Think of it like a vehicle: Lets say I want to tow a travle-trailer -- I go to the dealer and my only two options are the Dodge decoda/Ford Ranger, which is too small, or a semi, which is way over kill...Whit I need is an F-250 or a Ram 1500...
Apples only option is to buy a full RV (the iMac) whos trim (monitor) isnt as good as the one i have.
Ummm...that's like saying that Porsche needs to offer a pickup because you want one. You're lucky they offer you a high end SUV and soon a sedan. Even if they did offer a pickup it certainly wouldn't be cheap.
A $999 tower from Apple while Jobs is at the helm is a pipedream. It kills the iMac and if they wanted to do that they'd done so during the switch and just offered a mid-tower at that price point.
Well, some people in this thread are talking about $1500 to $1700, but that's just too expensive (and unnecessary to achieve 28% profit margin) for a Conroe tower with limited expandability. There is no reason the line couldn't start at $999.
This was rebutted as to the loss of total revenue unless you dramatically increased sales. For each of these $999 mini towers that you sell instead of $1699 20" iMac you lose $197 ($479 profit you would have made - $279 you did make). For each $2100 Mac Pro you cannibalize you lose $309. For each 17" iMac you cannibalize you lose $85.
On the plus side, for every 1.66 mini you cannibalize you gain $55.
This is just to break even...not make any additional money or offset the risk of having spent the engineering dollars to build great AIO packages at now much reduced sales that you might as well have not bothered.
What's also interesting is that you're insisting you have a 28% margin at $999 despite being only $100 more expensive than a whitebox PC with roughly the same specs and hundreds less than the equivalent Dell or Gateway conroe box but having a top end enclosure and build quality suitable for Apple products.
Ummm...that's like saying that Porsche needs to offer a pickup because you want one. You're lucky they offer you a high end SUV and soon a sedan. Even if they did offer a pickup it certainly wouldn't be cheap.
A $999 tower from Apple while Jobs is at the helm is a pipedream. It kills the iMac and if they wanted to do that they'd done so during the switch and just offered a mid-tower at that price point.
Vinea
Then Apple going anywhere is a pipe dream. Also the reason why Microsoft doesn't have to be better than Apple to beat them, they pretty much just have to show up.
As I outlined in this post, Apple could easily achieve the following spec. for $999: . . .
If Apple offered the usual options for wireless, HDD, RAM, optical drive, GPU, and the choice between 1.83 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 2.66 GHz and 2.93 GHz Conroe, this could realistically scale up to $2499. . .
Wow. It looks like I made a lucky guess a while back, $1000 to $2400.
This was rebutted as to the loss of total revenue unless you dramatically increased sales. For each of these $999 mini towers that you sell instead of $1699 20" iMac you lose $197 ($479 profit you would have made - $279 you did make). For each $2100 Mac Pro you cannibalize you lose $309. For each 17" iMac you cannibalize you lose $85.
On the plus side, for every 1.66 mini you cannibalize you gain $55.
This is just to break even...not make any additional money or offset the risk of having spent the engineering dollars to build great AIO packages at now much reduced sales that you might as well have not bothered.
What's also interesting is that you're insisting you have a 28% margin at $999 despite being only $100 more expensive than a whitebox PC with roughly the same specs and hundreds less than the equivalent Dell or Gateway conroe box but having a top end enclosure and build quality suitable for Apple products.
Vinea
Penny wise, pound foolish. That kind of thinking is great if you want to remain stagnant, yet remain in the game. It doesn't factor in prosumer sales that might have gone to Apple, if there was a suitable computer or further iMac/Mini sales because that prosumer recommends Apple instead of Dell.
The fact that Dell currently does not offer a comparable machine to the ones at Tiger Direct, without a Monitor bundled, makes comparisons hard. The XPS 410 comes bundled with a 20" monitor, 500 GB hard drive, 2 GB ram. These machines are more for the professional market as is the XPS 700.
No, these machines are for gamers as they only appear in the home and home office stores. Go into small business and you get the Precision and not the XPS.
If you want to define the market your way, that's fine.
If you prefer you can use Area-51 3500 as the start of your upper end consumer line at $949 topping out at around $1799 Area-51 7500 with the Area-51 ALX being an outlier at $6K.
Can Apple be price competitive against an Alienware priced at $1799 or the XPS 700 series? Perhaps but likey not with the same gamer focus (ie a cheaper $1599 tower without SLI).
Also the reason why Microsoft doesn't have to be better than Apple to beat them, they pretty much just have to show up.
How is that true at all?? By beating Apple does that imply selling more computers? Because they have been for a while now. Apple is higher quality, IMO. And that makes them better. Sales does not imply better quality. Theres just alot more pc companeys. Theres only ONE Apple, and theres only ever going to be one Apple!
Penny wise, pound foolish. That kind of thinking is great if you want to remain stagnant, yet remain in the game. It doesn't factor in prosumer sales that might have gone to Apple, if there was a suitable computer or further iMac/Mini sales because that prosumer recommends Apple instead of Dell.
Prosumer or enthusiast? Prosumer they will possibly address with a $1599-$1799 Mac pro.
Enthusiast? I haven't seen any indicator they want to go after that or the gamer market.
Stagnant? Um, only if you think Mini-Tower advances the state of the art any. There are other markets and Apple likely want's to retain the cachet of their branding. A $999 Apple tower would likely sell as well as a $25000 Porsche. Note that there aren't any models despite the popularity of the inexpensive 924 back in the 70s.
I'd rather see a mini-av and a iTablet than a mid-tower to compete against the ranks of Dell, HPs and whiteboxes.
In any case it was hypothetical numbers and if you want to show the pro side you also need to show that you can mitigate the con side beyond "if you build it they will come".
Ummm...that's like saying that Porsche needs to offer a pickup because you want one. You're lucky they offer you a high end SUV and soon a sedan. Even if they did offer a pickup it certainly wouldn't be cheap. . .
Everything you have been posting makes perfect sense, . . . IF Apple were just another vendor selling Windows computers!
Heck, in that case Apple could offer just one model AIO if they wished, or just an AIO and a Pro tower. What Apple didn't offer customers would not hurt the Windows platform because there are plenty of other vendors to plug the holes in the product line.
BUT, Apple is selling a platform, the Mac platform, not just individual boxes. Car analogies always break down because of this difference. Apple needs to satisfy most of the customer needs with some kind of Mac. Few customers are willing to maintain two separate platforms, no matter how easy some people say it is.
I kept bringing up this point about a platform versus individual models earlier. Evidently you and some others believe it is unimportant.
I'm not one to get mad easily, but would you please stop with the car analogies? They do not work because there is no OS/platform equivalent and market share for auto manufacturers doesn't matter.
Now, if you really think my costings are unrealistic, the onus is on you to indicate where you think I've gone wrong. To just say "uh, Apple can't do it for that price, because other people can do a similar thing but with higher specs for $100 less, so you must be wrong" is not a very good argument (and actually, Dell don't have a proper equivalent to this proposed tower. the XPSs are a lot more because they come standard with much higher specifications, or didn't you notice?).
Secondly you seem absolutely dead-set that the only thing that this machine would do is cannibalise sales of other Mac models. What possible justification do you have to come to that conclusion when it is so obvious that the bulk of the computer desktop market is towers costing under $2000? You really think Apple is competing well here? The numbers are all against you.
Secondly you seem absolutely dead-set that the only thing that this machine would do is cannibalise sales of other Mac models. What possible justification do you have to come to that conclusion when it is so obvious that the bulk of the computer desktop market is towers costing under $2000? You really think Apple is competing well here? The numbers are all against you.
Numbers don't matter to the hardcore Apple AIO fans...the fact that in the life on the iMac, from 1998 to right now, I could get a faster preformance from an equal priced PC, and while the price of PCs since 1998 has been cut in about half, the mother fucking iMac has DOUBLED!
OK: what is so bad about the notion of doubling the height of the MacMini, adding a PCIe GPU slot (a single would work, no double wide needed here), a desktop optical and HD Drive, and maybe something spiffy like FrontRow for $999?
OK: what is so bad about the notion of doubling the height of the MacMini, adding a PCIe GPU slot (a single would work, no double wide needed here), a desktop optical and HD Drive, and maybe something spiffy like FrontRow for $999?
I think that might be a bit ugly. Apple would have to do a bit of work on the styling.
Something that I think confuses people is that good aesthetic design doesn't actually significantly increase the cost of a tower on a unit by unit basis. It just means that the development costs are higher. But that's part of the reason why Apple has 28% margins: to pay for that extra development cost.
I'm not one to get mad easily, but would you please stop with the car analogies? They do not work because there is no OS/platform equivalent and market share for auto manufacturers doesn't matter.
So tell me if car analogies make you SOOOO irate why didn't you lash out at a_greer's ford ranger/semi/F-150 analogy? You even stated that you agreed with the analogy.
Bit of a double standard temper tantrum there don't you think?
In any case, market share does matter to auto manufacturers that deal with volume. The US big 3 wouldn't be in such bad shape (or simply owned by someone else) if they still commanded the same marketshare that they did before because they make money on volume. Niche/upper end auto makers like Porsche don't care as much about market share as long as some minimum volume is maintained.
So no. If those that argue the other side wishes to bring up car analogies first I guess you'll just have to grit your teeth or advert your eyes when I respond in kind.
Quote:
Now, if you really think my costings are unrealistic, the onus is on you to indicate where you think I've gone wrong. To just say "uh, Apple can't do it for that price, because other people can do a similar thing but with higher specs for $100 less, so you must be wrong" is not a very good argument (and actually, Dell don't have a proper equivalent to this proposed tower. the XPSs are a lot more because they come standard with much higher specifications, or didn't you notice?).
Yep, I question your costings because they seem very aggressive in comparison to the market. The Gateway E6610D SB is pretty close. 1GB vs 512MB RAM. X1300 vs X1600. Comes with a free 19" LCD that they say is worth $225. Total is $1349.
Gateways gross margins are what? 5.5% in Q2 06 ranging up to 10% Q2 05. The numbers we use here are all averages since we don't know the numbers for each model but I'm going to hazard Gateway is more agressive than Apple on pricing.
Since you're pulling your numbers out of your rear I'd say the onus is on you to show that a $999 conroe box does indeed have 28% margins when other, more agressive, companies can't seem to hit that mark and super agressive whitebox makers with low overheads can barely beat it by $100.
Quote:
Secondly you seem absolutely dead-set that the only thing that this machine would do is cannibalise sales of other Mac models. What possible justification do you have to come to that conclusion when it is so obvious that the bulk of the computer desktop market is towers costing under $2000? You really think Apple is competing well here? The numbers are all against you.
If you wish to destroy one segment of the Apple line up (the AIOs) then I'd say that your gains in switchers must offset the losses from cannibalization which should be pretty steep IF we accept YOUR assumptions that AIOs are poor values and not desireable by the majority of computer users (ie mini-towers are better for the majority of users).
It is up to you to show that you can offset the loss in revenue and show greater overall profits by capturing more marketshare after writing off the engineering costs for developing the AIO's that will likely start selling in the range the cube did since, as you argue, the bulk of the market desires towers and computers less than $2000 (and in fact less than $1000).
See your assertions cut both ways.
You can also show that the loss in volume in purchases of notebook parts used in the iMacs don't hurt the laptop and Mac mini margins for bonus points.
As far as the "numbers being against" me...shall we compare the margins and profitability of Gateway and Dell to Apple again? I say that Apple is doing quite well in its overall strategy...and that INCLUDES the desktop segment. You want to change course...I'd say the "onus" is all on you.
You also want to show that Apple can gain significant share in 2006 in comparison with early 90's when arguably MacOS held a greater advantage over Windows 3.0 than OSX has over XP. Especially given that Apple's worst times were when they pushed the lower cost Performas to the forefront to gain marketshare.
Comments
Yes, it is but there is no middle ground...
Think of it like a vehicle: Lets say I want to tow a travle-trailer -- I go to the dealer and my only two options are the Dodge decoda/Ford Ranger, which is too small, or a semi, which is way over kill...Whit I need is an F-250 or a Ram 1500...
Apples only option is to buy a full RV (the iMac) whos trim (monitor) isnt as good as the one i have.
Ummm...that's like saying that Porsche needs to offer a pickup because you want one. You're lucky they offer you a high end SUV and soon a sedan. Even if they did offer a pickup it certainly wouldn't be cheap.
A $999 tower from Apple while Jobs is at the helm is a pipedream. It kills the iMac and if they wanted to do that they'd done so during the switch and just offered a mid-tower at that price point.
Vinea
Well, some people in this thread are talking about $1500 to $1700, but that's just too expensive (and unnecessary to achieve 28% profit margin) for a Conroe tower with limited expandability. There is no reason the line couldn't start at $999.
This was rebutted as to the loss of total revenue unless you dramatically increased sales. For each of these $999 mini towers that you sell instead of $1699 20" iMac you lose $197 ($479 profit you would have made - $279 you did make). For each $2100 Mac Pro you cannibalize you lose $309. For each 17" iMac you cannibalize you lose $85.
On the plus side, for every 1.66 mini you cannibalize you gain $55.
This is just to break even...not make any additional money or offset the risk of having spent the engineering dollars to build great AIO packages at now much reduced sales that you might as well have not bothered.
What's also interesting is that you're insisting you have a 28% margin at $999 despite being only $100 more expensive than a whitebox PC with roughly the same specs and hundreds less than the equivalent Dell or Gateway conroe box but having a top end enclosure and build quality suitable for Apple products.
Vinea
Ummm...that's like saying that Porsche needs to offer a pickup because you want one. You're lucky they offer you a high end SUV and soon a sedan. Even if they did offer a pickup it certainly wouldn't be cheap.
A $999 tower from Apple while Jobs is at the helm is a pipedream. It kills the iMac and if they wanted to do that they'd done so during the switch and just offered a mid-tower at that price point.
Vinea
Then Apple going anywhere is a pipe dream. Also the reason why Microsoft doesn't have to be better than Apple to beat them, they pretty much just have to show up.
As I outlined in this post, Apple could easily achieve the following spec. for $999: . . .
If Apple offered the usual options for wireless, HDD, RAM, optical drive, GPU, and the choice between 1.83 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 2.66 GHz and 2.93 GHz Conroe, this could realistically scale up to $2499. . .
Wow. It looks like I made a lucky guess a while back, $1000 to $2400.
This was rebutted as to the loss of total revenue unless you dramatically increased sales. For each of these $999 mini towers that you sell instead of $1699 20" iMac you lose $197 ($479 profit you would have made - $279 you did make). For each $2100 Mac Pro you cannibalize you lose $309. For each 17" iMac you cannibalize you lose $85.
On the plus side, for every 1.66 mini you cannibalize you gain $55.
This is just to break even...not make any additional money or offset the risk of having spent the engineering dollars to build great AIO packages at now much reduced sales that you might as well have not bothered.
What's also interesting is that you're insisting you have a 28% margin at $999 despite being only $100 more expensive than a whitebox PC with roughly the same specs and hundreds less than the equivalent Dell or Gateway conroe box but having a top end enclosure and build quality suitable for Apple products.
Vinea
Penny wise, pound foolish. That kind of thinking is great if you want to remain stagnant, yet remain in the game. It doesn't factor in prosumer sales that might have gone to Apple, if there was a suitable computer or further iMac/Mini sales because that prosumer recommends Apple instead of Dell.
Where did I compare the XPS 700 to a Mac Pro?
You don't but the top end of the consumer line is more expensive than the cheapest Mac pro.
No, I define the mid to upper end consumer line, without a monitor, to extend from $799 to $1299+
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...&postcount=188
The fact that Dell currently does not offer a comparable machine to the ones at Tiger Direct, without a Monitor bundled, makes comparisons hard. The XPS 410 comes bundled with a 20" monitor, 500 GB hard drive, 2 GB ram. These machines are more for the professional market as is the XPS 700.
No, these machines are for gamers as they only appear in the home and home office stores. Go into small business and you get the Precision and not the XPS.
If you want to define the market your way, that's fine.
If you prefer you can use Area-51 3500 as the start of your upper end consumer line at $949 topping out at around $1799 Area-51 7500 with the Area-51 ALX being an outlier at $6K.
Can Apple be price competitive against an Alienware priced at $1799 or the XPS 700 series? Perhaps but likey not with the same gamer focus (ie a cheaper $1599 tower without SLI).
Vinea
Also the reason why Microsoft doesn't have to be better than Apple to beat them, they pretty much just have to show up.
How is that true at all?? By beating Apple does that imply selling more computers? Because they have been for a while now. Apple is higher quality, IMO. And that makes them better. Sales does not imply better quality. Theres just alot more pc companeys. Theres only ONE Apple, and theres only ever going to be one Apple!
Penny wise, pound foolish. That kind of thinking is great if you want to remain stagnant, yet remain in the game. It doesn't factor in prosumer sales that might have gone to Apple, if there was a suitable computer or further iMac/Mini sales because that prosumer recommends Apple instead of Dell.
Prosumer or enthusiast? Prosumer they will possibly address with a $1599-$1799 Mac pro.
Enthusiast? I haven't seen any indicator they want to go after that or the gamer market.
Stagnant? Um, only if you think Mini-Tower advances the state of the art any. There are other markets and Apple likely want's to retain the cachet of their branding. A $999 Apple tower would likely sell as well as a $25000 Porsche. Note that there aren't any models despite the popularity of the inexpensive 924 back in the 70s.
I'd rather see a mini-av and a iTablet than a mid-tower to compete against the ranks of Dell, HPs and whiteboxes.
In any case it was hypothetical numbers and if you want to show the pro side you also need to show that you can mitigate the con side beyond "if you build it they will come".
Vinea
Ummm...that's like saying that Porsche needs to offer a pickup because you want one. You're lucky they offer you a high end SUV and soon a sedan. Even if they did offer a pickup it certainly wouldn't be cheap. . .
Everything you have been posting makes perfect sense, . . . IF Apple were just another vendor selling Windows computers!
Heck, in that case Apple could offer just one model AIO if they wished, or just an AIO and a Pro tower. What Apple didn't offer customers would not hurt the Windows platform because there are plenty of other vendors to plug the holes in the product line.
BUT, Apple is selling a platform, the Mac platform, not just individual boxes. Car analogies always break down because of this difference. Apple needs to satisfy most of the customer needs with some kind of Mac. Few customers are willing to maintain two separate platforms, no matter how easy some people say it is.
I kept bringing up this point about a platform versus individual models earlier. Evidently you and some others believe it is unimportant.
I'm not one to get mad easily, but would you please stop with the car analogies? They do not work because there is no OS/platform equivalent and market share for auto manufacturers doesn't matter.
Now, if you really think my costings are unrealistic, the onus is on you to indicate where you think I've gone wrong. To just say "uh, Apple can't do it for that price, because other people can do a similar thing but with higher specs for $100 less, so you must be wrong" is not a very good argument (and actually, Dell don't have a proper equivalent to this proposed tower. the XPSs are a lot more because they come standard with much higher specifications, or didn't you notice?).
Secondly you seem absolutely dead-set that the only thing that this machine would do is cannibalise sales of other Mac models. What possible justification do you have to come to that conclusion when it is so obvious that the bulk of the computer desktop market is towers costing under $2000? You really think Apple is competing well here? The numbers are all against you.
Secondly you seem absolutely dead-set that the only thing that this machine would do is cannibalise sales of other Mac models. What possible justification do you have to come to that conclusion when it is so obvious that the bulk of the computer desktop market is towers costing under $2000? You really think Apple is competing well here? The numbers are all against you.
Numbers don't matter to the hardcore Apple AIO fans...the fact that in the life on the iMac, from 1998 to right now, I could get a faster preformance from an equal priced PC, and while the price of PCs since 1998 has been cut in about half, the mother fucking iMac has DOUBLED!
iMac has DOUBLED!
OK: what is so bad about the notion of doubling the height of the MacMini, adding a PCIe GPU slot (a single would work, no double wide needed here), a desktop optical and HD Drive, and maybe something spiffy like FrontRow for $999?
I think that might be a bit ugly. Apple would have to do a bit of work on the styling.
Something that I think confuses people is that good aesthetic design doesn't actually significantly increase the cost of a tower on a unit by unit basis. It just means that the development costs are higher. But that's part of the reason why Apple has 28% margins: to pay for that extra development cost.
I stand corrected: I somehow remembered the CRT iMac costing like$699
I stand corrected: I somehow remembered the CRT iMac costing like$699
At one point it did. That was for the low-end version of it.
http://web.archive.org/web/200002291...cts/AppleStore
Vinea,
I'm not one to get mad easily, but would you please stop with the car analogies? They do not work because there is no OS/platform equivalent and market share for auto manufacturers doesn't matter.
So tell me if car analogies make you SOOOO irate why didn't you lash out at a_greer's ford ranger/semi/F-150 analogy? You even stated that you agreed with the analogy.
Bit of a double standard temper tantrum there don't you think?
In any case, market share does matter to auto manufacturers that deal with volume. The US big 3 wouldn't be in such bad shape (or simply owned by someone else) if they still commanded the same marketshare that they did before because they make money on volume. Niche/upper end auto makers like Porsche don't care as much about market share as long as some minimum volume is maintained.
So no. If those that argue the other side wishes to bring up car analogies first I guess you'll just have to grit your teeth or advert your eyes when I respond in kind.
Now, if you really think my costings are unrealistic, the onus is on you to indicate where you think I've gone wrong. To just say "uh, Apple can't do it for that price, because other people can do a similar thing but with higher specs for $100 less, so you must be wrong" is not a very good argument (and actually, Dell don't have a proper equivalent to this proposed tower. the XPSs are a lot more because they come standard with much higher specifications, or didn't you notice?).
Yep, I question your costings because they seem very aggressive in comparison to the market. The Gateway E6610D SB is pretty close. 1GB vs 512MB RAM. X1300 vs X1600. Comes with a free 19" LCD that they say is worth $225. Total is $1349.
Gateways gross margins are what? 5.5% in Q2 06 ranging up to 10% Q2 05. The numbers we use here are all averages since we don't know the numbers for each model but I'm going to hazard Gateway is more agressive than Apple on pricing.
Since you're pulling your numbers out of your rear I'd say the onus is on you to show that a $999 conroe box does indeed have 28% margins when other, more agressive, companies can't seem to hit that mark and super agressive whitebox makers with low overheads can barely beat it by $100.
Secondly you seem absolutely dead-set that the only thing that this machine would do is cannibalise sales of other Mac models. What possible justification do you have to come to that conclusion when it is so obvious that the bulk of the computer desktop market is towers costing under $2000? You really think Apple is competing well here? The numbers are all against you.
If you wish to destroy one segment of the Apple line up (the AIOs) then I'd say that your gains in switchers must offset the losses from cannibalization which should be pretty steep IF we accept YOUR assumptions that AIOs are poor values and not desireable by the majority of computer users (ie mini-towers are better for the majority of users).
It is up to you to show that you can offset the loss in revenue and show greater overall profits by capturing more marketshare after writing off the engineering costs for developing the AIO's that will likely start selling in the range the cube did since, as you argue, the bulk of the market desires towers and computers less than $2000 (and in fact less than $1000).
See your assertions cut both ways.
You can also show that the loss in volume in purchases of notebook parts used in the iMacs don't hurt the laptop and Mac mini margins for bonus points.
As far as the "numbers being against" me...shall we compare the margins and profitability of Gateway and Dell to Apple again? I say that Apple is doing quite well in its overall strategy...and that INCLUDES the desktop segment. You want to change course...I'd say the "onus" is all on you.
You also want to show that Apple can gain significant share in 2006 in comparison with early 90's when arguably MacOS held a greater advantage over Windows 3.0 than OSX has over XP. Especially given that Apple's worst times were when they pushed the lower cost Performas to the forefront to gain marketshare.
Vinea
$799 here
http://web.archive.org/web/200002291...cts/AppleStore
The first rev of the iMac in 1998 was $1299.