Posted on 10/24/2009 4:16:49 AM PDT by Swordmaker
I think the saying goes that those that don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.
This is likely to point with Apple this month as they sit stunned that Windows 7 is doing so well and they are left looking foolish with products priced out of the segment. Their big news this week was a couple of PCs, a new keyboard and a multi-touch mouse. This last will likely go down in history as one of the lamest devices yet as they should know, given the iPhone, that touch is connected to the screen and not anything else. They likely would have done better putting fir on the damn thing and building it to fart the star spangled banner at least that would have been patriotic.
Apple is clearly one of the strongest marketing companies in any industry and Steve Jobs is a considered to be a master while Microsoft in recent years hasn’t really seemed to be in their league. This goes to the core, no pun intended, of how Microsoft blindsided Apple and left the firm looking like they had given the PC market back to Microsoft. The other part is that Apple is now fighting on two fronts against two powerful companies for the first time since the 80s. Let’s talk about this while we think of that poor challenged Apple mouse.
Windows 95 and Historic Mistakes
Apple, back in 1995, while Steve Jobs was on his forced vacation from the company I met with them and suggested they needed to bring up their game because Windows 95 had a lot of positive buzz and they were in danger of being trivialized. The Apple executives, most of whom were let go in the following years or fired by Steve Jobs, told me they had it well in hand and that, after all, Windows 95 was simply a bad copy of the 1988 version of the MacOS.
A few record selling days, and lines around the block, later they felt differently but were unprepared to take advantage of Microsoft’s mistake and so began what was a slide into bankruptcy saved only by Steve Jobs return. The mistake that Microsoft made was they hadn’t budgeted for sustaining marketing. This allowed Apple a huge opportunity to point out Windows 95 problems and showcase their product in a favorable light. But they weren’t prepared and missed the opportunity.
However Microsoft made this same mistake every year following and Steve Jobs finally started to pick up on this with Vista and the Mac vs. PC campaign is his historic response to Microsoft’s classic mistake. But the mistake was in two parts, a product that had problems at release and an inability to market the product’s advantages because the Microsoft team had no money left.
Windows 7: A New Hope
Windows 7 is coming out of the gate with only one known issue and that appears to be tied to problematic Flash update Adobe did in August that most may never actually see. Not only is this a short problem list the issue should track quickly back to Adobe and not damage the launch much. In edition Microsoft didn’t blow their entire budget before the product actually hit the stores and has a substantial sustaining marketing budget. This means, this time, both the product and the marketing program is in relatively good shape and instead of being tired and vulnerable, Microsoft is ready for war.
Steve Jobs and Apple clearly planned for the same traditional behavior and were completely unprepared for both the quality of Windows 7 and the fact Microsoft has a war chest this time. Their near pathetic recent release of a couple slightly improved PCs and a couple peripherals showcases this. They figured they could easily skate through the next few months because, traditionally, Microsoft would be vulnerable and not able to fight back.
Second Front
However this isn’t their only problem. Verizon, Google and Motorola have opened a second front with the Droid iCan’t campaign (this is actually rather funny) that targets the iPhones weaknesses. None of these companies has any love for Apple. Verizon thinks Apple has been trying to blackmail them into a contract they don’t want to sign, Google’s CEO was just fired from their board and Apple booted Google Voice from the iPhone, and Motorola was burned by the ROKR joint venture with Apple. Each of these companies thinks of Apple as a firm they would like to squash and while separately they represent little risk, collectively they are the strongest carrier (in terms of size and customer satisfaction), the most powerful web company, and the firm who had the hot phone (Razor) before the iPhone.
This combination of the Microsoft budget and the Droid attack splits Apple’s resources and focus and makes it vastly more difficult for the firm to respond timely or well. The end result is an unprecedented exposure.
Wrapping Up:
Two good lessons here, even when you are on top it is very foolish to under estimate a competitor with Microsoft’s resources because they can actually get it right, and picking too many fights at once can take out the most powerful of entities just as it took out a nearly unbeatable Germany in the second world war.
With Steve Jobs in Apple the firm can respond to threats like this one very quickly but only if they see it coming in time. I think they are likely to repeat the 1995 mistake and that means they probably won’t be either quick enough or effective enough to dodge this bullet. However, this is Apple after all and this fight is still young, it would also be very foolish to count them out early.
Regardless of the outcome, we are seeing history made this week and it’s an amazing time to be alive.
Rob Enderle is one of the last Inquiry Analysts. Inquiry Analysts are paid to stay up to date on current events and identify trends and either explain the trends or make suggestions, tactical and strategic, on how to best take advantage of them. Currently he provides his services to most of the major technology and media companies.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
The one I want (15” non-glossy screen) is $1700 and change. Maybe they’ll come down some for Christmas. Don’t need it right away, so might as well wait and see.
Most of the programmers, DBAs, and system administrators that I know are perfectly able to maintain their own computers if they are given administrator logins and in small companies, it's not like people have a dedicated IT department to call. All of those job functions are also generally listed in any list of IT (aka "Information Technology") jobs or roles that I've ever seen, from job search sites to applications to receive free IT industry magazines. Of course that all begs the question of why anyone should have to spend any significant amount of time getting desktop computers working unless the problem is a hardware failure or maybe setting up a new PC. They should just work.
The correlation with cars is not that IT people like working on cars, too, but that some people enjoy spending time tinkering with pieces of technology and it the difficulty in doing maintenance is considered part of the fun. I'm talking about the people who get a gleam in their eye when they talk about defragmenting their hard drive, hacking their registry, or overclocking their CPU.
No, I'm not excited about the new Office 2007 interface, for example. I find it annoying that I have to spend 5 minutes finding a function that used to be easy to find in a menu in earlier versions. And, frankly, a lot of the fluff in the Mac OS doesn't excite me that much, either. I'm still running OS X 10.3 (two versions old) and the 2004 version of Office for the Mac on my own Mac because I just don't have a compelling reason to upgrade.
I use my computer at home to do email, web browsing, word processing, and graphics and I use my computer at work for email, web browsing, software development, project management, and database work. Fiddling with the OS is a distraction from what I really want to be doing on a computer. It's like consciously thinking "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out". It's something I don't want to have to think about and if I do find myself having to think about it, it generally means I've got a problem and things aren't working correctly unless I'm an athlete at the cutting edge of physical performance.
I’d be surprised if I ever saw anyone in IT actually do anything besides sit around and drink coffee. At least you have the initiative to put your feet up.
Just sitting here typing this on the 17" MBP, I can't think of anything else about it I would change -- except its honkin' big size and weight. One thing I hadn't counted on: carrying cases for the 17-inchers are real beasts. The 15s are much nicer if you are ever going to lug them around.
A prediction: you will absolutely love the MacBook Pro! Enjoy the anticipation!!
~~~~~~~~
Indeed, we have gotten our money's worth... :-)
My boss uses a Mac for work (I used a Lenovo Windows XP laptop at work) and he said the same thing about Office 2007 for the Mac. Yet another reason to avoid the upgrade.
What a lot of people miss is that Apple thinks of themselves primarily as a hardware company, not a software company. The biggest thing software companies like Microsoft fear is that people will decide that the software they have is good enough and will stop upgrading.
Thanks.
My point was, there’s seldom any need for Windows programs on a Mac, although it can be done. Microsoft Office for the Mac isn’t for Windows, though obviously there is a Windows version.
The image link I posted above heads off to the website showing a program that doesn’t require Windows at all (Intel Macs only), being a Mac-specific version of WINE. Ergo, no need for any purchase of Windows.
Must be one hell of a great dollhouse (speaking of insults, and “due respect”). Apple users pay a premium for a better OS and hardware, although that premium has shrunk. Meanwhile, really basic laptops and netbooks have had an impact on Wintel laptop manufacturers, who were already functioning on very thin margins (I’ve seen it compared with the retail margins on bananas, found in the produce sections of most food markets), and Apple’s sales have risen in a down economy.
Thanks, at age 51 I haven’t been ‘carded’ in a long time. ;’)
I bought an Apple II in 1984, the same year the Mac came out. I’d actually messed with a 128K original Mac at Computerland before this, but wound up getting the //e at Schaak Electronics.
“Microsoft user for 20 years now” — that puts it at 1989.
Sorry but Apple prices are an insult. Especially for their absurd 13.3” laptops. The only way this flies is that many people think desktops and laptops are inherently expensive. Fact is they are not these days. Hardware and laptops have gotten cheaper and cheaper and cheaper
So I’m using Windows 7 right now on a computer (self built/assembled) with modest specifications (e2180 processor) and I’m loving it. This computer is a good hackintosh candidate with its Gigabyte motherboard but I find no reason to load the Apple OS. I like to fool around and if I did want a hackintosh I could make this one into a dual boot 0SX/Windows7.
Also have Windows 7 on a laptop I obviously did not assemble
That is what Apple means to me— not very much
Its a fad like the hula hoop and the twist (dance)
Sorry but Apple prices are an insult.Really? You don't have any interest in Apple products ("I find no reason to load the Apple OS."), so how could a *price* of an Apple product (or any other product) be an insult to you?
Yeah, that's the ticket! Using a Mac back in 1979. Why I got you beat there, I was surfing Free Republic way back in 1973. That's right, 1973. Tough year to be a conservative I tell you, with Watergate, Spiro Agnew and all those gas lines. But I was on the Free Republic fighting the battle with my trusty PC and cable modem...
Yes definitely buy a toy 13” laptop for $1000
hole were punched by a punch machine, which of course had a keyboard, but not a crt, the punched cards had to be feed and read by a reader, so the input did not come straight from a keyboard like now but you know what I was trying to say, or not? really is hard to communicate to people on an apple thread, why are people so defensive?
apple II your right, then mac came out and the microsoft IBMs too and the later as we just called them PCs even though both IBM and apple produced PCs, but if I had said i switched from a mac to a PC, probably somebody would have a issue with that too, saying well, apples made PCs in such and such a year,
The Apple Mac, released in January 1984 retailed, over Steve Jobs' objections (he wanted to price it at $1699), for $2499. The IBM-PC AT on release was $4000-$6000. The Mac with a 10M HD, was $500 cheaper. Essentially, the Mac and the PC were competitively priced.
One brand? No one is advocating that. However, the vast majority of Mac users, unlike PC users, have experience in BOTH Windows and Macs, and have found that one offers a clearly better computing experience than the other. Perhaps you should open your mind and expand your experience to also include using a Mac and you might find that what the Mac users have been saying is true.
Now, it seems to me that you were referring to the obvious benefits of having a display providing instant feedback (output) from keyed input... (As seen on the 40-column Apple ][+ ca 1979...)
I realize there was no display on a card punch, but -- after inputting your data via a keyboard you could read the printed value atop each punched card column.
Sorry, your writing was/is so unclear as to cause an I/O error... ;-)
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