Puget... this year’s corporate campaign at Apple is called “Back to the Mac”. Far from abandoning traditional computers, Apple seems to be in the early stages of incorporating iPad and iPhone advances INTO the Mac, and then making a stronger sales push for the desktop.
I know that’s their campaign, but look at what the campaign actually kicked off with:
- More iPad-esque laptops
- More iOS-like features in the OS
- Improvements in iTunes
I’m not saying that Apple is going to kill the entire Mac line tomorrow, but that IMHO the writing is on the wall: they’re converging on iOS-style devices as their heart-and-center of operations, and Macs are either going to move to that style or be dropped (as we see with X-serve).
Sword’s point above about Macs being 27% of their revenue is quite telling; that means 73% of their revenue came from iOS-style devices. THAT is a sea-change, and one that - from everything I can see - Apple is encouraging. From a “dollars and cents” standpoint, Apple is a phone and MP3 player company, not a computer company. That’s not meant to be derogatory, but a statement of fact - they make the lion’s share of their money right now from phones and iPods and iPads.
Macs are no longer the focus for Apple, except as a way to be a platform for their iOS-style devices, IMHO. The convergence is going to appliances and purpose-built “thin clients”, not traditional PCs.