is SO hard that the only way to get decent performance is to perform test runs of the final code to let the compiler find the hot spots and optimize for the common paths. It requires cross-module optimizations... moving copies of code between calling and called subroutines. The ISA exposes internal implementation details... Itanium 1 code had to be recompiled to take advantage of the larger bundle size in Itanium 2. The performance penalty from not doing so was like running under emulation.
This would be like having to recompile your code for Core 2, and maintain separate versions for Core and Core 2 processors. You'd also want to recompile any time any of the libraries you used changed, because the cross-module optimizations could break, though I suppose you could just give up more performance and just optimize your software internally.
And if they didn't like the heat from the G5... my god...
One quick comment, but Vista closes the gap briefly. When was the last major update to Windows prior to Vista? 2001. That's 6 years between upgades, and the changes we've seen between versions haven't been particularly significant.
Windows is rapidly becoming a victim of it's own success. Making substantial changes to the code is difficult because they have to maintain compatibility with all the crap that's already out there. Apple has been able to go back to the drawing board and start with something totally new which has allowed them to be far more innovative.
So while Vista will close the gap, it'll then be another 5-6 years before the next Windows version and Apple will come out with many useful changes in the meantime.
Aside from that though, I believe Apple would be foolish to change their business model. Their selling point is that they control the whole experience. Apple's always have the impression of being more expensive, but that's because Apple doesn't generally make low end systems. They make higher end high quality systems and then make sure everything works well.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Eventually apple will announce the costs of maintaining OSX doesn't meet the interest of the public, and they will start going to head to head with Dell selling windows desktops.
Funny, I'd be more inclined to think the opposite. It seems more likely to me that, as Vista crashes and burns and IT departments reject it for it's insane piracy-protection measures, Dell and other PC vendors will look at Apple's success and wonder if they should start offering their own optimized versions of open-sourced software. Not that I think it's entirely likely right now, but more likely than Apple dropping OSX.
Developers haven't rejected OSX. Some developers just haven't been releasing OSX software because OSX lacked the market share to be a profitable platform for them. That appears to be changing, as Apple is getting more and more mainstream attention. In fact, I've heard a lot of developers say that Apple is a great platform to develop for, and that Xcode is a great environment (can't vouch for that, since I'm not a programmer).
Finally, I just can't imagine Steve Jobs will ever, so long as he's in control of the company, ship Macintoshes booting into Windows by default. I know, people doubted the Intel switch, said it would never happen, etc. But this is different. You're talking about Steve Jobs and Microsoft Windows here.
"Apple is a premium hardware maker and designer, but their OS isn't that special, and developers as a whole have rejected it."
Dude you are joking right? I am afraid to reply because I just don't know it this was meant to be funny but the sarcasm didn't make it through.
OS/X is a great OS for developers. I develop for Windows and can not wait to start the port to OS/X The only problem is I may have keep working on the Windows version as well.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Didn't these guy read Apples recent fourth quart report. To suggest that Apple change anything would not be very smart. All they are saying is It can't go on like this forever. Did you hear what Steve Jobs said some months ago. To paraphrase -- "having only a 4% market share is good because we have the potential to double the size of the company if we could only gain another 4%" If we beleave the recent report then Apple is well on the way to doubling it's size.
Apple's products are better because of the software, the industrial design and the build quality. But the real kicker is that if you want to run Mac OSX you have to buy Apple hardware. People will do that. Apple can always command a higher price.
Getting out of the hardware business has been a great strategy for Amiga, NeXT, BeOS, Sun, Transmeta, ...
It should work great for Apple, too.
As usual, the loudest criticisms of Apple are the ones based on the machines of a decade ago. Honestly, who still cares about the Centris/Performa/LC series or even the G3? What's next, a scathing critique of System 7?
Also, do the Mac fans still get to be snarky about PCs in general because Packard Bell and eMachines made such awful clunkers, or is this tactic reserved for the Apple-bashers only?
0 1 - just my two bits
The actual key to Apple's hardware business, and the primary obsession of its customers, is Lucite. The analysts should instead be comparing Dell's Lucite supply chain to Apple's before they make any conclusions. This is a really high-end plastic. Does Dell have any core competence with it? Do they have engineers with any experience at all in translucency?
That way you can get a crappy, unreliable computer and crappy, unreliable tech support.
At the risk of sounding like a Mac fanboi, I can say that I honestly believe that Apple makes a very solid OS and some of the best and most durable hardware I've used.
I do a lot of traveling, and my PowerBook 12" has held up way better than any Dell or IBM I have previously owned.
All of this is not to say that the laptops are the best, or that no one else's are even close. There are other laptops by other companies that perform very well.
Apple has something good going with their hardware, and I hope that they'll continue to make it as such. Some people like it for its 'not another black/beige box' looks. Others prefer it for its durability. Hell, car bodies are barely made of metal anymore.
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The clones did NOT work, remember?
The clones didn't work because there was no huge pool of manufacturers making Power PC based motherboards, and no huge pool of potential customers running something else on their Power PC boxes who'd be interested in buying Mac OS to run on them.
I've never been quite sure WHY Apple decided to promote clone hardware. It seemed like they were overextended trying to make too many models of Macs and this was a way to let them shed the unprofitable models and concentrate the product line, unfortunately the cloners ALSO decided to target the profitable part of the market.
Jobs solved the problem in a much more straightforward way... albeit one that eliminated people loking for a conventional desktop from their customer base. They briefly opened that up a smidgen with the Mini... but using the GMA950 chip in the Intel mini... oy...
If only I could have a Lenovo ThinkMac. Mmmm....pointing stick and three mouse buttons.
(A1) Sun switches to AMD, windows boots natively, hardware sales go up.
(A2) Sun gives Solaris away for free, runs on non-Sun hardware, hardware sales go up more.
(B1) Apple switches to Intel, windows boots natively, hardware sales go up.
(B2) ... ?
Apple should let people download MacOS X 10.5 for free from apple.com, and allow it to run unsupported on non-Apple hardware. Sun Microsystems has been using the same tactic for quite awhile now (in order to compete with Linux) and it has had a hugely positive impact on their hardware sales (even if it seems ironic).
Apple would be ingenious to let windows users switch to MacOS X 10.5 on their existing PCs as an alternative to upgrading to Vista (which many don't want to do). I bet that a large chunk of people who made the switch to Apple software would then switch to Apple hardware as their next purchase.
It may seem illogical at first, but if Apple's hardware sales went up after letting windows boot natively (which logically seemed the death of OSX, but wasn't?), and if Sun's hardware sales went up after letting windows boot natively AND giving Solaris away for free, why wouldn't Apple find the same success?
Seems simple to me.
-Apt
Intel is more than happy to be collaborating with Apple -- next year you'll see Intel technology end up in awesome products, thanks to Apple looking at what Intel has with "Apple eyes".
Plus, Dell's boxes will never look as good as Apple's. Period. OS X and the Box go together. They both look good.
Apple's products are better because of the software, the industrial design and the build quality.
As I sit here with my overheating Macbook Pro using a Dell keyboard and a Microsoft mouse because Apple's horrid keyboards and stylish-but-unusable "might mouse" aggravate my RSI something awful, I can only say "one out of three ain't bad". It's the software:
But the real kicker is that if you want to run Mac OSX you have to buy Apple hardware.
Yep. that's the one.
World domination isn't the only acceptable competitive strategy. Survival works too. In fact, it's smartest to use the right strategy that is appropriate for your position.
The amount of risk involved in a choice depends on what you have to lose. If you're surviving, but just barely, almost everything is risky to you, because you could lose everything. If you're not even surviving and you know you're fucked anyway, nothing is risky to you because you will lose even if you don't try. If you lead by a huge margin, very few things are risky to you, because it would take an astronomically huge consequence to take your lead away from you.
Apple first started with a big lead and a dominant position but quickly lost it. They've been using a conservative survival strategy ever since. They aren't so screwed that they can take on any old crazy risk, but they also aren't so ahead that they can afford to take on big strategic risks. They have to play it safe, given where they are at. They've been doing a good job of employing the survival strategy, and they've been using it to gradually dig their way back out of a dangerous hole. They should keep playing that same strategy for quite a while.
Licensing MacOS to PC makers would be a high-risk move for Apple, which they can't afford right now. PC makers would demand that Apple sell them Mac OS X at a price lower than what Microsoft charges them for Windows, which would probably cut into the profit margins Apple is used to enjoying on the OS installed on its own machines.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
"Apple is a premium hardware maker and designer, but their OS isn't that special, and developers as a whole have rejected it."
It's the the other way around. Their hardware is quirky, non-standard (but less and less so) and often slower and is missing parts compared to run-of-the-mill PC's costing far less. OS-X? Now THAT is what shines.
Where were you when the voynix came?
If you look on a new Apple box something is missing! The "Intel Inside" logo. Intel is irrelavent, AMD is irrelavent, PPC was irrelavent.........the complete package from Apple is what is relavent.
Apple hardware is made in China too. At least the ipods are dropshipped from Shanghai
The fact that Apple now makes computers that run Windows is even more evidence that they are infact a hardware company first and foremost.
Similes are like metaphors
Apple dying, should get out while they can. Film at 11.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
God, I hate analysts. If their business advice is so great, why don't they go into business for themselves? Those who cannot do, simply complain.
"Analysts" have been "analyzing" for YEARS about how Apple hardware sales are going to decline. Well... it's two decades later and they're still doing alright.
The only "Apple" manufacturing site left is the facility in Cork, Ireland!
"Manufacturing" is a bit of a misnomer, as all the do is assembly parts from Asia!
Mostly iMacs and Desktops with some xServes as well.
The two reasons they left Cork intact is that Ireland have a low tax rate,
and they can fill cto orders for the European market within a few days.
They also have a large call center there as well.
__
Sigs are like arse-holes, everybody has one
Non-standard? Maybe, I guess it depends on what "standard" you're alluding to. "Doesn't come with Windows pre-installed" could be considered "non-standard", just because it's unusual. But "missing parts"?
And then give all the money back to the shareholders.
The hardware business is a low margin business. Yes, it can be a cash cow but that is not what Apple needs. Apple needs higher margins. It would make complete business sense for them to ditch hardware with the exception of maybe the iPod. IBM ditched their computer manufacturing business to Lenovo and look at their profits in the most recent quarter.
... 'nuff said.
OK. Qucik. Love Apple. Love the slick designs. Hate DELL and the boring computers they put out. GM should start building Porsches too! Please! At least give Lenovo a shot at it? Sheesssh
David Vasta iSeries(AS/400) Admin & Junkie
I'm not sure where you get this, because I can build a non-Dell PC or find one from a specialty vendor that is the equal of current Apple models at about 2/3 of the price. And yes, that's using premium components.
I (a departmental IT manager and UNIX admin at a tier-1 US university) bought mine and some for the department and am willing to pay the bucks because of the integration of OS X with the hardware. Licensing OS X for non-Apple hardware would not be a good thing. The bleedover effect would be the general populace seeing OS X crash and burn on budget machine because of crap drivers and hardware, and then promptly making the generalization that Apple sucks ass.
"Apple will come out with many useful changes in the meantime."
[joke]
Bah! It will take them until 2018 to come out with OS XI - I mean come on, how many years have they still been on X ??
[/joke]
"But this one goes to 11!"
Kind of like Porche contracting out to the company that makes the Hugo?
I think I'll give it a try.
Microsoft should give away Office.
IBM should take a new look at vacuum tubes.
AMD processors use extraterrestrial technology.
This is fun....
Why would they turn to Dell -- a company with a horrible, horrible track record for quality and reliability -- to make their products, when their current business arrangements seem to be working just fine?
Apple would not "turn" to Dell. We are talking about a strategic alliance. Quality issues could be dealt with when Apple lends their expertise in quality during manufacturing.
Apple's current products may be made in Asia, and that's fine. But Apple can benefit from an alliance with Dell. Dell would offer expertise and knowledge of mass distribution, packaging and marketing, along with manufacturing efficiencies.
Apple's strengths, as some have said are product design and function. Compaines that put too many resources in innovation are proven business losers. Dell is mass marketer and mass producer with long term competitive advantages. Apple needs to change their business strategy before the iPod fad dollars run out. I'm looking forward to seeing what the iPod clones do the Apple's revenues onces the spread thoughout the world.
Apple never made CPUs, hard drives, or video cards. They are in the plastic injection molding business. They make fancy looking aluminum boxes with plastic trim, hip logos and pulsing lights. They take the best hardware they can find from other vendors and put it in pretty encosures. And it's worked very well.
John Gruber's excellent Daring Fireball blog has an excellent opinion on this article.
e s
http://daringfireball.net/2006/10/gartner_jackass
I can't believe so few people understand this simple fact.
In 2006, there is practically no proprietary hardware between Dell or Apple.
Both Dell and Apple do the following:
1. Design cases
2. Buy OEM'd parts to put in those cases.
3. Put the hardware and software bits together and test, test, test.
4. Have the finished kit assembled in China.
4. Market/Sell the product.
It's easy to see Apple puts more effort into some of those areas and are thus demanding a higher price.
Other than that, I can't believe anyone thinks Dell is so different than Apple. Different products, yes. Very similar product development processes.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Ford did not own Lamborghini.
It was Chrysler, who was responsible for the creation of the Diablo(Lee Iococca said the door sills on the Countach were too wide). You are correct that Chrysler raided some of the technology(ex. brakes on the Viper), however Chrysler sold off their interest in Lamborghini due to difficult financial circumstances(which lead to the Daimler "merger").
Lamborghini is currently owned by VW.
I've become more and more convinced that if we shut down Gardner and McKinney and the rest of the horrible slop shops, we'd actually have a better world. The MBA is a vastly overestimated degree. Far superior? Work for a summer in your uncle's business. Meet a payroll for a while. Anything you don't understand about that? You probably never will understand it. I want the old American masters of business back, not these effete, number-crunching, elitist morons. Gimme Henry Ford any day. Okay, without the antisemitism. Gimme Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Republicans. Seen one recently? All these morons pretend like there's some science to this whole thing about business. I'll give you the scientific part: buy low, sell high. End of course. Now hit the street, maggots. When you actually make something like the Mac, or like Dell, or anybody, then we'll listen to you pimply consultants. I know what an autoworker is, or a gandy dancer fer chrissakes, but what's a "Gardner" except a parasite who's well-connected enough that he thinks his sorry little job can't be outsourced to Bangalore.
No, they don't. If you look at the numbers, Apple is close to overtaking Gateway as the third-biggest computer maker, selling only 38,000 less units than Gateway last quarter with a total of 1.61 million Macs sold.
Have you seen your nick lately? Shouldn't you be off waiting for an IE7 patch? It's comments like yours that make posting smackdowns on Slashdot a real joy on a Thursday.
"Sufferin' succotash."
the business intelligence market. Gartner's business model and high margins only work because Pointy Haired Bosses (PHBs) pay exorbitant money to buy these reports. However, the recent and continuing trend of downsizing in the American market place will impact the number of PHB's. As the number of PHBs increase in India and China, Gartner should investigate getting out of the business intelligence market and selling their business to ... you get the picture.
In all fairness, it is really not much of a problem anymore (now that non-USB devices have actually faded and that the floppy really has died). But for several years, you had to pay extra with a Mac to get removable storage and standard ports that came built-in on PCs costing far less. The single button mouse sucked too compared to the double button model as well. I was not referring to "Windows pre-installed". Referring only to hardware. PCI slots helped to. They've come a long way from the years when Apple even had bizarre plugs on the back of the computers just for the hell of it and wonky incompatible monitors.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I guess if I got my processors for effectively free like Apple appears to to, I'd be using Intel too. Of course, given Apple's overall market share, can't be that many Core 1/2 Uno/Duo processors anyway. What do you bet that AMD sells more Athlons to Dell now than Intel sells Cores to Apple.
Apple has become a Vanity Producer. They stay in the hardware more because of their vanity than anything else. Like people who self-publish their own books.
Given that HP has forced Intel to offer it comparable pricing to Dell...
And when did HP manage this feat?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Apple did that in the 90s,remember the beige boxes by Daystar, Motorolla, PC Computing, etc. Nearly killed Apple, not only did the hardware look ugly, it didn't really improve on any operation quality.
After that Apple got back into hardware and since then we have seen the candy iMacs, G3, G4, G5, intel dual core, etc. A lot of those came with pretty groundbreaking innovations (USB, firewire, bluetooth, etc) as well as the killer looks of the sleek cases.
Since Apple has control of the hardware they also have better control to make sure the OS consistently works with the hardware, A reason Windows is such a big thing (same With Linux) is all the various cards and drivers (and the not so perfect variations of 'standard' cards and drivers) It also happens in Macs too but the end user rarely sees it (and then not for very long) because Apple OWNS it all and can take care of it.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Speaking of the past, Steve Jobs killed the clone program because they could not make up the loss of hardware revenue with operating system revenue. Lesson learned - Apple is truly a hardware company that differentiates its products with great software.
duhhh iPods ;)
...hee hee.
So you're complaining about Apple now based on what their hardware was like before PCI and USB?
and to those of us with a Windows machine, it still matters. Every time (every stinking time) I open an Explorer window to the "machine" level, I have to wait 5 seconds while Windows dutifully checks the floppy drive so it can see what to display for A: Never mind the fact that there is not now nor has their ever been a disk in the drive, never mind the fact that the last time anyone used a floppy was two versions of Windows back, the PC manufacturer still installed the drive and Windows still wastes time checking for a floppy.
It wasn't morally offensive, it was just a nusaince. I too am glad to see the death of them.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Maybe, maybe not.
Currently Apple is doing well and is very profitable, why change when you don't have to?
USB only really became useful a couple of years ago due to the "killer app" (cheap thumb drive) and the digital camera takeover. Otherwise, you are right. I withdraw my complaint.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I know the moron fanbois will not believe this, but Apple hardare is the same as everyone else's hardware - the only difference being that they make theirs "prettier" than others. And yes, they do charge a premium for it, despite what the fanbois say and I can prove it. And OS X is just dolled up Unix. Its time Apple fanbois pull their head out of Steve Jobs ass and realize what the rest of the world already knows.
Anybody who suggests Apple gets out of hardware is smoking something. And it's not the good stuff either.
I've seen Gartner do this before. I'll tell you what they're smoking. They're smoking big fat rolls of $100 bills freshly minted down Redmond way. Good to know the old boys are still shillin'
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
are only sustainable because component makers such as Intel choose to prop up the business
Intel is in the chip business. They are in the chip business to make money. Other than getting a contract to sell Apple some chips, where is this prop up business thing? I do not have any knowledge of Intel using a bunch of Mac's on the desktop.
I have a feeling Intel may have many more Dell PC's than Apple PC's in their operations.
The truth shall set you free!
Apple's supply chain is second to none now including Dell. The reason why Dell is in trouble is because others have caught up on their supply chain efficiencies. That is why HP is overtaking them now. Apple will not gain much in handing over hardware to Dell. Instead they will lose the uniqueness of Apple computers.
1. Quality engineering. Apple couldn't get this from Dell. Dell makes a lot of crap. They make some good stuff too, but why would they build quality to boost someone else's brand, if they are willing to sell crap under their own brand? Their brand would take a huge hit.
2. Margins. Apple still makes most of their money from Mac hardware. A big chunk is from iPods and music, but very little is from software. Would you rather be making around 30% on $1000-$4000 Mac systems, or smaller margins on software at smaller prices? Their revenue model would be completely gone.
3. Integration. The point of the Mac/iPod platform is lost without end-to-end design integration. The halo effect, the success of the iPod/iTunes, the elegance of using a Mac with Apple software, all of that would be severely handicapped.
All in all, a deeply, deeply bad idea, that has been debunked before.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Yes, it would be a brilliant strategy to STOP shipping iPods, start outsourcing that work to the far more successful Dell DJ line, and improve their iTunes offerings. Furthermore, they should really STOP shipping those MacBooks and Macbook Pros because the PC World best-in-class reputation on hardware is rubbish anyway and Dell makes far superior hardware. "New wine in old bottles", eh?
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
FireWire licensing was reworked in 1999 and is no longer prohibitive at all. Even FW 400 is much faster than USB 2, despite the lower clock speed. I don't get why it hasn't trumped it in the market, but I'm guessing cost of manufacture is a factor.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
Here's one I got from an article a while back:
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Apple has been using USB for a long time. Ever since the original iMac in the late '90s, Apple has been using USB as the standard port for keyboard/mouse at least.
Dell's stuff is OK. Their main selling point is management software that comes bundled with the hardware. It's true-- if you want a simple 1U with integrated GbE, PERC RAID controller, and so on, you can't get much cheaper than a Dell machine.
IF, that is, you actually want to use Dell's software. We'd been running OpenBSD for years on Dell hardware, and then Dell threw us for a loop and started substituting in integrated Adaptec controllers to replace the AMI ones for RAID-- without notice. This was around the time when OpenBSD was threatening to remove the Adaptec drivers from the tree. So for awhile, we bought AMI PCI-E cards to replace the Adaptecs, and that worked fine, but then I did the math... and I realized that Dell's value was in the software, which we weren't using at all.
For a lot cheaper, I can put together a 3U machine from "commodity" parts-- all the parts can be bought off the shelf except for the chassis and PSU (which I get from SuperMicro). All of the parts are exactly what I want, well-supported in OpenBSD, and replaceable. The last point is a major consideration for us. What do you do when an integrated controller goes bad in a Dell machine? If it's under warranty, you call and get it replaced. That can take days (although to Dell's credit, you can get it much faster if you pay for a more expensive service plan). With commodity parts, all of your servers have the same basic configuration-- you keep extra parts on the shelf (even the mobo and chassis), and you still save. The big savings comes from not having to pay $1-2k/yr per machine for a support contract.
The eureka moment came to me while I was waiting for parts to arrive for a machine that was covered under a contract. I was thinking-- if only I had spare parts on hand this would have been fixed by now...
Anyway, all of Dell's other stuff, consumer items, is just the same as anyone else's. It's probably good, sure, but it's probably the same (or very similar) to what you'd get from HP or whoever else builds PCs these days. In my mind, it's crazy to buy a machine like a Dell through a VAR like PC Connection when Dell is essentially a VAR themselves these days. They don't manufacture anything unique. Dell obviously cuts costs by selling directly to consumers, so their volume discount almost cancels out the assembly cost. But you could probably build the exact same machine by buying parts from NewEgg.
Fixed that for you. Lots of programs stopped working between 10.3 and 10.4, which annoyed at least me a bit. Apple forced people who upgraded the OS to upgrade their programs as well. I presume there was a cost/risk analysis somewhere, and Apple's said "yes" while Microsoft's said "no".
Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
....and PCs had USB a little before the Mac did. It was around for years until the proliferation of devices that really needed it came along.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Apple's doing quite well with its hardware sales. Its large market share allows it to make nice profit on iPods, innovating and selling them at a price that anyone else would lose money on. And its growth in computer sales is likely to have the same result in the near future, particularly with laptops. Within two years, Apple could be like Toyota, whose enormous market share allows it to sell high quality autos at reasonable prices. There's no need for it to do something stupid like licensing Dell to create cheap junk.
Remember, Apple's already put in the investment to create the best desktop/laptop OS on the planet. That gives it a lot of freedom to act, a freedom that neither a purely hardware commodity assembler like Dell or a clumsy software giant like Microsoft can match.
--Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien
... that Intel is supporting Apple via lower pricing than it provides to Dell and HP?
This seems to be, on the face of it, an outrageous claim that Gartner offers up with apparently not a shred of evidence.
It has about as much credibility as Gartner's claim that Apple does software better than hardware. Apple's hardware is pretty widely recognized has having excellent quality and strong, innovative designs. And when one compares equivalent products (so that one might have a basis for comparing costs), Apple comes in either under or very close to Dell, yet manages to return profits significantly larger than Dell does (caveat -- we don't have per-unit profits to compare, although we can look at things like profits from notebooks and compare them).
Is Dell sponsoring the next Gartner conference?
Here http://malfy.org/
Talk about CLUELESS.
Most people I know who use MacOS X is because it's UNIX-based (FreeBSD, specifically). They can develop on it, where trying to run a development platform on Windows that isn't MS Studio or some derivitive crap of it. If you're taking pre-MacOS X, sure. In MacOS X, you can get quite a bit of open source stuff to run.
The hardware is nice, don't get me wrong. Adding a hard drive the PowerMac was much easier than any other PC I've messed with.
they got a popular unix/bsd based os.
one that has obvious advantages over windows.
they could get allot of the market share if only they unchain their os from what is basically atm a proprietary system even though it does use standard hardware more or less.
5. (or is it 6.?)
Apple's cases have a small feature that allows you not to have to run Windows if you don't want to. And still get everything done. In less time. Without viruses, adware, or spyware.
Apple keeping control of hardware allows them to maintain a quality product and a competetive edge. Once they release that to the 'least common denominator' generic PC manufacturers they not only have a harder time guaranteeing a quality experience to end customers, but they have to shoulder the burden of support and compatibility that currently not having to deal with allows them to flourish. It was a big deal for them to make a leap to intel because of the 'keep up with the latest' burden that is undoubtably taxing them right now, but it was a careful and strategic move on their part that is paying off. But throwing their OS on everything including the kitchen sink, dealing with support, adding 400 million drivers instead of 10 and keeping all of those maintained or hoping vendors do (but again not having guarantees) is something that is a HUGE burden and can sink companies. Only microsoft has ever really pulled it off and it took them a monopoly and somewhat forced compliance to do so. Linuxes and such out there are getting far more widespread in terms of compatibility but again that is a burden shouldered by individual vendors and 'nix contributors. If Jobs wants to guarantee that your apple will run slick as shit, he can't really afford to pass that particular buck.
Yeah, I'm just saying that USB isn't recent. It's been commonplace for what, 10 years now? So more than 10 years ago when Apple was under different management, using totally different hardware and a totally different operating system, they had a couple ports that were not the same as what most computer manufacturers used.
I bet these same "experts" would have advised Apple that "there is no money to be made in handheld MP3 players".
Hmm, which market should we be in...
:)
A) Niche computer market, 3% of sales, 40% margins on the hardware, a relatively small software R&D division that helps move hardware at 40% margins... oh yeah, and to make some extra cash (and provide an incentive to buy more hardware), we sell the new versions of the software (10+ years ago, gave them away). Thy does this make sense, each year or so, I can upgrade iLife + OS for about $200... Well, if I'm on big hardware, no biggie, if I use a Mac Mini, well, for $200 I can upgrade, or for $600 buy a new machine... provide an incentive to buy the new machine. We know the Mini has lower margins, say, 33%? In that case, Apple makes $200 if you buy a new machine, or $200 if you upgrade the software... Apple doesn't care.
Or, license OS, this means two separate markets
B) Intel PC Operating system market. Let's look at this market, two major players. One, a monopolist with 95% marketshare, who struggles to sell upgrades because of their entrenched base. Most computers NEVER get an OS upgrade. The competitors charge about $35 for OEM Windows Home, "free" for Linux, or dirt cheap, probably $20 for an OEM Linux OS that the vendor supports... Gee, what a great market. Even if Apple can collect a premium, $50 OEM pricing... that means that OS X machines sell for $100 more than their Windows counterparts, and Apple makes $50/machine. So if estimates of quadrupling market-share are real, then Apple breaks even. Even the "Apple is expensive crowd" that really wants to pirate the OS for free, sets an upperbound of quadrupling marketshare... Gee, so if they are right, then Apple breaks even... brilliant move... but I guess they might sell more copies of iWork...
C) Now that OS X is generic, available at retail for $129 (and BitTorrent for $0), Apple goes from their niche market with 40% margins to the EXTREMELY competitive PC market. The entrenched players hold about 50% of the market, and local grey-box manufacturers + home built machines are about 50%. In this industry, margins of 8% are huge, because once you pay people to put the equipment together, ship stuff around, etc., you cost more than the guy building in his basement. No room for differentialization, etc. Maybe Apple will do "insanely great" design work, collect a premium off the market, and make 10% margins...
Entering the OS market SUCKS. It sucked BEFORE Linux became popular, giving away a Unix-like OS for free, and it sucks now. Nobody but Microsoft has EVER made big money selling operating systems, because people DO NOT BUY THEM. OEMs buy them cheaply, but nobody buys operating systems.
Apple is where it is because it found a great niche and milks it... milks it for all its worth... makes 5x margins that the industry dreams of. Sure, Dell makes more money most of the time... BUT ONLY Dell does it. Apple has a nice growing market, an iPod where they grabbed a premium, and now the iTunes music store. They'll get into new markets, but only where there are good margins.
Entering into overly competitive markets and abandoning decent monopoly pricing power (economics term, they aren't a monopoly, but since Windows PCs aren't a perfect substitute, they get to charge price of PC + substitution "cost" - $1 and sell machines) to enter cutt-throat competitive markets...
It's not a recipe for success, it's a recipe for destroying shareholder value.
Alex
i am an apple user. i make my living fixing PCs. one of the hurdles to switching (along with the FUD) were the high prices. i find it hard to believe that intel is subsiding anything here.
that having been said, if these subsidies were to actually exist, i can say as an apple user that the prices could go up and i wouldnt stop using (do heroin addicts barter for price? no, they use!)
one final thought, reading the article (i know, you're not supposed to read the actual article) i cant help but wonder how much dell stock this gartner analyst has.
Apple didn't pay Gartner to produce this report and release it to the public. Somebody (maybe a hedge fund that owns a shedlot of AAPL and is having trouble covering it's losses in oil futures) that wants Apple to cannibalize it's potential long-term growth in exchange for a massive short term gain did.
0 1 - just my two bits
At least Gartner is doing what they do best; yapping away non-sense and fooling managers that are too stupid to know what is going on.
You don't need legacy ports? Then don't use them!
Apple's edge isn't OSX, it isn't the iPod, it isn't softly glowing lights, it's the overall style. Have you seen DELL's concept of "Style"? The big thing is to partner and outsource and break down a company into its core competency, well, I say Apple's core competency is style, and they have to keep all the parts that are intimately tied to their being able to deliver on the style. OBVIOUSLY, they are already outsourcing some of their manufacturing, or we wouldn't have viral-infected iPods floating around.
The day I trust an analyst is the day I trust a politician.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Just who are these Gartner folks and why should anyone listen to them? The only time I ever hear about them is in stories like this- "Analyst firm Gartner claimed that Apple should stop doing what they're doing and start acting like every other computer company".
Seriously, every time I see these folks mentioned it seems like it's in this sort of context. Analyst firm Gartner claims that $company would do better if it started following the herd.
egypt urnash minimal art.
We're a mixed shop with employees using both Macs and Dells (Optiplex and Latitude). Here's my experience - we've brought in 4 Mac laptops over the last year. 3 MacBook Pros and a MacBook. We have had:
1 MacBook Pro needing motherboard replacement
1 MacBook Pro dies the day after it was received
1 MacBook internal wiring melted next to heatsink causing heat monitor to trigger shutdown
The 2 MacBook Pro's had to be mailed out for repair. This took two weeks (both have Applecare btw) to get the computers back.
The Macbook was able to be repaired at the local Apple Store. Of course to find this out, we had to book a time to meet with a "genius" and take the thing down to the store for evaluation.
We've purchased 7 Dell Latitudes in past year. We have had exactly zero failures.
If we did have a failure, we have a support plan which means a tech will show up onsite and fix it. We pay for next day coverage on the laptops although you can get 4 hour if you want.
When is Apple going to offer a proper corporate service option? I don't want priority for booking meetings with geniuses. I want a real service plan that means I don't have a computer I paid $2000 down for two weeks.
We have been deploying more Macs in the office and I am a supporter of OSX but I hate the fact that I need to have a higher ratio of spare Macs on the side than PCs because I may need to wait two weeks before I can get one fixed.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I haven't had much experience with mac computers, but the small amount I have had, I've hated them.
Having said that...based on iPods (and pretty much ONLY iPods), hardware seems to be the only thing apple is good at. My iPod locks up all the time, the software leaves a LOT to be desired (compared to, say, an RCA Lyra)...but the damn things are durable as hell. I've got an iPod that I bought off this girl at school 'cause it was broken. All it took to fix it was a firmware flash. It's still working great...even though it's probably at least 5 years old now. It freezes all the time, but the only hardware I've had to replace is the battery. Compare that to my bro's RCA lyra, where the software is quite possibly the best I've ever seen on an MP3 player, but the harddrive died less than a year after getting it.
People have been speculating about the licensing of OS-X to Dell, etc ever since Apple's transition to Intel. I wrote a set of scenarios talking about that here:
s cenarios.html
http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2005/06/apple_
Essentially, Apple can make it work only if they tightly restrict the hardware & models that other companies are allowed to install OS-X on. Imagine for instance that Dell can sell OS-X, but only on *three* different machines, each of which is approved only after lengthy technical review by Apple engineers. Apple wins because Dell can leverage its business customers to sell to an entirely different market than Apple currently has access to. Dell wins because it gives them some serious product differentiation from HP and Gateway - who Apple will never license to. It all depends on Apple maintaining the control over the number of different models and hardware drivers that Mac OS-X must support. Eric
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
What Apple did was drive USB into the mainstream. No, they weren't the first ones, but by dropping all the legacy support and going USB-only, they signaled a change, which has yet to be completed on the PC side (most PCs still come with COM and PARALLEL ports.. God help us all).
Sometimes you need those ports. We used to use high end RIP (raster image processing) server software that required the use of a parallel port dongle. We got bit by the no legacy port problem when upgrading to a new server. That new server sat unused for over 6 months until the company released a USB dongle. And yes we tried adding in parallel port card, but the damn dongle required an onboard port.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
OK who overpays these idiots and keeps them in business? They've been dead wrong in just about every ball-licking report they've put out on Microsoft!
Errr, SP2? That didn't count as a "major update to Windows"? It did in my books.
why would they want to do what some bozos with interest in wintel tell them what to do
Garter is a shill for Microsoft always has, always will. Mac is just exists to undermine
why EVER quote them here? stick to legitimate sources. (LOL)
What a half-assed, stupid suggestion.
Is it not so obvious here that Gartner is just trolling? Why are there so many biters?
Apple does this all the time. It does make for a vibrant 3rd developer market, with opportunities to charge for updates at more points of failure, and the new technologies and frameworks you adopt with each OS revision typically provide enough incentive for people to put down their hard-earned cash. Unfortunately, this also makes OSX unacceptable for corporate use, as in-house solutions are much more difficult to support if APIs keep getting deprecated or significantly modified. Also, you tend to have to recompile with the latest version of XCode as major OS revisions are released, or your apps will have stability problems, meaning that you can't just keep using the same binaries for long periods of time. There are advantages (3rd party developer sales, enticing new features on a regular basis) and disadvantages (app stability and compatibility, increased effort for developers, lost corporate sales). In the consumer market where Apple thrives, they can get away with this tradeoff and offer their users more drastic progress. It costs them the corporate market, however, so that must be ceded to Microsoft, who will ensure backwards compatibility to developers who use their APIs, in exchange for less fundamental innovation and end user features.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, Linux is also geared to API stability to the extreme, and offers great value to corporate users. Since all the code to Linux is open, you can ensure that an API will be there in a usable form if you need it. As Linux takes away Microsoft's bread and butter, MS will react violently, trying to make big interface changes to compete with Apple in the consumer market, while keeping their corporate customers appeased with backwards-compatibility, and locked in with licensing agreements. This is a trap for them, though, as corporate customers don't care for fancy visual doodads or subscribing to ever-updating software. They want to run their productivity and database software on a stable platform, and that's it. They will keep their Win2k, XP and Office2k3 licenses until Linux and OpenOffice is able to be swapped in seamlessly (which is pretty much the case now), and get off of MS licensing for good. Since MS will be fighting to hold on to the remaining corporate diehards, they will be reluctant to make the big sweeping changes Apple has been able to, and so won't be able to compete in the consumer space as well. The combination of Apple's rise in the consumer space and Linux's rise in the corporate space will really start to put the hurt on Microsoft in the years to come. They're really caught between a rock and a hard place, and they're squeezing together at an increasing rate. Their attempts to lock down the screws with Windows Genuine Advantage are just going to accelerate this shift.
If Microsoft is to succeed, they will have to become a middleware vendor for other operating systems. If they focus on their vast library of APIs, and work on making them universally available, they would have great leverage, with all the software that depends on these APIs, to secure a large part of the future computer market. This would attract more developers to their platform, and make their platform more crucial to computing in general.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Apple is a hardware company, always has been. Selling hardware is their bottom line. What are they going to sell if they dont sell computers and iPods?
What, does Gartner think it's all about lower prices these days? Didn't anyone tell them that in the past 12(?) months:
Hewelett-Packard bought VoodooPC
Dell bought Alienware
Dell also intro'd the XPS series of deluxe gaming PCs
Maybe the big players have realized that there's not much growth potential in selling $300 commodity PCs anymore? They saw the fatter margins in selling deluxe computers and wanted a piece of that pie badly enough to buy some of the better-known names in the business. With that in mind, why on earth would Apple surrender that very business?
And who really believes that Apple will capture a 20% market share simply by being as cheap as, or cheaper than, Dell? iPod is not the price leader in it's field, but so far, it's done okay.
All other systems builders have them.
"Apple should get out of hardware" -- of course, because the iMac, Macbook Pro & Mac Pro are such obvious engineering flops. [sarcasm] I suppose the logic is that since many PC manufacturers are trying to mimic Apple's external design sense, that Apple may as well let them carry the torch. Also, given the extreme reliance on Apple hardware & software in the design, entertainment & media industries, I don't ever forsee this happening. I attend an art & design school & the ratio of PCs to Macs on campus is probably something like 1/100.
the 52nd time's a charm!
Apple should keep mining the Mountain of Cash for as long as they are getting PHAT LOOT!!
As their report shows today, Apple keeps building up enough cash to buy key interests...
The Get rich slow by selling cool stuff at high prices has been working for quite a while and I don't think Apple should yield to inferior competitors anytime soon...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Could someone who hasn't swallowed the anti-Israeli commie propaganda line please mod the parent up?
Thanks,
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Come on, Apple doesn't qualify as a hardware manufacturer anymore. They don't even make their own motherboards. I doubt there is even one chip on the new intel macs that Apple is even remotely involved in (okay, except Firewire).
They have figured out a much more profitable business, though, which consists in selling something completely immaterial called "design", and that some people (including me) appreciate so much they'll gladly pay more for a machine that, apart from its looks, is absolutely identical to all others on the market.
In other words: once Jonathan Ive's team has created a new, expensive, shiny wonder, Apple calls up some taiwanese factory to do the manufacturing for them, while slapping in the very same Intel hardware the other companies use. They can then proceed to price it accordingly, then they ???, and then they PROFIT!
Which is exaclty what Steve Jobs had in mind when he came up with original iMac.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
A more compelling argument is gonna be needed before they jump off that gravy train.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Apple is a premium hardware maker and designer, but their OS isn't that special, and developers as a whole have rejected it.
I run a software development shop. A -windows- software development shop, with 24 developers.
We provide these developers with WinXP desktop machines - we have since the inception of our business. But I did a little survey a few weeks ago - exactly 17 of these Windows developers own a Mac for themselves.
Oh, and no, these are not "PHP developers", but C++ developers working on Windows device drivers.
So therefore, your comment that "developers as a whole have rejected it" would appear to be completely false.
Also, you tend to have to recompile with the latest version of XCode as major OS revisions are released, or your apps will have stability problems, meaning that you can't just keep using the same binaries for long periods of time.
That's not been the case in my experience. I run several apps that haven't been updated since 10.0 or 10.1 with no trouble. It is true that going the other way can be an issue; often if you build a project on 10.z you'll have to tweak some settings to get it to run on 10.(z-1) or earlier.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Here's why I got off of FW. Used to have a linux box, SUSE 9.1. Bought a firewire card with 4 internal ports, got three boards that converted PATA drives into firewire devices (so 3x$60 + $50, something like that). Worked ok, they were slower than going through the motherboard (like 2/3 slower), but whatever.
Then I upgraded to SUSE 10.0. Firewire card recognized, but any device connected to it just flaky. Doesn't stay on for long, can't see it in various GUIS... ugh.
Then I connect some USB devices, they start popping up in KDE, etc.... they actually transfer at a decent speed.
Then I said - to hell with FW. It may be technically better, but the software support just doesn't seem to be there.
Personally, I'd use OSX if I could get it without buying into Apple's hardware monopoly. Why swap M$'s O/S monopoly for Apple's hardware monopoly?
The OEM support issue is bullshit - linux manages it pretty well without major corporate support. There's no reason why Apple couldn't support a standard set of PC equipment and allow the FOSS community to build drivers for anything else.
Speak up, Steve can't hear you over the clanging of the cash registers.
Even if thats true ( which i doubt ), so what? Why do you have to *gain* each quarter to stay in a market? What if you are making a ton of money off the sales you are doing now and just keep it at that level? I would say you are still making the same amount of money.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In addressing the premise of the recommendation from this particular Gartner analyst, one has to wonder why a company would get out of a highly profitable area of their business while it is still highly profitable. The day may come when selling computers is not a good financial thing for Apple to do, but until that time I am pretty confident Apple will continue doing it.
Of course, many of us also question the prediction for other reasons. First, Apple is not just in the computer hardware business. They sell an overall user experience. The unique design of the hardware and the software are components in that overall experience - each is not easily separable from the other. Second, Apple's current strategy has been extremely effective. They continue to increase market share in each segment they operate in. The line between the iPod and the Mac computer line is continuing to blur without risking the individual segments.
It continues to amaze me that any analyst would be unable to comprehend that Apple's business model is not Dell's. Having not read the analysts actual report (too lazy to download it), I hope that he is only referring to the supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies that Dell is supposed to enjoy over other companies. However, I suspect that Apple is getting as efficient as Dell in these areas. If you look at their component inventory on-hand (at about 4-6 days), they seem to be quite good in their supply chain management. The earlier point that their margins may decrease seems a more salient point than to suggest that Apple would be any less capable of being able to profit from the computer business.
Imagine that...patenting something before it's on the market.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
...though not very many of them.
Apple retains one manufacturing plant in Laguna, CA and another in Cork, Ireland. Both have seen their workforces shrink in recent years.
I believe it may also have a company-owned (that is, not contracted) plant in Malaysia that makes mice.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Speaking of props, what would all the media companies do without Apple hardware? I'm seeing more and more commercials that use Apple laptops as props (with logos removed and Windows XP screens overlaid onto them).
The article totally neglects the fact that this is Apple and they can charge what they want for hardware.
Apple is selling their hardware at 40% profit, and their user base pays that. Dell needs the Intel discount because they made 5% profit according to the Fortune 500 index. (Although their warranties must be kicking their ass.)
enough already
This looks like Gartner put a report together and tried to sell it to Dell or Apple (likely both at the same time with a little different spin on each copy) and they didn't buy so they release it for the marketing. I've never heard of them and now I've visited their website (to see what relation they may have with Dell already, didn't find anything but the doesn't mean it doesn't exist.)
Analysts and consultants always know how you should be running whatever your business is, even if they've never actually been in that business before. Jobs is growing the market share and is already stretched on hardware delivery. Apple couldn't support more than a 2-3% increase a year without running into major bottlenecks on hardware delivery which would cause them to lose potential customers.
Why are women so complicated? Find out how little I know here.
...who pay outfits like Gartner big bucks to provide them with strategic planning advice (aka bull$#!t, mostly)--and actually take it seriously! I'm betting that Steve Jobs isn't one of them. As an Apple shareholder, all I can say is HALLELUJAH!!!
Personally, I would love to see Apple get out of the hardware business. Not so much because their hardware is unexceptional and expensive, but because it's an ergonomic nightmare... whoever is responsible for the keyboard on my Macbook Pro has a special place reserved in hell being forced to climb flaming rocks while his wrists are flayed to the bone. I'd prefer a Thinkpad and a copy of generic OS X to run on it any day.
Speaking of Thinkpads... they have style. It's stealth-fighter-black industrial-chic style, but it's style nonetheless. They don't make you strip tiny screws and unglue parts of the computer, or pull the case apart with a putty knife. They give you a nice knurled black screw that fits in a recess in the magnesium and matte black plastic case, undo that and pull out the drive caddy. Swap it out, put it back, and the screw looks like a decorative bump on the case
And there's a ridge around the screen to keep dust and debris out when the lid's closed.
And the connectors are all on the back so you don't have the USB connector for your mouse sticking out right where you need to PUT the mouse on an airline lap tray.
And you don't have to sit there and watch the computer for 30 seconds EVERY TIME you close it to make sure it's gone into sleep mode, because it doesn't slowly throb ONE status light to tell you it's asleep... now is that throbbing yet? No, that a reflection off the monitor... oh... no, OK, it's sleep.
And the Thinkpad has the best laptop keyboard on the planet bar none.
Don't compare Apple with Dell, though. That's like praising a Big Mac because it tastes better than dog food. They should be getting Lenovo to do their design.
http://businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2006 /tc20061018_006862.htm
And that goes for the iPod too: the click-wheel is a daft idea. Their build quality is better than Dell, but then so is that of any any five year old with a pile of legos.
It was on TechTV.
I run my business with Macs, and we have like 20 Macs and two PCs. Which is funny since we make PC software (PC dating-sims, if you know what they are). Anyway, cost is always a factor, but really, consider that the cost of a person's SALARY is way, way more than any computer, and considering that we're going to be using each computer for 3-4 years, isn't it logical to assume that good design, reliability, and "it just works" is certainly worth, oh, another $500 or whatever over a PC? Sure, lower cost is important, and I'd love for Apple to make a "Mini Plus" that had a normal sized hard drive and real graphics for $899. But jeez, considering the reliability of a Mac over most PCs, and the fact that we've not had day one of downtime due to viruses, um, I think Apple is doing just fine, at least in our case?
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
In the 15 years i've been in IT, I have consistently been a white-box/Dell/HP/EMC guy. The current network I admin uses Dell servers and the 3 year old Dell workstations are on their way out. Guess what we are buying to replace the aging workstations? You guessed it - Macs.
The ability to standardize on one platform for both Mac OS and Windows is great. The hardware is nicely designed, and seems to hold up better than Dell or HP.
Still, Dell makes a nice server, and the re-branded EMC stuff is also nice....but who knows...the next Xserves may run Windows....you never know.
Apple's control over its hardware ensures quality. The miracle called Boot Camp will only increase Apple's market share. I hope an MBA doesn't screw that up.
-ted
Why would Apple let their sleek, cheap, fast boxes get converted to ugly, overpriced, average boxes and have their consumers suffer the wrath from Dell for not buying a real Dell?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Andrew Donoghue suggested that Toyota get out of the car business, and just make car stereos.
WTF does this mean???
Apple's machines are generally built by contract PC manufacturers in Asia; Apple already is largely only design, marketing, distribution, and some software development. Involving Dell would only increase costs for Apple.
Maybe it's time Gartner got out of the gratuious advice business? my (admittedly selective) memory tells me the things they say seem to be nutty like this story, or blatently obvious.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
whats wrong with the MacBook Pro wrist rests? i really dont get what your talking about because i have no issues with mine. Connectors on the back would rule out the nicer hinge, and have to divert cooling to the sides and bottom... meaning it would have to sit up higher too, possibly make the whole machine bigger like similiar thinkpads. Also, if the USB plug is in the way on one side, try plugging it into the other side. Ive never had it in the way, even on an airplane tray, because if i put an external mouse so close that the plug is in the way, id be bumping the computer all the time anyways.... but i dont even use a mouse anymoe since the trckpads on these are so wonderful... I wish someone made one like this i could hook up to a desktop, but no one does, just crap ones like on Dells and Thinkpads. Why are you waiting 30 seconds every time you close it to make sure its gone to sleep? Every time i close the lid it goes to sleep. If i have many things going sometimes it takes a little longer than others, but i dont sit and watch it. Every time I've closed the lid and came back later to get on it, it was always alseep. Are you used to things not working, so you have to double check and make sure it does? And "best" is an opinion. i much perfer the keyboard on my MBP to the Thinkpad keyboards.
At least there won't be a new EBCDIC.
:-)
Didn't you know? The Word Document Format is the new EBCDIC. OpenDoc is the new ASCII...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually Dell uses vendor managed inventory. All the parts are at the factory, but Dell doesn't "own" the parts until they're removed from the truck parked just outside.
... Apple has to have more cash tied up in finished goods inventory as Macs sit at various brick and mortar retailers. Having their own retail stores helps, poorly maintained and poorly promoted Macs are not the only reasons Apple does not miss many former Mac dealers.
That is only half the story, Dell has a major advantage over Apple that goes beyond your point. Since Dell is pretty much on-line only they don't have to offer retailers terms (pay for goods some number of days after receiving it, 30 days, 60 days?). Dell collects customer money right away, before they have to pay Intel for that CPU that just shipped (Dell got it on terms), Seagate for that hard drive,
Sorry junior but you just don't know enough people to matter. The markey share for OSX is less than 5%.
Well Grandpa Simpson, while you sit around swapping civil war stories with guys at the home, the market share for OS X has done sneaked out from under your nose and is now at 6%. If you can't even get that basic fact right, the rest of your argument seems to be even more flimsy.
And that's for overall market. What would happen if you took out all PC's purchased by business and looked at home market share?
That means the vast majority of the people out there don't use it... despite Apple's clever comercials.
You didn't think about seperating out server sales from home sales, did you? You didn't look to look at what computers are coming into colleges and businesses and boardrooms across the land though the users and not the IT departments, did you? All of those are seeing Macs come in, many times where none were before.
But don't worry about having to adapt to the world changing around you, I'm sure your memory will be gone soon enough to the point where you'll never even remember the good old days of Microsoft dominance and what you are missing. We'll all just chuckle a little when you ask where the virus scanner is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you've done actually pricing between a Dell and an Apple feature for feature, the Apple is cheaper.
Apple's Dell v Mac comparison is somewhat bogus, there is some "gold plating" on the Mac side. Apple marketing department aside, a feature by feature comparison is not relevant. Those features have to be tied to actual customer needs to be relevant. If a Dell forgoes features that customers don't really care about and costs less then the Dell is the better value. Sure error correction RAM is nice, but how many users need or want it? Would they have preferred 2G non-ECC to 1G ECC? The quad is a pretty awesome piece of technology but many of us Mac owners are going to pass on it, let the early adopters fill Apple coffers for now, and wait for a future tower configuration that is more desktop and less server. Whether it is limited parts availability or simply the tried and true walking consumers down the demand curve, offering a single high end machine and introducing the middle and moderate models at a later date makes sense. These later machines will be a more appropriate comparison against Dell.
All this b.s. talk between people who have a clue, and everyone else still using or recommending a non-Apple computer, is pointless.
Let's just put our money where our mouths are.
My AAPL is looking pretty good. Let's see how the rest of you do with your shares of MSFT, INTC, DELL, HPQ, GTW, or whatever the heck else you think is going to work.
All the money from all those other shares are going to flood into AAPL and GOOG in the next 5 years.
The game has changed and Apple is the clear winner on both consumer electronics and computing. To think anything else is just being myopic and ignorant.
Unless you've used a Macintosh, shut the heck up cuz you don't know what you're talking about.
This is precisely why I never listen to such analyst. They are dumb.
The point of Apple is to make hardware ergonomic and user friendly. Software is the glue. But regardless of quality of glue, you cannot force user to stick with shit.
Look at M$ and its relations of OEMs & hardware manufacturers - and resulting quality of Windows, its drivers and integration with hardware. This is precisely what would happen to Apple, would it ever stop being vertical company: crashes & blue screens (since software would never know hardware it runs), incompatibilities & over-delayed releases (since exact way hardware works might be known only few weeks before it's released).
Apple would never do that.
HAHAHA! Morons! Apple survived not single CPU manufacturer/architecture in past, with Intel being third. Apple is outliving CPUs for sure. That's tradition.
What's more, for Intel now Apple is becoming important part. Compared to other HW manufacturers, Apple has very narrow well defined goals it is trying to achieve no matter what. That's something certain for Intel in the uncertain market.
Also, Apple is often early adopter. (I do not know even where to start with what they did first. Plug&Play & USB as two big examples.) And that's again good for Intel, since they can now pilot new technologies on "high end" Apple's hardware, w/o need to wait for other manufacturers who are in their turn wait for Intel to drop prices. Win-win combination: Intel can sell more expensive hardware to people who can appreciate it and Apple can improve its "exclusiveness" rating.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
When a lie is repeated often enough people will take it as fact.
Speak for yourself, buddy. Sure, USB had been out for a couple of years before Apple jumped on the bandwagon - but that is completely irrelevant. At the time, manufacuters in the cut-throat peripheral industry could spend the extra cash to add a USB port to their devices - or just stick with serial and parallel interfaces, available on just about every PC in existance. Guess which one they choose.
Then Apple released the USB only iMac, creating a whole new crop of consumers who would need new periphreals. Manufactuers could now make USB devices compatible with this captive market, and just about every PC made in the last couple years.
Intel invented USB, but Apple is the one who got the ball rolling, and that's a fact.
1394 (firewire when not using Apple's name) was an abandoned technology
Talk about making shit up.
Firewire would have come about without any Apple involvement because digital video needed the technology. Without Sony, however, it wouldn't exist.
Hardly. There was always composite out, and later USB 2.0, although inferior to Firewire.
WOW. Analysts analyse stuff. OK. Based on their analysis, Apple shouldn't do hardware anymore, fair enough.
But, Apple IS a computer manufacturer. I think people there love their job of designing
well functioning sleek pieces of hardware... Even the top executives...
It's that simple.
I never will understand what is the analyst's purpose in life...
Analysts need to chill a bit...
whats wrong with the MacBook Pro wrist rests?
Wrist rests are irrelevant. Resting your wrists on something when you're typing is one of the things that causes repetitive strain injury, so the presence or absence of "wrist rests" isn't the point.
The problem is with the keyboards on almost every Apple laptop have poor tactile feedback and a flat response, as well as far too short a throw. Combine that with the flat keyboard and keys and you've got a recipe for causing (or in my case agravating) nerve damage.
I literally can not use my Macbook Pro's built-in keyboard intensively for more than a quarter of an hour without intense pain from my little fingers all the way to my shoulderblades. The only other laptop keyboard that I've had that problem with is the tiny toy keyboard on a Toshiba Libretto I used to have.
Connectors on the back would rule out the nicer hinge, and have to divert cooling to the sides and bottom... meaning it would have to sit up higher too, possibly make the whole machine bigger like similiar thinkpads.
The 15" Macbook Pro is larger than my Thinkpad was. It's not as thick, but it's wider and deeper, and it weighs more, and has a lower pixel density - the 14" Thinkpad still has more pixels than the 15" Macbook (1440x900 Every time I've closed the lid and came back later to get on it, it was always alseep.
Until I started checking I was routinely finding my Macbook Pro's battery flat by the time I got home. My boss, who has had three Powerbooks, checks for the light to shut down too. Ironically I never had a problem on my Thinkpad... sleep and hibernation worked perfectly. And while I'm on the subject, the Macbook Pro does not support hibernation in hardware: it's not the OS... I've run FreeBSD (which shares a huge amount of code with OS X) on multiple Wintel laptops and have never had a problem using hardware hibernation there.
"Safe Sleep" is not a substitute for hibernation.
If it were not for the software, there owould be nothing to this laptop that is remotely attractive once you take it out of the store display or photo session and actually start using it. Since it';s the only way to legally run OS X on a laptop, I put up with it... but if I had to pay $500 for a generic copy of OS X I could run on a Thinkpad... even one that cost as much as a Macbook Pro... I'd still consider it the better deal.
[Reposting because the < in "1440x900 < 1400x1050" munched part of the response]
whats wrong with the MacBook Pro wrist rests?
Wrist rests are irrelevant. Resting your wrists on something when you're typing is one of the things that causes repetitive strain injury, so the presence or absence of "wrist rests" isn't the point.
The problem is with the keyboards on almost every Apple laptop have poor tactile feedback and a flat response, as well as far too short a throw. Combine that with the flat keyboard and keys and you've got a recipe for causing (or in my case agravating) nerve damage.
I literally can not use my Macbook Pro's built-in keyboard intensively for more than a quarter of an hour without intense pain from my little fingers all the way to my shoulderblades. The only other laptop keyboard that I've had that problem with is the tiny toy keyboard on a Toshiba Libretto I used to have.
Connectors on the back would rule out the nicer hinge, and have to divert cooling to the sides and bottom... meaning it would have to sit up higher too, possibly make the whole machine bigger like similiar thinkpads.
The 15" Macbook Pro is larger than my Thinkpad was. It's not as thick, but it's wider and deeper, and it weighs more, and has a lower pixel density - the 14" Thinkpad still has more pixels than the 15" Macbook (1440x900 < 1400x1050). Diverting cooling to the sides would allow more efficient flow-through cooling, allowing it to remain cooler and quieter. The extra space would make room for a better keyboard, it would fit better into standard laptop bags and carriers, it would take up less room in my backpack, and the smaller pixels would make for sharper display at normal viewing range for a laptop.
Every time I've closed the lid and came back later to get on it, it was always alseep.
Until I started checking I was routinely finding my Macbook Pro's battery flat by the time I got home. My boss, who has had three Powerbooks, checks for the light to shut down too. Ironically I never had a problem on my Thinkpad... sleep and hibernation worked perfectly. And while I'm on the subject, the Macbook Pro does not support hibernation in hardware: it's not the OS... I've run FreeBSD (which shares a huge amount of code with OS X) on multiple Wintel laptops and have never had a problem using hardware hibernation there.
"Safe Sleep" is not a substitute for hibernation.
If it were not for the software, there owould be nothing to this laptop that is remotely attractive once you take it out of the store display or photo session and actually start using it. Since it';s the only way to legally run OS X on a laptop, I put up with it... but if I had to pay $500 for a generic copy of OS X I could run on a Thinkpad... even one that cost as much as a Macbook Pro... I'd still consider it the better deal.
I like the OS very well, but the reason I switched away from the windows/generic pc world is because I wanted better quality and better design.
There is no PC manufacturer that matches the level of quality apple produces. Their systems are just designed well, built well, and supported well.
I don't mind paying a premium for well built stuff!
Do you really think that IBM would risk shipping a product that infringes on Apple's patent?
The industry has NOT ignored Express Card... my 2005 vintage ThinkPad T43 has BOTH a PC Card slot AND and ExpressCard 54 slot for both backward & forward compatibility, and most other vendors on Intel's technology roadmap have done so for a while now.
Where the hell does Gartner get off telling Apple how to run their business? Back in the last century, when the word still had meaning, this behavior would be called "rude". Apple belongs to Apple, and is Apple's responsibility. It is none of Gartner's business. If they want it to be their business, then they need to start buying a bunch of Apple stock. Otherwise they can shut their piehole.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Everything I need to know I learned on Slashdot #101: "Don't dis Apple's hardware". That's an even bigger no-no than "Don't defend Microsoft".
Somehow features that would get any other company nailed on Slashdot are seen as virtues when Apple puts them in their computers. But I'm not going to dis them any further in this message.
I'll just say that Apple badly needs to get some help from some company that builds hardware that has to sell on how well it works... not on the software, on the name, or on style. Not Dell, for God's sake... if there is a worse choice that's still in business I don't know it... but they teamed up with IBM Japan once before and produced one of the best-designed Powerbooks ever. I'm sure they could get Lenovo to give them a hand.
... and ordered a study from Gartner that they hoped would influence Apple to let it happen?
worries me.
.)
iNTEL's showcase stuff has generally been headed the wrong direction. Look at USB vs Firewire.
(As far as I am concerned, USB basically makes a mediocre replacement for the floppy disk, and that's about
And look at iNTEL's UWB and the not-invented-here attitude they've shown. They want UWB they can control the IP for, even if it doesn't do the job.
Were you involved in development of these peripherals at this time? I was, and I watched these USB devices get tested every day for more than a year before the iMac even existed. One of my best friends was dedicated to it. There were interoperability plugfests occurring regularly. Just exactly what do you think was being tested if none of these peripheral makers weren't bothering? How did the iMac even boot if there weren't USB devices available for Apple to use well prior to announcement?
Yawn. Notice you say "tested" and not "shipped". If you had another best friend who was in marketing at the time, why don't you call him up and see if he still has some Powerpoint presentations on the market penetration of the number of machines with USB vs the number with parallel and serial ports, and the projected migration rate from Windows 3.1 and 95 to Windows 98. Then ask him just how cutthroat the perphreals industry is, and how interested they were in cutting costs. And how many manufacturers waited and went with USB 2.0 instead of the superior Firewire because of the 25 cents per device licensing fee.
No one has claimed that Apple invented USB, or that there weren't any USB devices around before the release of the iMac. But without it, migration to USB would have proceeded at the same glacial pace as before, as the percentage of computers with USB ports went up and the percentage of people still using Windows 95 went down, since manufacturers could count on the vast majority of PC's having parallel and serial ports.
Are you that great a fool?
I suppose it could seem that way, to a complete fucking idiot. Apple didn't invent USB, but they certianally got the ball rolling by creating a captive market that would need new USB devices. Deal with it.