Because the cost to Apple of $100 of iTunes music is probably around the same as a $200 iPod. You realize that their margins on music are far lower than on hardware right?
Exactly. Furthermore, an iPod voucher naturally leads to iTunes sales. But an iTunes voucher is unlikely to generate an iPod sale.
Let's not forget too - iTunes vouchers do not increase the iOS market count. Apple hasn't given up on coming back to beat Android yet, all flavors of them!
This is what I am seeing as well..... For the first time, employees are putting a great deal pf pressure on IT departments to support iPhones and iPads. Most of the executives in our company either have an iPad or are thinking about getting one. I am in engineering sales support and I bought one to better support my customers when I am in the field. Recently another engineer bought one. Our engineering manager is now looking into supplying them to all of the engineers.
I am also the first person in our company to have a company MacBook Pro. Since all of the software that we sell is windows based, no one ever thought a Mac until windows 7/Vista came around. Almost none of our software is compatible with Windows 7 64bit at this time. As a result, all of our engineers and many of our customers have been forced to run virtual machines to demo and work with our software even on windows laptops. I requested a Mac since I can run the VMware images on it with VMWare Fusion. After some debate my boss said no and bought me a new Dell. It was a crappy machine and due to a weird BIOS bug would NOT work with more than 4Gb of ram. I need at least 8gb to run the three Win Server images needed for some of my demos. I told him I would buy a MacBook Pro and pay for it myself. He finally decided to let me get me a Mac (After wasting two months trying to get the Dell to work) and it has worked nearly flawless for months. Now others are interested in shifting to the Mac......
My point is that times are changing, corporate America is now embracing Apple product more than they ever had. If my company who sells primarly Windows Only software is looking into it, any company can....
Come on guys. Do we believe these analysts now or not???
We do not.
The professional analysts' track record is horrible, even worse than the amateur Apple financial bloggers.
The Street is stupid. Basically, if a professional analyst says something, you can be confident that there is a good chance that the outcome will be different. There is little reason to read anything from an analyst who isn't star rated (four or five stars from Starmine). Even then, they are still far more likely to be wrong than the bloggers.
Shaw Wu, Gene Munster, Katy Huberty, Gartner, etc. are laughably terrible predictors of Apple's direction.
When you see rumors based on professional analysts' musings, you can roundly dismiss it as mindless blathering.
I love the part where it says high-level executives are ?influencing the IT to bring Apple products into the Enterprise.? Sweet.
Me, too. That's the only way it could be done. From the very top. They've got the clout and control the cash flow. Those IT guys have dicked Mac products for years, maybe even some for good reasons, but those guys basically swore their loyalty to everything Windows without question. I'm not asking that Windows not be used. I'm only asking for a little more parity. Let employees have some say about what they'd like to use. Yes, it makes it harder to support two platforms instead of one, but give the iMacs or Mac Minis a chance. They're terrific products that support both OSX and Windows and they're space and energy efficient. I'd like to see a 30% Apple desktop penetration into the corporate world. I think the next generation of college students will definitely be actively pro-Apple.
Because the cost to Apple of $100 of iTunes music is probably around the same as a $200 iPod. You realize that their margins on music are far lower than on hardware right?
Uh, can't "high-level executives" wield more than "influence" with their IT departments? Like maybe the novel notion of mandating that Apple products be part of the mix?
Quote:
Originally Posted by starbird
I'd love to agree with you and say they "mandate" Apple products, but there are so many legacy systems and software packages out there that are Windows (or if web based, IE 6) reliant. So you can't just abandon ship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer
For a big firm with a huge entrenched IT function, ordering IT around is like ordering around your drug dealer. Yes, you are his customer, but you are also dependent on what he supplies you - so negotiations are somewhat more delicate.
Often in big firms the IT departments metastatize, with business areas hiring their own IT guys to try to avoid the ossified central IT and their refusenik attitude to any request. Then phases of recentralization take place to try to rein in spending, leaving the central IT department trying to manage a ton of projects that it didn't create in the first place.
Add in that you probably outsourced half your low level grunts to Bangalore, and now you're stuck with long term contracts to a firm out there with no mac expertise and probably precious little with windows.
The result is a huge great hairy mess.
Boy, thanks for both the insightful replies. My limited experiences with IT were with an outfit in the 80s where we got a bunch of Apple IIs to supplement the IBM terminals, then another firm in the 90s that was Mac-only, and my final employer before retirement in the early 00s where they had recently changed over from Macs to Windows but continued to support those who kept or brought in their own Macs. These revelations are totally incredible.
However, my original statement still stands: Instead of executives "influencing" IT departments, they need to exercise executive authority and mandate that IT, while still primarily concerned with Windows devices, add Apple products to the choices for employees. Or is it that IT is so terrified of Apple products that just work and don't need daily maintenance, keeping the IT hordes gainfully employed.
I feel that these executives who can't do more than influence have no business sitting in the executive chair. Just call the head of IT into your office and never offer him a chair, then clearly and simply state that IT will produce a plan within four weeks that will allow employees a choice of either a Windows machine or a Mac machine. Then tell the IT guy that if he doesn't, then the next interview will be an exit interview with HR. I've seen managers fired for less.
Oh, about so-called legacy software packages, there comes a time to move forward and dump those 20-year-old legacies. If still needed, then those who truly need them will continue to get IT support forever. You don't see many print shops using lead slug typesetting machines or mimeographs.
I requested a Mac since I can run the VMware images on it with VMWare Fusion. After some debate my boss said no and bought me a new Dell.
Did he give a reason why he chose the Dell? Did it have to do with its lower initial cost or was he just worried that IT wouldn't be able to support the Mac as well? I'm just curious. I've been on a rant as to why more Macs aren't being used in the enterprise because my Apple computers have pretty much run non-stop for years and it would seem to me that the enterprise could certainly benefit from running trouble-free Macs. I'm only basing this on my own experience so my judgment doesn't carry much weight. I've used a number of Windows applications under VMWare Fusion DT and it works great. It's a nice sandbox and you can always keep multiple VMWare images as for recovery if needed.
Me, too. That's the only way it could be done. From the very top. They've got the clout and control the cash flow. Those IT guys have dicked Mac products for years, maybe even some for good reasons, but those guys basically swore their loyalty to everything Windows without question. I'm not asking that Windows not be used. I'm only asking for a little more parity. Let employees have some say about what they'd like to use. Yes, it makes it harder to support two platforms instead of one, but give the iMacs or Mac Minis a chance. They're terrific products that support both OSX and Windows and they're space and energy efficient. I'd like to see a 30% Apple desktop penetration into the corporate world. I think the next generation of college students will definitely be actively pro-Apple.
Mac minis indeed! Less than a thou for a desktop system that recycles the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I feel that these executives who can't do more than influence have no business sitting in the executive chair. Just call the head of IT into your office and never offer him a chair, then clearly and simply state that IT will produce a plan within four weeks that will allow employees a choice of either a Windows machine or a Mac machine. Then tell the IT guy that if he doesn't, then the next interview will be an exit interview with HR. I've seen managers fired for less.
That's great, now you have Macs running Citrix and all the applications except maybe Office are still running on windows blades. 30% of employees request a mac instead of their existing machine, causing a huge capital expense and a bunch of old PCs to be written off before their normal EoL. Oh and you needed to buy a ton of expensive servers to host all those citrix sessions. You need to make a bunch of windows guys expensively redundant and hire a bunch of new mac support people, including ones who have experience doing hardware level stuff on iMacs - which is far more complex than the 'lego-like' construction of PC desktops.
The CEO has to explain to market why the quarterly results are so terrible, I've seen CEOs lose their jobs for less.
Quote:
Oh, about so-called legacy software packages, there comes a time to move forward and dump those 20-year-old legacies. If still needed, then those who truly need them will continue to get IT support forever. You don't see many print shops using lead slug typesetting machines or mimeographs.
Let me give you an example of what a legacy system might look like in a medium sized european bank ( names have been changed to protect the guilty ). There is a german Landesbank which we will call the bank of Thunder Ten Tronckh, though it is far from the best of all possible banks. One day many years ago a new guy arrived from a french bank and in his pocket he had a copy of their entire french analytics library- all written in C++, though the french probably called it C Plu Plu. For reasons of convenience the BoTTT decided to strip out all the dirty french comments and use it themselves. They then spent a decade or so modifying it and extending it, obfusticating it, including a couple of attempts to completely rewrite it which were incomplete and failed to demise a single class. The end result is a glorious mess consisting of millions of lines of code, in C, C++, C#, Java and Visual Basic. The full compilation takes many hours in parallel across 20 or 30 machines. There are multiple custom classes for strings, vectors, matrices, etc. almost nowhere are standard classes used.
Even if you could dig up the necessary man years to rewrite the library, or the smaller but still considerable number of man years it would take to port the library to work on OS-X and Excel on the mac you still couldn't demise it because it also has to integrate with the trading system and that doesn't and won't run on OS-X. It will run on Sun Solaris boxes, but the vendor has been pushing people off them and onto Windows for years now - I'm not even sure their roadmap still includes GUI support on Solaris. Want to switch to a trading system that does support OS-X? You'll need another hundred million dollars or so to write one, because none exists.
Demising software systems in big banks doesn't take months, it takes years. Around a decade isn't a bad guess for anything substantial. You literally can't imagine how messed up it is until you've worked in one of these places.
That's great, now you have Macs running Citrix and all the applications except maybe Office are still running on windows blades. 30% of employees request a mac instead of their existing machine, causing a huge capital expense and a bunch of old PCs to be written off before their normal EoL. Oh and you needed to buy a ton of expensive servers to host all those citrix sessions. You need to make a bunch of windows guys expensively redundant and hire a bunch of new mac support people, including ones who have experience doing hardware level stuff on iMacs - which is far more complex than the 'lego-like' construction of PC desktops.
Ha! That's the most pitiful protectionist rant I've ever heard! Yeah, those IT guys with their PC hardware skills are made redundant by the Macs. Uh, hello, if they're not total idiots, they can learn to disassemble and repair a Mac in about 2 days. Of course, they probably ARE total idiots, at least in my experience with corporate IT types. My clients are those corner office types. They call me in to help them with their computers, Mac or PC, at their own expense, because their corporate IT guys are slacker bozos. Keep crying.
Ha! That's the most pitiful protectionist rant I've ever heard! Yeah, those IT guys with their PC hardware skills are made redundant by the Macs. Uh, hello, if they're not total idiots, they can learn to disassemble and repair a Mac in about 2 days. Of course, they probably ARE total idiots, at least in my experience with corporate IT types. My clients are those corner office types. They call me in to help them with their computers, Mac or PC, at their own expense, because their corporate IT guys are slacker bozos. Keep crying.
I don't care if they're made redundant, I'm just talking about the expense of it, because yes, most of them won't be able to learn radically new skills, if they were able to they wouldn't be stuck doing grunt support in a big soulless enterprise. They could be earning three times as much doing application level support in the same place.
I don't care if they're made redundant, I'm just talking about the expense of it, because yes, most of them won't be able to learn radically new skills, if they were able to they wouldn't be stuck doing grunt support in a big soulless enterprise. They could be earning three times as much doing application level support in the same place.
If they're too dumb to learn "radically new" skills, then that's called capitalism. Find a new job doing something more to your skill level. There's no expense in training someone who isn't a chimp how to work inside a Mac instead of a PC. I'm sorry, but if you think there is, that just shows that you haven't worked inside both yourself.
If they're too dumb to learn "radically new" skills, then that's called capitalism. Find a new job doing something more to your skill level. There's no expense in training someone who isn't a chimp how to work inside a Mac instead of a PC. I'm sorry, but if you think there is, that just shows that you haven't worked inside both yourself.
Sure it's called capitalism, I'm not crying for them, I'm just saying it costs money to sack them. How hard is that to understand? Getting rid of deadwood still costs money, and it would be part of the expense of adding in mac hardware. Substantial expense which at the present would serve no material purpose because 90% of the software used in the enterprise would still be running on a windows blade somewhere.
Be grateful for the $100 (or you can always buy Windows).
Sorry, you seem to have missed my point. You're actually agreeing with me :-)
The exact point I was (admittedly obliquely) making is that Apple have reduced the dollar value of the discount because they can (ie "demand.... supply.... that sort of thing); rather than because everybody already owns an iPod Touch.
Sure it's called capitalism, I'm not crying for them, I'm just saying it costs money to sack them. How hard is that to understand? Getting rid of deadwood still costs money, and it would be part of the expense of adding in mac hardware. Substantial expense which at the present would serve no material purpose because 90% of the software used in the enterprise would still be running on a windows blade somewhere.
You're missing the whole point of the OP you're replying to. Replacing the Dell with a Mac serves a very material purpose.
Also, look up creative destruction. If firing an idiot costs a little money, then that's probably money well spent. You can also probably replace all that deadwood with half as many competent people and save money overall.
Because the cost to Apple of $100 of iTunes music is probably around the same as a $200 iPod. You realize that their margins on music are far lower than on hardware right?
Yes I have heard that.
My point was more about the perceived consumer value of the 2 offers. Because supplier margins are opaque, consumers make purchase decisions based on retail pricing. For Apple to reduce the perceived value of their freebie by 56% it would appear that they feel that the value proposition in total is still highly competitive. This value proposition is the sum of the product offering itself (ie the Mac being purchased), the retail pricing of the product offering, plus the freebie. Given the consumer appeal of the new Airs plus their highly competitive price points I think Apple likely felt that their overall consumer value proposition was good enough to get away with a lower value giveaway. I think they're right (and the analysts data being reported would appear to support this).
For starters, Apple's back to school promotion serves two purposes. First, to clear out inventory for refreshes in September. Second, to encourage Mac sales over Window sales. Apple likely didn't give away an iPod because it isn't looking to clear iPod inventory, or doesn't think the offer is attractive at this point.
As far as your questions goes, giving away a $229 iPod likely costs Apple about $100 (the cost of manufacturing and shipping) and also helps clear inventory. Giving away $100 iTunes voucher likely costs Apple about $90. If it were to give away a $229 voucher, that would cost closer to two hundred dollars. It wouldn't make any money on the sale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ameldrum1
Then why didn't Apple provide a $229 iTunes voucher?
Did he give a reason why he chose the Dell? Did it have to do with its lower initial cost or was he just worried that IT wouldn't be able to support the Mac as well? I'm just curious. I've been on a rant as to why more Macs aren't being used in the enterprise because my Apple computers have pretty much run non-stop for years and it would seem to me that the enterprise could certainly benefit from running trouble-free Macs. I'm only basing this on my own experience so my judgment doesn't carry much weight. I've used a number of Windows applications under VMWare Fusion DT and it works great. It's a nice sandbox and you can always keep multiple VMWare images as for recovery if needed.
He does not like to rock the boat and got a dell by default. We ( the engineers ) are required to maintain our own laptops, so conforming to IT was not the issue. I think he was a little embarrassed when it did not work as the 8Gb of RAM and a 64bit OS was my only request.
I am very happy with my Macbook Pro. I think more people in the organization will get them now. Many of the sales forces has them as home ( or personal ) computers....
To me, the real game changes is the iPad... It has opened a lot of eyes...
You're missing the whole point of the OP you're replying to. Replacing the Dell with a Mac serves a very material purpose.
No, the person I was replying to was saying that CEOs should 'just order' the IT guys to provide macs to employees who preferred them. I was explaining why that doesn't work. If you have a business need for a mac in a large enterprise you can normally get one, but the only people who find themselves in that situation are people working on a few specialist areas. They invariably also need PCs in order to interact with the rest of the house systems.
One of the biggest banks in the world, where I was working recently it was incredibly hard to get upgraded to a decent sized monitor. Many people were still stuck with twin 14inch LCD panels that had been bought when the head office was new. Twin 17inch panels were standard, getting anything bigger than 17inch involved serious hoop jumping.
More than 50Mb - yes Mega bytes - of email space had to be specially requested and again caused much grumbling. More than about 150Mb was basically not available to mere mortals. Sorry, but if you haven't worked in these kind of environments you have no idea of the kind of inertia that you're dealing with.
'Just Ordering' IT is like Canute ordering the tide, IT has acquired a life of its own in the enterprsie and if you sack the CIO every time the IT department fails to deliver, you will be hiring a lot of CIOs.
Comments
Because the cost to Apple of $100 of iTunes music is probably around the same as a $200 iPod. You realize that their margins on music are far lower than on hardware right?
Exactly. Furthermore, an iPod voucher naturally leads to iTunes sales. But an iTunes voucher is unlikely to generate an iPod sale.
Let's not forget too - iTunes vouchers do not increase the iOS market count. Apple hasn't given up on coming back to beat Android yet, all flavors of them!
I am also the first person in our company to have a company MacBook Pro. Since all of the software that we sell is windows based, no one ever thought a Mac until windows 7/Vista came around. Almost none of our software is compatible with Windows 7 64bit at this time. As a result, all of our engineers and many of our customers have been forced to run virtual machines to demo and work with our software even on windows laptops. I requested a Mac since I can run the VMware images on it with VMWare Fusion. After some debate my boss said no and bought me a new Dell. It was a crappy machine and due to a weird BIOS bug would NOT work with more than 4Gb of ram. I need at least 8gb to run the three Win Server images needed for some of my demos. I told him I would buy a MacBook Pro and pay for it myself. He finally decided to let me get me a Mac (After wasting two months trying to get the Dell to work) and it has worked nearly flawless for months. Now others are interested in shifting to the Mac......
My point is that times are changing, corporate America is now embracing Apple product more than they ever had. If my company who sells primarly Windows Only software is looking into it, any company can....
Come on guys. Do we believe these analysts now or not???
We do not.
The professional analysts' track record is horrible, even worse than the amateur Apple financial bloggers.
The Street is stupid. Basically, if a professional analyst says something, you can be confident that there is a good chance that the outcome will be different. There is little reason to read anything from an analyst who isn't star rated (four or five stars from Starmine). Even then, they are still far more likely to be wrong than the bloggers.
Shaw Wu, Gene Munster, Katy Huberty, Gartner, etc. are laughably terrible predictors of Apple's direction.
When you see rumors based on professional analysts' musings, you can roundly dismiss it as mindless blathering.
Source: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/...iss-by-a-mile/
I love the part where it says high-level executives are ?influencing the IT to bring Apple products into the Enterprise.? Sweet.
Me, too. That's the only way it could be done. From the very top. They've got the clout and control the cash flow.
Then why didn't Apple provide a $229 iTunes voucher?
Demand.... supply.... that sort of thing....
Be grateful for the $100 (or you can always buy Windows).
Because the cost to Apple of $100 of iTunes music is probably around the same as a $200 iPod. You realize that their margins on music are far lower than on hardware right?
An even better answer.
Uh, can't "high-level executives" wield more than "influence" with their IT departments? Like maybe the novel notion of mandating that Apple products be part of the mix?
I'd love to agree with you and say they "mandate" Apple products, but there are so many legacy systems and software packages out there that are Windows (or if web based, IE 6) reliant. So you can't just abandon ship.
For a big firm with a huge entrenched IT function, ordering IT around is like ordering around your drug dealer. Yes, you are his customer, but you are also dependent on what he supplies you - so negotiations are somewhat more delicate.
Often in big firms the IT departments metastatize, with business areas hiring their own IT guys to try to avoid the ossified central IT and their refusenik attitude to any request. Then phases of recentralization take place to try to rein in spending, leaving the central IT department trying to manage a ton of projects that it didn't create in the first place.
Add in that you probably outsourced half your low level grunts to Bangalore, and now you're stuck with long term contracts to a firm out there with no mac expertise and probably precious little with windows.
The result is a huge great hairy mess.
Boy, thanks for both the insightful replies. My limited experiences with IT were with an outfit in the 80s where we got a bunch of Apple IIs to supplement the IBM terminals, then another firm in the 90s that was Mac-only, and my final employer before retirement in the early 00s where they had recently changed over from Macs to Windows but continued to support those who kept or brought in their own Macs. These revelations are totally incredible.
However, my original statement still stands: Instead of executives "influencing" IT departments, they need to exercise executive authority and mandate that IT, while still primarily concerned with Windows devices, add Apple products to the choices for employees. Or is it that IT is so terrified of Apple products that just work and don't need daily maintenance, keeping the IT hordes gainfully employed.
I feel that these executives who can't do more than influence have no business sitting in the executive chair. Just call the head of IT into your office and never offer him a chair, then clearly and simply state that IT will produce a plan within four weeks that will allow employees a choice of either a Windows machine or a Mac machine. Then tell the IT guy that if he doesn't, then the next interview will be an exit interview with HR. I've seen managers fired for less.
Oh, about so-called legacy software packages, there comes a time to move forward and dump those 20-year-old legacies. If still needed, then those who truly need them will continue to get IT support forever. You don't see many print shops using lead slug typesetting machines or mimeographs.
A big hairy mess indeed.
I requested a Mac since I can run the VMware images on it with VMWare Fusion. After some debate my boss said no and bought me a new Dell.
Did he give a reason why he chose the Dell? Did it have to do with its lower initial cost or was he just worried that IT wouldn't be able to support the Mac as well? I'm just curious. I've been on a rant as to why more Macs aren't being used in the enterprise because my Apple computers have pretty much run non-stop for years and it would seem to me that the enterprise could certainly benefit from running trouble-free Macs. I'm only basing this on my own experience so my judgment doesn't carry much weight. I've used a number of Windows applications under VMWare Fusion DT and it works great. It's a nice sandbox and you can always keep multiple VMWare images as for recovery if needed.
Me, too. That's the only way it could be done. From the very top. They've got the clout and control the cash flow.
Mac minis indeed! Less than a thou for a desktop system that recycles the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Way to go, Constable!
I feel that these executives who can't do more than influence have no business sitting in the executive chair. Just call the head of IT into your office and never offer him a chair, then clearly and simply state that IT will produce a plan within four weeks that will allow employees a choice of either a Windows machine or a Mac machine. Then tell the IT guy that if he doesn't, then the next interview will be an exit interview with HR. I've seen managers fired for less.
That's great, now you have Macs running Citrix and all the applications except maybe Office are still running on windows blades. 30% of employees request a mac instead of their existing machine, causing a huge capital expense and a bunch of old PCs to be written off before their normal EoL. Oh and you needed to buy a ton of expensive servers to host all those citrix sessions. You need to make a bunch of windows guys expensively redundant and hire a bunch of new mac support people, including ones who have experience doing hardware level stuff on iMacs - which is far more complex than the 'lego-like' construction of PC desktops.
The CEO has to explain to market why the quarterly results are so terrible, I've seen CEOs lose their jobs for less.
Oh, about so-called legacy software packages, there comes a time to move forward and dump those 20-year-old legacies. If still needed, then those who truly need them will continue to get IT support forever. You don't see many print shops using lead slug typesetting machines or mimeographs.
Let me give you an example of what a legacy system might look like in a medium sized european bank ( names have been changed to protect the guilty ). There is a german Landesbank which we will call the bank of Thunder Ten Tronckh, though it is far from the best of all possible banks. One day many years ago a new guy arrived from a french bank and in his pocket he had a copy of their entire french analytics library- all written in C++, though the french probably called it C Plu Plu. For reasons of convenience the BoTTT decided to strip out all the dirty french comments and use it themselves. They then spent a decade or so modifying it and extending it, obfusticating it, including a couple of attempts to completely rewrite it which were incomplete and failed to demise a single class. The end result is a glorious mess consisting of millions of lines of code, in C, C++, C#, Java and Visual Basic. The full compilation takes many hours in parallel across 20 or 30 machines. There are multiple custom classes for strings, vectors, matrices, etc. almost nowhere are standard classes used.
Even if you could dig up the necessary man years to rewrite the library, or the smaller but still considerable number of man years it would take to port the library to work on OS-X and Excel on the mac you still couldn't demise it because it also has to integrate with the trading system and that doesn't and won't run on OS-X. It will run on Sun Solaris boxes, but the vendor has been pushing people off them and onto Windows for years now - I'm not even sure their roadmap still includes GUI support on Solaris. Want to switch to a trading system that does support OS-X? You'll need another hundred million dollars or so to write one, because none exists.
Demising software systems in big banks doesn't take months, it takes years. Around a decade isn't a bad guess for anything substantial. You literally can't imagine how messed up it is until you've worked in one of these places.
That's great, now you have Macs running Citrix and all the applications except maybe Office are still running on windows blades. 30% of employees request a mac instead of their existing machine, causing a huge capital expense and a bunch of old PCs to be written off before their normal EoL. Oh and you needed to buy a ton of expensive servers to host all those citrix sessions. You need to make a bunch of windows guys expensively redundant and hire a bunch of new mac support people, including ones who have experience doing hardware level stuff on iMacs - which is far more complex than the 'lego-like' construction of PC desktops.
Ha! That's the most pitiful protectionist rant I've ever heard! Yeah, those IT guys with their PC hardware skills are made redundant by the Macs. Uh, hello, if they're not total idiots, they can learn to disassemble and repair a Mac in about 2 days. Of course, they probably ARE total idiots, at least in my experience with corporate IT types. My clients are those corner office types. They call me in to help them with their computers, Mac or PC, at their own expense, because their corporate IT guys are slacker bozos. Keep crying.
Ha! That's the most pitiful protectionist rant I've ever heard! Yeah, those IT guys with their PC hardware skills are made redundant by the Macs. Uh, hello, if they're not total idiots, they can learn to disassemble and repair a Mac in about 2 days. Of course, they probably ARE total idiots, at least in my experience with corporate IT types. My clients are those corner office types. They call me in to help them with their computers, Mac or PC, at their own expense, because their corporate IT guys are slacker bozos. Keep crying.
I don't care if they're made redundant, I'm just talking about the expense of it, because yes, most of them won't be able to learn radically new skills, if they were able to they wouldn't be stuck doing grunt support in a big soulless enterprise. They could be earning three times as much doing application level support in the same place.
I don't care if they're made redundant, I'm just talking about the expense of it, because yes, most of them won't be able to learn radically new skills, if they were able to they wouldn't be stuck doing grunt support in a big soulless enterprise. They could be earning three times as much doing application level support in the same place.
If they're too dumb to learn "radically new" skills, then that's called capitalism. Find a new job doing something more to your skill level. There's no expense in training someone who isn't a chimp how to work inside a Mac instead of a PC. I'm sorry, but if you think there is, that just shows that you haven't worked inside both yourself.
If they're too dumb to learn "radically new" skills, then that's called capitalism. Find a new job doing something more to your skill level. There's no expense in training someone who isn't a chimp how to work inside a Mac instead of a PC. I'm sorry, but if you think there is, that just shows that you haven't worked inside both yourself.
Sure it's called capitalism, I'm not crying for them, I'm just saying it costs money to sack them. How hard is that to understand? Getting rid of deadwood still costs money, and it would be part of the expense of adding in mac hardware. Substantial expense which at the present would serve no material purpose because 90% of the software used in the enterprise would still be running on a windows blade somewhere.
Demand.... supply.... that sort of thing....
Be grateful for the $100 (or you can always buy Windows).
Sorry, you seem to have missed my point. You're actually agreeing with me :-)
The exact point I was (admittedly obliquely) making is that Apple have reduced the dollar value of the discount because they can (ie "demand.... supply.... that sort of thing); rather than because everybody already owns an iPod Touch.
Hope this is clear!
Sure it's called capitalism, I'm not crying for them, I'm just saying it costs money to sack them. How hard is that to understand? Getting rid of deadwood still costs money, and it would be part of the expense of adding in mac hardware. Substantial expense which at the present would serve no material purpose because 90% of the software used in the enterprise would still be running on a windows blade somewhere.
You're missing the whole point of the OP you're replying to. Replacing the Dell with a Mac serves a very material purpose.
Also, look up creative destruction. If firing an idiot costs a little money, then that's probably money well spent. You can also probably replace all that deadwood with half as many competent people and save money overall.
Because the cost to Apple of $100 of iTunes music is probably around the same as a $200 iPod. You realize that their margins on music are far lower than on hardware right?
Yes I have heard that.
My point was more about the perceived consumer value of the 2 offers. Because supplier margins are opaque, consumers make purchase decisions based on retail pricing. For Apple to reduce the perceived value of their freebie by 56% it would appear that they feel that the value proposition in total is still highly competitive. This value proposition is the sum of the product offering itself (ie the Mac being purchased), the retail pricing of the product offering, plus the freebie. Given the consumer appeal of the new Airs plus their highly competitive price points I think Apple likely felt that their overall consumer value proposition was good enough to get away with a lower value giveaway. I think they're right (and the analysts data being reported would appear to support this).
Hope this helps!
As far as your questions goes, giving away a $229 iPod likely costs Apple about $100 (the cost of manufacturing and shipping) and also helps clear inventory. Giving away $100 iTunes voucher likely costs Apple about $90. If it were to give away a $229 voucher, that would cost closer to two hundred dollars. It wouldn't make any money on the sale.
Then why didn't Apple provide a $229 iTunes voucher?
Did he give a reason why he chose the Dell? Did it have to do with its lower initial cost or was he just worried that IT wouldn't be able to support the Mac as well? I'm just curious. I've been on a rant as to why more Macs aren't being used in the enterprise because my Apple computers have pretty much run non-stop for years and it would seem to me that the enterprise could certainly benefit from running trouble-free Macs. I'm only basing this on my own experience so my judgment doesn't carry much weight. I've used a number of Windows applications under VMWare Fusion DT and it works great. It's a nice sandbox and you can always keep multiple VMWare images as for recovery if needed.
He does not like to rock the boat and got a dell by default. We ( the engineers ) are required to maintain our own laptops, so conforming to IT was not the issue. I think he was a little embarrassed when it did not work as the 8Gb of RAM and a 64bit OS was my only request.
I am very happy with my Macbook Pro. I think more people in the organization will get them now. Many of the sales forces has them as home ( or personal ) computers....
To me, the real game changes is the iPad... It has opened a lot of eyes...
You're missing the whole point of the OP you're replying to. Replacing the Dell with a Mac serves a very material purpose.
No, the person I was replying to was saying that CEOs should 'just order' the IT guys to provide macs to employees who preferred them. I was explaining why that doesn't work. If you have a business need for a mac in a large enterprise you can normally get one, but the only people who find themselves in that situation are people working on a few specialist areas. They invariably also need PCs in order to interact with the rest of the house systems.
One of the biggest banks in the world, where I was working recently it was incredibly hard to get upgraded to a decent sized monitor. Many people were still stuck with twin 14inch LCD panels that had been bought when the head office was new. Twin 17inch panels were standard, getting anything bigger than 17inch involved serious hoop jumping.
More than 50Mb - yes Mega bytes - of email space had to be specially requested and again caused much grumbling. More than about 150Mb was basically not available to mere mortals. Sorry, but if you haven't worked in these kind of environments you have no idea of the kind of inertia that you're dealing with.
'Just Ordering' IT is like Canute ordering the tide, IT has acquired a life of its own in the enterprsie and if you sack the CIO every time the IT department fails to deliver, you will be hiring a lot of CIOs.