idea about 1000-1500USD towers
Each time people discuss Powermac prices and features, two or three distinctly different viewpoints seem to emerge. The first is the professionals (typically in media production) who need all the number crunching power they can get, and whose number one concern is whether the new hardware is going to help them do their job. If it actually helps, its purchase is pretty much warranted regardless of price, since the price will eventually be offset by productivity. The second segment is home users who have enough dough to buy the fastest and best, and not think twice. The third segment of potential Powermac buyers are more price conscious. Their income might not be directly linked to their Mac. They might be home users or small business. They might be programmers, who generally like OS X, expandability and pro features, but often don't need all that number crunching power and cannot justify a 200% higher price over the "good enough" PC solution. In addition to being price conscious, this segment is generally ready to use Windows or free OS's if they can't get a solution from Apple that is priced at least in the same ballpark as the competition.
Currently, Apple does not address this third segment at all. The best Apple options are used low-end Powermacs, which are scarce and retain a lot of their value.
I find the logical thing for Apple to do would be to sell a Powermac chassis complete with the motherboard, fans and a single 2GHz (?) G5. No graphics card, hard drives, memory. No Applecare. No need for highly visible advertisement, the word would spread fast in the target market anyway. No "confusion" that people often whine about in AI, since this is low visibility and obviously not a machine for the average user. Price at about 1000USD. The way I see it, this new offering would not eat much into normal Powermac sales, but it would certainly open a new market for Apple. Even if profit margins were low (and I think they would still be high at these prices) sowing Apple seeds in the technical community is a good way to infiltrate the office market.
The final price for the working Powermac could be as low as 1100-1300USD depending on what kind of parts the customer would have previously, what he could buy used and what he would have to buy new. I suspect there is a good supply of used graphics cards from the normal Powermacs since they have weak cards as default... the rest of the parts are normal PC fare, therefore cheap.
Currently, Apple does not address this third segment at all. The best Apple options are used low-end Powermacs, which are scarce and retain a lot of their value.
I find the logical thing for Apple to do would be to sell a Powermac chassis complete with the motherboard, fans and a single 2GHz (?) G5. No graphics card, hard drives, memory. No Applecare. No need for highly visible advertisement, the word would spread fast in the target market anyway. No "confusion" that people often whine about in AI, since this is low visibility and obviously not a machine for the average user. Price at about 1000USD. The way I see it, this new offering would not eat much into normal Powermac sales, but it would certainly open a new market for Apple. Even if profit margins were low (and I think they would still be high at these prices) sowing Apple seeds in the technical community is a good way to infiltrate the office market.
The final price for the working Powermac could be as low as 1100-1300USD depending on what kind of parts the customer would have previously, what he could buy used and what he would have to buy new. I suspect there is a good supply of used graphics cards from the normal Powermacs since they have weak cards as default... the rest of the parts are normal PC fare, therefore cheap.
Comments
I think that is what you are looking for for all three markets. Scalability!!
makes more and more sense!! eye of the tiger, tiger by the tail, tiger tiger burning bright...., Tony the Tiger ("there ggggrrrrrrrreat!), put a tiger in your tank!!,
Tiger indeed then prob LION king of the Jungle OS X.9 or os 11?
What about OS? Are we to assume the people will get a nice pirate copy to install and save even more money?
Whatever graphics card they can fit in there will work even if it is not what Apple ever expected to need to support?
A low end box would be a nice offering but you will *never* see a half baked solution like this.
Besides, as you mentioned yourself about Powermac value retention, why cannibalize a machine you can sell working for a decent price?
Originally posted by TednDi
see the cluster thread!!
I think that is what you are looking for for all three markets. Scalability!!
One of the main points in this design is that it's not really "future hardware", rather "future product". They don't have to design anything new, more like just produce more of what they produce already and put it in brown cardboard packaging.
Originally posted by Bancho
So Apple should sell "hobby" boxes?
What about OS? Are we to assume the people will get a nice pirate copy to install and save even more money?
Whatever graphics card they can fit in there will work even if it is not what Apple ever expected to need to support?
A low end box would be a nice offering but you will *never* see a half baked solution like this.
Besides, as you mentioned yourself about Powermac value retention, why cannibalize a machine you can sell working for a decent price?
Yes, they should sell "hobby boxes" which I suspect is a bigger market nowadays than all of Apple. Not that these would be *only* hobby boxes. I know a lot of technically oriented people that build their own work machines as well as their hobby machines. I've seen small IT companies (whose business is in software or services, not hardware) where it has been the rule, not the exception, that they build their own computers. I've seen departments inside larger IT companies that build all their servers by hand even while their desktops are supplied by company-wide IT dept.
OS would be included in the price. An additional copy costs nothing to Apple. You think a chassis, motherboard and a single processor should cost 1000USD by themselves?
And yes, the users of *this* particular product must have enough intelligence to check if a particular graphics card will work. Apple doesn't need to help with the assembly process, it's quite enough if they keep a list of "official" supported hardware on the Web. This is how it works on the self-built PC market as well.
It might not be wise to cannibalize a working Powermac. That doesn't rule out cannibalizing a Powermac that has broken parts, or cannibalizing your last PC, or using miscellaneous parts that someone has swapped out of their Powermac to replace them with faster ones.
Originally posted by Gon
One of the main points in this design is that it's not really "future hardware", rather "future product". They don't have to design anything new, more like just produce more of what they produce already and put it in brown cardboard packaging.
Apple will never do that. They (and everyone in the industry) value their designs.
Originally posted by Rhumgod
Apple will never do that. They (and everyone in the industry) value their designs.
So?
This is just a distribution channel, a way to spread the Powermac design to people for whom it's currently priced out of reach. The enthusiast community is familiar with and has expressed a strong preference for this distribution channel. In fact, I hear the Powermac chassis is a joy to work with, so Apple's design would already be evident in the assembly process itself.
Once you get the machine up and running OS X, it's a Powermac like any other. You can't tell the difference.
Originally posted by Gon
Yes, they should sell "hobby boxes" which I suspect is a bigger market nowadays than all of Apple. Not that these would be *only* hobby boxes. I know a lot of technically oriented people that build their own work machines as well as their hobby machines. I've seen small IT companies (whose business is in software or services, not hardware) where it has been the rule, not the exception, that they build their own computers. I've seen departments inside larger IT companies that build all their servers by hand even while their desktops are supplied by company-wide IT dept.
OS would be included in the price. An additional copy costs nothing to Apple. You think a chassis, motherboard and a single processor should cost 1000USD by themselves?
And yes, the users of *this* particular product must have enough intelligence to check if a particular graphics card will work. Apple doesn't need to help with the assembly process, it's quite enough if they keep a list of "official" supported hardware on the Web. This is how it works on the self-built PC market as well.
It might not be wise to cannibalize a working Powermac. That doesn't rule out cannibalizing a Powermac that has broken parts, or cannibalizing your last PC, or using miscellaneous parts that someone has swapped out of their Powermac to replace them with faster ones.
It is a bad idea. Take the $1000 box and add hard drive, memory, graphics card and compare the complete price to a working, guaranteed, tech-supportable machine. You *may* save a couple hundred bucks but what value does this offer Apple? The performance of these machines could vary greatly based on what you stuff in them expecially if you are going as cheap as possible. In the end if OS X runs like crap the image of Apple will be one of crap even if it is entirely the fault of the boob who put the box together. A lot of those boobs work in IT as well (I am still waiting for them to come fix my machine here at work).
A more suitable idea would be to hope Apple could offer *complete* single processor systems in a smaller form factor.
ps - I build machines and would probably be interested if do-it-yourself macs were a possibility but I do not ever expect to see them officially sanctioned by Apple.
Originally posted by Bancho
It is a bad idea. Take the $1000 box and add hard drive, memory, graphics card and compare the complete price to a working, guaranteed, tech-supportable machine. You *may* save a couple hundred bucks but what value does this offer Apple? The performance of these machines could vary greatly based on what you stuff in them expecially if you are going as cheap as possible. In the end if OS X runs like crap the image of Apple will be one of crap even if it is entirely the fault of the boob who put the box together. A lot of those boobs work in IT as well (I am still waiting for them to come fix my machine here at work).
A more suitable idea would be to hope Apple could offer *complete* single processor systems in a smaller form factor.
I expect the savings would be 40% of the "complete" low end Powermac's price, rather than just a few hundred bucks. You simply wouldn't buy the DIY machine if you had no spare parts and were not willing to look for any. From Apple's viewpoint, that's not too bad - none of the parts you're scavenging from other machines and buying used are made by Apple, so they can't pull very high margins for them anyway.
As for the fact that you can build a machine to perform like crap, yes, but why would you do that, and why would you be discontent with Apple when you do that? Somehow the significance of this possibility *totally* fails to materialize in the DIY PC market. Apple itself has sold off-the-shelf machines (like, everything that had 128MB of RAM) that ran OS X badly. Apparently that wasn't enough of a PR suicide to concern them.
Basically, you're arguing against [any and all equipment] because the kind of boobs you have at your IT dept. will likely screw it up. The only right solution is to give the boobs the boot and hire qualified people to manage whatever technology you want to use.
I agree that a single processor "mini" Powermac would severely reduce the demand for the DIY box suggested here. It just seems that we won't see any, because Apple is fearful of them eating into the media pro market. The DIY would have a natural barrier that mostly restricts it to technical and enthusiast markets, because anyone else would not be able to realize enough savings to make the DIY worth it. Knowing Apple, they would somehow cripple the "mini" Powermac, but with the DIY they wouldn't have to.
What Gon is asking for is simple. A $1k-$1.5k computer that has some modicum of expandability. The G5 was supposed to give Apple headroom so that it could field a decent midrange system. With the Powermacs at 1.8Ghz with the lowend that's still not the room we need.
Apple has to either get the Powermac configs up or have a second CPU line to meet the needs of the midrange. The G5 range is already getting congested.
Originally posted by hmurchison
I don't even think we need to build our own here. Apple is going to need to kill the iMac within 2 years. It has outlived it's usefulness. AIO computers probably should go about $1299 in todays market. There are far too many disadvantages than advantages from my perspective.
What Gon is asking for is simple. A $1k-$1.5k computer that has some modicum of expandability. The G5 was supposed to give Apple headroom so that it could field a decent midrange system. With the Powermacs at 1.8Ghz with the lowend that's still not the room we need.
Apple has to either get the Powermac configs up or have a second CPU line to meet the needs of the midrange. The G5 range is already getting congested.
My only real exception was Gon's "parts bin" solution. There is a tangible hole in the line which needs filling. Perhaps there is a shockingly new and improved iMac on its way to do what is being asked here.
If there was a *real* midrange, this is how I think the features should go:
- upgradable graphics (enthusiast)
- screen spanning (pro)
- separate main screen (office/pro/enthusiast)
- same external connectors as Powermac (pro)
- right price (all of the above!)
Everything else is negotiable, but I believe if some of the above features are dropped, the relevant user groups go as well. A proper, whole computer off the shelf, instead of the original DIY idea, would be good for office and general business users instead of just technically minded people. AFAIK, most companies' IT management does not like AIO desktops, so at this time all Apple has to offer them are laptops.