Okay, that's fine, but that has nothing to do with the point at hand. The point I was making was that Apple spends money designing computers. Dell saves that money by assemblying computers. If Dell were to design computers like Apple does, it would cost them more money than they are currently spending. Therefore they would charge more for those computer in order to keep any kind of margin, since their margins are already low. This is the situation with every PC maker who makes AIO's. That's why people buy the towers instead. If everyone had the technical know-how to build PC's from components, noone would buy the PC towers that are now the vast majority of the Windows PC market because the only advantage from those machines is that they are already assembled and working. Would you all then start clamoring for Apple to start selling components instead of OEM computers?
Soooooo by your reasoning Apple's towers should be more expensive than equivalently spec.'d Dell towers, since Apple spends all this extra money on case design over what Dell does.
Except there's this huge problem with this. Dell's equivalently spec.'d machine isn't less expensive and depending on configurations is more expensive, a lot more.
Note: Even at that, all of this is meaningless if Apple doesn't really want to gain market share. If Apple really wants to gain market share, they need to offer consumer desktops that aren't specifically and with all intent on Apple's part focusing on niche markets.
And no, if Apple does decide to focus on these niche markets they will not go out of business and they aren't doomed. They just need to admit that market share isn't important to them and stop pandering to investors with statements indicating they want more market share.
Me personally, I would like them to capture more market share, after all I am a stock holder.8)
Okay, that's fine, but that has nothing to do with the point at hand. The point I was making was that Apple spends money designing computers. Dell saves that money by assemblying computers. If Dell were to design computers like Apple does, it would cost them more money than they are currently spending. Therefore they would charge more for those computers in order to keep any kind of margin, since their margins are already low. This is the situation with every PC maker who makes AIO's. That's why people buy the towers instead. If everyone had the technical know-how to build PC's from components, noone would buy the PC towers that are now the vast majority of the Windows PC market because the only advantage from those machines is that they are already assembled and working. Would you all then start clamoring for Apple to start selling components instead of OEM computers?
Edit: Rickag, I believe this answers your question as well...
Yes, it does.
I'd still like to know what % of the Windows desktop market is in fact AIO. Wouldn'nt it be a hoot if it matched Apple's desktop market share, which I believe currently stands at about 2% of the US desktop market.
-- It's gonna be a long post, I'm sorry, bold in the quote is mine, I hope it will be comprehensible for all...--
It looks like they fail last quarter, desktop sales were down around 100,000 units and if I remember well iMacs used to represent more than 75% of Apple's desktop sales (we don't know exactly for last quarter since Apple doesn't give those numbers anymore).
Lets see how sales are after the next iMac rev before announcing failure in the desktop strategy. We hope that there are some folks holding back knowing that Intel has just pushed out new processors on or ahead of schedule.
Plus, given the expectations that the desktop market in general is declining then flat sales is still increasing share (granted, as I stated earlier, the big dip in Q3 isn't a good sign). They are winning share in the growth market (laptops).
I'm not a huge fan of the AIO format but the reality is Apple seems to consider them important. Therefore expectations of what machines will get released have to take that into account. Or not.
I'd still like to know what % of the Windows desktop market is in fact AIO. Wouldn'nt it be a hoot if it matched Apple's desktop market share, which I believe currently stands at about 2% of the US desktop market.
This doesn't even make sense! Are you saying that the same 2% of people is buying both the mac and Win AIO's?? What, do they have some bizarre addiction to them?
Again, is Apple's R&D and case design have to do with Dell's, Compac's and HP's case design? You were arguing that the Windows AIO's case design made them more expensive than similarly spec.'d towers. Apple has nothing to do with this.
then you said this to my response:
Quote:
Soooooo by your reasoning Apple's towers should be more expensive than equivalently spec.'d Dell towers, since Apple spends all this extra money on case design over what Dell does.
Remember, my original reply was to the assertion that expandable towers were extremely popular because they make up the vast majority of the machines sold on the Windows side. My answer was maybe that's just because they're cheaper by nature, and the alternatives on the Windows side are neither enticing visually or technically.
I believe this stands. There are reasons that the vast majority of people buy towers-but, for the vast majority of people, those reasons do not include that they will ever actually upgrade their computer beyond a RAM increase.
My answer was maybe that's just because they're cheaper by nature
That and they are expandable and you can use any monitor you want.
Since it's already been demonstrated that Apple can achieve at least 28% margins on an elegant Conroe-based tower starting at $999, I don't know why we even have to talk about DELL.
My previous comment to you about DELL's R&D wasn't really in relation to the central discussion of this thread, I was just pointing out that DELL does spend a lot of money on R&D.
I reckon DELL could sell a version of the proposed $999 Apple tower for $799. It's just that they've got a lot of Pentium Ds to shift right now. In 3 - 4 months, I reckon we'll see $799 Conroe towers from DELL.
Apparently you have a very pessimistic view of Apple's capabiltiies to design an innovative desktop that would appeal to a much larger market.\
I happen to believe that Apple could design a mid to upper end desktop that would be innovative and appeal to a broader market than the very narrow focused niche markets involved with the Mac mini and iMacs.
They already have, it's only available with quad xeons though. Still a headless iMac (aka Mac) might be interesting for the family market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Celemourn
re mobile workstation, you thinking something along the lines of what Alienware has on it's top end?
I'm thinking more a slightly thicker 17" MBP with a choice of a radeon mobility x1800 or mobile quadro FX 2500M
Lets see how sales are after the next iMac rev before announcing failure in the desktop strategy. We hope that there are some folks holding back knowing that Intel has just pushed out new processors on or ahead of schedule.
Plus, given the expectations that the desktop market in general is declining then flat sales is still increasing share (granted, as I stated earlier, the big dip in Q3 isn't a good sign). They are winning share in the growth market (laptops).
I'm not a huge fan of the AIO format but the reality is Apple seems to consider them important. Therefore expectations of what machines will get released have to take that into account. Or not.
Vinea
You should have quoted more of my post, anyway, the Intel iMac is selling since january (8 months) and desktop sales have decreased. The MacBook has been selling for 2/3 months and is a huge success. Like I said, the iMac needs an update ASAP and I hope it will help Apple desktop sales, but I think a new form factor would help even better. We'll have more to discuss in the weeks to come...
Sure, all Macs are relevant, if not in numbers, in image, sometimes in both. To me, the desktop line-up looks more like "look what we can do" than "we've got the right computer for you" right now. Like I said, all are "state of the art" in their categories, even if there is no equivalent categories in the PC world for all!
I'll be waiting for some announcements in the weeks to come, now that more pieces are in place (availability of different chips and chipsets), I'm looking forward to what Apple will offer with that.
This doesn't even make sense! Are you saying that the same 2% of people is buying both the mac and Win AIO's?? What, do they have some bizarre addiction to them?
No, although that might be an interesting statistic. What he is asking about is the number of standard PC AIO Desktop enclosures sold versus Mac AIO Desktop enclosures. If anything he (I perceive) is asking a true Apples to Apples question: Just where does Apple stand in the AIO market?
If anything, this heated discussion has shown several things:
1) There is a definite market for the AIO. Myself being one of those.
2) There is a market for a desktop computer for the prosumer/consumer headless variety. This segment is NOT the mini's market.
3) The mini's market is to attract people on the fence. It is a minimal investment to try things out. At the very least, you can have a kick-ass file server if you don't like it.
4) The expansion market is there, just not for everybody.
Personally, I think they can get away with the headless Mac, without interfering with the iMac market. To do this, we bring something back that will differentiate it from the rest of the community: Color.
The iMac gets color choices, the headless Mac looks like a shrunk-down MacPro. That way it appears to appeal to different markets. This makes the iMac into the family machine/office person's machine, and allows the prosumer segment to have he expandability and upgradability without having to encroach upon the Professional market.
#1: You argued that the Windows AIO case R&D was responsible for higher prices in Windows AIO over similarly spec.'d windows towers. I responded that I didn't know if in fact Windows AIOs were in fact more expensive that similarly spec.'d Windows towers, but even if they were there are other factors that could account for this. In this case your subsequent rants about how much Apple spends on R&D for case design has absolutely nothing to do with Window AIO manufacturers.
I apologize if you can not see this, but this is as clear as I can explain it.
#2: You make the claim that Apple spends more on case design than Dell, In the case of the Mac Pro, Apple actually sells these towers at below Dell's price points. So if Apple spends more on case design, and this is a significant expense, then how can Apple beat Dell's pricing. Simply put, I doubt that your insistence on case design has any real significant effect on the selling price.
This doesn't even make sense! Are you saying that the same 2% of people is buying both the mac and Win AIO's?? What, do they have some bizarre addiction to them?
No. You seem to have a real comprehension problem. If the % of people buying Windows AIOs and Apple iMacs in the overall market is similar, it logically indicates that the market for AIOs attracts this small niche market whether or not it runs Windows or Mac OS.
You should have quoted more of my post, anyway, the Intel iMac is selling since january (8 months) and desktop sales have decreased. The MacBook has been selling for 2/3 months and is a huge success. Like I said, the iMac needs an update ASAP and I hope it will help Apple desktop sales, but I think a new form factor would help even better. We'll have more to discuss in the weeks to come...
Sure, all Macs are relevant, if not in numbers, in image, sometimes in both. To me, the desktop line-up looks more like "look what we can do" than "we've got the right computer for you" right now. Like I said, all are "state of the art" in their categories, even if there is no equivalent categories in the PC world for all!
I'll be waiting for some announcements in the weeks to come, now that more pieces are in place (availability of different chips and chipsets), I'm looking forward to what Apple will offer with that.
If I may, I'll repeat your quote for effect.
"the Intel iMac is selling since january (8 months) and desktop sales have decreased"
#2: You make the claim that Apple spends more on case design than Dell, In the case of the Mac Pro, Apple actually sells these towers at below Dell's price points. So if Apple spends more on case design, and this is a significant expense, then how can Apple beat Dell's pricing. Simply put, I doubt that your insistence on case design has any real significant effect on the selling price.
You are making a comparison at the high end though. Dell's margins in this segment are probably much higher than Apple's (yes really), to offset their almost negligible margins at the low end. You therefore can't extrapolate Apple's ability to beat Dell on price at the high end down to the low end. Apple on the other hand, seem to aim for around 28% across their product line; so a better approach is to go by models that Apple already sells, as I did way earlier in this thread.
No you did not comprehend just fine. It seems that since going back and re-reading (which you presumably did) didn't help you, I'll explain:
No, I understood clearly that he was trying to show that a $1499 tower was possible. The point is that I believe that a $1699 tower is more likely so we're arguing about a difference of $200.
The ONLY reason to assert a $680 build price is to follow that up with "you can get 28% margins at $999". Because somehow magically his build price leads to about a 28% margin at $999...coincidence? Riiight.
Quote:
Another major mis-comprehension here. No one is talking about abandoning AIOs.
A $999 Conroe tower will have significant effects on iMac sales. The point is that if you introduce a $999 Conroe tower you might as well abandon AIOs as they simply wont sell in the volumes to make them worthwhile.
Quote:
What car analogy double standard?
The one where you whined about my using a car example but didn't when a_greer did the same thing and in fact I was responding to his car example at the time.
No, although that might be an interesting statistic. What he is asking about is the number of standard PC AIO Desktop enclosures sold versus Mac AIO Desktop enclosures. If anything he (I perceive) is asking a true Apples to Apples question: Just where does Apple stand in the AIO market?
If anything, this heated discussion has shown several things:
1) There is a definite market for the AIO. Myself being one of those.
2) There is a market for a desktop computer for the prosumer/consumer headless variety. This segment is NOT the mini's market.
3) The mini's market is to attract people on the fence. It is a minimal investment to try things out. At the very least, you can have a kick-ass file server if you don't like it.
4) The expansion market is there, just not for everybody.
Personally, I think they can get away with the headless Mac, without interfering with the iMac market. To do this, we bring something back that will differentiate it from the rest of the community: Color.
The iMac gets color choices, the headless Mac looks like a shrunk-down MacPro. That way it appears to appeal to different markets. This makes the iMac into the family machine/office person's machine, and allows the prosumer segment to have he expandability and upgradability without having to encroach upon the Professional market.
Thank you. Maybe my writing skills leave much to be desired and your explanation can clear up the confusion.8)
Seems to me that all this talk about low-end, high-end, what people want, what people actually need, whining versus discussingR&D expense is missing the main point. That Apple has stated they wish to increase market share. If you take them at their word, then Apple needs to identify that additional market segment that best fits their desire for more market share. If I were responsible for this at Apple, it's what I would do.
Business is out of the question. Apple appears to have settled on the laptop 1 to 1 for schools. Enterprise is a very hard nut to crack, although the new xServes seem a good value no matter what operating system they end up running, but with minimal effect on market share, especially since they aren't even desktop computers.
That more or less leaves the consumer. I think that everyone would agree that Apple currently couldn't come close to its' current margins in the low-end box, effectively eliminating this market. That leaves only the mid to upper end consumer market.
What do these people expect in a computer? I say, based on the Windows models currently being sold they expect some expansion capability, whether they need/use it or not. Also, based on the competitive price points of Apple's current line up, I contend that Apple can maintain their current margins with a mid to upper end consumer desktop(re: $799 - $1299+).
Will Apple go out of business if they don't more aggressively go after additional sales, no, of course not. But then all their comments about increasing market share becomes only baseless posturing. I happen to think that Apple executives do intend to capture market share and will introduce a headless xMac and would expect it before Vista ships. But that's just me.
Think about it. The current towers Apple offers are less expensive than the competition and are undoubtedly Workstations. That leaves a gapping whole between the email web surfing Mac mini and useful eye catching iMac, which are targeting small niche markets.
I'll repeat some one else's statement. "Apple, pull the trigger". This opportunity will not last, mind share with iPod, Vista delays, consumer frustration with Microsoft.
Comments
Okay, that's fine, but that has nothing to do with the point at hand. The point I was making was that Apple spends money designing computers. Dell saves that money by assemblying computers. If Dell were to design computers like Apple does, it would cost them more money than they are currently spending. Therefore they would charge more for those computer in order to keep any kind of margin, since their margins are already low. This is the situation with every PC maker who makes AIO's. That's why people buy the towers instead. If everyone had the technical know-how to build PC's from components, noone would buy the PC towers that are now the vast majority of the Windows PC market because the only advantage from those machines is that they are already assembled and working. Would you all then start clamoring for Apple to start selling components instead of OEM computers?
Soooooo by your reasoning Apple's towers should be more expensive than equivalently spec.'d Dell towers, since Apple spends all this extra money on case design over what Dell does.
Except there's this huge problem with this. Dell's equivalently spec.'d machine isn't less expensive and depending on configurations is more expensive, a lot more.
Note: Even at that, all of this is meaningless if Apple doesn't really want to gain market share. If Apple really wants to gain market share, they need to offer consumer desktops that aren't specifically and with all intent on Apple's part focusing on niche markets.
And no, if Apple does decide to focus on these niche markets they will not go out of business and they aren't doomed. They just need to admit that market share isn't important to them and stop pandering to investors with statements indicating they want more market share.
Me personally, I would like them to capture more market share, after all I am a stock holder.8)
Excuse me? Did you not write $1499 as a target price? Or did you actually mean $999 by asserting a build cost of $686?
No, it seems I comprehended just fine.
No you did not comprehend just fine. It seems that since going back and re-reading (which you presumably did) didn't help you, I'll explain:
BenRoethig was explaining how Apple could sell a machine with the Mac Pro casework at $1499 and achieve their usual profit margins.
He did this by indicating that the $1499 Mac Pro would have the same components as the $2499 Mac Pro, apart from the following components:
Processor (1 x Conroe instead of 2x Xeon)
Chipset (P965 instead of Xeon chipset)
RAM (Standard DDR2 RAM vs. FB-DIMMS)
Power Supply (500 w vs 1000)
The price savings on these components indicate that a $1499 tower with the same case, HDD, optical drives etc. as the Mac Pro is easily achievable.
One is a slight difference in opinion...the other a complete strategy change for Apple to abandon AIOs.
Another major mis-comprehension here. No one is talking about abandoning AIOs.
Well, I was wondering why you never responded to the query on your car analogy double standard...
What car analogy double standard?
Okay, that's fine, but that has nothing to do with the point at hand. The point I was making was that Apple spends money designing computers. Dell saves that money by assemblying computers. If Dell were to design computers like Apple does, it would cost them more money than they are currently spending. Therefore they would charge more for those computers in order to keep any kind of margin, since their margins are already low. This is the situation with every PC maker who makes AIO's. That's why people buy the towers instead. If everyone had the technical know-how to build PC's from components, noone would buy the PC towers that are now the vast majority of the Windows PC market because the only advantage from those machines is that they are already assembled and working. Would you all then start clamoring for Apple to start selling components instead of OEM computers?
Edit: Rickag, I believe this answers your question as well...
Yes, it does.
I'd still like to know what % of the Windows desktop market is in fact AIO. Wouldn'nt it be a hoot if it matched Apple's desktop market share, which I believe currently stands at about 2% of the US desktop market.
-- It's gonna be a long post, I'm sorry, bold in the quote is mine, I hope it will be comprehensible for all...--
It looks like they fail last quarter, desktop sales were down around 100,000 units and if I remember well iMacs used to represent more than 75% of Apple's desktop sales (we don't know exactly for last quarter since Apple doesn't give those numbers anymore).
Lets see how sales are after the next iMac rev before announcing failure in the desktop strategy. We hope that there are some folks holding back knowing that Intel has just pushed out new processors on or ahead of schedule.
Plus, given the expectations that the desktop market in general is declining then flat sales is still increasing share (granted, as I stated earlier, the big dip in Q3 isn't a good sign). They are winning share in the growth market (laptops).
I'm not a huge fan of the AIO format but the reality is Apple seems to consider them important. Therefore expectations of what machines will get released have to take that into account. Or not.
Vinea
Yes, it does.
I'd still like to know what % of the Windows desktop market is in fact AIO. Wouldn'nt it be a hoot if it matched Apple's desktop market share, which I believe currently stands at about 2% of the US desktop market.
This doesn't even make sense! Are you saying that the same 2% of people is buying both the mac and Win AIO's?? What, do they have some bizarre addiction to them?
Again, is Apple's R&D and case design have to do with Dell's, Compac's and HP's case design? You were arguing that the Windows AIO's case design made them more expensive than similarly spec.'d towers. Apple has nothing to do with this.
then you said this to my response:
Soooooo by your reasoning Apple's towers should be more expensive than equivalently spec.'d Dell towers, since Apple spends all this extra money on case design over what Dell does.
I believe this stands. There are reasons that the vast majority of people buy towers-but, for the vast majority of people, those reasons do not include that they will ever actually upgrade their computer beyond a RAM increase.
No you did not comprehend just fine. It seems that since going back and re-reading (which you presumably did) didn't help you, I'll explain:
BenRoethig was explaining how Apple could sell a machine with the Mac Pro casework at $1499 and achieve their usual profit margins.
He did this by indicating that the $1499 Mac Pro would have the same components as the $2499 Mac Pro, apart from the following components:
Processor (1 x Conroe instead of 2x Xeon)
Chipset (P965 instead of Xeon chipset)
RAM (Standard DDR2 RAM vs. FB-DIMMS)
Power Supply (500 w vs 1000)
The price savings on these components indicate that a $1499 tower with the same case, HDD, optical drives etc. as the Mac Pro is easily achievable.
Another major mis-comprehension here. No one is talking about abandoning AIOs.
What car analogy double standard?
Thank you Mr. H
To push one more thing home
iMac equals powerful family computer
MacPro Conroe equals low end professional/ high end consumer aka 'prosumer'.
My answer was maybe that's just because they're cheaper by nature
That and they are expandable and you can use any monitor you want.
Since it's already been demonstrated that Apple can achieve at least 28% margins on an elegant Conroe-based tower starting at $999, I don't know why we even have to talk about DELL.
My previous comment to you about DELL's R&D wasn't really in relation to the central discussion of this thread, I was just pointing out that DELL does spend a lot of money on R&D.
I reckon DELL could sell a version of the proposed $999 Apple tower for $799. It's just that they've got a lot of Pentium Ds to shift right now. In 3 - 4 months, I reckon we'll see $799 Conroe towers from DELL.
Apparently you have a very pessimistic view of Apple's capabiltiies to design an innovative desktop that would appeal to a much larger market.
I happen to believe that Apple could design a mid to upper end desktop that would be innovative and appeal to a broader market than the very narrow focused niche markets involved with the Mac mini and iMacs.
They already have, it's only available with quad xeons though. Still a headless iMac (aka Mac) might be interesting for the family market.
re mobile workstation, you thinking something along the lines of what Alienware has on it's top end?
I'm thinking more a slightly thicker 17" MBP with a choice of a radeon mobility x1800 or mobile quadro FX 2500M
Lets see how sales are after the next iMac rev before announcing failure in the desktop strategy. We hope that there are some folks holding back knowing that Intel has just pushed out new processors on or ahead of schedule.
Plus, given the expectations that the desktop market in general is declining then flat sales is still increasing share (granted, as I stated earlier, the big dip in Q3 isn't a good sign). They are winning share in the growth market (laptops).
I'm not a huge fan of the AIO format but the reality is Apple seems to consider them important. Therefore expectations of what machines will get released have to take that into account. Or not.
Vinea
You should have quoted more of my post, anyway, the Intel iMac is selling since january (8 months) and desktop sales have decreased. The MacBook has been selling for 2/3 months and is a huge success. Like I said, the iMac needs an update ASAP and I hope it will help Apple desktop sales, but I think a new form factor would help even better. We'll have more to discuss in the weeks to come...
Sure, all Macs are relevant, if not in numbers, in image, sometimes in both. To me, the desktop line-up looks more like "look what we can do" than "we've got the right computer for you" right now. Like I said, all are "state of the art" in their categories, even if there is no equivalent categories in the PC world for all!
I'll be waiting for some announcements in the weeks to come, now that more pieces are in place (availability of different chips and chipsets), I'm looking forward to what Apple will offer with that.
This doesn't even make sense! Are you saying that the same 2% of people is buying both the mac and Win AIO's?? What, do they have some bizarre addiction to them?
If anything, this heated discussion has shown several things:
1) There is a definite market for the AIO. Myself being one of those.
2) There is a market for a desktop computer for the prosumer/consumer headless variety. This segment is NOT the mini's market.
3) The mini's market is to attract people on the fence. It is a minimal investment to try things out. At the very least, you can have a kick-ass file server if you don't like it.
4) The expansion market is there, just not for everybody.
Personally, I think they can get away with the headless Mac, without interfering with the iMac market. To do this, we bring something back that will differentiate it from the rest of the community: Color.
The iMac gets color choices, the headless Mac looks like a shrunk-down MacPro. That way it appears to appeal to different markets. This makes the iMac into the family machine/office person's machine, and allows the prosumer segment to have he expandability and upgradability without having to encroach upon the Professional market.
First, you said this:
then you said this to my response:
Simple two different arguments.
Let me try and clear up your questions, again.
#1: You argued that the Windows AIO case R&D was responsible for higher prices in Windows AIO over similarly spec.'d windows towers. I responded that I didn't know if in fact Windows AIOs were in fact more expensive that similarly spec.'d Windows towers, but even if they were there are other factors that could account for this. In this case your subsequent rants about how much Apple spends on R&D for case design has absolutely nothing to do with Window AIO manufacturers.
I apologize if you can not see this, but this is as clear as I can explain it.
#2: You make the claim that Apple spends more on case design than Dell, In the case of the Mac Pro, Apple actually sells these towers at below Dell's price points. So if Apple spends more on case design, and this is a significant expense, then how can Apple beat Dell's pricing. Simply put, I doubt that your insistence on case design has any real significant effect on the selling price.
This doesn't even make sense! Are you saying that the same 2% of people is buying both the mac and Win AIO's?? What, do they have some bizarre addiction to them?
No. You seem to have a real comprehension problem. If the % of people buying Windows AIOs and Apple iMacs in the overall market is similar, it logically indicates that the market for AIOs attracts this small niche market whether or not it runs Windows or Mac OS.
You should have quoted more of my post, anyway, the Intel iMac is selling since january (8 months) and desktop sales have decreased. The MacBook has been selling for 2/3 months and is a huge success. Like I said, the iMac needs an update ASAP and I hope it will help Apple desktop sales, but I think a new form factor would help even better. We'll have more to discuss in the weeks to come...
Sure, all Macs are relevant, if not in numbers, in image, sometimes in both. To me, the desktop line-up looks more like "look what we can do" than "we've got the right computer for you" right now. Like I said, all are "state of the art" in their categories, even if there is no equivalent categories in the PC world for all!
I'll be waiting for some announcements in the weeks to come, now that more pieces are in place (availability of different chips and chipsets), I'm looking forward to what Apple will offer with that.
If I may, I'll repeat your quote for effect.
"the Intel iMac is selling since january (8 months) and desktop sales have decreased"
#2: You make the claim that Apple spends more on case design than Dell, In the case of the Mac Pro, Apple actually sells these towers at below Dell's price points. So if Apple spends more on case design, and this is a significant expense, then how can Apple beat Dell's pricing. Simply put, I doubt that your insistence on case design has any real significant effect on the selling price.
You are making a comparison at the high end though. Dell's margins in this segment are probably much higher than Apple's (yes really), to offset their almost negligible margins at the low end. You therefore can't extrapolate Apple's ability to beat Dell on price at the high end down to the low end. Apple on the other hand, seem to aim for around 28% across their product line; so a better approach is to go by models that Apple already sells, as I did way earlier in this thread.
No you did not comprehend just fine. It seems that since going back and re-reading (which you presumably did) didn't help you, I'll explain:
No, I understood clearly that he was trying to show that a $1499 tower was possible. The point is that I believe that a $1699 tower is more likely so we're arguing about a difference of $200.
The ONLY reason to assert a $680 build price is to follow that up with "you can get 28% margins at $999". Because somehow magically his build price leads to about a 28% margin at $999...coincidence? Riiight.
Another major mis-comprehension here. No one is talking about abandoning AIOs.
A $999 Conroe tower will have significant effects on iMac sales. The point is that if you introduce a $999 Conroe tower you might as well abandon AIOs as they simply wont sell in the volumes to make them worthwhile.
What car analogy double standard?
The one where you whined about my using a car example but didn't when a_greer did the same thing and in fact I was responding to his car example at the time.
Vinea
If anything, this heated discussion has shown several things:
1) There is a definite market for the AIO. Myself being one of those.
2) There is a market for a desktop computer for the prosumer/consumer headless variety. This segment is NOT the mini's market.
3) The mini's market is to attract people on the fence. It is a minimal investment to try things out. At the very least, you can have a kick-ass file server if you don't like it.
4) The expansion market is there, just not for everybody.
Personally, I think they can get away with the headless Mac, without interfering with the iMac market. To do this, we bring something back that will differentiate it from the rest of the community: Color.
The iMac gets color choices, the headless Mac looks like a shrunk-down MacPro. That way it appears to appeal to different markets. This makes the iMac into the family machine/office person's machine, and allows the prosumer segment to have he expandability and upgradability without having to encroach upon the Professional market.
Thank you. Maybe my writing skills leave much to be desired and your explanation can clear up the confusion.8)
The ONLY reason to assert a $680 build price
How do we get this through your thick head?
He was not talking about a $680 build price.
Seems to me that all this talk about low-end, high-end, what people want, what people actually need, whining versus discussingR&D expense is missing the main point. That Apple has stated they wish to increase market share. If you take them at their word, then Apple needs to identify that additional market segment that best fits their desire for more market share. If I were responsible for this at Apple, it's what I would do.
Business is out of the question. Apple appears to have settled on the laptop 1 to 1 for schools. Enterprise is a very hard nut to crack, although the new xServes seem a good value no matter what operating system they end up running, but with minimal effect on market share, especially since they aren't even desktop computers.
That more or less leaves the consumer. I think that everyone would agree that Apple currently couldn't come close to its' current margins in the low-end box, effectively eliminating this market. That leaves only the mid to upper end consumer market.
What do these people expect in a computer? I say, based on the Windows models currently being sold they expect some expansion capability, whether they need/use it or not. Also, based on the competitive price points of Apple's current line up, I contend that Apple can maintain their current margins with a mid to upper end consumer desktop(re: $799 - $1299+).
Will Apple go out of business if they don't more aggressively go after additional sales, no, of course not. But then all their comments about increasing market share becomes only baseless posturing. I happen to think that Apple executives do intend to capture market share and will introduce a headless xMac and would expect it before Vista ships. But that's just me.
Think about it. The current towers Apple offers are less expensive than the competition and are undoubtedly Workstations. That leaves a gapping whole between the email web surfing Mac mini and useful eye catching iMac, which are targeting small niche markets.
I'll repeat some one else's statement. "Apple, pull the trigger". This opportunity will not last, mind share with iPod, Vista delays, consumer frustration with Microsoft.
Added the bold to my previous post.