Posted on 09/01/2009 10:24:22 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Well, that didn't take long.
In a decade, Apple (AAPL) has gone from niche-market roadkill to a company whose growing dominance and competitive tactics in a booming market are thrilling investors, angering competitors, and drawing regulatory scrutiny.
Unless Apple shows a quick change of attitude, the benefit of its market position--power, scrutiny, and tens of billions in profit--are only going to grow.
Apple is no longer the beloved underdog that Microsoft kept alive in the late 1990s to improve its own standing in the eyes of regulators (remember the investment and agreement to keep building Office for the Mac?). Apple is now the wildly profitable owner of the dominant iPod platform and rapidly-becoming dominant iPhone platform, which are really one in the same. Unlike any other competitor in the industry, moreover--including the still PC-centric Microsoft--Apple has managed to link the two big personal computing platforms together, through its software and resurgent Mac business.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
No, it's saddled with a reputation of suck because few people really like it. Look up Stockholm Syndrome.
Monopolistic practices suck too. I went out to buy a notebook computer without an OS on it, or with some Linux preinstall. I can do that in Manila, but not in a 3rd world country like California. They wouldn't sell me one, so I bought a Mac.
> Um, I don't use a Mac because it's cool. I use a Mac because I like its interface and it's Unix inside. I, for one, cannot resist a system that installs /bin/zsh by default.
Oh, I'm of precisely the same position. I'm primarily a Unix-head, have been since the mid-80's.
I didn't say that the reason, or the main reason, people bought Macs is because they're "cool". I said the aura of high quality and superior industrial design that Apple has worked so hard (and successfully) to establish, would deteriorate if they started trying to address the bottom-feeder Windows market.
The Mac is different, and to survive it has to stay different. There is no benefit to Apple, to make the Mac like a Windows PC. And to reach that same price point, it would have to be more or less the same.
Apple doesn't make low-end products. Period. Their entire aspect in the marketplace would change, and suffer, if they stopped being the mid-to-high-end product line, and addressed the mass low-end market. And (my original point), the public perception that Apple is "cool" would suffer damage.
Apple doesn't want to be the majority player. Their business model is not based on low-end products. The majority of Windows PC are low-end products, because the majority of computer buyers only look at purchase price, because those buyers don't know how to evaluate quality or technical specs. So they buy cheap crap and assume they're getting a bargain.
That is not Apple's target market. Let me say that again: The low end is not Apple's target market.
Apple might strive for 15% or 20% of the overall market, and make it in time. But if they shoot to 25%, they will necessarily start losing their focus.
So you need only relax -- Apple's doing just fine, addressing their part of the market very successfully. They know full well they can increase their marketshare by dropping prices. But dropping prices can only be done one of two ways:
1. decrease profit margins, or
2. cut quality
Apple will do neither of these things, nor do they have to, to continue successfully along their chosen business path.
Marketshare ain't everything, ya know. Success in business, and a reputation for high quality products and service, are damn fine achievements.
At the Apple store there were 26 customers and 6 employees (in sight). This was at about 10:15 am. The customers were either playing with products, or being shown how to use the products by the employees. There was an area for service populated by one employee and one customer, who appeared to be quite happy with the service he was receiving.
When I got to Best Buy at 11:00am I was struck by the difference in the two stores. There is a small area where they sell Macs (but no employee help there) and a much larger area where they sell Windows based machines. I counted 6 customers and one employee in the computer department. The employee was looking confused as the customer explained his needs. The other customers were split into those who were looking at but not touching the machines and those looking for an employee to help them. A glance over at the Geek Squad counter revealed a line of 4 customers waiting for help from the 2 harried and surly “Geeks.”
It reminded me of the difference between shopping at an Audi dealership and a Chrysler dealership.
Sure, no problem. ;-)
One point of historical accuracy, however.
> I doubt they'll change their model. They've hung onto it since the 80s. I'm glad it hasn't killed them yet, because it almost did 15 or 20 years ago.
It's well documented that what almost killed them in the early 90's was trying be like Windows PCs -- the same ugly beige boxes and trying to compete on the PC's turf.
Apple's successful business model is based on being different. When the Mac came out in 1984 it was different. And when the iMac came out in 1997 it was different. In between, however, the beige boxes that almost killed Apple were an attempt to be the same. Luckily, they recaptured the desire to be different.
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