I am not an Android fanboy, I don't have an Android phone. I am an Apple guy, I have nearly everything Apple makes. I am high functioning with the iPhone for the most part because I live in an area that has reasonable coverage with ATT. But I'm not stubborn enough to think the whole earth has the same experience.
The topic of this thread is who is going to ship more phones. I suggest opening the phone up to other carriers to increase sales. That doesn't make me a troll. It makes me a smart person. Do you disagree? Well, then you are a poor businessman and by definition, an Apple fanboi.
Lastly it is not your business to tell me or anyone to "do it somewhere else." You don't own this forum and neither do I. If you don't like my opinion, explain to me WHY I am wrong. Stop being so self absorbed in your opinions that you have no tolerance for anyone else.
I honestly don't know how you fanboys live with yourselves. You are such tech bigots.
Agreed, Model of locking phones to carrier is BS.
People should have the choice to push any sim in the sim card tray it has. Nokia sells so many phones because it is not carrier locked in most parts of the world(at least in those where it sells the most).
If M. Apple were head of household with hungry mouths to feed-- what do you think?
Well, as I support my partner and baby I am in this position myself. Yes, we need my income to support our lifestyle but money is not what motivates me and it is not my goal. I do my job because I enjoy it; were I fortunate enough to be independently wealthy, I would carry on (albeit with reduced hours ).
Seriously. I pointed out that the profits earned by the owners are dividends.
So lets repeat.
The owners of Apple earn no dividends therefore take no profits. Therefore their interest is elsewhere. If they wanted to get profits from a company - that is to earn any of the EPS - they would go elsewhere. Apparently the Apple shareholders are not interested in dividends which is profits divided amongst the shareholders. They profit from growth in capital.
Unfortunately a mediocre understanding of Econ 101 is not going to be much help here.
You are being purposefully obtuse and absurd. Ownership and control are entirely separated in modern publicly traded companies. To pretend that the shareholders have any direct influence on the strategy and execution of the company is idiotic. Any indirect control is VERY indirect and only ever comes into play in terms of financial difficulty which Apple will not approach for the foreseeable future.
Net income is profit. Dividends are one of many forms to distribute that profit. The "owners" are in it for the capital gains which is their "profit" when they sell. Also all the other arguments show you counter theory of a market share based strategy as patently ridiculous. It is segment share at most that matters with sufficient critical mass to keep the ecosystem running smoothly. Macs have a 3.5% global PC share but have a sufficient ecosystem of software and content to keep it functionally competitive with Windows
You use degree level articulation to spout a grade school theory.
They cant tell beforehand, and I doubt the profits on the Air are stellar. They are there, but mediocre. Apple TV, the same. So this hinges on the definition of the word "adequate". Clearly Jobs likes the Air.
In any case this topic has veered off onto profit and it motives because people deny that Apple would take a hit to profit to grow ( i.e. hit margins) and some are arguing that Apple are happy with great profits from small marketshare. As profit is the primary motivating factor.
I disagree - since nobody at Apple wants to fail, particularly since they have tasted success - Also since they are not a dividend paying company the stock price depends on anticipated future growth.
So they have to grow to succeed at the cost of margins. That or innovate. Or both. But they need to maintain their market share in the mobile platform wars, and most importantly, they want to.
I am sure that the profits on the Air are more than adequate. If your point is that total profits (net income per device x # of devices sold) is not so great, then yes. It is not a high volume product. They seem to have a policy of pricing everything at similar (high margins) and almost nothing I can think of is sold as a low margin (%) "loss leader" (maybe the new Apple TV?). Even their low price products like the Shuffle still make >20% net income.
Apple do not sacrifice profit for share. Never have. Can you not understand how astoundingly superior Apple's profits are in total and margin terms to any other company in any of their industries. You act as though this is accidental as opposed to a consistent strategy. They have always done this since the Macs and probably before. Where they ran into problems was when their products could no longer justify the high prices and profits per unit (in the 90s). Jobs and Apple learned this and now have laser focus on justifying the supernormal profits by constantly improving products, strong marketing and uniquely investing in creating superior ecosystems for their products.
The owners would fire Jobs ( via the BOD) if they wanted their investment to drop 90% the next day.
he has a lot of potential to do what he wants.
The owners have barely any actual control over the BoD. Do you think the shareholders wanted Mark Hurd replaced at HP - pretty sure not. However the BoD didn't like him and got him like the G-men got Al Capone - for the petty equivalent of tax evasion.
Your strange bizzaro understanding of what "owners" (shareholders) can do is comical.
Isn't all these research firms have their research funded by some one. Google spends a bunch of money for lobbying etc., no wonder where that goes.
Not in the case of the big analyst firms. They sell subscriptions to their data and reports for their money. They get their data from bugging the actual players for information which is basically made up advertising from each firm and they "evaluate" (regurgitate) it into their magic quadrants and industry segment analysis.
They are are bunch of third rate muppets who have some market power "You need to tell me whatever I want to know or I will downrank you in our industry analysis"
These market projections are just some half baked side line to get column inches because the mainstream press doesn't care about what Gartner thinks about the state of the workflow solution vendor market. They are always massively wrong more than 18 months out but no-one cares to look back at the happy horsesh!t Gartner spewed 18 months ago.
The Betamax is the obvious example. I guess I assume to much when I fail to spell things out in detail for you.
Kind of rummaging deep in pre-history for that one? Apparently the marginal benefits of Betamax did not offset the attraction of lower prices and pornography.
Sony's real commercial decline has been more recent. And much of that is tied up with one spectacularly mis-conceived product.
You are being purposefully obtuse and absurd. Ownership and control are entirely separated in modern publicly traded companies. To pretend that the shareholders have any direct influence on the strategy and execution of the company is idiotic. Any indirect control is VERY indirect and only ever comes into play in terms of financial difficulty which Apple will not approach for the foreseeable future.
Net income is profit. Dividends are one of many forms to distribute that profit. The "owners" are in it for the capital gains which is their "profit" when they sell. Also all the other arguments show you counter theory of a market share based strategy as patently ridiculous. It is segment share at most that matters with sufficient critical mass to keep the ecosystem running smoothly. Macs have a 3.5% global PC share but have a sufficient ecosystem of software and content to keep it functionally competitive with Windows
You use degree level articulation to spout a grade school theory.
I argue against the case presented. Which was that the shareholders would revolt if profits were reduced, or were only in it for quarterly profit. You agree when you say
Quote:
To pretend that the shareholders have any direct influence on the strategy and execution of the company is idiotic. Any indirect control is VERY indirect and only ever comes into play in terms of financial difficulty which Apple will not approach for the foreseeable future.
Are actually making my point ( I was arguing against Newtron's Econ 101 argument). Like you I dont see the owners as being very influential in Apple. It is run by the Executive.
You also make my point here:
Quote:
The "owners" are in it for the capital gains which is their "profit" when they sell.
Right. But that, as I pointed out, is not the same as profit. It is profit in the general sense, but not in the quarterly dividend sense. Therefore the owners need Apple to grow, and that means growth in both sales and market share - that is already built into the stock price.
As for the rest Apple's share price is totally unrelated to it's 3.5% of OS share ( actually it is higher). It's share price is to do with it's success in the iPod, iPhone, iPad markets and the expectation of more to come. If Apple announces that it will be growing margins but expects the market share to drop or stagnate, then it's share price will drop.
it is now a growth stock. Those of you who like the feeling of being in a small but elite minority are going to have to get used to that - either Apple wins the mobile wars or it loses mind-share and becomes irrelevant ( which is where it was in terms of OS market share). Jobs doesnt want that, and the owners dont want that.
So they will cut profits to promote growth - my point.
either Apple wins the mobile wars or it loses mind-share and becomes irrelevant ( which is where it was in terms of OS market share). Jobs doesnt want that, and the owners dont want that.
So they will cut profits to promote growth - my point.
I'd respectfully disagree with that conclusion.
There is no war. There's a new round of competition every year. Apple have won this round comprehensively. And there really is not any sign of that position being overturned. 2011's pie chart will probably have Nokia's slice disappearing or becoming vanishingly small as they are on-trend to make a loss. So expect Apple's wedge to be even larger.
I am not sure which company would even be identified as a potential rival.
It seems popular at the moment to aggregate all the Android vendors together and depict them as some kind of anti-Apple alliance.
I don't think that's a rational way to look at the market. Any more than aggregating all the PC vendors together. Because while it is true that the Window OS is seen as having a 95% market share. It's a number that misleads.
A more interesting statistic is revealed when you work out which is the most profitable personal computer manufacturer in the world.
Apple's pricing is set, as all companies are set - to maximise profits. In other words, it is set by the market - and reflects the perceived value of the product. I don't think Apple have any plans to offer an intentionally less-valuable product.
Android manufacturers have to confront the same problem as PC vendors. They share identical technology and so become commoditized in way that Apple products do not.
A more likely strategy for Apple is to offer the same product in other versions to reach a larger audience. A CDMA iPhone is very likely.
They cant tell beforehand, and I doubt the profits on the Air are stellar. They are there, but mediocre. Apple TV, the same. So this hinges on the definition of the word "adequate". Clearly Jobs likes the Air.
In any case this topic has veered off onto profit and it motives because people deny that Apple would take a hit to profit to grow ( i.e. hit margins) and some are arguing that Apple are happy with great profits from small marketshare. As profit is the primary motivating factor.
I disagree - since nobody at Apple wants to fail, particularly since they have tasted success - Also since they are not a dividend paying company the stock price depends on anticipated future growth.
So they have to grow to succeed at the cost of margins. That or innovate. Or both. But they need to maintain their market share in the mobile platform wars, and most importantly, they want to.
"Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008
No product will see the light of day at Apple if it does not provide a basis for adequate potential profits."
For the record, I did not say the above. Not sure who said it, wasn't me.
Where do you get that? It seems very far off the mark to me.
Why do you think apple employees are right wing? I've seen nothing to indicate that.
Why do you think their only thought is profit for shareholders? My guess is that they rarely think about that. I think that they usually think about doing their jobs.
You're so utterly obsessed with going against every single post you missed the sarcasm of the post you responded to.
If Apple were a person, what would be making it get up in the mornings? $ signs or the thought of developing and delivering world-changing products?
They are trying to do both. Their main focus is on creating amazing products, but they sure would like to make money while doing it. Steve tried to make amazing products while at NeXT, but priced his products outside of the market.
it took a long time for him to balance his goal of creating amazing products, while creating a top-notch balance sheet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by asdasd
They cant tell beforehand, and I doubt the profits on the Air are stellar. They are there, but mediocre. Apple TV, the same. So this hinges on the definition of the word "adequate". Clearly Jobs likes the Air.
One of the things I've heard about Ferrari is that they see their bleeding-edge Formula 1 racing technology as an R&D project. They figure that an F1 implementation of a product is the first step towards the product eventually trickling down to their sports cars, that the common man* can buy.
The same thing applies with the Air. Steve, I believe, tries to break even with the Air (like he wants to break even with the App Store), but the ultimate goal is to develop a bleeding edge laptop computer that, in time, creates the foundation for stuff found in less expensive computers, perhaps including the iPad. For example, perhaps developing the Air's battery helped develop the iPad battery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonymouse
No, Apple isn't a person, it's a group of persons. A corporation does not have a real (as opposed to a paper/legal) existence outside of the people who work their and its shareholders. The point about what makes them get up in the morning and go to work is entirely to the point, and while there are certainly people who do this for money, I don't think this is true of Jobs, or most of the employees at Apple.
I took a basic economics class in high school. From it, I learned that, at least under American law, a corporation has the same legal status as an average person.
* by "common man", I mean someone who either won the lottery, or whose last name is Trump or Gates.
Not necessarily. You assume a level playing field with fair players... but these conditions seldom exist.
That's a fair point. In the context of this discussion it is fair to include the further condition that the creator of the product has the means and the will to take it to the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Netscape was a great (superior) product, IE was not.
The freeness of web browsers certainly did undermine the ability to monetize them.
:-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
OS/2 was a great (superior) product, MS-DOS was not.
On a technical level, we could argue that NeXTStep was superior to both... But was even more expensive and less compatible.
Displacing an entrenched, invested-in technology takes a lot more than mere technical superiority. It requires a persistent war of attrition over many years. Along with the means and the will to persist. I'd argue that OS/2 was not sufficiently great - to win such a battle. IBM seemed to lose their nerve once Microsoft announced OS/3 (NT).
Interestingly, Apple has persistently been fighting such a battle with OS X against Windows. And with a bit more persistence and tenacity than IBM. And while the market share is still low in relative terms, it has allowed Apple to grow into what appears to be the most profitable personal computer manufacturer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Zune... well, you can only take this so far
What's a Zune?
In the context of Apple. Their strategy has largely been to create a superior products. Carefully refine a message which does a good job of presenting the benefits to market. And then let the market make its choices.
There are other routes to profitability, and Apple has consistently ignored them.
Comments
I am not an Android fanboy, I don't have an Android phone. I am an Apple guy, I have nearly everything Apple makes. I am high functioning with the iPhone for the most part because I live in an area that has reasonable coverage with ATT. But I'm not stubborn enough to think the whole earth has the same experience.
The topic of this thread is who is going to ship more phones. I suggest opening the phone up to other carriers to increase sales. That doesn't make me a troll. It makes me a smart person. Do you disagree? Well, then you are a poor businessman and by definition, an Apple fanboi.
Lastly it is not your business to tell me or anyone to "do it somewhere else." You don't own this forum and neither do I. If you don't like my opinion, explain to me WHY I am wrong. Stop being so self absorbed in your opinions that you have no tolerance for anyone else.
I honestly don't know how you fanboys live with yourselves. You are such tech bigots.
Agreed, Model of locking phones to carrier is BS.
People should have the choice to push any sim in the sim card tray it has. Nokia sells so many phones because it is not carrier locked in most parts of the world(at least in those where it sells the most).
Have you examined their data and methodology? If not, how can you make conclusions about the validity of their predictions?
Have you examined their data and methodology?
Don't believe a word he says. This example should be plenty enough to convince you that he is full of shit.
What I'm convinced of is that if anyone is an expert on what constitutes "full of shit" it would be you ... as all of your posts seem to substantiate.
If M. Apple were head of household with hungry mouths to feed-- what do you think?
Well, as I support my partner and baby I am in this position myself. Yes, we need my income to support our lifestyle but money is not what motivates me and it is not my goal. I do my job because I enjoy it; were I fortunate enough to be independently wealthy, I would carry on (albeit with reduced hours
LOl
Seriously. I pointed out that the profits earned by the owners are dividends.
So lets repeat.
The owners of Apple earn no dividends therefore take no profits. Therefore their interest is elsewhere. If they wanted to get profits from a company - that is to earn any of the EPS - they would go elsewhere. Apparently the Apple shareholders are not interested in dividends which is profits divided amongst the shareholders. They profit from growth in capital.
Unfortunately a mediocre understanding of Econ 101 is not going to be much help here.
You are being purposefully obtuse and absurd. Ownership and control are entirely separated in modern publicly traded companies. To pretend that the shareholders have any direct influence on the strategy and execution of the company is idiotic. Any indirect control is VERY indirect and only ever comes into play in terms of financial difficulty which Apple will not approach for the foreseeable future.
Net income is profit. Dividends are one of many forms to distribute that profit. The "owners" are in it for the capital gains which is their "profit" when they sell. Also all the other arguments show you counter theory of a market share based strategy as patently ridiculous. It is segment share at most that matters with sufficient critical mass to keep the ecosystem running smoothly. Macs have a 3.5% global PC share but have a sufficient ecosystem of software and content to keep it functionally competitive with Windows
You use degree level articulation to spout a grade school theory.
Nothing will inevitably lead to great products.
But great products will certainly lead to profitability.
C.
Tell it to Sony.
They cant tell beforehand, and I doubt the profits on the Air are stellar. They are there, but mediocre. Apple TV, the same. So this hinges on the definition of the word "adequate". Clearly Jobs likes the Air.
In any case this topic has veered off onto profit and it motives because people deny that Apple would take a hit to profit to grow ( i.e. hit margins) and some are arguing that Apple are happy with great profits from small marketshare. As profit is the primary motivating factor.
I disagree - since nobody at Apple wants to fail, particularly since they have tasted success - Also since they are not a dividend paying company the stock price depends on anticipated future growth.
So they have to grow to succeed at the cost of margins. That or innovate. Or both. But they need to maintain their market share in the mobile platform wars, and most importantly, they want to.
I am sure that the profits on the Air are more than adequate. If your point is that total profits (net income per device x # of devices sold) is not so great, then yes. It is not a high volume product. They seem to have a policy of pricing everything at similar (high margins) and almost nothing I can think of is sold as a low margin (%) "loss leader" (maybe the new Apple TV?). Even their low price products like the Shuffle still make >20% net income.
Apple do not sacrifice profit for share. Never have. Can you not understand how astoundingly superior Apple's profits are in total and margin terms to any other company in any of their industries. You act as though this is accidental as opposed to a consistent strategy. They have always done this since the Macs and probably before. Where they ran into problems was when their products could no longer justify the high prices and profits per unit (in the 90s). Jobs and Apple learned this and now have laser focus on justifying the supernormal profits by constantly improving products, strong marketing and uniquely investing in creating superior ecosystems for their products.
The owners would fire Jobs ( via the BOD) if they wanted their investment to drop 90% the next day.
he has a lot of potential to do what he wants.
The owners have barely any actual control over the BoD. Do you think the shareholders wanted Mark Hurd replaced at HP - pretty sure not. However the BoD didn't like him and got him like the G-men got Al Capone - for the petty equivalent of tax evasion.
Your strange bizzaro understanding of what "owners" (shareholders) can do is comical.
Gartner funded and powered by Google.
Isn't all these research firms have their research funded by some one. Google spends a bunch of money for lobbying etc., no wonder where that goes.
Not in the case of the big analyst firms. They sell subscriptions to their data and reports for their money. They get their data from bugging the actual players for information which is basically made up advertising from each firm and they "evaluate" (regurgitate) it into their magic quadrants and industry segment analysis.
They are are bunch of third rate muppets who have some market power "You need to tell me whatever I want to know or I will downrank you in our industry analysis"
These market projections are just some half baked side line to get column inches because the mainstream press doesn't care about what Gartner thinks about the state of the workflow solution vendor market. They are always massively wrong more than 18 months out but no-one cares to look back at the happy horsesh!t Gartner spewed 18 months ago.
Tell it to Sony.
Oh go on. I'll bite. The great products from Sony would be....?
C.
Oh go on. I'll bite. The great products from Sony would be....?
C.
The Betamax is the obvious example. I guess I assume to much when I fail to spell things out in detail for you.
The Betamax is the obvious example. I guess I assume to much when I fail to spell things out in detail for you.
Kind of rummaging deep in pre-history for that one? Apparently the marginal benefits of Betamax did not offset the attraction of lower prices and pornography.
Sony's real commercial decline has been more recent. And much of that is tied up with one spectacularly mis-conceived product.
C.
You are being purposefully obtuse and absurd. Ownership and control are entirely separated in modern publicly traded companies. To pretend that the shareholders have any direct influence on the strategy and execution of the company is idiotic. Any indirect control is VERY indirect and only ever comes into play in terms of financial difficulty which Apple will not approach for the foreseeable future.
Net income is profit. Dividends are one of many forms to distribute that profit. The "owners" are in it for the capital gains which is their "profit" when they sell. Also all the other arguments show you counter theory of a market share based strategy as patently ridiculous. It is segment share at most that matters with sufficient critical mass to keep the ecosystem running smoothly. Macs have a 3.5% global PC share but have a sufficient ecosystem of software and content to keep it functionally competitive with Windows
You use degree level articulation to spout a grade school theory.
I argue against the case presented. Which was that the shareholders would revolt if profits were reduced, or were only in it for quarterly profit. You agree when you say
To pretend that the shareholders have any direct influence on the strategy and execution of the company is idiotic. Any indirect control is VERY indirect and only ever comes into play in terms of financial difficulty which Apple will not approach for the foreseeable future.
Are actually making my point ( I was arguing against Newtron's Econ 101 argument). Like you I dont see the owners as being very influential in Apple. It is run by the Executive.
You also make my point here:
The "owners" are in it for the capital gains which is their "profit" when they sell.
Right. But that, as I pointed out, is not the same as profit. It is profit in the general sense, but not in the quarterly dividend sense. Therefore the owners need Apple to grow, and that means growth in both sales and market share - that is already built into the stock price.
As for the rest Apple's share price is totally unrelated to it's 3.5% of OS share ( actually it is higher). It's share price is to do with it's success in the iPod, iPhone, iPad markets and the expectation of more to come. If Apple announces that it will be growing margins but expects the market share to drop or stagnate, then it's share price will drop.
it is now a growth stock. Those of you who like the feeling of being in a small but elite minority are going to have to get used to that - either Apple wins the mobile wars or it loses mind-share and becomes irrelevant ( which is where it was in terms of OS market share). Jobs doesnt want that, and the owners dont want that.
So they will cut profits to promote growth - my point.
either Apple wins the mobile wars or it loses mind-share and becomes irrelevant ( which is where it was in terms of OS market share). Jobs doesnt want that, and the owners dont want that.
So they will cut profits to promote growth - my point.
I'd respectfully disagree with that conclusion.
There is no war. There's a new round of competition every year. Apple have won this round comprehensively. And there really is not any sign of that position being overturned. 2011's pie chart will probably have Nokia's slice disappearing or becoming vanishingly small as they are on-trend to make a loss. So expect Apple's wedge to be even larger.
I am not sure which company would even be identified as a potential rival.
It seems popular at the moment to aggregate all the Android vendors together and depict them as some kind of anti-Apple alliance.
I don't think that's a rational way to look at the market. Any more than aggregating all the PC vendors together. Because while it is true that the Window OS is seen as having a 95% market share. It's a number that misleads.
A more interesting statistic is revealed when you work out which is the most profitable personal computer manufacturer in the world.
Apple's pricing is set, as all companies are set - to maximise profits. In other words, it is set by the market - and reflects the perceived value of the product. I don't think Apple have any plans to offer an intentionally less-valuable product.
Android manufacturers have to confront the same problem as PC vendors. They share identical technology and so become commoditized in way that Apple products do not.
A more likely strategy for Apple is to offer the same product in other versions to reach a larger audience. A CDMA iPhone is very likely.
C.
Nothing will inevitably lead to great products.
But great products will certainly lead to profitability.
Isn't that how great products are defined?
C.
Not necessarily. You assume a level playing field with fair players... but these conditions seldom exist.
Netscape was a great (superior) product, IE was not.
OS/2 was a great (superior) product, MS-DOS was not.
Zune... well, you can only take this so far
I know these 3 girls, the Rebougmdiray Triplets-- Lara, Tara, and Mara...
Mara is the oldest and smartest... Lara is the youngest and prettiest..
... but my favorite is... Tara Rebougmdiray
.
Nothing will inevitably lead to great products.
But great products will certainly lead to profitability.
Isn't that how great products are defined?
C.
Not necessarily. History is replete with examples of where the "great" or "better" product loses. One classic example is Beta vs. VHS
They cant tell beforehand, and I doubt the profits on the Air are stellar. They are there, but mediocre. Apple TV, the same. So this hinges on the definition of the word "adequate". Clearly Jobs likes the Air.
In any case this topic has veered off onto profit and it motives because people deny that Apple would take a hit to profit to grow ( i.e. hit margins) and some are arguing that Apple are happy with great profits from small marketshare. As profit is the primary motivating factor.
I disagree - since nobody at Apple wants to fail, particularly since they have tasted success - Also since they are not a dividend paying company the stock price depends on anticipated future growth.
So they have to grow to succeed at the cost of margins. That or innovate. Or both. But they need to maintain their market share in the mobile platform wars, and most importantly, they want to.
"Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008
No product will see the light of day at Apple if it does not provide a basis for adequate potential profits."
For the record, I did not say the above. Not sure who said it, wasn't me.
Where do you get that? It seems very far off the mark to me.
Why do you think apple employees are right wing? I've seen nothing to indicate that.
Why do you think their only thought is profit for shareholders? My guess is that they rarely think about that. I think that they usually think about doing their jobs.
You're so utterly obsessed with going against every single post you missed the sarcasm of the post you responded to.
If Apple were a person, what would be making it get up in the mornings? $ signs or the thought of developing and delivering world-changing products?
They are trying to do both. Their main focus is on creating amazing products, but they sure would like to make money while doing it. Steve tried to make amazing products while at NeXT, but priced his products outside of the market.
it took a long time for him to balance his goal of creating amazing products, while creating a top-notch balance sheet.
They cant tell beforehand, and I doubt the profits on the Air are stellar. They are there, but mediocre. Apple TV, the same. So this hinges on the definition of the word "adequate". Clearly Jobs likes the Air.
One of the things I've heard about Ferrari is that they see their bleeding-edge Formula 1 racing technology as an R&D project. They figure that an F1 implementation of a product is the first step towards the product eventually trickling down to their sports cars, that the common man* can buy.
The same thing applies with the Air. Steve, I believe, tries to break even with the Air (like he wants to break even with the App Store), but the ultimate goal is to develop a bleeding edge laptop computer that, in time, creates the foundation for stuff found in less expensive computers, perhaps including the iPad. For example, perhaps developing the Air's battery helped develop the iPad battery.
No, Apple isn't a person, it's a group of persons. A corporation does not have a real (as opposed to a paper/legal) existence outside of the people who work their and its shareholders. The point about what makes them get up in the morning and go to work is entirely to the point, and while there are certainly people who do this for money, I don't think this is true of Jobs, or most of the employees at Apple.
I took a basic economics class in high school. From it, I learned that, at least under American law, a corporation has the same legal status as an average person.
* by "common man", I mean someone who either won the lottery, or whose last name is Trump or Gates.
Not necessarily. You assume a level playing field with fair players... but these conditions seldom exist.
That's a fair point. In the context of this discussion it is fair to include the further condition that the creator of the product has the means and the will to take it to the market.
Netscape was a great (superior) product, IE was not.
The freeness of web browsers certainly did undermine the ability to monetize them.
:-)
OS/2 was a great (superior) product, MS-DOS was not.
On a technical level, we could argue that NeXTStep was superior to both... But was even more expensive and less compatible.
Displacing an entrenched, invested-in technology takes a lot more than mere technical superiority. It requires a persistent war of attrition over many years. Along with the means and the will to persist. I'd argue that OS/2 was not sufficiently great - to win such a battle. IBM seemed to lose their nerve once Microsoft announced OS/3 (NT).
Interestingly, Apple has persistently been fighting such a battle with OS X against Windows. And with a bit more persistence and tenacity than IBM. And while the market share is still low in relative terms, it has allowed Apple to grow into what appears to be the most profitable personal computer manufacturer.
Zune... well, you can only take this so far
What's a Zune?
In the context of Apple. Their strategy has largely been to create a superior products. Carefully refine a message which does a good job of presenting the benefits to market. And then let the market make its choices.
There are other routes to profitability, and Apple has consistently ignored them.
C.