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The Impact of Low Salaries At Apple
orenh writes "Recent data indicate that Apple engineers have significantly lower salaries than their Silicon Valley peers: $89,000 at Apple, versus $105,000 at Yahoo and $112,000 at Google. Paying lower salaries had a major impact on Apple's bottom line when it was struggling in the market up until 2004. But now that Apple is highly profitable, these lower salaries are no longer a factor in Apple's success. Will Apple have to raise salaries to match the market rate, or face defections?"
Everyone knows that Apple is ALL Steve Jobs. The people that actually MAKE the overpriced hardware are just bit-players.
Apple doesn't really need to increase salaries especially at the software division as because OS X is UNIX based there are a lot of high-quality open-source applications for Apple to take code from (KHTML for Safari for example) thus, Apple doesn't have to do a whole lot to improve software other then add a few features and clean up the code. In addition, unlike at Microsoft, Apple engineers don't have to reinvent the OS every time they need to ship a new OS, they just speed up the code, add in a few features, burn it to a DVD and release it, compare that to Windows where most of the code has to be rewritten and then extensively tested for backwards compatibility. Basically, by using a combination of open-source and UNIX, Apple doesn't have to do much with software and therefore can use lower-paying people because they don't have to work as much.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm surprised that China isn't producing low-$ apple clones. Though I guess they couldn;'t be sold in NA anyway with our anticounterfeit laws. I'd buy one over a "real" apple... well, if I cared to run an apple OS.
Either they will have to pay more or severely lower their expectations.
I'd really rather work for Google. I use Google many times a day, while I use Apple never. Somehow Apple manages to maintain its image as a "player" with a tiny slice of the market... This is mostly from hype. You can't even really compare them because their "coolness" is in completely different directions. Google is THE GOD of internet. Apple just makes nice hardware, with a decent stolen BSD os layer on top. I could run that on my generic beige box (which is all i'd ever pay for) so what does Apple really have?
I make a bit less, but I work from home and don't even need to get out of my pajamas till I want to go out to lunch.
Point is that people will often given up a higher salary for a more interesting position with better benefits.
People work at Apple because they want to, even if Jobs is a jerk (met him, he is).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I hate articles like this, it's a typical american frame of mind, I'm saying this because I was born in poland but have spent most of my life in the states, and I work in management. Apple doesn't have to do anything, if engineers jump ship, there are PLENTY of qualified people over seas that would do the jobs for alot less, or just keep the senior most people and take a bunch of interns in and pay them nothing. Saying someone isn't paid enough is a bad frame of mind to be in, especially right now when people should be happy they have jobs. If I hire you and we setup how much you get paid then, don't expect more if the company makes money, do you want a pay cut when we lose money, no, your not the owner/ceo or what ever of the company, your just an employee. Trust me everyone is replaceable, the only time your not, is when you literally know exactly where the bodies are buried. If someone came up to me and said they want a raise because at company X they could be making more, I'd tell them, "So that means your quiting, please leave the property now."