the otherApple
I find apple's place in the marked quite interesting and unusual these days. They have an incentive to buy because they create the whole widget. What is the widget? pc's, the os, apps, and a few peripherals. The advantage in this approach is that they are all better integrated and unified. What is the other way? 1 OS vendor, many app vendors (although MS has that sewed up too), many pc vendors who in turn get their parts from many componant vendors. The advantage of the other way - in hardware - is that every company is specialized, and in turn, focuses on one componant. The competition on the componant level forces the invisible hand of the economy to choose the most efficient products on a cost/benefit basis. This works as well on the software side in general, however - due to its overwhelming control - MS has impeded fair market competition...
The contrast I am trying to draw is: the whole widget? or the discrete componant approach?
Apple uses the MacOS and associated iApps (many of which are free)/proApps to drive Mac sales. But something is wrong here - the software (iapps, and macos) are individual components - they could be sold separately, however they are used to drive hardware sales – which also could be sold separately. Ignoring the x86 vs ppc religious wars, many mac users would benefit from more modern hardware, hardware designed in a more competitive world - something the Mac does not directly exist in. Yet, apple posts profits while many componant makers/pc makers post losses. What keeps apple afloat/profitable? Why is apples sum greater than its parts? The truth is - its not. Apple sells systems because the software has no equals; the software's value is great enough to drive hardware sales. The hardware systems also benefits from this effect - the system design is so good it improves the overall hardware value even though the components may not be cutting edge in some areas (ram/bus/processor-maybe/graphics chips), in fact the iMac also has no equals. But the real diamond is in the OS and the iApps. They are unobtainable on a PC. They are why we use and love macs.
what is the other way? The PC world. Pick and choose what you want on a very fine – discrete level, evaluating each componant on a cost/benefit basis. The PC world leads to greater efficiencies, and greater economies of scale. Everyone hates Microsoft: over priced OS that they sell, overpriced apps – and they DO abuse their monopoly; however how would MS generate income on the OS if it wasn’t more expensive? They include MS iApps (winmedia, winmessenger, outlook…
; and Microsoft does not (currently) subsidize the OS with margins on hardware – this, and their monopoly/lack of competition = greater OS cost.
How would apple exist in the PC world (ie with open hardware = x86, and MacOSX running on open x86 hardware)? Lets call them otherApple - they would look like a blend of the current apple, Microsoft, and dell. They would still value add systems with great design (like the current apple), have the benefit of multiple componant vendors (like dell), and sell their software at higher profit, meaning a more expensive OS (like Microsoft). Would it work? Probably – and possibly to great success, the important thing being the execution of that model.
The point of this thread isn’t to convince people that apple should move to x86 – the point is to compare apple’s world as-is to the pc world. Apple’s world exists as-is because of the value they add with design and great software. The area they are performing the poorest is in the powermac hardware. It is often compared on a $ for $ basis with pc boxes; and its design isn’t/couldn’t be great enough to make it peerless – it is essentially a PC. This is why we have wars in threads claiming the powermac sucks, and responses telling people to go buy a dell. Apple does add tremendous value with its software and design to its systems, and in certain cases, I don’t think any reasonable performance delta would stop people from buying macs (ie: imac, and to a lesser extant ibook and tibook). But the powermac doesn’t fall in that category – if it can’t perform, sales will stop – they already have.
The main thoughts I have are: at what point is apple’s value-add not enough to compete with the efficiency of the PC world? How much would we benefit from having apple evolve into otherApple?
Personally – I think the entire PC sector would benefit from an Apple metamorphosis into otherApple, and I think otherApple would succeed financially – with great growth potential: if they balance their profit based on the merits of each componant: the OS gets the margin it SHOULD get, the Apps get the margin they SHOULD get, and the macs themselves get the margin they SHOULD get – with SHOULD meaning what the market would bear with competition. Apple is not otherApple today because it would require risk and change (and some technical effort), but it could be some day – in my opinion, it WILL be some day, some day soon - apple is a changing company.
-D
The contrast I am trying to draw is: the whole widget? or the discrete componant approach?
Apple uses the MacOS and associated iApps (many of which are free)/proApps to drive Mac sales. But something is wrong here - the software (iapps, and macos) are individual components - they could be sold separately, however they are used to drive hardware sales – which also could be sold separately. Ignoring the x86 vs ppc religious wars, many mac users would benefit from more modern hardware, hardware designed in a more competitive world - something the Mac does not directly exist in. Yet, apple posts profits while many componant makers/pc makers post losses. What keeps apple afloat/profitable? Why is apples sum greater than its parts? The truth is - its not. Apple sells systems because the software has no equals; the software's value is great enough to drive hardware sales. The hardware systems also benefits from this effect - the system design is so good it improves the overall hardware value even though the components may not be cutting edge in some areas (ram/bus/processor-maybe/graphics chips), in fact the iMac also has no equals. But the real diamond is in the OS and the iApps. They are unobtainable on a PC. They are why we use and love macs.
what is the other way? The PC world. Pick and choose what you want on a very fine – discrete level, evaluating each componant on a cost/benefit basis. The PC world leads to greater efficiencies, and greater economies of scale. Everyone hates Microsoft: over priced OS that they sell, overpriced apps – and they DO abuse their monopoly; however how would MS generate income on the OS if it wasn’t more expensive? They include MS iApps (winmedia, winmessenger, outlook…
; and Microsoft does not (currently) subsidize the OS with margins on hardware – this, and their monopoly/lack of competition = greater OS cost.How would apple exist in the PC world (ie with open hardware = x86, and MacOSX running on open x86 hardware)? Lets call them otherApple - they would look like a blend of the current apple, Microsoft, and dell. They would still value add systems with great design (like the current apple), have the benefit of multiple componant vendors (like dell), and sell their software at higher profit, meaning a more expensive OS (like Microsoft). Would it work? Probably – and possibly to great success, the important thing being the execution of that model.
The point of this thread isn’t to convince people that apple should move to x86 – the point is to compare apple’s world as-is to the pc world. Apple’s world exists as-is because of the value they add with design and great software. The area they are performing the poorest is in the powermac hardware. It is often compared on a $ for $ basis with pc boxes; and its design isn’t/couldn’t be great enough to make it peerless – it is essentially a PC. This is why we have wars in threads claiming the powermac sucks, and responses telling people to go buy a dell. Apple does add tremendous value with its software and design to its systems, and in certain cases, I don’t think any reasonable performance delta would stop people from buying macs (ie: imac, and to a lesser extant ibook and tibook). But the powermac doesn’t fall in that category – if it can’t perform, sales will stop – they already have.
The main thoughts I have are: at what point is apple’s value-add not enough to compete with the efficiency of the PC world? How much would we benefit from having apple evolve into otherApple?
Personally – I think the entire PC sector would benefit from an Apple metamorphosis into otherApple, and I think otherApple would succeed financially – with great growth potential: if they balance their profit based on the merits of each componant: the OS gets the margin it SHOULD get, the Apps get the margin they SHOULD get, and the macs themselves get the margin they SHOULD get – with SHOULD meaning what the market would bear with competition. Apple is not otherApple today because it would require risk and change (and some technical effort), but it could be some day – in my opinion, it WILL be some day, some day soon - apple is a changing company.
-D
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