Don't expect the new powermac at a prize lower than the G4.
If Apple sell them at the same prize, it will be a good new. If they sell them for 200 $ more, it will be a bad new and they will be in trouble.
My bet is they will try to sell them for nearly the same prize. When a company like Apple is developping a new computer, they have a goal in term of prize. I doubt that Apple will be foolish to make a computer more expansive than the previous one. That's not the way the market evoluate. In other ways, it's not the interest of Apple to make cheaper towers, they don't want to have a drop in their margins nor want have a diminution of their income. Their bet is : same prize, same margin, but a lot more of computers selled.
"Two, if you get a 1299 PMac bottom end, who the fvck will by a 1499-1599 17" iMac? "
I would. A 17" screen, which I don't happen to own, would put me back another $700. Plus, I don't think we are going to see a 1299 pmac.
Plus, the iMac takes up less space which for me is another consideration. Plus, the iMac form factor is very ergonometric. Another consideration for me.
Those people demanding lower prices on these upcoming PowerMacs will be sorely disappointed. Don't get your hopes up for more price slashing -- I would bet that Apple will increase the price at least by $100 or $200.
Why?
1) Pent up demand. Simple economics. Quark XPress has arrived. The G4 is almost out the door. People will snap up these babies as fast as possible even if the price goes up a bunch, since they're an incredible value with all the extra goodies added on (PCI-X, optical audio in/out, G5 processor, fast system bus, fast hard drive, fast/lots of memory).
2) Apple's new towers will be incredible values at the existing prices of the current G4s. Apple's new towers will include EVERYTHING (if the listed specs are right) -- FireWire 400/800, USB, VGA output, DVI output, PCI-X, DDR RAM, Bluetooth support built-in, 802.11g support built-in, AGP 8X, and (finally) a fast processor. While Apple's current G4 tower lineup is a bit languishing, the new G5s will lack just about nothing on the cutting edge. While you could probably outprice a current G4 tower with a Wintel offerring, I doubt you could outprice the upcoming G5 towers even with a bit of an increase in price. There is just so much in these towers.
Looking at the leaked pic of specs, I really can't understand how someone could even say that the existing prices are too high to attract Wintel users.
3) Apple is a company. Companies need profit to stay alive. Apple makes squat off their software offerrings. Ergo, Apple makes money off hardware. With all the things that these new G5s seem to have, Apple really can't shave off much of the price and still keep a profit. Furthermore, they are a company with very little marketshare. Apple didn't get $4 billion in the bank by keeping razor-thin margins like Dell does, no way, no how.
The only valid argument about prices that I've seen so far is the argument of the entry-level tower. A stripped down tower with not so many awesome features offerred at or around $1100 would do Apple good. Historically, though, Apple doesn't offer these things, and I wouldn't get my hopes up.
(Oh, yeah, and I'll say it once and never again: APPLE WILL NOT BE OFFERRING ANY PRODUCTS WITH AN INTEL PROCESSOR ON THE INSIDE. It would be stupid to maintain two builds of the same operating system, especially since third-party software wouldn't necessarily translate over to Intel offerrings. Just get it out of your head... Apple will never ship a product with an Intel processor unless it is in very, very dire straits. And I don't think a tower with those kind of specs puts Apple in that bad of a position. *** sim points to the leaked spec pic.)
By now lotsa pros have "switched" away from Applel. The PPC970, while a major boost over the G4, will not be such a great boost over x86, at least not in it's lower clocked, single CPU applications, by many acounts it will still be slightly slower when used in that way. The idea that they can jack up prices because of pent up demand will not carry more than 1 quarter. Over the last two years, any significant model that had too high an MSRP, had sales fall of dramatically two-three months after its debut. The original iMac FP, various revs of PB, the first MDD towers. These were all machines that offered good features or performance for their markets, but once Apple burned through rabid fans, their sales immediately fell off a cliff. Fans will be more rabid for a G5, but they are still a limited supply of people, and while sales might take a little longer than 2-3 mon ths to hit their traditional fall off, probably 4-6 months in this case, they will, and when they do, they will do so dramatically. It has happened so many times in the past -- one week sales are good, and two weeks later buyers want nothing to do with them.
I wouldn't say Apple has been "smart" about pricing, they've only recently started learning to price to a more appropriate level for the market.
There are a host of reasons why, even a G5 tower (entry level) is cheaper to make than an i/eMac, and why it needs to get cheaper than 1499.
Any lost e/iMac sales are more than made up for, by the fact that even at 1299 a G5 tower would carry a better margin than a customized enclosure machine with built in display and a miniturization penalty.
People want affordable towers, apple will provide them, or lose sales once the initial fervor dies down --- something that won't take too long.
If you'll notice, SimX, I've not said anywhere that Apple needs to sell a loaded DP G5 for 1299, I said a "stripped down tower," just put the G5 in there and the modern Mobo, the rest of the spec can be fairly minimal as concerns RAM, drives, and the GPU, and optical.
Steve is, in spite of his mercurialness, a remarkable pragmatist at business. After that crew came in, they hacked out everything that didn't contribute either short term or long term. From what was left, they divided the business into two areas. The stuff that could contribute to the long term health of Apple became price/feature competitive while the stuff that couldn't compete was used to suck consumers out of as much money as possible for the short term.
Laptops are cheap because feature-wise they are competitive. Apple can win this market and gain share. The desktops are expensive because they suck and Apple knows it - they just haven't been able to get the goods out of Mot to change things so they're going to extract every penny out of loyal Mac users that will pay anything to avoid Wintel.
The plan probably from either now or early next year on is that since Apple will be competitive on features, they will go after marketshare with everything they have - all $4B of it. The profits will come from secondary sales - software, accessories (iPod, monitors, new stuff... hmm), and services (iTMS, .mac) which command higher margins.
Apple may not have enough coming in from these markets right now to really slash margins, but be sure that the eventual plan is to be competitive on price and exceptional on features. Ironically, this might mean that prices of the new machines will be the same or *less* than the current ones.
The big clue about the strategy change on hardware was last Jan when the baseline prices started to get slashed. PMac prices now aren't awful, if you ignore the performance. Drop the current prices on the rumored machines and things look pretty good.
What this means, Matsu, is that you can probably put the price dance in hibernation. Apple will be after marketshare, not minimal profitability. Toward that goal, I expect more strategic acquisitions, and Apple will need to get sector penetration - an agreement with IBM where they start using Apple or IBM hardware and OS X in their installations and support would be a move in that direction.
And I will once again say that there is an opportunity for Apple to jump on Opteron and have a second line that won't fall into the morass of x86 and still give companies an option in Windows. It's yet another mechanism for gaining share and driving those secondary profits. I don't believe that Jobs is as loyal to PPC as we are.
.
Amen.
That's it.
Not many are counting the 'new' focus on software and services and 'external to Mac' hardware that will allow Apple to offset margins to build margins. This with iTunes music store...and coming to Wintel...and who knows what other software to Wintel...Apple can reduce hardware prices.... They aint 'Mac only' anymore. Not with iPod...not with iTunes as per the Fall. Out the box? Mac being the 'Box'? Intriguing, noh? Nobody thought Apple would do X-serve. But they are. Or Unix. But they are. Or cut Tower prices. But they did. Or...a music player...but THEY DID!
Different Apple. New Apple. Thinking Different.
A superb post...Johnsonwax.
And Matsu. You're callin' it. Apple's laptops are the dog's danglies...but why not the desktops? Johnsonwax alludes to this. But you're right, Matsu? It IS frustrating that Apple's desktops are naff and more expensive than their portables. Doesn't make 'sense'.
Keep the posts coming. I can't add much. You've both done it for me.
People want affordable towers, apple will provide them, or lose sales once the initial fervor dies down --- something that won't take too long.
If you'll notice, SimX, I've not said anywhere that Apple needs to sell a loaded DP G5 for 1299, I said a "stripped down tower," just put the G5 in there and the modern Mobo, the rest of the spec can be fairly minimal as concerns RAM, drives, and the GPU, and optical.
Better make an impact, NOW.
Exactly. An important distinction. Stripped bare bar mobo/cpu. Cheap as chips. Let people spec what they want and pay the extra.
SO, eeexcelent news in the form of PPc970 monsters has arrived. 1.6SP-2.0DP with 8GB RAm and fully modernized I/O. But what about the prices?
No cryptic messages. No veiled statements. No name, no slogan. I'm happy to say regarding the prices on the new G5 PowerMacs pre-announced tourettes syndrome-style on Apple's web store: I haven't a clue in the world what they'll sell for.
Hopefully they will be reasonably priced, as I'd like to pick one up.
I like how noone has had a chance to test drive these babies and people are claiming there won't be that much of a speed difference between Pee4s and G5s.
They haven't even been seen yet and people are dismissing them as over priced and not that fast.
Yep, I would, these machines have to cover a lot of territory, from mid range to high end.
It is VERY VERY odd to speak of 1299-1499 towers as low end, in the rest of the market these would be high-end or upper mid range prices (for towers that come without displays). These are the market share building machines among a community that counts, PROS -- pros who will buy lotsa expensive software licenses, peripherals, service, they need a price on a PM class machine that can bring these people in, iMacs won't do it, they're boutique computers (especially in the minds of potential PM buyers).
I don't know what kinda pro you are talking about, but as a pro myself I need not want the top of the line not the low end stuff. When you are working with 500mb Photoshop file you don't have time for the beach ball to spinn. Time is money!
Sure, as long as they are spec'ed appropriately, with FW800, optical audio, HyperTransport mobo (or equivalent), PCI-X, etc, etc.
Seriously, what *is* a *similarly* spec'ed out Wintel box going for these days?? Can anyone *find* one? And please, let's look beyond just the CPU speed.
I'm not saying that these Dells are matched spec for spec, just that the lowest price there ($699) is pretty much the entry-level price for an expandable, fast, stripped down box.
You may not like Dell being the market-setter, but where Dell goes, so go computer prices.
Until Apple sees fit to address this situation, expect the 2-5% (depending on who's counting) market share to continue ad infinitum.
Comments
If Apple sell them at the same prize, it will be a good new. If they sell them for 200 $ more, it will be a bad new and they will be in trouble.
My bet is they will try to sell them for nearly the same prize. When a company like Apple is developping a new computer, they have a goal in term of prize. I doubt that Apple will be foolish to make a computer more expansive than the previous one. That's not the way the market evoluate. In other ways, it's not the interest of Apple to make cheaper towers, they don't want to have a drop in their margins nor want have a diminution of their income. Their bet is : same prize, same margin, but a lot more of computers selled.
Originally posted by kcmac
by Matsu
"Two, if you get a 1299 PMac bottom end, who the fvck will by a 1499-1599 17" iMac? "
I would. A 17" screen, which I don't happen to own, would put me back another $700. Plus, I don't think we are going to see a 1299 pmac.
Plus, the iMac takes up less space which for me is another consideration. Plus, the iMac form factor is very ergonometric. Another consideration for me.
plus, the iMac is very, very quiet.
Those people demanding lower prices on these upcoming PowerMacs will be sorely disappointed. Don't get your hopes up for more price slashing -- I would bet that Apple will increase the price at least by $100 or $200.
Why?
1) Pent up demand. Simple economics. Quark XPress has arrived. The G4 is almost out the door. People will snap up these babies as fast as possible even if the price goes up a bunch, since they're an incredible value with all the extra goodies added on (PCI-X, optical audio in/out, G5 processor, fast system bus, fast hard drive, fast/lots of memory).
2) Apple's new towers will be incredible values at the existing prices of the current G4s. Apple's new towers will include EVERYTHING (if the listed specs are right) -- FireWire 400/800, USB, VGA output, DVI output, PCI-X, DDR RAM, Bluetooth support built-in, 802.11g support built-in, AGP 8X, and (finally) a fast processor. While Apple's current G4 tower lineup is a bit languishing, the new G5s will lack just about nothing on the cutting edge. While you could probably outprice a current G4 tower with a Wintel offerring, I doubt you could outprice the upcoming G5 towers even with a bit of an increase in price. There is just so much in these towers.
Looking at the leaked pic of specs, I really can't understand how someone could even say that the existing prices are too high to attract Wintel users.
3) Apple is a company. Companies need profit to stay alive. Apple makes squat off their software offerrings. Ergo, Apple makes money off hardware. With all the things that these new G5s seem to have, Apple really can't shave off much of the price and still keep a profit. Furthermore, they are a company with very little marketshare. Apple didn't get $4 billion in the bank by keeping razor-thin margins like Dell does, no way, no how.
The only valid argument about prices that I've seen so far is the argument of the entry-level tower. A stripped down tower with not so many awesome features offerred at or around $1100 would do Apple good. Historically, though, Apple doesn't offer these things, and I wouldn't get my hopes up.
(Oh, yeah, and I'll say it once and never again: APPLE WILL NOT BE OFFERRING ANY PRODUCTS WITH AN INTEL PROCESSOR ON THE INSIDE. It would be stupid to maintain two builds of the same operating system, especially since third-party software wouldn't necessarily translate over to Intel offerrings. Just get it out of your head... Apple will never ship a product with an Intel processor unless it is in very, very dire straits. And I don't think a tower with those kind of specs puts Apple in that bad of a position. *** sim points to the leaked spec pic.)
I wouldn't say Apple has been "smart" about pricing, they've only recently started learning to price to a more appropriate level for the market.
There are a host of reasons why, even a G5 tower (entry level) is cheaper to make than an i/eMac, and why it needs to get cheaper than 1499.
Any lost e/iMac sales are more than made up for, by the fact that even at 1299 a G5 tower would carry a better margin than a customized enclosure machine with built in display and a miniturization penalty.
People want affordable towers, apple will provide them, or lose sales once the initial fervor dies down --- something that won't take too long.
If you'll notice, SimX, I've not said anywhere that Apple needs to sell a loaded DP G5 for 1299, I said a "stripped down tower," just put the G5 in there and the modern Mobo, the rest of the spec can be fairly minimal as concerns RAM, drives, and the GPU, and optical.
Better make an impact, NOW
It's simple really.
Steve is, in spite of his mercurialness, a remarkable pragmatist at business. After that crew came in, they hacked out everything that didn't contribute either short term or long term. From what was left, they divided the business into two areas. The stuff that could contribute to the long term health of Apple became price/feature competitive while the stuff that couldn't compete was used to suck consumers out of as much money as possible for the short term.
Laptops are cheap because feature-wise they are competitive. Apple can win this market and gain share. The desktops are expensive because they suck and Apple knows it - they just haven't been able to get the goods out of Mot to change things so they're going to extract every penny out of loyal Mac users that will pay anything to avoid Wintel.
The plan probably from either now or early next year on is that since Apple will be competitive on features, they will go after marketshare with everything they have - all $4B of it. The profits will come from secondary sales - software, accessories (iPod, monitors, new stuff... hmm), and services (iTMS, .mac) which command higher margins.
Apple may not have enough coming in from these markets right now to really slash margins, but be sure that the eventual plan is to be competitive on price and exceptional on features. Ironically, this might mean that prices of the new machines will be the same or *less* than the current ones.
The big clue about the strategy change on hardware was last Jan when the baseline prices started to get slashed. PMac prices now aren't awful, if you ignore the performance. Drop the current prices on the rumored machines and things look pretty good.
What this means, Matsu, is that you can probably put the price dance in hibernation. Apple will be after marketshare, not minimal profitability. Toward that goal, I expect more strategic acquisitions, and Apple will need to get sector penetration - an agreement with IBM where they start using Apple or IBM hardware and OS X in their installations and support would be a move in that direction.
And I will once again say that there is an opportunity for Apple to jump on Opteron and have a second line that won't fall into the morass of x86 and still give companies an option in Windows. It's yet another mechanism for gaining share and driving those secondary profits. I don't believe that Jobs is as loyal to PPC as we are.
.
Amen.
That's it.
Not many are counting the 'new' focus on software and services and 'external to Mac' hardware that will allow Apple to offset margins to build margins. This with iTunes music store...and coming to Wintel...and who knows what other software to Wintel...Apple can reduce hardware prices.... They aint 'Mac only' anymore. Not with iPod...not with iTunes as per the Fall. Out the box? Mac being the 'Box'? Intriguing, noh? Nobody thought Apple would do X-serve. But they are. Or Unix. But they are. Or cut Tower prices. But they did. Or...a music player...but THEY DID!
Different Apple. New Apple. Thinking Different.
A superb post...Johnsonwax.
And Matsu. You're callin' it. Apple's laptops are the dog's danglies...but why not the desktops? Johnsonwax alludes to this. But you're right, Matsu? It IS frustrating that Apple's desktops are naff and more expensive than their portables. Doesn't make 'sense'.
Keep the posts coming. I can't add much. You've both done it for me.
Darn.
Lemon Bon Bon
People want affordable towers, apple will provide them, or lose sales once the initial fervor dies down --- something that won't take too long.
If you'll notice, SimX, I've not said anywhere that Apple needs to sell a loaded DP G5 for 1299, I said a "stripped down tower," just put the G5 in there and the modern Mobo, the rest of the spec can be fairly minimal as concerns RAM, drives, and the GPU, and optical.
Better make an impact, NOW.
Exactly. An important distinction. Stripped bare bar mobo/cpu. Cheap as chips. Let people spec what they want and pay the extra.
Bang on, Matsu.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Matsu
SO, eeexcelent news in the form of PPc970 monsters has arrived. 1.6SP-2.0DP with 8GB RAm and fully modernized I/O. But what about the prices?
No cryptic messages. No veiled statements. No name, no slogan. I'm happy to say regarding the prices on the new G5 PowerMacs pre-announced tourettes syndrome-style on Apple's web store: I haven't a clue in the world what they'll sell for.
Hopefully they will be reasonably priced, as I'd like to pick one up.
so tell it all baby!, tell it all!!!!!!
point. boy what the hell are you think we are getting!!!!??
They haven't even been seen yet and people are dismissing them as over priced and not that fast.
Interesting.
Originally posted by Matsu
Yep, I would, these machines have to cover a lot of territory, from mid range to high end.
It is VERY VERY odd to speak of 1299-1499 towers as low end, in the rest of the market these would be high-end or upper mid range prices (for towers that come without displays). These are the market share building machines among a community that counts, PROS -- pros who will buy lotsa expensive software licenses, peripherals, service, they need a price on a PM class machine that can bring these people in, iMacs won't do it, they're boutique computers (especially in the minds of potential PM buyers).
I don't know what kinda pro you are talking about, but as a pro myself I need not want the top of the line not the low end stuff. When you are working with 500mb Photoshop file you don't have time for the beach ball to spinn. Time is money!
1499 for entry
2199 mid
2799 high
Originally posted by O and A
i think these machines are gonna drop in price.
1499 for entry
2199 mid
2799 high
Um...that's what they are now, except the Middle is $2000
Originally posted by I, Fred
here's a big, fat, giant hint as to the entry-level range of prices Apple should consider
Sure, as long as they are spec'ed appropriately, with FW800, optical audio, HyperTransport mobo (or equivalent), PCI-X, etc, etc.
Seriously, what *is* a *similarly* spec'ed out Wintel box going for these days?? Can anyone *find* one? And please, let's look beyond just the CPU speed.
Originally posted by O and A
i think these machines are gonna drop in price.
1499 for entry
2199 mid
2799 high
entry 1799
mid 2499
high 3299
Originally posted by I, Fred
here's a big, fat, giant hint as to the entry-level range of prices Apple should consider
According to the specs apple posted on there site i don't see how u can compare it with those dells. especially in terms of price.
You may not like Dell being the market-setter, but where Dell goes, so go computer prices.
Until Apple sees fit to address this situation, expect the 2-5% (depending on who's counting) market share to continue ad infinitum.