Tuesday, January 11, 2005
MacWorld SF - Joel's Picks
So, you all may not be aware but there is a ton of industry buzz around this year's MacWorld San Francisco Conference. Especially the Keynote. Why?
By most accounts this has really been Apple's year. Quarter-before-last (as in, ended in September) was about 6% better than the year-ago quarter for Mac sales. This may not seem like a lot, but here's a couple of things to keep in mind:
So this explains why people are paying attention to Apple - they're doing well.
Why this expo?
There are rumors abound, that say there's a flash-based iPod coming, and a $500 headless (no screen) Mac. Those are the biggest reasons.
The expo is about to start and I don't want to be criticized for not getting predicitons out before hand so I'm just going to dive right into what I think of all this. Maybe I'll go into more detail later.
My man Rob Cringely says Apple SHOULD introduce a commodity style, low cost mac to go along with their iPod, to try to entice people over to the platform - get them exposed to the beautiful OS, the lickable iApps, the integration... the Apple Way. He says they should even use their cash stockpile (~7 Billion dollars at this point) to subsidize it as a sort of "loss leader" and lose money on it just to get it into people's hands.
The same basic argument gets made for the flash iPod.
I don't like it personally. I think Apple not only doesn't LIKE to play in the 'low end' markets, I think it (traditionally) doesn't play well in those markets. They don't like bending to customers demands, etc, etc, etc - to a certain extent, making low end tech products is a lot about letting your customers drive your innovation (directing it), and Apple doesn't like to do that.
That's not to say that they can't, or won't. They could very well pull this off - All I'm saying is that it will take a major shift in company focus.
I want to check out what's happening at the keynote now so I'm off to tune in. (no webcast so I'll just be reading semi-live updates)
Here's hoping there's no low end stuff at this show.
By most accounts this has really been Apple's year. Quarter-before-last (as in, ended in September) was about 6% better than the year-ago quarter for Mac sales. This may not seem like a lot, but here's a couple of things to keep in mind:
- Apple was one of only TWO computer manufacturers able to keep it "in the black" this year (DELL was the other)
- 6% is about the increase the entire industry felt (so Apple is on par with the rest of the industry)
- They are expected to have sold as many iPods in THIS quarter (as in, the Christmas shopping season, as in financial results tomorrow via conference call) as they did for the entire lifetime of the iPod before THIS quarter
- A recent poll found that approx 6% (gasp) of Macintosh shoppers from that quarter were PC users who "switched" due mainly to a positive experience with iPod, and approx 7% were folks who planned to switch soon
So this explains why people are paying attention to Apple - they're doing well.
Why this expo?
There are rumors abound, that say there's a flash-based iPod coming, and a $500 headless (no screen) Mac. Those are the biggest reasons.
The expo is about to start and I don't want to be criticized for not getting predicitons out before hand so I'm just going to dive right into what I think of all this. Maybe I'll go into more detail later.
My man Rob Cringely says Apple SHOULD introduce a commodity style, low cost mac to go along with their iPod, to try to entice people over to the platform - get them exposed to the beautiful OS, the lickable iApps, the integration... the Apple Way. He says they should even use their cash stockpile (~7 Billion dollars at this point) to subsidize it as a sort of "loss leader" and lose money on it just to get it into people's hands.
The same basic argument gets made for the flash iPod.
I don't like it personally. I think Apple not only doesn't LIKE to play in the 'low end' markets, I think it (traditionally) doesn't play well in those markets. They don't like bending to customers demands, etc, etc, etc - to a certain extent, making low end tech products is a lot about letting your customers drive your innovation (directing it), and Apple doesn't like to do that.
That's not to say that they can't, or won't. They could very well pull this off - All I'm saying is that it will take a major shift in company focus.
I want to check out what's happening at the keynote now so I'm off to tune in. (no webcast so I'll just be reading semi-live updates)
Here's hoping there's no low end stuff at this show.
