Pricing is up to a market, which is largely controlled by competitors and potential customers. Pricing is not up to the vendor. They could price high but wouldn't sell, or price low but go bankrupt.
Those who buy Windows computers are not drastically different from Mac users, and currently, a mini tower sells well and the AIO not so well. Why would it be drastically different in the Mac world of computers? Of course the only way Apple will ever find out for sure how well a Mac mini tower would sell is to introduce one to the product line.
There have been two (sorta)...the cube (a super small mini tower that was overpriced) and the last 1.8G5 tower that was effectively an iMac in a Powermac case. Both discontinued.
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You are assuming something about profit margins. There is no reason that a mini tower must sell at a low margin. Pricing is up to Apple, not the customer. If the mini tower does not sell well enough at a reasonable profit, drop it.
Evidently it didn't and they did. Perhaps they will try again later. But certainly it will not be their doom if they do not.
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If a mini tower causes iMac sales to plummet, then drop the iMac. We can't have untouchable favorites if we want to operate a successful business, can we?
Yes we can. Jobs has a specific vision for computing and seems to have a fetish for AIOs. Apple IS a successful business. It has a bigger market cap than Dell which does sell the machines you are begging for.
Have you done so much better that you continue to pretend that Apple isn't a successful business?
That's not saying there might not be a $1700-$1800 conroe Mac Pro in the future at the low end of the pro series but that's not quite the same as the mid-range Mac you spoke of earlier that spanned the $1000-$2000 range.
This kind of thinking would make the Mac less competitive. If we take the Mac Pro and remove one processor chip and make the other a less costly chip, sure, you can reduce the price tag. But it will still have some of the cost of a Mac Pro built in. The case accommodates two optical drive, and can take four HDDs, and the power supply is much more stout than it needs to be. So the price can never be as low as a mini tower.
Also, a "low cost" Mac Pro would still be big, much bigger than it needs to be. A mini tower makes more sense for a low cost workstation or professional Mac, one that does not need the computing power of a Mac Pro.
Pricing is up to a market, which is largely controlled by competitors and potential customers. Pricing is not up to the vendor. They could price high but wouldn't sell, or price low but go bankrupt.
You are taking it a little out of context. Apple sets the price. There has been a tacit assumption that just because some Windows vendors sell mini towers at an extremely low margin that Apple must do the same. Apple does not need to play this game and a profitable Mac mini tower should sell well and be differentiated from its Windows counterparts.
Dell's computers in that price range use integrated graphics... so the only things you can upgrade are the processor, hard drive, and RAM... oh wait, you can do that with the faster Mac mini for a lot less money.
I suggest you go take another look at the Dell XPS 400. That pretty much represents the type of system being proposed. No, it doesn't use integrated graphics. It has a good array of graphics cards. It also falls into the price range being proposed. No one is suggesting Apple market the equivalent of a Dimension B110 (that's the Mac Mini's job) nor are we asking for anything to compete with the Dimension E310 or E510 (a role filled perfectly by the iMac models). We don't need anything to match an XPS 700 (if they ever ship one...) or the Dell workstations as the Mac Pro (admittedly the best rig ever at any price) rips Dell a new one at that level. What is being proposed is that mid-range mix of power/expandability/affordability represented by the XPS 400.
You are taking it a little out of context. Apple sets the price. There has been a tacit assumption that just because some Windows vendors sell mini towers at an extremely low margin that Apple must do the same.
Depends on your definition of "plain old Mac" - the typical Mac has always been an all-in-one. That form factor has always been the most popular with the majority of users. High-end graphics professionals have preferred the "headless" Mac because they could choose a monitor that fit their work.
I hasten to add that the height of the "headless" Mac period, the early to mid- 90's, wasn't the best of times for Apple. Macs didn't sell worth a darn then, so historically, I don't see much incentive for a midrange Mac in a tower case.
Of course, the G4 Cube didn't sell worth a darn either, and who would have thought it would be re-incarnated as the Mac Mini?
Jobs has an issue with Cubes, I think. From the NeXT to the G4, to the glass cube in NY's Apple Store. What is the deal? I'm waiting for him to take his cubism to the next level and offer a "Picasso" Mac that has a monitor at a 90 degree left angle to the keyboard...
There have been two (sorta)...the cube (a super small mini tower that was overpriced) and the last 1.8G5 tower that was effectively an iMac in a Powermac case. Both discontinued.
Vinea
I'm just quoting this to get back to your response to me that the hole in Apple's price structure begins and ends with the low end, poorly received G5 tower.
I'm sure you remember that from 1999 until the intro of that G5 tower Apple was making G4 towers, for which the entry level price never rose above $1699 and at times sat at $1499.
Was Apple foolish to offer that kind of pricing for the last six years? Again, what is so different now that "it makes no sense" for Apple to make a base model tower? Why is it now that Apple's business model makes it absolutely imperative that they move the buy-in price of its pro tower line upwards by 15 to 20 percent?
Many of your arguments are very well made and fairly persuasive, but they still don't account for the recent past.
. . . Yes we can. Jobs has a specific vision for computing and seems to have a fetish for AIOs. Apple IS a successful business. It has a bigger market cap than Dell which does sell the machines you are begging for.
A few misconceptions in those two sentences. I never said Apple is not a successful company. I would not own stock in it if I believed it was not going to be successful. But Apple is not successful in all they do. They could do a lot better in the desktop market IMHO. I believe the new Mac Pro will do well, but also believe they need a mini tower. You just happen to disagree with me.
I base my view on what is selling in the Windows market. Where do you think an increased market share for Macs will come from. Obviously from Windows users converting to a Mac. What do Windows users buy? AIOs? No! Windows users buy many mini towers. Steve's "fetish" for the AIO may have influenced Mac users, and many of these folks now own an iMac.
Where is the next wave of iMac sales going to come from? If Windows users reject the AIO in the Windows world, why would they suddenly buy them as a Mac? (Well they might if they are desperate enough to switch.)
Last of all, why do you say I'm begging for a machine like the ones Dell sells? That's not true and I felt your remark was a bit unkind. If you are curious, I have three PowerMacs. I happen to dislike the AIO and make do without one.
First understand that, in Apple's view of things, "prosumers" don't exist. Either you are a regular Joe who needs a computer that's easy to use, edit your videos from your last vacation, etc. (iMac) or you're a professional who needs expandability, PCI slots, extra hard drives and whatnot (Mac Pro). Prosumers are just geeks who want great high end tech at low prices. Not happening, remember this is Apple.
Again, PCI slots and extra hard drive bays are not high end tech. A cheap crap $350 Dell has PCI slots and hard drive bays. A 12 year old Power Mac 7100/66 that you could probably get for $10 at a garage sale has PCI slots and hard drive bays. That ain't high-end tech.
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Originally Posted by Darth_Apple
I never said it was, I only stated that someone wanted this new "Mac" to cost $800, I guess you should read abit more before you post
This is ironic, considering...
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Yes I understand your point and I do agree I would love if Apple did realease one, but to compare it to a $350 Dell that offers old pentiums, about 256 MB of Ram, Intel Inetgrated Graphics and a crt moniter is just insane... and before you ask my GF and her best friend recieve those little catalogues from Dell so I know what they offer.
I never did compare the Mac Pro to a $350 Dell. That would indeed be insane. I simply pointed out that PCI slots and hard drive bays can be found on a $350 Dell, and that therefore they are not high-end tech. Of course, comparing a quad-core Xeon workstation to a single Celeron-based machine would just be stupid. But I didn't do that, which you might have noticed if you would read a bit more before you post.
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No it doesn't all these boxes (or atleast 90%+ ) have intel integrated graphics, that right there kill any and all expandability
No it doesn't. You can still add a second hard drive or a PCI card, which can do many things, such as upgrade to new I/O standards so you don't get screwed like the people who bought USB 1.1-only Macs and then got screwed by the iPod dropping FireWire only 2 years later. Integrated graphics don't hinder these two things at all. In fact, they don't hinder upgrading the graphics card either, since you can add one via the PCI slot. Heck, if it's PCI-E, you can even add a good graphics card.
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Not true when it comes to Notebooks it's quite good in my opinion (thats why Apple has a 12% market share here) and should get better if rumors are true and in the Desktop market it's really good because theres the Mac mini which is perfect for pretty much everyone, there the Mac Pro which covers the Pro market and the iMac covers another part of the home market.
I specifically pointed out that the notebook market is good, because that is a market where expandability doesn't matter as much. You would have noticed that if you would read a bit more before you post. I'm specifically referring to the desktop market, of course, which for Apple hasn't sold that well for a long time.
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So ya while I agree one more Desktop "might" be needed, but saying that Apples line sucks for "everyone" because you don't have a computer YOU and a few others want is a bit childish.
Uh, I didn't say it sucks for "everyone". My exact words were "The point is that for a large segment of the userbase, pretty much all the options currently suck for them on the Mac platform." The word "everyone" is not in there, but rather "a large segment of the userbase" - i.e. desktop users that expect expandability - which you would have noticed if you would read even the text that you're quoting before you post.
Besides, I'm not even in the desktop market. Hell, I have an iMac, and my next purchase will probably be a laptop. So saying that it's a computer that I would want is inaccurate, but the thing is that I have a few brain cells, which enable me to realize that the desktop market is still sizable and that Apple would be better off if they could capture some of it, which means providing solutions that many desktop users need.
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Originally Posted by gregmightdothat
What you are looking for, a customizable tower with a shitty processor, is niche, because anyone interested in performance will just go for the Mac Pro.
Whereas anyone interested in expandability and doesn't need absolute kick-ass top-of-the-line performance will go for the customizable tower. And I don't know what your definition of "shitty" is, but if it's "anything less than a huge ultimate mega monster quad-core Xeon beast", well then, I guess you think that Conroe and Merom are shitty, not to mention Yonah. I guess that means the iMac and the entire laptop line are shitty too. Hell, let's discontinue Apple's entire lineup except for the Mac Pro, because people surely wouldn't want a shitty machine like the MacBook Pro or the iMac.
There's nothing more niche than a quad-core Xeon monster with superfast RAM and top-of-the-line everything. Who needs that much power? Very few.
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Originally Posted by gregmightdothat
Dell's computers in that price range use integrated graphics... so the only things you can upgrade are the processor, hard drive, and RAM... oh wait, you can do that with the faster Mac mini for a lot less money.
Integrated graphics don't magically make PCI slots not work. They also don't magically make it impossible to fit a second hard drive or optical drive into those empty bays. None of these things can be done with a Mac mini, but they can all be done on pretty much any desktop machine over in PC land.
So, Apple need to be price competitive with the rest of the market, but they don't need a headless Mac below $2100? Yeah, right.
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Originally Posted by Chucker
There, better.
Are you seriously denying that the vast majority of Windows desktop machines cost significantly below $2100? You need to go and check out the offerings of Dell, HP, Gateway, and Acer, and you will instantly see that you are completely wrong.
Vinea:
You say many times that "Apple is executing well". Indeed, overall, Apple are doing very well. But apart from the last 12 months or so, Apple have lost market share every single year since 1996. Apple are executing well when it comes to iPods, iTunes and portables. But in the desktop space, I absolutely reject the notion that Apple is "executing well". There is a massive, gaping whole in their lineup which serves to totally ignore the market's most popular desktop configuration, and that doesn't make any business sense at all.
You point out that the cube and low-end G5 tower were both failures. That is because they were both rip-offs and were not actually anything like the $999 tower I propose. The cube was underpowered, not expandable enough and severely over-priced, the low-end G5 was also too expensive. That casework was major overkill for its specification, Apple lacked the vision for creating a true mid-range desktop, and also lacked the necessary diversity of chips. That lack of chip diversity has now changed.
Why do you and others continually make the assumption that a computer with the following specs.:
1.86 GHz E6300 Conroe processor
512 MB RAM
160 GB HDD
Draw-loading Combo Drive
ATI-X1600
2 PCI-e slots
2 HDD slots
1 optical drive bay
In a "tower" will necessarily have a "boring", "inelegant" or "meh" appearance? I would fully expect any such "mini tower" to have the touch of Apple class.
Finally, is it a risk to introduce this tower? Yes, because if all it did was cannibalise sales of iMacs (and people bought monitors elsewhere) and Mac Pros, and didn't bring any new customers, that would be bad.
However, risk is a necessary part of business. If you don't take any risks, you will get nowhere fast and I believe it is time that Apple took some risks in order to deliver a significant increase in desktop market share.
Someone stated that they were basing the demand for a cheaper tower from Apple based on what sells in the Windows segment.
You quoted him and changed it to "what I believe sells in the Windows segment", implying that that is what he should have said, and that you thought the contention inaccurate. In addition, that isn't the only post where you have implied that you think that an inexpensive tower is only a small percentage of the market.
Inexpensive towers are the vast majority of the computer desktop market.
Again, PCI slots and extra hard drive bays are not high end tech. A cheap crap $350 Dell has PCI slots and hard drive bays. A 12 year old Power Mac 7100/66 that you could probably get for $10 at a garage sale has PCI slots and hard drive bays. That ain't high-end tech.
Not a very good example. Is it?
1994 was a different time in which the computer you mentioned costed more than a... current Mac Pro. (very good)
Windows was embryotic at best.
The 7100/66 had no PCI slots whatsoever.
It came with 3 NuBus slots.
It had a SCSI harddrive.
Both were quite expensive upgrade options.
Anyway,
I agree that Apple should make a cheaper mildly upgradable whinner proof desktop computer.
A $1.499 - $1,699 Mac Pro light with a Conroe chip will do.
Much of what you say is true. However, most of is in direct contention with what Apple executives have said in press releases and quarterly conference calls about increasing market share.
Protecting margins, cannibalization, offering what Apple thinks the consumer needs rather than what the want, all inhibit market share. By offering a modestly expandable mid to upper end consumer tower/SFF shouldn't threaten Apple's long term profits.
If you consider that Apple's laptops are now more than 50% of their sales and have garnered 12% of the retail market, I suspect the desktop sales are not very good, since Apple's overall US market share has only increased modestly(re: from 4.6% to 4.8% I think ????).
Apple is currently in a good position to gain market share. PR from the iPod, long delays in Longhorn/Vista, fourth version of OS X(soon to be fifth), iLife software appealing to the home user, switch to x-86, virtualization, boot-camp, general frustration among consumers with malware & Microsoft.
If Apple offers a profitable computer model that appeals to the vast majority of consumers, will they zoom to 50% market share -no. But they might double their market share and capture a significant portion of the profitable market that Dell needs to subsidize their low end boxes.
. . . Finally, is it a risk to introduce this tower? Yes, because if all it did was cannibalise sales of iMacs (and people bought monitors elsewhere) and Mac Pros, and didn't bring any new customers, that would be bad.
However, risk is a necessary part of business. If you don't take any risks, you will get nowhere fast and I believe it is time that Apple took some risks in order to deliver a significant increase in desktop market share.
Hi, I've agreed with just about everything you've been posting, but here I think you are being too pessimistic about risk. In the past, Apple has introduced products at one price and later dropped the price modestly, for example the introduction of the G5 PowerMac. I see no reason Apple could not do the same with a mini tower, if Apple has concerns about impact on other products.
The introductory price could be high enough so that it make no difference if it hurts iMac and Mac Pro sales. If it turns out to be a loser, which I seriously doubt, it can be dropped like the cube.
Apple should price a mini tower high enough so that the iMac remains a better deal than a comparable mini tower with a third party monitor, also of comparable quality. The iMac should in fact have better specifications than the lowest end mini tower, which could sell for less.
Another way to look at the desktop product lineup would be that the iMac hits the maximum demand spot, and the mini tower, with built-to-order options, covers a range from below this spot to far above it.
And a $1700 conroe mac tower changes that equation how?
The examples thus far have been cheap $350-$600 Dell towers. You guys argue for the $1700 tower but what you really want is that tower to be a heck of a lot closer to $999.
How many folks that can afford a $1700 mac tower can't afford another $400 and get quad core goodness? That last $400 buys a lot of future proofing. And $1700 IS workstation pricing today. The base Dell 690 is $1729. Desktop pricing is $800 less. XPS 400 is $890.
Tell me people wont be whining to the moon if there was a $1700 Conroe mac tower when the equivalent Dell conroe tower is $900.
At best we might get a cube. There's no way that Apple is putting out a $900 tower that will kill iMac sales. There's no way a $1700 conroe workstation will fly when a quad core woodcrest workstation is $400 more.
I'd love a Conroe cube with 1 slot, a 3.5" HD, 4 DIMM slots @ maybe $1500 but I sure don't expect one. The Mac family is complete.
Vinea
Wheeee! What a flame fest we have going on! This is more fun than a party at The Rib Shack on the Fourth of July! <dons asbestos underpants>
Ok, only got to page 3 (out of 4) of the thread and finally found a post I had to qoute.
There are three very simply solutions to this whole debate:
1: Apple institutes a new Build-to-Order program called YourMac. They allow you to choose your processor, bus speed, memory type and quantity, number of USB, Firewire, ADB, Serial, Parallel and MIDI ports, number of Hard Drive bays, number and size of hard drive, Raid configuration or no, Number and type of optical drives, number of PCIe slots, number and type of PCIe16x slots,Power Supply size, Chasis material, Chasis size, cooling solution, professional artwork for your case (the artist will fly out to your place to confer with you to ensure 100% satisfaction) Display size and whether or not it is integrated, and finally the quantity of pixie dust you'd like to have dispersed into your computer room each hour (the power supply will double as the dispersion device). Then they will stop everything else they are doing, get all their engineers togeather for a giant weekend Beer/Chips/Design party, and build your motherboard and all other components from scratch. If your chosen processor does not yet exist, Steve will use his Reality Distortion Field to coerce Intel (or AMD, if you choose) to also drop everything and build your invincible processor from scratch. This will all be completed by the end of the weekend. Apple will then fly your new YourMac out to you on a specially recommissioned Concord, and pick you up for a tour around the globe at Mach 8 (Steve's the pilot, so he can use his Reality Distortion Field here too) while The Woz teaches you all about your new YourMac, including the facinatingly inticate details of how to play Beethovan's 9th using only the read/write heads on your 800TB RAID4 array. After your tour is complete, Apple will drop you back off at your home and set up your new YourMac, and get you running (that 3 ton tip of Khufu's Pyramid in Giza that Steve and Steve bought for you has to be shipped by boat, so it will come in a few weeks), and you live happily ever after. All for only $1899!
2) You go out to your local University and enroll as a freshman in the Computer Engineering program. Four years later, you graduate, design your own MoBo, including all proprietary parts from a current Mac (so the os will run, of course) and print it out using copper plated breadboard, a laser printer and transparencies. The buy a bunch of 3rd party pc hardware and build your own fully customized CrackMac.
3) You go out to your local University and enroll as a freshman in the Computer Science program. Four years later, you graduate, grab a copy of the current MacOS, spend 30 minutes looking around in it's guts, edit three lines of text, and boot it on your brand new custom configured Dell.
Oh, almost forgot,
4) Go buy a PC and run windows. It's gonna look just like MacOS in a few years anyway.
ok. On a serious note, I myself have a strong desire for an expandable machine, whether it be a desktop or a laptop. Personally, I would go with a MacPro, simply because I love having a demonically fast computer. The reason I want an EXPANDABLE box though, is that I don't want to get a year or two down the road, and see that brand spankin new game, or CAD program, or whatever on the shelf at the local computer store, buy it, and get home only to realize that it runs like carp on my computer. And, yes, I do mean carp. I think people like to be able to spend $300 on a new video card and bring their old computer up to 80-90% of what a new one can do, rather than having to go out and get a whole new box. You DO buy a new monitor every time you get a new iMac. If, because of your lifestyle, you don't have a use for an old computer when you get a new one, then that essentially becomes a waste of money (unless you can find a sucker to buy it from you. ;-D)
I suspect that this sense of economy is where the headless mac (btw, why the heck is it called headless??????) idea is comming from. True: if an iMac can't do it, you probably NEED a MacPro (no, I didn't say that first). However, if your iMac CAN do it now, but in two years it won't be able to anymore due to feature creap, needing to do different things in general, etc, then if you have an iMac, you may very well be foreced to fork over the cost of a new puter. iMacs are for those who know what they are going to be doing, and are going to be doing it for quite a while without much change. (also for those who HATE hassel). MacPro is for those who have a wide variety of things to do and need a lot of power, and whose tasks will likely change in the future. The headless Mac is the phantom that fills the void of those who don't really need a lot of power, but whose computing habbits change often (so, you're setting up a home audio studo next week? What happened to that CNC set up you had? Oh, that was LAST week. I see. So the Photo lab with 64" large format printer is next month then?)
We live, unfortunately, in a world of tradeoffs. That's particularly irritating to me because I tend to be an idealist, but I've had to accept it, and simply figure out exactly what my needs are, and then pick the best solution available at the time. If a better one gets released next week, then I go cry in the bathroom for a few minutes (ok, not really) then suck it up and drive on. Like the time I bought the G3 Wallstreet and had to get the USB cardbus adapter... then the bronze keyboard version with built in USB came out the week later. oops.
I don't know for sure, but from what I have gathered from watching Apple news over the years the Towers have always had a higher profit margin than the iMac, which is looked at as a higher volume consumer product.
Historically lower end towers have sold at a lower volume than the mid range towers. If I am correct, and I'm not saying that I am, then based on this a computer in the traditional price range of the low end PowerMac of $1499-1699 (which briefly hit $1299 before the final phasing out of computers capable of booting into OS 9, and as high as $1999) would not necessarily have a great impact on the iMac market, and if it did take iMac sales then Apple would make a greater profit than on a similarly priced iMac. If such a computer were able to attract were more new Mac purchases than Apple is currently attracting then this would not be such a bad thing.
Hi, I've agreed with just about everything you've been posting, but here I think you are being too pessimistic about risk. In the past, Apple has introduced products at one price and later dropped the price modestly, for example the introduction of the G5 PowerMac. I see no reason Apple could not do the same with a mini tower, if Apple has concerns about impact on other products.
The introductory price could be high enough so that it make no difference if it hurts iMac and Mac Pro sales. If it turns out to be a loser, which I seriously doubt, it can be dropped like the cube.
Apple should price a mini tower high enough so that the iMac remains a better deal than a comparable mini tower with a third party monitor, also of comparable quality. The iMac should in fact have better specifications than the lowest end mini tower, which could sell for less.
Another way to look at the desktop product lineup would be that the iMac hits the maximum demand spot, and the mini tower, with built-to-order options, covers a range from below this spot to far above it.
It wouldn't compete against the iMac because they are for two completely different types of customers. Think of a Conroe Mac Pro as Apple's answer to the Dell XPS400.
Comments
Pricing is up to Apple, not the customer.
Those who buy Windows computers are not drastically different from Mac users, and currently, a mini tower sells well and the AIO not so well. Why would it be drastically different in the Mac world of computers? Of course the only way Apple will ever find out for sure how well a Mac mini tower would sell is to introduce one to the product line.
There have been two (sorta)...the cube (a super small mini tower that was overpriced) and the last 1.8G5 tower that was effectively an iMac in a Powermac case. Both discontinued.
You are assuming something about profit margins. There is no reason that a mini tower must sell at a low margin. Pricing is up to Apple, not the customer. If the mini tower does not sell well enough at a reasonable profit, drop it.
Evidently it didn't and they did. Perhaps they will try again later. But certainly it will not be their doom if they do not.
If a mini tower causes iMac sales to plummet, then drop the iMac. We can't have untouchable favorites if we want to operate a successful business, can we?
Yes we can. Jobs has a specific vision for computing and seems to have a fetish for AIOs. Apple IS a successful business. It has a bigger market cap than Dell which does sell the machines you are begging for.
Have you done so much better that you continue to pretend that Apple isn't a successful business?
Vinea
That's not saying there might not be a $1700-$1800 conroe Mac Pro in the future at the low end of the pro series but that's not quite the same as the mid-range Mac you spoke of earlier that spanned the $1000-$2000 range.
This kind of thinking would make the Mac less competitive. If we take the Mac Pro and remove one processor chip and make the other a less costly chip, sure, you can reduce the price tag. But it will still have some of the cost of a Mac Pro built in. The case accommodates two optical drive, and can take four HDDs, and the power supply is much more stout than it needs to be. So the price can never be as low as a mini tower.
Also, a "low cost" Mac Pro would still be big, much bigger than it needs to be. A mini tower makes more sense for a low cost workstation or professional Mac, one that does not need the computing power of a Mac Pro.
You are taking it a little out of context. Apple sets the price. There has been a tacit assumption that just because some Windows vendors sell mini towers at an extremely low margin that Apple must do the same. Apple does not need to play this game and a profitable Mac mini tower should sell well and be differentiated from its Windows counterparts.
Dell's computers in that price range use integrated graphics... so the only things you can upgrade are the processor, hard drive, and RAM... oh wait, you can do that with the faster Mac mini for a lot less money.
I suggest you go take another look at the Dell XPS 400. That pretty much represents the type of system being proposed. No, it doesn't use integrated graphics. It has a good array of graphics cards. It also falls into the price range being proposed. No one is suggesting Apple market the equivalent of a Dimension B110 (that's the Mac Mini's job) nor are we asking for anything to compete with the Dimension E310 or E510 (a role filled perfectly by the iMac models). We don't need anything to match an XPS 700 (if they ever ship one...) or the Dell workstations as the Mac Pro (admittedly the best rig ever at any price) rips Dell a new one at that level. What is being proposed is that mid-range mix of power/expandability/affordability represented by the XPS 400.
You are taking it a little out of context. Apple sets the price. There has been a tacit assumption that just because some Windows vendors sell mini towers at an extremely low margin that Apple must do the same.
Yes, they must, in order to stay competitive.
I hasten to add that the height of the "headless" Mac period, the early to mid- 90's, wasn't the best of times for Apple. Macs didn't sell worth a darn then, so historically, I don't see much incentive for a midrange Mac in a tower case.
Of course, the G4 Cube didn't sell worth a darn either, and who would have thought it would be re-incarnated as the Mac Mini?
Jobs has an issue with Cubes, I think. From the NeXT to the G4, to the glass cube in NY's Apple Store. What is the deal? I'm waiting for him to take his cubism to the next level and offer a "Picasso" Mac that has a monitor at a 90 degree left angle to the keyboard...
There have been two (sorta)...the cube (a super small mini tower that was overpriced) and the last 1.8G5 tower that was effectively an iMac in a Powermac case. Both discontinued.
Vinea
I'm just quoting this to get back to your response to me that the hole in Apple's price structure begins and ends with the low end, poorly received G5 tower.
I'm sure you remember that from 1999 until the intro of that G5 tower Apple was making G4 towers, for which the entry level price never rose above $1699 and at times sat at $1499.
Was Apple foolish to offer that kind of pricing for the last six years? Again, what is so different now that "it makes no sense" for Apple to make a base model tower? Why is it now that Apple's business model makes it absolutely imperative that they move the buy-in price of its pro tower line upwards by 15 to 20 percent?
Many of your arguments are very well made and fairly persuasive, but they still don't account for the recent past.
. . . Yes we can. Jobs has a specific vision for computing and seems to have a fetish for AIOs. Apple IS a successful business. It has a bigger market cap than Dell which does sell the machines you are begging for.
A few misconceptions in those two sentences. I never said Apple is not a successful company. I would not own stock in it if I believed it was not going to be successful. But Apple is not successful in all they do. They could do a lot better in the desktop market IMHO. I believe the new Mac Pro will do well, but also believe they need a mini tower. You just happen to disagree with me.
I base my view on what is selling in the Windows market. Where do you think an increased market share for Macs will come from. Obviously from Windows users converting to a Mac. What do Windows users buy? AIOs? No! Windows users buy many mini towers. Steve's "fetish" for the AIO may have influenced Mac users, and many of these folks now own an iMac.
Where is the next wave of iMac sales going to come from? If Windows users reject the AIO in the Windows world, why would they suddenly buy them as a Mac? (Well they might if they are desperate enough to switch.)
Last of all, why do you say I'm begging for a machine like the ones Dell sells? That's not true and I felt your remark was a bit unkind. If you are curious, I have three PowerMacs. I happen to dislike the AIO and make do without one.
I base my view on what is selling in the Windows market.
LFTFY!
I base my view on what I believe is selling in the Windows market.
There, better.
First understand that, in Apple's view of things, "prosumers" don't exist. Either you are a regular Joe who needs a computer that's easy to use, edit your videos from your last vacation, etc. (iMac) or you're a professional who needs expandability, PCI slots, extra hard drives and whatnot (Mac Pro). Prosumers are just geeks who want great high end tech at low prices. Not happening, remember this is Apple.
Again, PCI slots and extra hard drive bays are not high end tech. A cheap crap $350 Dell has PCI slots and hard drive bays. A 12 year old Power Mac 7100/66 that you could probably get for $10 at a garage sale has PCI slots and hard drive bays. That ain't high-end tech.
I never said it was, I only stated that someone wanted this new "Mac" to cost $800, I guess you should read abit more before you post
This is ironic, considering...
Yes I understand your point and I do agree I would love if Apple did realease one, but to compare it to a $350 Dell that offers old pentiums, about 256 MB of Ram, Intel Inetgrated Graphics and a crt moniter is just insane... and before you ask my GF and her best friend recieve those little catalogues from Dell so I know what they offer.
I never did compare the Mac Pro to a $350 Dell. That would indeed be insane. I simply pointed out that PCI slots and hard drive bays can be found on a $350 Dell, and that therefore they are not high-end tech. Of course, comparing a quad-core Xeon workstation to a single Celeron-based machine would just be stupid. But I didn't do that, which you might have noticed if you would read a bit more before you post.
No it doesn't all these boxes (or atleast 90%+ ) have intel integrated graphics, that right there kill any and all expandability
No it doesn't. You can still add a second hard drive or a PCI card, which can do many things, such as upgrade to new I/O standards so you don't get screwed like the people who bought USB 1.1-only Macs and then got screwed by the iPod dropping FireWire only 2 years later. Integrated graphics don't hinder these two things at all. In fact, they don't hinder upgrading the graphics card either, since you can add one via the PCI slot. Heck, if it's PCI-E, you can even add a good graphics card.
Not true when it comes to Notebooks it's quite good in my opinion (thats why Apple has a 12% market share here) and should get better if rumors are true and in the Desktop market it's really good because theres the Mac mini which is perfect for pretty much everyone, there the Mac Pro which covers the Pro market and the iMac covers another part of the home market.
I specifically pointed out that the notebook market is good, because that is a market where expandability doesn't matter as much. You would have noticed that if you would read a bit more before you post. I'm specifically referring to the desktop market, of course, which for Apple hasn't sold that well for a long time.
So ya while I agree one more Desktop "might" be needed, but saying that Apples line sucks for "everyone" because you don't have a computer YOU and a few others want is a bit childish.
Uh, I didn't say it sucks for "everyone". My exact words were "The point is that for a large segment of the userbase, pretty much all the options currently suck for them on the Mac platform." The word "everyone" is not in there, but rather "a large segment of the userbase" - i.e. desktop users that expect expandability - which you would have noticed if you would read even the text that you're quoting before you post.
Besides, I'm not even in the desktop market. Hell, I have an iMac, and my next purchase will probably be a laptop. So saying that it's a computer that I would want is inaccurate, but the thing is that I have a few brain cells, which enable me to realize that the desktop market is still sizable and that Apple would be better off if they could capture some of it, which means providing solutions that many desktop users need.
What you are looking for, a customizable tower with a shitty processor, is niche, because anyone interested in performance will just go for the Mac Pro.
Whereas anyone interested in expandability and doesn't need absolute kick-ass top-of-the-line performance will go for the customizable tower. And I don't know what your definition of "shitty" is, but if it's "anything less than a huge ultimate mega monster quad-core Xeon beast", well then, I guess you think that Conroe and Merom are shitty, not to mention Yonah. I guess that means the iMac and the entire laptop line are shitty too. Hell, let's discontinue Apple's entire lineup except for the Mac Pro, because people surely wouldn't want a shitty machine like the MacBook Pro or the iMac.
There's nothing more niche than a quad-core Xeon monster with superfast RAM and top-of-the-line everything. Who needs that much power? Very few.
Dell's computers in that price range use integrated graphics... so the only things you can upgrade are the processor, hard drive, and RAM... oh wait, you can do that with the faster Mac mini for a lot less money.
Integrated graphics don't magically make PCI slots not work. They also don't magically make it impossible to fit a second hard drive or optical drive into those empty bays. None of these things can be done with a Mac mini, but they can all be done on pretty much any desktop machine over in PC land.
Yes, they must, in order to stay competitive.
So, Apple need to be price competitive with the rest of the market, but they don't need a headless Mac below $2100? Yeah, right.
There, better.
Are you seriously denying that the vast majority of Windows desktop machines cost significantly below $2100? You need to go and check out the offerings of Dell, HP, Gateway, and Acer, and you will instantly see that you are completely wrong.
Vinea:
You say many times that "Apple is executing well". Indeed, overall, Apple are doing very well. But apart from the last 12 months or so, Apple have lost market share every single year since 1996. Apple are executing well when it comes to iPods, iTunes and portables. But in the desktop space, I absolutely reject the notion that Apple is "executing well". There is a massive, gaping whole in their lineup which serves to totally ignore the market's most popular desktop configuration, and that doesn't make any business sense at all.
You point out that the cube and low-end G5 tower were both failures. That is because they were both rip-offs and were not actually anything like the $999 tower I propose. The cube was underpowered, not expandable enough and severely over-priced, the low-end G5 was also too expensive. That casework was major overkill for its specification, Apple lacked the vision for creating a true mid-range desktop, and also lacked the necessary diversity of chips. That lack of chip diversity has now changed.
Why do you and others continually make the assumption that a computer with the following specs.:
1.86 GHz E6300 Conroe processor
512 MB RAM
160 GB HDD
Draw-loading Combo Drive
ATI-X1600
2 PCI-e slots
2 HDD slots
1 optical drive bay
In a "tower" will necessarily have a "boring", "inelegant" or "meh" appearance? I would fully expect any such "mini tower" to have the touch of Apple class.
Finally, is it a risk to introduce this tower? Yes, because if all it did was cannibalise sales of iMacs (and people bought monitors elsewhere) and Mac Pros, and didn't bring any new customers, that would be bad.
However, risk is a necessary part of business. If you don't take any risks, you will get nowhere fast and I believe it is time that Apple took some risks in order to deliver a significant increase in desktop market share.
Are you seriously denying that the vast majority of Windows desktop machines cost significantly below $2100?
I said nothing of the sort.
I said nothing of the sort.
Oh really? So what was the purpose of post #131?
Someone stated that they were basing the demand for a cheaper tower from Apple based on what sells in the Windows segment.
You quoted him and changed it to "what I believe sells in the Windows segment", implying that that is what he should have said, and that you thought the contention inaccurate. In addition, that isn't the only post where you have implied that you think that an inexpensive tower is only a small percentage of the market.
Inexpensive towers are the vast majority of the computer desktop market.
Again, PCI slots and extra hard drive bays are not high end tech. A cheap crap $350 Dell has PCI slots and hard drive bays. A 12 year old Power Mac 7100/66 that you could probably get for $10 at a garage sale has PCI slots and hard drive bays. That ain't high-end tech.
Not a very good example. Is it?
1994 was a different time in which the computer you mentioned costed more than a... current Mac Pro. (very good)
Windows was embryotic at best.
The 7100/66 had no PCI slots whatsoever.
It came with 3 NuBus slots.
It had a SCSI harddrive.
Both were quite expensive upgrade options.
Anyway,
I agree that Apple should make a cheaper mildly upgradable whinner proof desktop computer.
A $1.499 - $1,699 Mac Pro light with a Conroe chip will do.
Much of what you say is true. However, most of is in direct contention with what Apple executives have said in press releases and quarterly conference calls about increasing market share.
Protecting margins, cannibalization, offering what Apple thinks the consumer needs rather than what the want, all inhibit market share. By offering a modestly expandable mid to upper end consumer tower/SFF shouldn't threaten Apple's long term profits.
If you consider that Apple's laptops are now more than 50% of their sales and have garnered 12% of the retail market, I suspect the desktop sales are not very good, since Apple's overall US market share has only increased modestly(re: from 4.6% to 4.8% I think ????).
Apple is currently in a good position to gain market share. PR from the iPod, long delays in Longhorn/Vista, fourth version of OS X(soon to be fifth), iLife software appealing to the home user, switch to x-86, virtualization, boot-camp, general frustration among consumers with malware & Microsoft.
If Apple offers a profitable computer model that appeals to the vast majority of consumers, will they zoom to 50% market share -no. But they might double their market share and capture a significant portion of the profitable market that Dell needs to subsidize their low end boxes.
. . . Finally, is it a risk to introduce this tower? Yes, because if all it did was cannibalise sales of iMacs (and people bought monitors elsewhere) and Mac Pros, and didn't bring any new customers, that would be bad.
However, risk is a necessary part of business. If you don't take any risks, you will get nowhere fast and I believe it is time that Apple took some risks in order to deliver a significant increase in desktop market share.
Hi, I've agreed with just about everything you've been posting, but here I think you are being too pessimistic about risk. In the past, Apple has introduced products at one price and later dropped the price modestly, for example the introduction of the G5 PowerMac. I see no reason Apple could not do the same with a mini tower, if Apple has concerns about impact on other products.
The introductory price could be high enough so that it make no difference if it hurts iMac and Mac Pro sales. If it turns out to be a loser, which I seriously doubt, it can be dropped like the cube.
Apple should price a mini tower high enough so that the iMac remains a better deal than a comparable mini tower with a third party monitor, also of comparable quality. The iMac should in fact have better specifications than the lowest end mini tower, which could sell for less.
Another way to look at the desktop product lineup would be that the iMac hits the maximum demand spot, and the mini tower, with built-to-order options, covers a range from below this spot to far above it.
And a $1700 conroe mac tower changes that equation how?
The examples thus far have been cheap $350-$600 Dell towers. You guys argue for the $1700 tower but what you really want is that tower to be a heck of a lot closer to $999.
How many folks that can afford a $1700 mac tower can't afford another $400 and get quad core goodness? That last $400 buys a lot of future proofing. And $1700 IS workstation pricing today. The base Dell 690 is $1729. Desktop pricing is $800 less. XPS 400 is $890.
Tell me people wont be whining to the moon if there was a $1700 Conroe mac tower when the equivalent Dell conroe tower is $900.
At best we might get a cube. There's no way that Apple is putting out a $900 tower that will kill iMac sales. There's no way a $1700 conroe workstation will fly when a quad core woodcrest workstation is $400 more.
I'd love a Conroe cube with 1 slot, a 3.5" HD, 4 DIMM slots @ maybe $1500 but I sure don't expect one. The Mac family is complete.
Vinea
Wheeee! What a flame fest we have going on! This is more fun than a party at The Rib Shack on the Fourth of July! <dons asbestos underpants>
Ok, only got to page 3 (out of 4) of the thread and finally found a post I had to qoute.
There are three very simply solutions to this whole debate:
1: Apple institutes a new Build-to-Order program called YourMac. They allow you to choose your processor, bus speed, memory type and quantity, number of USB, Firewire, ADB, Serial, Parallel and MIDI ports, number of Hard Drive bays, number and size of hard drive, Raid configuration or no, Number and type of optical drives, number of PCIe slots, number and type of PCIe16x slots,Power Supply size, Chasis material, Chasis size, cooling solution, professional artwork for your case (the artist will fly out to your place to confer with you to ensure 100% satisfaction) Display size and whether or not it is integrated, and finally the quantity of pixie dust you'd like to have dispersed into your computer room each hour (the power supply will double as the dispersion device). Then they will stop everything else they are doing, get all their engineers togeather for a giant weekend Beer/Chips/Design party, and build your motherboard and all other components from scratch. If your chosen processor does not yet exist, Steve will use his Reality Distortion Field to coerce Intel (or AMD, if you choose) to also drop everything and build your invincible processor from scratch. This will all be completed by the end of the weekend. Apple will then fly your new YourMac out to you on a specially recommissioned Concord, and pick you up for a tour around the globe at Mach 8 (Steve's the pilot, so he can use his Reality Distortion Field here too) while The Woz teaches you all about your new YourMac, including the facinatingly inticate details of how to play Beethovan's 9th using only the read/write heads on your 800TB RAID4 array. After your tour is complete, Apple will drop you back off at your home and set up your new YourMac, and get you running (that 3 ton tip of Khufu's Pyramid in Giza that Steve and Steve bought for you has to be shipped by boat, so it will come in a few weeks), and you live happily ever after. All for only $1899!
2) You go out to your local University and enroll as a freshman in the Computer Engineering program. Four years later, you graduate, design your own MoBo, including all proprietary parts from a current Mac (so the os will run, of course) and print it out using copper plated breadboard, a laser printer and transparencies. The buy a bunch of 3rd party pc hardware and build your own fully customized CrackMac.
3) You go out to your local University and enroll as a freshman in the Computer Science program. Four years later, you graduate, grab a copy of the current MacOS, spend 30 minutes looking around in it's guts, edit three lines of text, and boot it on your brand new custom configured Dell.
Oh, almost forgot,
4) Go buy a PC and run windows. It's gonna look just like MacOS in a few years anyway.
ok. On a serious note, I myself have a strong desire for an expandable machine, whether it be a desktop or a laptop. Personally, I would go with a MacPro, simply because I love having a demonically fast computer. The reason I want an EXPANDABLE box though, is that I don't want to get a year or two down the road, and see that brand spankin new game, or CAD program, or whatever on the shelf at the local computer store, buy it, and get home only to realize that it runs like carp on my computer. And, yes, I do mean carp. I think people like to be able to spend $300 on a new video card and bring their old computer up to 80-90% of what a new one can do, rather than having to go out and get a whole new box. You DO buy a new monitor every time you get a new iMac. If, because of your lifestyle, you don't have a use for an old computer when you get a new one, then that essentially becomes a waste of money (unless you can find a sucker to buy it from you. ;-D)
I suspect that this sense of economy is where the headless mac (btw, why the heck is it called headless??????) idea is comming from. True: if an iMac can't do it, you probably NEED a MacPro (no, I didn't say that first). However, if your iMac CAN do it now, but in two years it won't be able to anymore due to feature creap, needing to do different things in general, etc, then if you have an iMac, you may very well be foreced to fork over the cost of a new puter. iMacs are for those who know what they are going to be doing, and are going to be doing it for quite a while without much change. (also for those who HATE hassel). MacPro is for those who have a wide variety of things to do and need a lot of power, and whose tasks will likely change in the future. The headless Mac is the phantom that fills the void of those who don't really need a lot of power, but whose computing habbits change often (so, you're setting up a home audio studo next week? What happened to that CNC set up you had? Oh, that was LAST week. I see. So the Photo lab with 64" large format printer is next month then?)
We live, unfortunately, in a world of tradeoffs. That's particularly irritating to me because I tend to be an idealist, but I've had to accept it, and simply figure out exactly what my needs are, and then pick the best solution available at the time. If a better one gets released next week, then I go cry in the bathroom for a few minutes (ok, not really) then suck it up and drive on. Like the time I bought the G3 Wallstreet and had to get the USB cardbus adapter... then the bronze keyboard version with built in USB came out the week later.
Celemourn
<dives for cover behind fireproof baricade>
Historically lower end towers have sold at a lower volume than the mid range towers. If I am correct, and I'm not saying that I am, then based on this a computer in the traditional price range of the low end PowerMac of $1499-1699 (which briefly hit $1299 before the final phasing out of computers capable of booting into OS 9, and as high as $1999) would not necessarily have a great impact on the iMac market, and if it did take iMac sales then Apple would make a greater profit than on a similarly priced iMac. If such a computer were able to attract were more new Mac purchases than Apple is currently attracting then this would not be such a bad thing.
Hi, I've agreed with just about everything you've been posting, but here I think you are being too pessimistic about risk. In the past, Apple has introduced products at one price and later dropped the price modestly, for example the introduction of the G5 PowerMac. I see no reason Apple could not do the same with a mini tower, if Apple has concerns about impact on other products.
The introductory price could be high enough so that it make no difference if it hurts iMac and Mac Pro sales. If it turns out to be a loser, which I seriously doubt, it can be dropped like the cube.
Apple should price a mini tower high enough so that the iMac remains a better deal than a comparable mini tower with a third party monitor, also of comparable quality. The iMac should in fact have better specifications than the lowest end mini tower, which could sell for less.
Another way to look at the desktop product lineup would be that the iMac hits the maximum demand spot, and the mini tower, with built-to-order options, covers a range from below this spot to far above it.
It wouldn't compete against the iMac because they are for two completely different types of customers. Think of a Conroe Mac Pro as Apple's answer to the Dell XPS400.