You're wrong. The bigger a company is, the more ability it has to do what it needs to do.
Do you naively think that if MS hadn't gotten big enough, and hadn't made so much in monopoly profits it would be where it is today? I hope not!
Do you think the XBox would still be around if they didn't subsidize it? It wouldn't. Same thing for the Zune, and a number of other areas such as search.
If you don't see that, well, I hope you don't advise on investments.
What if Microsoft where a smaller company? Might they have been a little less cock sure of themselves and made a more cost effective product? From what I see the 360 is winning the console wars with the 10 and over crowd. But, if they were a smaller company, might they have contracted out the design of the mother board on the 360 that was causing the red ring of death? Looking back I can see many mistakes that they made but suffered very little consequence because of their size and cash position. Perhaps, if they were a smaller company, they might have followed the same road map but achieved it via a smarter routing.
I think that Apple's strength is that despite their size they maintain a focus and drive that is indicative of a much smaller, leaner company. If/when they lose that focus is when they risk becoming the next Sony. It's easy to forget that Apple has achieved great success with a relatively small, simple product portfolio. Using Apple as an example it can be demonstrated that people will pay a premium price for a good, well designed product. I would argue that if Apple were a smaller company without the ability to leverage the supply chain they still would be able to charge a premium price for their product and rapidly build a large cash cushion.
Awesome. I hear iPad lower than expected. Not sure why RIM is mentioned. Android is the rival now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleStud
those two buffoons running RIM must have angered Steve Jobs. Not smart!
Those iPad numbers are very low. Just about 1.3 million a month. Quite bizzare.
However, there were more iPads sold in just 26 countries than Macs sold in the whole world.
I think Apple focused on iPhone 4 and just slamming the heck out of that. 5 million units a month, it will probably do 6 million a month this Oct-Dec quarter with more countries launching and demanding more stock for the holidays.
They are being cautious with iPad, not trying to roll out as aggressively as iPhone and gearing up for the long run. As I mentioned it's already bigger than Macs, no doubt about that going into 2011.
As for RIM, Steve is saying, "Let's officially say bye bye to RIM. iPhone is bigger than Blackberry, game over, it's just Android and us". And with even the most vocal WindowsPhone7 supporters placing WP7 behind Android, iOS and RIM at third or fourth place, 2011 is going to be iOS vs Android from the looks of it.
Of course, there are always surprises and Steve ain't the Oracle on all things. We shall see...
The after-hours selloff may also have been influenced by underwhelming sales of Apple's new tablet computer - the iPad, which came it at just 4.2 million.
That represents a rise of just 28% on the previous quarter, which was when the company first launched the new product."
Idiots!
LOL. The real secret is that Apple could have made and sold twice that number of iPads. They're gearing up for the big race in 2011, which they are already ahead in anyways.
26 countries only. And bigger selling than the best selling Mac quarter.
That's all we need to know about the iPad for now.
Anyone that can't read between the numbers ain't going to see the big picture of what tablet computing is and going to become.
Yeah, I guess. ... Good luck making sense of the markets on any given day.
I wouldn't attempt to - leave that to the day traders. AAPL isn't off much from yesterday's close anyway, an insignificant change considering the overall market.
I wouldn't attempt to - leave that to the day traders. AAPL isn't off much from yesterday's close anyway, an insignificant change considering the overall market.
Agreed, on both points. It's far too easy to get worked up by what the markets do on any given day, even if you know better than to worry about (or celebrate) short-term swings. That's why I was disappointed when AI added the AAPL stock ticker to every page.
... If the computer business gets down to 20% of the total sales, they may believe that licensing out the OS under strict conditions would be worth losing 25% of their computer hardware sales.
Apple may be positioned as a leader in mobile connectivity (or whatever you want to call it - the market is so new it defies classification), but I don't see that as a reason to neglect its computer market. It may represent a smaller component of total revenue, but that doesn't mean it's any less significant. It's growing at a healthy rate. Some 90% of the world's computers aren't Apple's, so the potential for growth is still enormous.
I'm all in favor of profitability. I don't care how Apple gets it. I hope they're considering all possible avenues for success, but I really don't see them forfeiting one iota of control over their user experience. This means complete monopolistic control over the hardware that runs OS X or iOS. It's been a key component of their success.
Of course this is just my opinion. I admit I'm biased, having had miserable experiences with HP and Dell's quality control and outright hostile customer service. OS X might run great on an HP, but that won't help when 1. the graphics chip overheats, 2. the display cable frays, 3. EFI shields bend and short out the motherboard, 4. the speakers fail, 5. status LEDs burn out, 6. the computer spends more time in repair than in actual use until 7. the warranty finally runs out... all problems I've had with HP and Dell junk.
What if Microsoft where a smaller company? Might they have been a little less cock sure of themselves and made a more cost effective product? From what I see the 360 is winning the console wars with the 10 and over crowd. But, if they were a smaller company, might they have contracted out the design of the mother board on the 360 that was causing the red ring of death? Looking back I can see many mistakes that they made but suffered very little consequence because of their size and cash position. Perhaps, if they were a smaller company, they might have followed the same road map but achieved it via a smarter routing.
I think that Apple's strength is that despite their size they maintain a focus and drive that is indicative of a much smaller, leaner company. If/when they lose that focus is when they risk becoming the next Sony. It's easy to forget that Apple has achieved great success with a relatively small, simple product portfolio. Using Apple as an example it can be demonstrated that people will pay a premium price for a good, well designed product. I would argue that if Apple were a smaller company without the ability to leverage the supply chain they still would be able to charge a premium price for their product and rapidly build a large cash cushion.
The point I was trying to make there was the relative size between the companies, and also, noting which MS products made money, and which were supported by that money.
I mention the XBox, because so far, MS has lost about $8 billion on its entertainment division since the XBox first came out. This includes profits from game licensing and such. If MS didn't make so much money from its monopolies, it would never have been able to continue that losing line of products. The XBox has been a failure, if measured the way any normal product would be measured. No other company would have continued that product line after the first couple of years, where it lost MS at least $1.3 billion each year.
now, my point abut Apple and games vs MS. If Apple, with the iOS line, sells enough games, and those games cut into XBox games sales, as they're expected to do, then that directly impacts MS's pocketbook. If it does that enough, even MS may be forced to reconsider the product line. I'm not saying it will, but that it could.
MS is not a hardware manufacturer, or designer. It's likely they do some of the design of their mice and keyboards, but that's much simpler, and very different. They don't do their Zunes, or XBox.
A smaller company would have folded the entire operation long ago.
Apple may be positioned as a leader in mobile connectivity (or whatever you want to call it - the market is so new it defies classification), but I don't see that as a reason to neglect its computer market. It may represent a smaller component of total revenue, but that doesn't mean it's any less significant. It's growing at a healthy rate. Some 90% of the world's computers aren't Apple's, so the potential for growth is still enormous.
I'm all in favor of profitability. I don't care how Apple gets it. I hope they're considering all possible avenues for success, but I really don't see them forfeiting one iota of control over their user experience. This means complete monopolistic control over the hardware that runs OS X or iOS. It's been a key component of their success.
Of course this is just my opinion. I admit I'm biased, having had miserable experiences with HP and Dell's quality control and outright hostile customer service. OS X might run great on an HP, but that won't help when 1. the graphics chip overheats, 2. the display cable frays, 3. EFI shields bend and short out the motherboard, 4. the speakers fail, 5. status LEDs burn out, 6. the computer spends more time in repair than in actual use until 7. the warranty finally runs out... all problems I've had with HP and Dell junk.
Maybe it was the Apple stickers I put on 'em
That wouldn't be neglecting that market at all. It would be expanding it at a rate that Apple can't do by themselves. We all seem to cry about Apple not building a mini tower. What if Apple allowed Hp and Dell to do so? Many business people I speak to say that they would be more interested in Macs if they had a $1,000 tower and a separate monitor, as they upgrade them on different schedules.
These days, Apple would be in much greater control of what would be allowed. I think it would work, even if they eventually got out of the market of regular computers altogether, and concentrated on touchscreen devices of all sorts.
As I say, this would be at least a couple of years out, possibly more, but it's possible.
I like repeating Jobs's statement when he was away from Apple, and Apple was in trouble. When he was asked what he would do if he were back in charge, he said:
"I would milk the Mac for all it was worth, and then go on to the next big thing."
I think that indicates he's open to any number of things, and we can see that Apple is certainly on to "the next big thing".
"I would milk the Mac for all it was worth, and then go on to the next big thing."
I think there's a lot more milk in that cow.
I'd hesitate to read too much into the statement. He said it a lifetime ago, with knowledge that the Mac as it then existed had a finite lifespan. They indeed became obsolete, but they were far cry from the Macs of today. These too will have a finite life, but if anything I think it will be coincident with the life cycle of what we conceive to be computers in general (his truck analogy).
He certainly hasn't waited for it to end before working on the "next big thing". Or things. Nor should he. If not for the iPod and its descendants the Mac would be a boutique product, more likely gone altogether. I'd speculate that Apple would spin off a more or less autonomous computer division before licensing its OS to run on competing hardware. That might not be a bad thing - with an emphasis on the enterprise market, who knows how far it could reach.
I'd hesitate to read too much into the statement. He said it a lifetime ago, with knowledge that the Mac as it then existed had a finite lifespan. They indeed became obsolete, but they were far cry from the Macs of today. These too will have a finite life, but if anything I think it will be coincident with the life cycle of what we conceive to be computers in general (his truck analogy).
He certainly hasn't waited for it to end before working on the "next big thing". Or things. Nor should he. If not for the iPod and its descendants the Mac would be a boutique product, more likely gone altogether. I'd speculate that Apple would spin off a more or less autonomous computer division before licensing its OS to run on competing hardware. That might not be a bad thing - with an emphasis on the enterprise market, who knows how far it could reach.
Oh, I don't think anyone can wait for the demise of their big product line before moving on to another one. But we can all see that he's expanded Apple well beyond what they used to be in products. While today, they showed that the Mac is 33% of their business, not long ago, like a year, it was almost 50%. It's shrinking.
With their other businesses growing much faster than their Mac business, I wouldn't be surprised if next year it might be 25%. The year after, less than 20%, and unless they meld the tablet and Mac lines, as they seem to be coming closer to doing, at some point, I think it would be viable for them to be considering what I said.
... While today, they showed that the Mac is 33% of their business, not long ago, like a year, it was almost 50%. It's shrinking.
Sure, I understand the Mac's share of Apple's overall revenue is growing smaller, but that's an indication of the iPhone's and iPad's success.
Mac unit sales by fiscal year (in thousands):
2007: 7,051
2008: 9,715
2009: 10,396
2010: 13,660
By any measure... not shrinking
Apple's quarterly results for 2010 reported Mac unit sales increases of 33%, 33%, 33%, and 27% over the previous fiscal year's quarters. This is approximately double HP's growth for 2009. Dell, the previous market leader, experienced an 11% decline for the year.
The Wintel box makers would kill for this kind of growth.
The reason the Mac's overall revenue contribution went from 50% to 33% is easy to understand, given the fact the iPhone unit sales for those quarters grew 100%, 131%, 61%, and 91% respectively. Obviously the iPad's sales increases can't be calculated yet, but given its phenomenal success its growth could be even more impressive.
At that point, the Mac's total revenue contribution may be 20%; it might be 10%. Who cares, if they continue to grow at twice the rate of HP/Dell/Lenovo, or even close to it?
... approximately double HP's growth for 2009. Dell, the previous market leader, experienced an 11% decline for the year.
The Wintel box makers would kill for this kind of growth.
The Mac's unit sales growth is approximately triple that of the PC boxmakers.
I haven't calculated the actual number, but given Apple generally enjoys greater margin on its computers, I would conclude the Mac's revenue growth is more than triple the PC's.
One in five PCs sold in the United States is a Mac, making up 20.67% of U.S. consumer market share, and bringing in triple the amount of money the Mac has earned since fiscal year 2005.
Comments
You're wrong. The bigger a company is, the more ability it has to do what it needs to do.
Do you naively think that if MS hadn't gotten big enough, and hadn't made so much in monopoly profits it would be where it is today? I hope not!
Do you think the XBox would still be around if they didn't subsidize it? It wouldn't. Same thing for the Zune, and a number of other areas such as search.
If you don't see that, well, I hope you don't advise on investments.
What if Microsoft where a smaller company? Might they have been a little less cock sure of themselves and made a more cost effective product? From what I see the 360 is winning the console wars with the 10 and over crowd. But, if they were a smaller company, might they have contracted out the design of the mother board on the 360 that was causing the red ring of death? Looking back I can see many mistakes that they made but suffered very little consequence because of their size and cash position. Perhaps, if they were a smaller company, they might have followed the same road map but achieved it via a smarter routing.
I think that Apple's strength is that despite their size they maintain a focus and drive that is indicative of a much smaller, leaner company. If/when they lose that focus is when they risk becoming the next Sony. It's easy to forget that Apple has achieved great success with a relatively small, simple product portfolio. Using Apple as an example it can be demonstrated that people will pay a premium price for a good, well designed product. I would argue that if Apple were a smaller company without the ability to leverage the supply chain they still would be able to charge a premium price for their product and rapidly build a large cash cushion.
Awesome. I hear iPad lower than expected. Not sure why RIM is mentioned. Android is the rival now.
those two buffoons running RIM must have angered Steve Jobs. Not smart!
Those iPad numbers are very low. Just about 1.3 million a month. Quite bizzare.
However, there were more iPads sold in just 26 countries than Macs sold in the whole world.
I think Apple focused on iPhone 4 and just slamming the heck out of that. 5 million units a month, it will probably do 6 million a month this Oct-Dec quarter with more countries launching and demanding more stock for the holidays.
They are being cautious with iPad, not trying to roll out as aggressively as iPhone and gearing up for the long run. As I mentioned it's already bigger than Macs, no doubt about that going into 2011.
As for RIM, Steve is saying, "Let's officially say bye bye to RIM. iPhone is bigger than Blackberry, game over, it's just Android and us". And with even the most vocal WindowsPhone7 supporters placing WP7 behind Android, iOS and RIM at third or fourth place, 2011 is going to be iOS vs Android from the looks of it.
Of course, there are always surprises and Steve ain't the Oracle on all things. We shall see...
For some reason the BBC feel the need to knock Apple on these results!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11570631
Specifically :
"iPads flat
The after-hours selloff may also have been influenced by underwhelming sales of Apple's new tablet computer - the iPad, which came it at just 4.2 million.
That represents a rise of just 28% on the previous quarter, which was when the company first launched the new product."
Idiots!
LOL. The real secret is that Apple could have made and sold twice that number of iPads. They're gearing up for the big race in 2011, which they are already ahead in anyways.
26 countries only. And bigger selling than the best selling Mac quarter.
That's all we need to know about the iPad for now.
Anyone that can't read between the numbers ain't going to see the big picture of what tablet computing is and going to become.
Yeah, I guess. ... Good luck making sense of the markets on any given day.
I wouldn't attempt to - leave that to the day traders. AAPL isn't off much from yesterday's close anyway, an insignificant change considering the overall market.
I wouldn't attempt to - leave that to the day traders. AAPL isn't off much from yesterday's close anyway, an insignificant change considering the overall market.
Agreed, on both points. It's far too easy to get worked up by what the markets do on any given day, even if you know better than to worry about (or celebrate) short-term swings. That's why I was disappointed when AI added the AAPL stock ticker to every page.
... If the computer business gets down to 20% of the total sales, they may believe that licensing out the OS under strict conditions would be worth losing 25% of their computer hardware sales.
Apple may be positioned as a leader in mobile connectivity (or whatever you want to call it - the market is so new it defies classification), but I don't see that as a reason to neglect its computer market. It may represent a smaller component of total revenue, but that doesn't mean it's any less significant. It's growing at a healthy rate. Some 90% of the world's computers aren't Apple's, so the potential for growth is still enormous.
I'm all in favor of profitability. I don't care how Apple gets it. I hope they're considering all possible avenues for success, but I really don't see them forfeiting one iota of control over their user experience. This means complete monopolistic control over the hardware that runs OS X or iOS. It's been a key component of their success.
Of course this is just my opinion. I admit I'm biased, having had miserable experiences with HP and Dell's quality control and outright hostile customer service. OS X might run great on an HP, but that won't help when 1. the graphics chip overheats, 2. the display cable frays, 3. EFI shields bend and short out the motherboard, 4. the speakers fail, 5. status LEDs burn out, 6. the computer spends more time in repair than in actual use until 7. the warranty finally runs out... all problems I've had with HP and Dell junk.
Maybe it was the Apple stickers I put on 'em
What if Microsoft where a smaller company? Might they have been a little less cock sure of themselves and made a more cost effective product? From what I see the 360 is winning the console wars with the 10 and over crowd. But, if they were a smaller company, might they have contracted out the design of the mother board on the 360 that was causing the red ring of death? Looking back I can see many mistakes that they made but suffered very little consequence because of their size and cash position. Perhaps, if they were a smaller company, they might have followed the same road map but achieved it via a smarter routing.
I think that Apple's strength is that despite their size they maintain a focus and drive that is indicative of a much smaller, leaner company. If/when they lose that focus is when they risk becoming the next Sony. It's easy to forget that Apple has achieved great success with a relatively small, simple product portfolio. Using Apple as an example it can be demonstrated that people will pay a premium price for a good, well designed product. I would argue that if Apple were a smaller company without the ability to leverage the supply chain they still would be able to charge a premium price for their product and rapidly build a large cash cushion.
The point I was trying to make there was the relative size between the companies, and also, noting which MS products made money, and which were supported by that money.
I mention the XBox, because so far, MS has lost about $8 billion on its entertainment division since the XBox first came out. This includes profits from game licensing and such. If MS didn't make so much money from its monopolies, it would never have been able to continue that losing line of products. The XBox has been a failure, if measured the way any normal product would be measured. No other company would have continued that product line after the first couple of years, where it lost MS at least $1.3 billion each year.
now, my point abut Apple and games vs MS. If Apple, with the iOS line, sells enough games, and those games cut into XBox games sales, as they're expected to do, then that directly impacts MS's pocketbook. If it does that enough, even MS may be forced to reconsider the product line. I'm not saying it will, but that it could.
MS is not a hardware manufacturer, or designer. It's likely they do some of the design of their mice and keyboards, but that's much simpler, and very different. They don't do their Zunes, or XBox.
A smaller company would have folded the entire operation long ago.
Apple may be positioned as a leader in mobile connectivity (or whatever you want to call it - the market is so new it defies classification), but I don't see that as a reason to neglect its computer market. It may represent a smaller component of total revenue, but that doesn't mean it's any less significant. It's growing at a healthy rate. Some 90% of the world's computers aren't Apple's, so the potential for growth is still enormous.
I'm all in favor of profitability. I don't care how Apple gets it. I hope they're considering all possible avenues for success, but I really don't see them forfeiting one iota of control over their user experience. This means complete monopolistic control over the hardware that runs OS X or iOS. It's been a key component of their success.
Of course this is just my opinion. I admit I'm biased, having had miserable experiences with HP and Dell's quality control and outright hostile customer service. OS X might run great on an HP, but that won't help when 1. the graphics chip overheats, 2. the display cable frays, 3. EFI shields bend and short out the motherboard, 4. the speakers fail, 5. status LEDs burn out, 6. the computer spends more time in repair than in actual use until 7. the warranty finally runs out... all problems I've had with HP and Dell junk.
Maybe it was the Apple stickers I put on 'em
That wouldn't be neglecting that market at all. It would be expanding it at a rate that Apple can't do by themselves. We all seem to cry about Apple not building a mini tower. What if Apple allowed Hp and Dell to do so? Many business people I speak to say that they would be more interested in Macs if they had a $1,000 tower and a separate monitor, as they upgrade them on different schedules.
These days, Apple would be in much greater control of what would be allowed. I think it would work, even if they eventually got out of the market of regular computers altogether, and concentrated on touchscreen devices of all sorts.
As I say, this would be at least a couple of years out, possibly more, but it's possible.
I like repeating Jobs's statement when he was away from Apple, and Apple was in trouble. When he was asked what he would do if he were back in charge, he said:
"I would milk the Mac for all it was worth, and then go on to the next big thing."
I think that indicates he's open to any number of things, and we can see that Apple is certainly on to "the next big thing".
"I would milk the Mac for all it was worth, and then go on to the next big thing."
I think there's a lot more milk in that cow.
I'd hesitate to read too much into the statement. He said it a lifetime ago, with knowledge that the Mac as it then existed had a finite lifespan. They indeed became obsolete, but they were far cry from the Macs of today. These too will have a finite life, but if anything I think it will be coincident with the life cycle of what we conceive to be computers in general (his truck analogy).
He certainly hasn't waited for it to end before working on the "next big thing". Or things.
I think there's a lot more milk in that cow.
I'd hesitate to read too much into the statement. He said it a lifetime ago, with knowledge that the Mac as it then existed had a finite lifespan. They indeed became obsolete, but they were far cry from the Macs of today. These too will have a finite life, but if anything I think it will be coincident with the life cycle of what we conceive to be computers in general (his truck analogy).
He certainly hasn't waited for it to end before working on the "next big thing". Or things.
Oh, I don't think anyone can wait for the demise of their big product line before moving on to another one. But we can all see that he's expanded Apple well beyond what they used to be in products. While today, they showed that the Mac is 33% of their business, not long ago, like a year, it was almost 50%. It's shrinking.
With their other businesses growing much faster than their Mac business, I wouldn't be surprised if next year it might be 25%. The year after, less than 20%, and unless they meld the tablet and Mac lines, as they seem to be coming closer to doing, at some point, I think it would be viable for them to be considering what I said.
... While today, they showed that the Mac is 33% of their business, not long ago, like a year, it was almost 50%. It's shrinking.
Sure, I understand the Mac's share of Apple's overall revenue is growing smaller, but that's an indication of the iPhone's and iPad's success.
Mac unit sales by fiscal year (in thousands): By any measure... not shrinking
Apple's quarterly results for 2010 reported Mac unit sales increases of 33%, 33%, 33%, and 27% over the previous fiscal year's quarters. This is approximately double HP's growth for 2009. Dell, the previous market leader, experienced an 11% decline for the year.
The Wintel box makers would kill for this kind of growth.
The reason the Mac's overall revenue contribution went from 50% to 33% is easy to understand, given the fact the iPhone unit sales for those quarters grew 100%, 131%, 61%, and 91% respectively. Obviously the iPad's sales increases can't be calculated yet, but given its phenomenal success its growth could be even more impressive.
At that point, the Mac's total revenue contribution may be 20%; it might be 10%. Who cares, if they continue to grow at twice the rate of HP/Dell/Lenovo, or even close to it?
Oh, I don't think anyone can wait for the demise of their big product line before moving on to another one.
Why not? That appears to be MSFT's strategy
Why not? That appears to be MSFT's strategy
Ouch! Painful, but true.
... approximately double HP's growth for 2009. Dell, the previous market leader, experienced an 11% decline for the year.
The Wintel box makers would kill for this kind of growth.
The Mac's unit sales growth is approximately triple that of the PC boxmakers.
I haven't calculated the actual number, but given Apple generally enjoys greater margin on its computers, I would conclude the Mac's revenue growth is more than triple the PC's.
Apple: Mac sales could sustain a Fortune 500 company by itself
One in five PCs sold in the United States is a Mac, making up 20.67% of U.S. consumer market share, and bringing in triple the amount of money the Mac has earned since fiscal year 2005.
Those are impressive numbers.