Journal cmacb's Journal: Jobs Bets the Company and Will Lose 1
I was going to comment on this:
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/07/1420222&tid=166&tid=3&tid=106
But the level of cluelessness among the Apple fanbase made me nauseous. I'll just repeat what I said yesterday:
Thats what I don't think a lot of people understand about this. Apple computers will STILL be more expensive because they will not be 100% compatible with normal PCs and the cost of the finished hardware is a function of production volume. It might be easier to run Windows apps using various emulation techniques, but SO WHAT? If I wanted to run a lot of Windows apps I'd be running Windows. This move will cause Apple to cease to exist as a separate entity in 3 years or so. They won't even finish their planned transition before the mistake is realized... but it will be too late by then. Now the question is: who will end up buying what's left.
And amend it with a clarification:
Someone suggested that I was saying that Volume ALONE made Apple equipment more expensive. That's a quibble. Volume happens to be an important factor, but use whatever formulation you want, do you see Apple beating Dell and the off-brands on price as a result of this move? Apple computers will continue to cost more, period. It doesn't MATTER why. What matters is that people will look at two systems, that are now more the same than ever before, and they will by the cheaper one. Most of them DON'T CARE what operating system is on it, as long as it has pretty icons on it that they can click to get on the Internet etc.
And a debunking of the upside on this move:
Dvoraks predictions from 2 years ago and all the positive spin on this move are all based on the pick one: (hope, speculation, misunderstanding) that people will be able to run Apple software on their existing PCs. I would think that was great too! But Apple has clearly said that this is out of the question. They would, instead welcome people to run Windows on their special Apple hardware (which of course would be a truly brain-dead thing to do, but I often think that Apple doesn't have much respect for the intelligence of their average user, and maybe there is a reason for this).
Apple claims to be a hardware company, but they don't build these things folks. They are middlemen when it comes to hardware just like Dell, HP and almost anyone else here in the US is. There is only room for a few companies to play this role, and Apple really isn't up there in the same league with Dell, sorry to inform you.
Here are Apple's strengths: They've cobbled together a decent Unix based OS that compares favorably with Windows on many fronts. They have that iPod/music thing going. They know how to market up-scale toys pretty effectively. That marriage of the upscale hardware (based on a superior CPU) and OS X has worked great. Now Apple is divorcing itself so as to go head to head with Dell. Not only is Apple not going to succeed at this, but I don't see much growth potential for Dell either. We are going to become more and more comfortable buying this stuff directly from the real manufacturers inn Taiwan, or mainland China. What do I need Dell for? They get the laptops (remember thats what this is all about , everyone wants a laptop) directly from the supplier already in a Dell box. Heck I'm not sure it even passes through a Dell warehouse any more. You don't think consumers (and those manufacturers) will figure out how to eliminate the middle man before long?
Anyway, Apple is going to find itself not only with a dwindling iPod market, but a dwindling market for their hardware too. The OS is their strongest card, and the potential of the PowerPC hardware was the other one. They've discarded an ace and now they are going to pick another card off the pile to see if they can do better. Bad move, and the stock market and even maybe Dvorak will figure it out before too long.
I hear ya... (Score:1)