AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Current Mac Hardware › PC makers struggling to match MacBook Air pricing ahead of Ultrabook launches
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

PC makers struggling to match MacBook Air pricing ahead of Ultrabook launches - Page 2

post #41 of 58
7/29/11 at 2:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dinomation View Post

I need it repeated...... for some reason I can't rest until I know what it was!

When asked in 1997 what he would do to fix Apple's problems, Michael Dell infamously told a crowd of IT executives, "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

As context, it was the week after a Steve Jobs keynote where he defended some drastic decisions (as interim CEO, no less) that included shutting down projects and even the Apple clone market in an effort to turn Apple around.

  Google Maps: ("Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.")

 

  MA497LL/A FB463LL/A MC572LL/A FC060LL/A MC700LL/A MD481LL/A MD644LL/A MD388LL/A

Reply

  Google Maps: ("Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.")

 

  MA497LL/A FB463LL/A MC572LL/A FC060LL/A MC700LL/A MD481LL/A MD644LL/A MD388LL/A

Reply
post #42 of 58
7/29/11 at 2:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galbi View Post

This graph is lumping mobile apps sales into the mobile phone profits as one.

It's not a good representative of the real data. Notice the drastic change from Q2 2008 to Q3 2008. Difference in categorization in the accounting books.

Different thread, same idiocy. iPhone 3G launch was huge, App profits are not included in this graph, and even if they were they are tiny compared to hardware. Guess you're just sad because samsung don't get to do any app sales.
This is important! Someone is wrong on the internet
Reply
This is important! Someone is wrong on the internet
Reply
post #43 of 58
7/29/11 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galbi View Post

It's not a good representative of the real data. Notice the drastic change from Q2 2008 to Q3 2008. Difference in categorization in the accounting books.

The early iPhone revenues were amortized over two years which made the early quarters smaller than they otherwise would've been and later quarters larger than they would've been.

  Google Maps: ("Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.")

 

  MA497LL/A FB463LL/A MC572LL/A FC060LL/A MC700LL/A MD481LL/A MD644LL/A MD388LL/A

Reply

  Google Maps: ("Directions may be inaccurate, incomplete, dangerous, or prohibited.")

 

  MA497LL/A FB463LL/A MC572LL/A FC060LL/A MC700LL/A MD481LL/A MD644LL/A MD388LL/A

Reply
post #44 of 58
7/29/11 at 3:40pm
...is that you?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mhikl View Post

Miranda:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!

Prospero:
'Tis new to thee.

...
This could be a Shakespearean play, a comedy with a happy ending, full of blood, guts, gore but very little battle.

For we who live in the world of Apple, this song is not so new but it is still so sweet.
Reply
Reply
post #45 of 58
7/29/11 at 3:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by John.B View Post

The early iPhone revenues were amortized over two years which made the early quarters smaller than they otherwise would've been and later quarters larger than they would've been.

No, those have been adjusted. The spike in Q2 2008 was due to the launch of the iPhone 3G.
Reply
Reply
post #46 of 58
7/29/11 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galbi View Post

This graph is lumping mobile apps sales into the mobile phone profits as one.

It's not a good representative of the real data. Notice the drastic change from Q2 2008 to Q3 2008. Difference in categorization in the accounting books.

Completely wrong. Horace Dediu is NOT lumping in app sales into phone profits. Try making something else up.
Reply
Reply
post #47 of 58
7/29/11 at 3:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

I have to believe that this kind of dominance -- even though utterly wrongly -- will start to attract antitrust scrutiny. Competitors are going to start to moan and groan about Apple using its high-volume supply chain to keep industry prices low, and there'll be some genius at the DoJ that springs a new doctrine of "supply chain efficiency as a weapon of market power". Wait and see. \

Uhm, first you have to prove harm to the consumer.
Reply
Reply
post #48 of 58
7/29/11 at 5:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

Aluminum (or aluminium, for those across the pond).

I'm not refering to the material, but rather the color.
White Nexus 7 8GB
Black & Slate iPhone 5 32GB AT&T
Reply
White Nexus 7 8GB
Black & Slate iPhone 5 32GB AT&T
Reply
post #49 of 58
7/29/11 at 7:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galbi View Post

This graph is lumping mobile apps sales into the mobile phone profits as one.

It's not a good representative of the real data. Notice the drastic change from Q2 2008 to Q3 2008. Difference in categorization in the accounting books.

Sorry, but that isn't correct. The graph only shows profits from the sale of hardware.

http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/app...profits-in-q2/

Wasn't q3 2008 about the time the first sales of the iPhone 3G were reported?
Reply
Reply
post #50 of 58
7/29/11 at 9:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post

The funny things is, how often could you actually upgrade? I remember when I wanted to upgrade back in my PC days in the 90's that more often than not I pretty much couldn't. A new processor would mean a new motherboard. A new motherboard would need new memory and probably there had been a change in the video card interface. In the end, whenever I upgraded all I ended up with was the same beige box with a completely different computer in it!

To true, which is why I stopped building my own Windows PC's and switched to Mac. The most upgrading I accomplished on my PC's was one or two upgrades of the video card before I had to replace everything in that giant box.
Reply
Reply
post #51 of 58
7/30/11 at 12:43am
I actually thought that Asus Notebook was a black MacBook Air at first glance, I had to double take.

... at night.

Reply

... at night.

Reply
post #52 of 58
7/30/11 at 3:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by 512ke View Post

Gone are the days when the top PC was a big set top box that you could assemble yourself from components you bought at Fry's for a third of what Apple was charging for its cheapest Mac.

Now Apple can buy the RAM, screens, and other key components for less that we pay at Fry's, and less than what its competitors can pay anywhere in the world.

What a difference a decade makes.

EDIT: Also gone are the days when you could upgrade. Hello to the era of lovely products that you use for three years and then get rid of!

Gone is the era of a big chunky hot noisy box taking up a massive amount of space on your desk that crashes and can't play the latest games even if you've upgraded it and over clocked because of all the absolutely lousy console to PC porting and hideously diabolical DRM and useless online services like Games From Windows Live Sucks and idiotic big-name game publishers forcing you to use Securom and other nonsense so you have to have the disc inside the computer at all times while playing (what next, a custom USB DRM dongle? I wouldn't be surprised).

As for 3 years, ironically PS3 and XBox360 have some pretty dated graphics now but have been kicking around for, what, five years? With at least a few more years to go. But once I travel to another city at the start of September Xbox360 will be my only choice for chill out gaming. Or maybe my iPad2 will tide me over a bit. Why hasn't Microsoft come out with Xbox720 or something? Another company sitting on their behinds. Xbox seems invincible now but an A6-powered AppleTV could take a nice bite out of their lunch. PS3 is still surviving because it's probably dumping loads of cash on developers for PS3 exclusives but again, once iOS hits the gaming console...
Reply
Reply
post #53 of 58
7/30/11 at 3:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TBell View Post

There real question is why is Intel, an Apple supplier and partner, helping Apple's competition compete with Apple. Perhaps, Intel is worried the rumors of Apple moving the AirBooks to the ARM processor are true. Otherwise, Intel has no business assisting some partners at the expense of others.

It does seem odd. What do these "design guidelines" entail, I wonder? Since Apple is already using Intel parts in the Air, and since apparently the design ends up costing as least as much as the Air, is this a case of Intel reverse engineering Apples motherboard design, in the hopes that if they encourage same among other manufacturers it will help stave off the non-Intel tablet boom?

I mean, the Air is precisely what this Intel reference design purports to be-- does Intel feel they have to act as tutor to the less bright students?
They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.
Reply
They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.
Reply
post #54 of 58
7/30/11 at 4:20am
I remember when the market was generally bemoaning (or simply criticizing) Apple's lack of a "net book" class machine some even going so far as to say that net books were going to be the demise of Apple how could they compete with "perfectly capable, small, inexpensive computers" that were only going to get faster, smaller, cheaper?

By redefining the market, maybe?

The one-two punch of iPad and MacBook Air. neither is purely a "laptop" of 5 years ago, nor is either really a "net book" and yet, pretty much everything you want or need to do with your mobile 'computing device' is covered

I remember one time that Jobs snarked about net books saying essentially they're cheap, crappy, underpowered pieces of plastic that often don't last a year mentioned something in passing about "doing it right"

Ah-haaa.
Reply
Reply
post #55 of 58
7/30/11 at 12:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone View Post

Windows popularity appears to be on the decline. Unless you need it for compatibility with your office there is no logical reason to choose Windows in my opinion. Also it seems that students are overwhelmingly choosing Mac, at least judging by the number of Apple logos I see around Southern California.

Apparently you aren't aware. Windows 7 is the best selling OS ever created with 400+ million licenses sold so far. That's just for Windows 7. Unless I'm mistaken Windows 7 has roughly twice the market share of all recent versions of OSX combined. And that's not including Windows Vista and Windows XP which make up the other 50 percent of the world wide OS market. You could argue that XP and Vista are not popular.

But the popularity of Windows 7 is definitely not on the decline.
Reply
Reply
post #56 of 58
7/30/11 at 1:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pixelstuff View Post

But the popularity of Windows 7 is definitely not on the decline.

No, but the entire windows family definitely is, a slow decline perhaps, but a decline still
This is important! Someone is wrong on the internet
Reply
This is important! Someone is wrong on the internet
Reply
post #57 of 58
7/30/11 at 4:09pm
Come on. No one can suggest that Apple is competing on the bottom end of the market. These guys can squash Apple on price any day of the week. Apple is expensive, but if you want quality they are the place to go. To suggest that Asus or HP can't compete is ludicrous.
Reply
Reply
post #58 of 58
7/31/11 at 6:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

I have to believe that this kind of dominance -- even though utterly wrongly -- will start to attract antitrust scrutiny. Competitors are going to start to moan and groan about Apple using its high-volume supply chain to keep industry prices low, and there'll be some genius at the DoJ that springs a new doctrine of "supply chain efficiency as a weapon of market power". Wait and see. \

If you've considered this angle, I'm pretty sure an executive in a business suit getting paid big bucks has probably already though of it. They're not making big bucks for nothing. I'm willing to bet that someone has already given a complaint to the government. I'm also willing to bet that the investigation didn't go anywhere.

If Apple were buying up components solely with intent to block out competitors and/or drive up prices for them, that would be price manipulation and that would certainly attract antitrust scrutiny. But there is no evidence of that at all.

Apple has faced supply constraints in the past, which put pressure on their sales. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have enough components on hand to avoid supply constraints. From Apple's perspective, they want to avoid a backlog like that of the iPad 2 or the iPhone 4. Driving up prices for competitors is probably a welcome side effect for Apple but that's certainly not the only purpose.

The funny thing is that if competitors really are "moaning and groaning" about antitrust, they're being so hypocritical. When Apple defends their patents in court, competitors say that Apple would "litigate rather than innovate." Now here they are, crying foul over perfectly legal practices, rather than doing something about it. Of course, no one will see it that way, because no one gives Goliath a fair shake.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Current Mac Hardware
AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Current Mac Hardware › PC makers struggling to match MacBook Air pricing ahead of Ultrabook launches