[quote]Apple's marketshare is moot if they go under.<hr></blockquote>
That's the same thing reworded.
He just said that Apple could increase market-share by lowering prices, not that it would be a wise move. Jobs stated a goal to increase market share, and that is certainly a way to achieve that goal...
NOW!
Why I bothered to point that out:
It's important that we make these distinctions in this discussions lest we fall to the idiotic and boring squabbles of "Apple is BMW!" v. "Apple needs to cut prices!".
Pigeon-holing a person by incorrectly extrapolating one statement is bad, mmkay?
(Not that I said that you, Amorph, were doing exactly that, but it's a fine line.)
It's important that we make these distinctions in this discussions lest we fall to the idiotic and boring squabbles of "Apple is BMW!" v. "Apple needs to cut prices!".
</strong><hr></blockquote>
you are right Apple is not BMW, Apple is Jaguar : everybody should know that
Pie charts are really bad on something like market share, because they reflect the present, and on top of that split in the most general way possible.
We KNOW now the pie doesn't just exand. It shrinks as seen in 2k,2k1,2k2.
so it's not really who get's more, but who keeps more.
That's where the percentage kills all reality. It's comparative. If we suddenly turn into japan, and goes moblile with a lot more multi use-cellphones. It takes a BIG chunk somewhere. SO apples 5%(assuming it comes out unscathed.) will look a more appealing.Which isn't that bad cause we know what happens when a fraction divides a fraction?
The second case is management. Any idiot can bring an umbrella if the news says it will rain, but when it's wrong, it's who does the better job of minimizing the loss. And that again precentage comes in. [Fraction in a fraction remember?] Apple management has a much easier job to come out the genius in this case. [Also a reason not to over do yourself. What's the point if you win by dieing]
Percentage can be used for or against you. And Jobs did joke on that. 5% is all they need to double their market share.
~Kuku
*If I didn't know better I'll say Apple knows this and is on the offensive now. They have a situational advantage for now and if they play their hands right...
We aren't talking about cars. Enough with the BMW-Mercedes-Jaguar already. I can pretty much guarantee you that if Apple's market share were to fall to 1% or below, they would lose most of their major developers, share value, brand confidence, and eventually their business.
It's utter non-sense to think you can afford to lose market share in the tech industry so long as the industry itself keeps growing. It DOES NOT MATTER how many computers you sell if the PLATFORM becomes too small. If Apple were selling wintel boxes this would be different, they could get by with less than half a percent, but they aren't, they bear the burden of maintaining a viable 'platform.' You cannot maintain a viable platform without MARKETSHARE.
Again, it's the 1% of a 1 Billion strong market scenario. Apple optimists like to use it as an argument about the irrelevance of Marketshare. They're wrong. That's 10 Million machines versus 990 Milliom machines -- simply not enough to keep developers or brand confidence. If your marketshare gets that small you can't stay in the general purpose PC marketplace. You can sell specialized boxes a la SGI, but you can't sell a home computer. Peripheral makers, developers, service providers, retailers will all give up on you because there's just too much market on the other side to bother making product for a piddling 1%.
So a 1% Apple market is a ways off yet (hopefully it won't come to that) but there are a few ways it could happen. Any combination of Apple sales not keeping pace with market expansion will get you there, faster or slower, but to the same dark conclusion.
Again Steve knows that if anyone expects to be using macs in 10-15 years, or around the time when OSX is again replaced by the next great OS, Apple MUST increase, or at the very least hold, marketshare.
Well, you can get by with infinitesimal market share, but it means you have to cater, no, grovel to every wish of your niche market with laser-like focus. That, and have to do everything on your own -- hardware and software.
theoretically, if 1 billion people on Earth had computers, and 1% of them had Macs (market share = percent), that would still be plenty big to support the platform, but, as Matsu said, you handle almost the entire burden on your own shoulders.
But realistically, the extremely focused strategy one would need to try to keep the number of installed users at a maximum will also cut off many users at the same time. The few for the many, but the many is still very few.
I can hear that chant of market share, but sheesh, I hope you read some kind of economic text book before, because I'm pretty sure most of them will COMPLETELY destory your arguement.
Now that that's settled, you mean the "forcast" if marketshare goes to [lim x->0]. Which is situational depending what MIGHT happen.
Now the fault in the arguement. Apple hardware is one thing, but you're talking about "software". SO you REALLY mean MacOSX. Which is a UNIX. and that itself is hard to give any kind of marketshare value.[Confer with the concept of UNIX if you don't get it]
And since the introduction of OSX, they have gotten MORE developers not LESS.
Sooooo, "Matsu", you better revise your arguement to fit HARDWARE, because you are using satistics from HARDWARE.
SO while we're talking about jagars and BMWs, you're talking about their GPS systems and voice controls.
~Kuku
Who just has to poke a few holes into people's thesis.
Steve Jobs isn't stupid. He knows that marketshare is important. He also knows (since SJ seems to have the ability to have at least two directly contradicting thoughts in his head at the same time) that his comment about doubling marketshare is wildly optimistic.
Apple's paradox is: (a) they need to increase marketshare, or the Mac platform will slowly die, and (b) they need to convince potential converts that marketshare isn't all that important, and the Mac platform is alive and well.
This is not easy -- it may be impossible.
But Apple has to try.
It's hoping for several PC competitors going out of business...
More severe antitrust restrictions placed on MS...
Some extraordinarily innovative new thing from Apple, that catches on a big way...
[quote] (since SJ seems to have the ability to have at least two directly contradicting thoughts in his head at the same time) <hr></blockquote>
That just made me laugh (I can only have 1 thought in my head at a time. I wonder if all truly smart and creative people have multi-threading capable brains). To double marketshare apple would have to have massive bandwidth and processor improvements. Give those UNIX geeks somthing to drool over.
But you're still wrong. It has nothing to do with your economics textbooks which don't apply here. It is perfectly well and good to sell an expensive, high-profit, product to a small, elite, clientele. It's also great to see that market grow even if your share of it doesn't. It just means there's more overall money to be made.
But it doesn't work for 'platforms.' UNIX and OSX are close, and developers have increased, but it's still people looking for a new market for relatively minor apps (in terms of total market penetration outside of highly specialized/industrial level tasks).
I'm using hardware numbers and hardware examples. Don't twist things about. As I mentioned, platforms are different, the platform -- MacOS -- and the hardware -- Macs -- are 100% dependent on each other. You can't run OSX on anything other than a mac. You need to move units for the platform to live on, period.
The only question is are there enough units? Yes, for now and the forseeable future. However, No platform company can afford to have their marketshare shrink to insignificance.
Apple could still stay in business with a half a percent of the market, but at that poinbt it wouldn't be with any type of machines that you or I could buy unless we worked with VERY high end specialized equipment.
Their software technologies would also live on, but again, not on a consumer grade MAC platform -- either it would be for specialized 'Apple' equipment, or it would consist of apps for 'other' platforms.
I guarantee you that few (if any) developers would stick around to develop macOS apps if Apple had less than 1% of the total PC market.
Imagine using a cellular technology that only .5% of all phones use. Do you think telcos would keep supporting it? No hairy f-ing way! They'll tell you to get a 'standard' phone or look elsewhere.
Maybe the one company left making the things will support the network/platform, but they're going to end up being some mighty expensive phones.
Same with macs. Any macs sold as part of a miniscule market-share outfit would have to be uber-high-end machines. Take the cost of the most expensive mac you can buy, quadruple it, and that's about right. Not for any consumers. No way, no how.
$20,000+ machines is about right for computer making 'platform specialists' with less thatn 1% marketshare.
Apple could live very happy life in that market, but they'd no longer be the Apple you know taoday.
Comments
That's the same thing reworded.
He just said that Apple could increase market-share by lowering prices, not that it would be a wise move. Jobs stated a goal to increase market share, and that is certainly a way to achieve that goal...
NOW!
Why I bothered to point that out:
It's important that we make these distinctions in this discussions lest we fall to the idiotic and boring squabbles of "Apple is BMW!" v. "Apple needs to cut prices!".
Pigeon-holing a person by incorrectly extrapolating one statement is bad, mmkay?
(Not that I said that you, Amorph, were doing exactly that, but it's a fine line.)
Leonis likes Macs, he's good people.
<strong>
It's important that we make these distinctions in this discussions lest we fall to the idiotic and boring squabbles of "Apple is BMW!" v. "Apple needs to cut prices!".
</strong><hr></blockquote>
you are right Apple is not BMW, Apple is Jaguar : everybody should know that
We KNOW now the pie doesn't just exand. It shrinks as seen in 2k,2k1,2k2.
so it's not really who get's more, but who keeps more.
That's where the percentage kills all reality. It's comparative. If we suddenly turn into japan, and goes moblile with a lot more multi use-cellphones. It takes a BIG chunk somewhere. SO apples 5%(assuming it comes out unscathed.) will look a more appealing.Which isn't that bad cause we know what happens when a fraction divides a fraction?
The second case is management. Any idiot can bring an umbrella if the news says it will rain, but when it's wrong, it's who does the better job of minimizing the loss. And that again precentage comes in. [Fraction in a fraction remember?] Apple management has a much easier job to come out the genius in this case. [Also a reason not to over do yourself. What's the point if you win by dieing]
Percentage can be used for or against you. And Jobs did joke on that. 5% is all they need to double their market share.
~Kuku
*If I didn't know better I'll say Apple knows this and is on the offensive now. They have a situational advantage for now and if they play their hands right...
[ 05-26-2002: Message edited by: Kuku ]</p>
Marketshare matters.
We aren't talking about cars. Enough with the BMW-Mercedes-Jaguar already. I can pretty much guarantee you that if Apple's market share were to fall to 1% or below, they would lose most of their major developers, share value, brand confidence, and eventually their business.
It's utter non-sense to think you can afford to lose market share in the tech industry so long as the industry itself keeps growing. It DOES NOT MATTER how many computers you sell if the PLATFORM becomes too small. If Apple were selling wintel boxes this would be different, they could get by with less than half a percent, but they aren't, they bear the burden of maintaining a viable 'platform.' You cannot maintain a viable platform without MARKETSHARE.
Again, it's the 1% of a 1 Billion strong market scenario. Apple optimists like to use it as an argument about the irrelevance of Marketshare. They're wrong. That's 10 Million machines versus 990 Milliom machines -- simply not enough to keep developers or brand confidence. If your marketshare gets that small you can't stay in the general purpose PC marketplace. You can sell specialized boxes a la SGI, but you can't sell a home computer. Peripheral makers, developers, service providers, retailers will all give up on you because there's just too much market on the other side to bother making product for a piddling 1%.
So a 1% Apple market is a ways off yet (hopefully it won't come to that) but there are a few ways it could happen. Any combination of Apple sales not keeping pace with market expansion will get you there, faster or slower, but to the same dark conclusion.
Again Steve knows that if anyone expects to be using macs in 10-15 years, or around the time when OSX is again replaced by the next great OS, Apple MUST increase, or at the very least hold, marketshare.
It matters.
theoretically, if 1 billion people on Earth had computers, and 1% of them had Macs (market share = percent), that would still be plenty big to support the platform, but, as Matsu said, you handle almost the entire burden on your own shoulders.
But realistically, the extremely focused strategy one would need to try to keep the number of installed users at a maximum will also cut off many users at the same time. The few for the many, but the many is still very few.
I can hear that chant of market share, but sheesh, I hope you read some kind of economic text book before, because I'm pretty sure most of them will COMPLETELY destory your arguement.
Now that that's settled, you mean the "forcast" if marketshare goes to [lim x->0]. Which is situational depending what MIGHT happen.
Now the fault in the arguement. Apple hardware is one thing, but you're talking about "software". SO you REALLY mean MacOSX. Which is a UNIX. and that itself is hard to give any kind of marketshare value.[Confer with the concept of UNIX if you don't get it]
And since the introduction of OSX, they have gotten MORE developers not LESS.
Sooooo, "Matsu", you better revise your arguement to fit HARDWARE, because you are using satistics from HARDWARE.
SO while we're talking about jagars and BMWs, you're talking about their GPS systems and voice controls.
~Kuku
Who just has to poke a few holes into people's thesis.
Apple's paradox is: (a) they need to increase marketshare, or the Mac platform will slowly die, and (b) they need to convince potential converts that marketshare isn't all that important, and the Mac platform is alive and well.
This is not easy -- it may be impossible.
But Apple has to try.
It's hoping for several PC competitors going out of business...
More severe antitrust restrictions placed on MS...
Some extraordinarily innovative new thing from Apple, that catches on a big way...
And it may need all three of the above. Or more.
[ 05-28-2002: Message edited by: Hobbes ]</p>
But you're still wrong. It has nothing to do with your economics textbooks which don't apply here. It is perfectly well and good to sell an expensive, high-profit, product to a small, elite, clientele. It's also great to see that market grow even if your share of it doesn't. It just means there's more overall money to be made.
But it doesn't work for 'platforms.' UNIX and OSX are close, and developers have increased, but it's still people looking for a new market for relatively minor apps (in terms of total market penetration outside of highly specialized/industrial level tasks).
I'm using hardware numbers and hardware examples. Don't twist things about. As I mentioned, platforms are different, the platform -- MacOS -- and the hardware -- Macs -- are 100% dependent on each other. You can't run OSX on anything other than a mac. You need to move units for the platform to live on, period.
The only question is are there enough units? Yes, for now and the forseeable future. However, No platform company can afford to have their marketshare shrink to insignificance.
Apple could still stay in business with a half a percent of the market, but at that poinbt it wouldn't be with any type of machines that you or I could buy unless we worked with VERY high end specialized equipment.
Their software technologies would also live on, but again, not on a consumer grade MAC platform -- either it would be for specialized 'Apple' equipment, or it would consist of apps for 'other' platforms.
I guarantee you that few (if any) developers would stick around to develop macOS apps if Apple had less than 1% of the total PC market.
Imagine using a cellular technology that only .5% of all phones use. Do you think telcos would keep supporting it? No hairy f-ing way! They'll tell you to get a 'standard' phone or look elsewhere.
Maybe the one company left making the things will support the network/platform, but they're going to end up being some mighty expensive phones.
Same with macs. Any macs sold as part of a miniscule market-share outfit would have to be uber-high-end machines. Take the cost of the most expensive mac you can buy, quadruple it, and that's about right. Not for any consumers. No way, no how.
$20,000+ machines is about right for computer making 'platform specialists' with less thatn 1% marketshare.
Apple could live very happy life in that market, but they'd no longer be the Apple you know taoday.