Isn't it time for a plain old Macintosh again? - Page 24

$1200+ Cube II is possible. $700 tower not so much. You're converting a $1000-2000 (17"-24") sale to a $700 sale and the possibility of a monitor sale.

Lets see...I can spend:

$699 for a ACD 20" OR $339 for a Dell 2007 WFP (widescreen 20")
$999 for a ACD 23" OR $679 for a Dell 2407 WFP (widescreen 24") OR $1279 for a Dell 3007WFP (widescreen 30").

I don't think that monitor sale is anything close to a sure bet. Even figuring you want to spend another $150 on the eventual iSight 2.0 w/remote.

So the worst case is that you just converted a $2000 x 0.28 or $560 profit into a $700 x 0.25 or $196 profit. Same margins, vastly different revenue stream.

Use $1200 as the average ($336 profit) and you need to sell 1.7 xMacs for every iMac sale cannibalized just to break even (less profit on any monitor sales). If there were a $700 xMac you can pretty much be assured that iMac sales would tank...

AND you STILL have to show that Dell, HP and Gateway are making 16% margins on their $599 base Core 2 Duo boxes to get 28% at $699 ($195 profit of which $100 is pure profit over $599 leaves $95 that needs to be made by the $599 models margin wise...). I suspect that Gateway isn't making $16% on their base DX420 (lowsest end desktop) as their gross margins are in the 7-9% range. Either that or their professional sales like sucked much much worse than believable.

So...850K desktop sales (1.7x500K for simplicity) just to break even and you wonder why this isn't the no-brainer you guys keep saying it is? That's without figuring that some Mac Pro sales get cannibalized too and assuming that Apple can get better margins than Dell, HP and Gateway in that same segment.

Vinea

PS I'm guessin it aint $700 tower customers that will buy ACDs but upper end buyers in the $1200+ price point.

That's the whole point. The two won't compete with each other. I agree with the strategy that Apple should keep expandability on the pro side. But the Mac Pro is moving in a direction beyond what most people can afford or will need.

The xMac I am thinking of would basically be a Mac Pro Jr. with the fastest Conroe options. Smaller form factor than the Mac Pro. 4 RAM slots instead of 8, 2 HDD instead of 4, one optical drive. They could sell that for around $1800.

If Apple did launch a $999 xMac they would risk loosing profit in two ways. One way it looses money is by offering expandability to a part of the market that mostly would not use it. The other way it looses money is by offering expandability cheaply when people would pay more for it.


Yes I'm sure that's apart of it. Apple is a publicly traded business that must meet revenue projections. The same as every other publicly traded business.


Yes I said something like this earlier in this thread. It would not have been smart for Apple to launch the Mac Pro and a cheaper desk top at the same time.

They should wait a couple of quarters for Mac Pro sales to cool then launch a cheaper desktop. But I do agree Apple needs to add one to its lineup.


Because their is more advantage to selling a base model at $1700 with BTO options decreasing the price to $1200, than selling it at $999 at all.

TenoBell,

I think your'e RIGHT on the money of what they should offer. I've been saying it for months... A conroe smaller desktop of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro ISSSS moving in a direction a lot of consumers / pro-sumers don't want to go. I don't need 4 cores or 8 cores. A dual CONROE (NOT MEROM) is good enough for me. Another thing I hate about the MacPro is the slow ram. FBDimms are required for use with the Xeon processors no matter how you slice it. Anandtech did benchmarks with it and found it to be much slower than DDR2 ram. I don't need a workstation. I just want a nice desktop WITHOUT a display. I will NEVER purchase an AIO computer EVER again. Every iMac I've had has either had a burned out display or a burned out motherboard shortly after the warranty ends. I feel they are cheaply made. Though in my defense I haven't owned a g5 or intel iMac. And I never will. I want to be able to choose MY own displays. Apple doesn't use the best displays anyways. For instance, their 20" widescreen is 14ms response time. The samsung 205bw I have now is 5ms. Why would I want to be stuck on an old display for 2-3 years? Another gripe I have... I HAVE to run dual monitors. I like my second monitor on the right side of the machine. Can't do that with the iMac because the damn dvd burner is on the right side of the display!!

Just sell a NORMAL mac ffs. To me, it's fishy they aren't using conroe in any of their computers. It's intel's flagship processor. The cpu that is getting all the attention right now. The AIO and xMac are 2 different machines. xMac more of a pro-sumer deal, and iMac more of a home consumer machine.

I would GLADLY drop 1800 on a xMac today.

And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.

What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.

Merom is a laptop chip and needs to work within power and heat limitation.

The xMac would not need Merom's power or heat limitations and would make use of the full power and speed of Conroe.

Well, 5ms would be better, but Dell notoriously lies about their response time: they, for the most part, use the same panels as Apple.

Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro. Its not like the GPU is a limitation in XP right?

Vinea

On my wish list the base model of the xMac would have one 2.67 GHz Conroe Duo and ATI X1950 XT in a small form factor and cost $1699.

I don't think the target for the xMac would be so much about outperforming the Mac Pro but as I said earlier the Mac Pro Jr providing some of its advantages in smaller case at a lower price.

Few people need 4 or 8 cores.

Merom Vs. Conroe: Ram type and front side bus (which are obviously going hand in hand).

Merom fsb is 667 mhz. Conroe is 1066mhz. Conroe can clock much higher than Merom: 2.33ghz vs. 2.9ghz. Yes the ram that apple uses is slower than most ram... because it's laptop memory in all of their computers EXCEPT the Mac Pro.

First off, I can tell a difference between 14ms and 5ms when dragging windows and editing video. But that wasn't even the point. The point was, with an AIO you are stuck with that LCD for 2-3 years (depending how long you keep the machine). With a headless you can upgrade your lcd along with technology changes. As a rule of thumb technology doubles every 18 months, who knows what kind of LCDs will be out in 3 years. That very well could be 4 times better LCDs out then, especially compared to apple's already older lcds in there now. BTW I don't game at all. I work on my mac 8-16 hours a day nearly every day. I program, do graphic design, and 3d modeling with cinema.

I was referring to my Samsung 205bw... btw it's 6ms... typo on my part.

The main apps that a conroe outperforms a woodcrest are instruction intense that requires a lot of memory reads memory writes from the cpu. Check out this article from anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2832

I'm not too worried about the gpu, but i'd DEFINITELY like something more than integrated graphics and preferably 256bit. 384bit GPUs are on the verge of coming out (next few weeks)... and we're still using intel's integrated graphics in the mac mini? come on now. The 1800 xMac would have a conroe, notice it out performed woodcrest (dual not quad) in a lot of benchmarks? That's mainly because of the ram.

Yes, few people need 4 or 8 cores, but with kentsfield coming out soon, we'll have 4 cores in 1 chip.

Even though I'm open to the enclosure design, I hope it's at least bigger than a macmini with SOME upgradeability.

We can all make up numbers that suit our opinions. Let's be realistic, though, and have our examples closer to good business practice. To begin with, very few here would suggest Apple sell a $700 Mac tower. Most seem to argue for a tower being similar in value and performance to the iMac, so it might start at about the $1000 mark and go up from there, with higher performance and better features.

You do bring up a good point that the sale of a mini tower does not necessarily mean the sale of an LCD display for Apple. Apple might raise the price of the tower just slightly to adjust for that potential loss of revenue, and then offer a small discount on a display when purchased with the tower. There are ways to minimize this impact.

Since Apple owns the Mac OS X market, the profit on a tower can be just as high as on an iMac. Apple can make it anything they want to achieve their profit goal. We assume Apple will use good business sense to maximum overall sales and market share.

One more thing to think about. Several people have stated their displeasure with Apple's decision to use the Meron in the iMac, rather than the Conroe. Apple's choice means higher CPU price and lower clock rates. I understand why they did it, to have a quieter cooling fan. Possibly a redesign of the iMac is coming that will use the Conroe, and run quiet enough. In that case, the iMac could be more competitive against a mini tower and lose fewer sales.

Some here seem to argue against having two product in the lineup that compete. It is not necessarily bad, however. It means that customers have a choice. Those who want a tower buy a tower. Those who want an AIO buy an iMac. What is wrong with the consumer getting what he or she want, rather than putting up with whatever is available? It is money in Apple's pocket either way.

The best part is that it will pick up more sales overall, because there are those of us who will not buy an AIO, but go to eBay instead for our towers. There are also the potential switches, who just want a tower because that is all they have ever purchased in the past.

I don't believe that was the main reason apple went with merom over conroe. A) They would have had to design a new motherboard / chipset to use conroe in the existing models. Merom was a drop in replacement. B) The heat / noise issue doesn't mean much. Conroe can actually be ran with JUST a heatsink and NO fan. Maximum PC did some tests and found that the conroe under full load for 4 hours would only raise a degree or 2. Granted the iMac doesn't have the best enclosure cooling, but I'm sure they could definitely have conroe in the iMac without sacrificing noise.


Exactly. I know many pc users that will not switch because the Mac Pro is out of their league and they refuse to buy an AIO. That leaves NO option for pc switchers. I bet apple would see MORE switchers if they had a computer switchers were used to.... a mid tower with 1 good cpu and 1 good graphics card. This xMac is what I'm waiting for. It may be a LONG LONG LONG wait for me.

Geeze. It's easy. As Apple moves to sales of 2million a quarter?

A dual core conroe tower drops in nicely alongisde the £895-£1395 price bracket. Ideal for the gamers. Get a nice gpu option and cpu. But you don't get the iMac's 24 inch monitor.

Easy. The more sales. The more options. But back when Apple was selling 800k units per quarter? Harder to justify maybe.

I'll put my vote behind the 'Macintosh'. Very doable. A real gamers Mac. We're due one. (Along with a slim form laptop, ultra portable.)

I tend to agree with Emig and Snoopy's posts on this. Apple could pick up quite a few sales. The PC press seems to have been impressed with the Mac Pro. If only they'd conroe it and have a tier underneath. Not that hard now the CPu supplier is Intel and not PPC>

Lemon Bon Bon

I agree, Apple should eventually give people a choice.

After thinking about it some. I don't think the xMac directly competes with any of Apple's currently line up.

If they introduced a $1699 Cube it will steal some sales from the Mac Pro simply because it is a lower cost expandable option. It will likely steal some sales from the 24" iMac. But it does not compete with the 24" iMac in price. The xMac would not compete with lower cost mini or 17" iMac at all.

With the Mac Pro going quad-core and octo-core its in an entirely different class than any duo core computer altogether. Its unlikely anyone who needs serious speed and power would look at the xMac over the MacPro.

A $1699 xMac with a quality 1920x1200 24" widescreen will cost well over $2000. The 24" iMac would be a cheaper solution. So one would have to feel the advantages of the xMac outweigh the cheaper cost of the 24" iMac. That would help preserve 24" iMac sales.

In either case I don't see where a $1699 xMac would kill any of Apples current line up.


I don't really agree with this. For one Apple has increased its number of switchers. I don't believe their would have been significantly more if there had been another desktop because most sales were from laptops.

People have such wide opinions on what the Mac tower needs to be that I don't see ANYTHING Apple releasing pleasing everyone. It will either a) be too expensive, b) not be expandable enough, c) not have enough GPU options or some combination there of. Seriously Apple is a niche computer maker and for now they're happy there it seems. They have a professional workstation and laptop, they have an 'average' consumer desktop and laptop and they have a low-priced model that is there to pick up sales from switchers and people who otherwise would have bought a $599 Dell.

If Apple wanted to please EVERYBODY they'd have 100 options again with prices all over the board and it would be EXACTLY like 1997 all over again.

As for the comment earlier about LCDs - I don't know HOW you can see the difference between a 6ms and 14ms LCD when simply dragging windows around your desktop. I bet 99.9999% of other people cannot in any way detect that and therefore it's a pretty moot point. If you absolutely must have that 6ms LCD why not buy an iMac and hook up an external screen that is 4ms and deal with it? If you upgrade your LCD every 12 months you are definitely wasting money, my mother is using a 15" LCD I got in 4 years ago next month and it still works fine.

Considering how much faster these Intel Core 2 Duos are than the G5 they're replacing is having a Merom really that bad? You could still have a G4 with it's impressive 133Mhz FSB. It's obvious why the iMac is using the Merom over the conroe though - drop in replacement for the previous chip. Absolutely no further work needed.

I don't think the DDR2-667 RAM is so 'slow' as to be considered un-usable especially when you look at the target audience of the computer. There is nothing I do on a daily basis that would run that much faster if I had desktop DDR2-800 RAM in my iMac instead of DDR2-667. If something you are doing really requires you to have that fast of a RAM then I think the Mac Pro is for you, because even though it's not as fast as the fastest of DDR2 RAM it will hold up to 16GB which should more than makeup for that shortcoming.

How does the 'xMac' not compete against the other Apple models? Firstly, if it costs less than the Mac Pro but has more expandability than the iMac it will directly compete with BOTH of those models on those conditions.

There is this odd principle of 3's. People have a tendency to buy what is in the middle. There will always be people who want either the absolute best or the absolute cheapest, but most people look at the middle as 'good enough'. That is part of the reason I believe for Apple's current line-up being exactly the way it is. They have the mini, iMac and Pro and most people go into the Apple store and wow at all the Macs and then decide to buy an iMac because it has more features than most people need and it costs less than the Pro and is more than the mini. If you add a 4th model then the 3 that people will look at the most are the iMac, 'xMac' and Pro and both of those models will decrease in sales (that is assuming the price isn't so high as to make it practically a Mac Pro without the performance or expandability).

We are asking for one more computer, not 10.


If you read a little closer you'll see that I could tell during editing video, but that wasn't even the point. I HAVE to run dual monitors for my work. I run my secondary monitor on the right. This is how I work. I CAN NOT run a secondary monitor on the right of the iMac. There is a dvd burner that is in the way. But besides this, you are using your grandmother in this example. This machine wouldn't be for grandmothers or joe user consumers. This would be for pro-sumers. People that want an iMac without the damn lcd. Who's to say that LCD's won't significantly change in the next 3 years. Perhaps there will be a whole entirely brand new monitor that comes out that doesn't even have a response time. Monitor technology changes extremely rapidly. That 15" your grandmother is using from 4 years ago, guaranteed has a 25ms or slower response AND less than a 250:1 contrast ratio. These are things that would make working with graphics and video impossible. I have a very keen eye for detail. I wouldn't even switch to LCDs until this 205bw because the ghosting drove me bonkers. Maybe I did too much LSD, but I can see things like that. It's not acceptable by any means. I barely notice it with this LCD, but it seems anything 8 or 12ms and higher I notice ghosting. I was at WWDC 04 when the first aluminum apple displays came out. The guy next to them when we walked out of the keynote asked me what I thought. I instantly noticed ghosting and told him. He said yah.. they could only manage 16ms for them.


When you're compiling objective-c / c++ all day, and compositing video... it's nice to have the quickest ram possible. I'm not saying it's unbearable, but every little thing helps. I'll admit, I'm on the borderline of buying a mac pro. But I feel I'd be much happier with a xMac than a mac pro. I just want a conroe chip in a tower with normal ram. Why is that so much to ask for? I believe this could be Apple's flagship computer. This is the computer PC users are used to. This is what all the pc gamers have. This is what all the consumers have (besides laptops). Every person I talk to about switching to os x... they complain about the lack of a normal desktop, because the mac pro IS indeed out of their reach. I'll admit if Apple doesn't come out with a xMac soon, I'll be forced to get a Mac Pro... which isn't so bad with edu discount, but it isn't what I want. It's not what a lot of potential switchers want either.

You're not factoring that people may be buying that mac because they didn't want either the mac pro or iMac before. There ARE people out there that feel strong enough against AIO's they will never buy one.. EVER. And the Mac Pro is so expensive it is out of reach for them as well. Apple used to always have a $1500 desktop, until the g5. Then it disappeared. If users want this, why not give it to them. I have seen it all over the place. People WANT another choice for a desktop.

No, YOU'RE asking for one more computer. Someone else is asking for another, and someone else is asking for another.

You all want DIFFERENT computers. Yes, there's a hole. One computer won't fill it.

jw nailed it on the head.

Sorry to pick out this one statement, but it is such a clear example of the way many think about introducing a new Mac in Apple's product lineup. Will it compete with other Macs? Will it steal too many sales from another model? I say these are unimportant considerations, provided every product is priced to make a good profit.

Does GM worry about a Pontiac competing with a Chevrolet and Buick? No! GM worries about having enough models to compete with Ford and Chrysler. That is the way it should be. If Apple prices products for profit, what difference does it make what Mac a customer buys? Look at it as giving customers a choice, so they stay with Apple, and not go looking for what they want in Windows land.

Yeah, nothing's ever as simple as we'd like it to be. That's what makes new product development so tricky to do right, and generally Apple does a really good job, once they decide to do it. . . . You wouldn't be implying that the job is to tough for Apple, are you? You think they might blow it?

We all have our own preferences, but in the end we make the best compromise we can when choosing to buy. Frankly, I'd be happy with any smaller tower Apple decides to make, or even a big Mini with a fast Conroe, room for two drives and good choice of graphics cards.

I think Apple maybe dropping a hint that what they have available now is it and don't expect anything new or different. Look at the new layout of the Mac Pro configuration page on the Apple store! Select the Compare Specs tab and you will see "Which Mac are you?" with the 24" iMac and then the base config and beside that the suggestions for upgrades.

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObje...A0&nclm=MacPro

I'm afraid Apple are sticking to the current line up and telling us dreamers where to stick it in terms of a regular Conroe tower. Also I just read on The Register that some the quad core chips are power hungry beasts.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11...l_fwives_core/

Otellini suggests that next year there will be 50 — 80 watt quads so I wouldn't be surprised if Apple waits till then to shuffle the MAc Pro line up. MAybe they might put a regular Kentsfield in so we could use regular RAM. They might do a top end dual quad at the top end for the moment for those begging for it but I think their position is clear, if you look at the "Compare" page with iMac 24 at c$2000 and the Mac Pro at c¢2500. I don't think they will drop prices on the Mac Pro with any silent upgrade. They probably factored that into the original price at intro hence cheaper than a Dell.

What i'm requesting is pretty vague. And it fits almost any bill. I don't care about price as long as it's sub $2k. I want a conroe. And I want it to be some sort of tower with BTO graphics. Sounds like a pretty standard pc to me.

Here is a solution that would satisfy SO many people's hunger. Maximum PC seems to be haters on macs. Not because they hate OS X, just because they can't build their own. There are a ton of hobbyists out there (including myself) that would kill to make their OWN mac with their OWN case. What if Apple had a list of certified parts. Maybe Apple branded mobos. Apple certified graphic cards. From there a user could purchase these parts and stick them in any case they so desire. Sell Mac OS X for $399.99 or hell... I'd go as high as $499.99 (almost the price of a mac mini). Now you have EXACTLY what you wanted. Satisfies all the pc building hobbyists. Satisfies the gamers. Satisfies the home users that want something tailored to them. Apple still makes money. Everyone is happy.

No doubt the gamer market is significant for consoles and PCs.

If Dell bought Alienware...it's hardly insignificant.

Plus, there are many people who do just like to build their own.

Or like to have 'pretend' (heh) choice. Even though you're more of less getting the same thing when you look across 100 build your own vendors.

Still, I can't see how hard it would be for Apple to intro' 3 Conroe DUO Towers under the Quad line up. It's obviously differentiated.

In the days of PPC? 450 mhz vs 500? Meh.

But these days? Dual core vs Quad core. The differentiator is there.

A cuboid or Mac Pro slimline tower range is very doable. £795 to just under the Quad Pro starter, say, £1395 leaves room for 3 models. Give some PC users what they're used to and want. ie the builders and gamers. The 'aunty alice' types can 'whooo' at the iMac.

I think it's getting to the point where Apple will open up the line a bit if they get near 2 million quarterly sales.

It's not like they have to seriously alter the Mac Pro case. Just stick some Conroes in there and you a nice range of towers below the Quads.

Lemon Bon Bon

I guess there's nothing wrong with us using the 'suggestion' button on Apple's webside...wherever that is...

Lemon Bon Bon

When the lampshade LCD iMac first came out, it was supposed to replace the CRT iMac in full. When educators flat out told them they would buy a dell before buying a lampshade, Apple caved in and created the eMac. Consumers then forced apple's hand and they released the eMac the public. It was pretty successful for a machine Apple never planned to make. A couple years later Apple was forced into adding a headless value Mac into the fray and more recently they were pressured by their users into making a GM. iMac. Notice a pattern here? They were dead wrong in those cases and they're dead wrong now. Apple makes a lot of mistakes and we as consumers have the power to have them rethink their position.

One thing I can tell you is this, I'm not getting railroaded into spending close to $1000 more for what's basically a grounded laptop with a 24" display or a workstation just to make Apple feel better. After all the problems my with my iBook, they're lucky I'm replacing that with another Mac. If they want to price themselves out of the prosumer market, they better be prepared to loose revenue because of it.

You don't even need a new slimline case. All they need to do is design a P965 or 975x motherboard for the Mac Pro Form Factor.

I've got just the machine for you: Search for it here.

By the way, people buying used Macs doesn't hurt Apple. The people selling those used computers then go and buy a new Mac so the higher the price they can sell for, the better. So, a healthy used computer market is healthy for the company.

Oh yah, it has to run OS X

I agree nothing Apple does will please everyone. And that's fine. But at the same time people like new things. Apple cannot stagnate, just because their current line up works today does not mean it will work tomorrow.

For Apple to keep its success going they will have to continually innovate and offer new computers that people must go out and buy.


The xMac will compete peripherally with the iMac and Mac Pro. The xMac offers somethings they both don't and both iMac/MacPro offer many things that the xMac does not. That is the point of having differentiating line up.

Apple should not continue to force people to buy a Mac Pro as the only choice for an expandable solution. When part of its customer base does not want it.

Apple should not continue to artificially protect iMac sales when there is some part of its customer base that would like something different.

From a strategic business sense I can understand doing both of these for a short time. But eventually they need to move on.

You state this very well.

Agreed. I vote for TenoBell to be our spokes person...

I second emig647's motion.

Not only that, Apple's lineup does not appeal to everyone when OSX was released. Apple has basically dropped the professional desktop segment for the workstation crowd. It might seem semantics to some, but the audiences for the conroe and xeon are about as different as that of the Macbook and Macbook Pro.

Maybe you'd be kind enough to elaborate for those like me, who don't understand the subtile differences. What are some typical disciplines that would fall into each group? Video editing, publishing, graphics and photography, movie production, music synthesis and recording -- these all seem to have about the same computer needs to me.

Wow, I haven't noticed anyone bringing up this topic for about five years! I really liked some of the discussions on it back then. The obvious criticism of this idea is easily fixed by the way Apple could market it -- sell it as a kit. The kit would include the motherboard, Mac OS X single user, a manual on how to go about it, and most likely the power supply and some cabling.

The reasons are fairly obvious. If Apple only sold the motherboard, people could have one copy OS X and use it to produce all their Macs. Regarding the power supply, it would ensure that a reliable supply with adequate capacity is used. It's only reasonable that Apple protect their revenue and reliability image in this way.

I think if Apple did this, the motherboard should not be standard, but designed to fit a mini tower of Apple design. Apple could offer several styles of cases for the motherboard and supply, selling them through their on-line store. If the build-your-own-Mac idea took off, I'm sure other vendors would have cases too.

We obviously can cut to suit our opinions as well as the first half of that sentence alludes to a $1200 cube.


Mr. H speaks of a base $999 xMac with $399/$499 versions.
jwssmiths bounds the xMac between $599 and $999.
Aurora talks about a $850 retail xMac (using his $700 Dell + $150 vidcard as baseline).

YOU state that you believe Apple can be profitable in the sub-$500 tower market and about lowering the price of the Mini further to $399 with a Conroe.

And that's just in the last 4 pages (I aint paging through the entire thread).

People talk about higher priced xMacs but seem to feel that a $1700 Mac pro (or a $1200+ cube) doesn't fit the bill so given the talk of $399 as a price point $699 as the absolute bottom is being generous. If you want to refactor using $999 as the desired price point go for it. Its not rocket science. Even using this number it is still a loss of $280 per 24" cannibilization ($560-$280), $139 per 20" and $55 per 17".

Note that on Amazon the 20" outsells the $1199 17" and the 24" outsells the $999 17".

At best...assuming that the average is $1200 which given the Amazon numbers seems generous...you need to increase sales by 20% just to break even.


And yet it needs to stay below the Mac Pro enough not to canniblize its sales or you need to figure in converting $2200 sales into $1500 sales or even $999 sales.


Well that sure didn't work for the Cube now did it? At $999 you're trashing the iMac market. At $1499 you're in danger of doing the same to the Mac Pro market. At $1699 and a significant downgrade (2 core vs 4 core) you have a prosumer tower with expansion that doesn't imact either as much.


Or perhaps Apple's choice is both stylistic and strategic. Since the iMacs use pretty much mobile parts except for the drive Apple appears to mobile parts suppliers to be 50% more sales volume than they would be with a Conroe desktop lineup. 1.5M unit sales (less Mac Pros and XServes) vs 900K.


The sample math shows that it can be significantly LESS money in Apple's pockets. That's ignoring the synergy of using their desktop sales to make their laptop sales more profitable.


The first group keeps the installed mac base higher and there is resell in the PC market as well (not as much on a percentage basis but there are PCs on ebay). No one has anything but ancedotal evidence that there is a significant number of the second to justify the risks to the Apple product line.

And you keep ignoring that a large part of the value of the branding is that Apple is different. Its really danged hard to make that case when you're just another tower builder. A cube fits with the image and provides a bit of expansion. Its pricing that is going to be hard for Apple to get right. Perhaps $1199 is too low and $1499 is the right price.

I'd probably buy a cube for $1499 but I'd have to think a little about it over an iMac. For my dad a $600 GMA X3000 based mini would be just fine I think.

But a Conroe tower ain't likely at any price point IMHO. The $1699 (or perhaps even $1599) Mac Pro will likely be a bottom end Woodcrest with the rest of the Mac Pro lineup going Kentsfield. I doubt Woodcrest pricing will drop enough for Apple to offer a $1499 model.

Vinea