Fred Anderson: More Software and Higher Targeted Marketshare Coming From Apple.
Apple Computer Says Goal Is to Raise Marketshare
Tuesday February 25, 8:20 pm ET
By Mark Boslet
LA QUINTA, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson said the company's aim is to expand its share of the computer market.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Symposium, Anderson said a "good intermediate" goal would be to reach 5% marketshare from 3% today.
He also said the computer maker's target is to get to $8 billion of annual revenue. Apple had revenue of about $5.7 billion in 2002.
Users of Macintosh machines from Apple also are "going to see more and more software coming out of Apple," Mr. Anderson said.
[ 02-25-2003: Message edited by: MacsRGood4U ]</p>
Tuesday February 25, 8:20 pm ET
By Mark Boslet
LA QUINTA, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson said the company's aim is to expand its share of the computer market.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Symposium, Anderson said a "good intermediate" goal would be to reach 5% marketshare from 3% today.
He also said the computer maker's target is to get to $8 billion of annual revenue. Apple had revenue of about $5.7 billion in 2002.
Users of Macintosh machines from Apple also are "going to see more and more software coming out of Apple," Mr. Anderson said.
[ 02-25-2003: Message edited by: MacsRGood4U ]</p>
Comments
I think 8 billion is a conservative estimate. With Apples push into the Enteprise with Xserve I think they can do it.
Not only new software will be required but Hardware that seperates users from their ducats will be needed. I'm looking for a strong Q4 2003 and 2004 to be Apple's year to shine.
Interesting that he chose the same presentation to mention more software, too. Keynote's release solidified my post-MWNY theory that Steve had just fired a salvo at Outlook (iCal/iSync/Mail) and from here it's not hard to see Apple's server, office software, networking (including Windows compatibility), and digital hub/multimedia applications all converging at about the same time that the 970 and the next-generation PC architectures arrive courtesy of FireWire2, HyperTransport and RapidIO.
It's been mentioned elsewhere, but an "Enterprise IT" track has been added to WWDC...
Dorsal said that 2002 would be Apple's year. I'm not going to say that 2003 will be Apple's year, but I'm quite confident that 2003 will see an acceleration in Apple technology that no veteran of the last five years could have predicted.
Oh, and it's no accident that Mac OS 9 is dead, either.
I do see Apple eventually offering Homegrown
Presentation- Keynote
Spreadsheet-
Word Processing- "Document"?
I wonder what other Applications Apple wants to foray into.
I think they will leave other areas alone but focus on Office type applications.
Of course the music lover in me would love to see iTraks as a showcase for CoreAudio and it's components. I don't think most consumers know that a $60 USB keyboard and CoreAudio can produce better sounds than those cheapo keyboards with their cheesy sounds that Casio, Yamaha and other foist upon us.
<strong>Could we see Apple beefing up it's Mail Component in OSX Server to match the functionality of say Exchange?</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple's smart they'll keep the Mail component focused on mail, and add separate components for separate tasks. They're using industry standard file formats and protocols, so there's always the option of using an industrial strength UNIX app to replace one or all of the components if Apple's offerings don't scale well enough (and it's OK if they don't, because applications that scale to handle really high loads are typically a bear to get up and running - Apple's should be set-up-and-go easy). Given this, Apple is quite close to replacing exchange. After all, look at Sherlock: The information doesn't all have to come from the same place to be related and organized neatly for the end user.
Exchange is a proprietary monolith so that MS can lock its customers in and soak them with onerous licensing fees. From a design and deployment point of view, it's incredibly stupid to have one app try to do everything that Exchange tries to do. That's (one reason) why our Exchange server keeps falling down.
The one thing Apple's lack is Office preinstalled. It's a huge sales problem to explain to potential buyers that it doesn't come with Office, and oh, if you want it it costs $200-500 smackers!
The killer app is delivering a Microsoft Office compatible office suite.
Working with the <a href="http://www.OpenOffice.org"; target="_blank">www.OpenOffice.org</a> folks, would get them there. Remember, Apple said "we love open source".
Let's watch and see.
<strong>Forgive my ignorance, not having ever bought a Windoze PC, but does Office come preinstalled on most boxes?</strong><hr></blockquote>
It generally doesn't come preinstalled but it's only $140 dollars or so to add it. Lot's cheaper than the raping Mac user take when purchasing Office.
The answer is obvious. Office.
The one thing Apple's lack is Office preinstalled. It's a huge sales problem to explain to potential buyers that it doesn't come with Office, and oh, if you want it it costs $200-500 smackers!
The killer app is delivering a Microsoft Office compatible office suite.
Working with the <a href="http://www.OpenOffice.org"; target="_blank">www.OpenOffice.org</a> folks, would get them there. Remember, Apple said "we love open source".
Let's watch and see.
<hr></blockquote>
You know, I've been thinking about this a lot recently, what with Fred Anderson mentioning scads of software is going to come out of Apple. I really, REALLY hope Apple drops Appleworks and goes with OpenOffice. I think it will be the next industry standard, just as MS Office is today.
Apple can leverage the work (for free) of a LOT of developers, and if they pitch code back in, the app gets better and both sides benefit. Even if Apple just uses parts of OpenOffice.
A fair bit of work would be involved (ie: Quartz instead of X11) but much of the work would lie in cutting out code (spellcheck, widgets) and replacing it with native system calls.
In fact, all the gui would pretty much have to be re-written and only the core OO engine would remain.
I'd love to know what Apple has planned for an Office-esque productivity suite. I'd like to see Apple sever all ties with Microsoft. Explorer down, Office to go.
99% of the Word users out there would be easily served by any number of word processors, but their data is held hostage by a proprietary file format. Ditto for Excel, Access, etc.
PowerPoint looks to now have a nice alternate file format in the Keynote XML Schema. *Anyone* can use this to define a PowerPoint-esque presentation. Toss in a PP<->KXS converter, and suddenly anyone can write a presentation tool that is guaranteed to work immediately with any KXS presentation system... or PP.
I was stuck in PP land because I couldn't give up my *documents*, not because I couldn't give up PowerPoint itself. If Apple continues to pull in open formats, and open source frameworks, they can write their own slick GUIs over the top and *still* benefit from and contribute to the greater open source community.
Agreed. Though they could use bits of it. I just mean I hope they take an open source project with 'legs' instead of endlessly piling new code on AppleWorks, which is a bit, um, stale.
They could still call it Appleworks, just as long as it isn't Appleworks on the inside
I bet $50 this is in the works at Apple, as the final *snip* of the umbilical cord to M$.
There is or was at least one topic that suggests apple is going to release AppleWorks 7 this spring, and most believe it will be a full Cocoa rewrite. Of course, since Apple released presentation software seperately, it would make sense for people to pick and choose what they want, as they have been. (Lots of little apps) I don't think AppleWorks will be software but a suite. And that may be 3 to 5 programs (including Keynote). That's a lot of software and could really be all there is to come.
I did remember that Apple ships only Chess w/ OS X. I know Mac people are smart but, Chess. They should include something like Battleship, Connect4, or Tetris, nothing extragant, just something more in line with Minesweeper.
As for office suites, KOffice does look pretty good. And KDE is continually being updated in DarwinPorts. Though with the release update from early January talking about major issues with some components (works good overall) I'd doubt a soon release if it were used.
List
?Personal Finance/Accounting
?Office Suite
?simple games (Battleship, Solitaire, Tetris)
?Safari (technically, it's a beta, not release software)
?iChat 2 (video; just plain better)
I think it'd be cool if Apple included software that it's programmers had made during breaks or in their spare time. Something for a Dev CD maybe. Just kinda showcase and give additional recognition to those great people.
[Edit]What's the possibility of Apple adding forums for OS X Server?
[ 03-01-2003: Message edited by: macserverX ]</p>
<strong>The answer is obvious. Office.
The one thing Apple's lack is Office preinstalled. It's a huge sales problem to explain to potential buyers that it doesn't come with Office, and oh, if you want it it costs $200-500 smackers!
The killer app is delivering a Microsoft Office compatible office suite.
Working with the <a href="http://www.OpenOffice.org"; target="_blank">www.OpenOffice.org</a> folks, would get them there. Remember, Apple said "we love open source".
Let's watch and see.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree. I think Apple needs to take it to another level. There should be other functions within an office suite. There are tools needed across the enterprise that go beyond the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation packages. It should contain a robust project manager (like Microsoft Project), technical drawing tool (like Microsoft Visio), a programming environment that integrates those tools.