Is Apple Doomed To "niche-market irrelevance"?

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
So says <a href="http://www.business2.com/articles/web/print/0,1650,37236,FF.html"; target="_blank">Business 2.0</a>.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    If your niche market is profitable then who cares? Apple like every other corporation exists to make profit. Aside from Steve's RDF Apple does not exist to provide anyone computers because as Wilfred Brimley said "Its the right thing to do". Apple will never be a major player in the computing world simply because their products are boutique. They cannot realistically compete in the corporate desktop maket (which is HUGE) or nor can they compete with Sun, HP, IBM, etc in the server market. There are several factors of which the installed army of IT people born of Unix iron and Windows NT is one. None of my collegues would ever dream of using Macs for "real work". So changing a mindset is an uphill battle especially one firmly entrenched.

    Performance disparities are becoming impossible to ignore as well. The x86 architecture with all its major faults and ugliness now has chips that are vastly more powerful than the PPC. Tons less expensive too. Apple desparately needs more raw power, period. Relying on Motorola for its CPUs is a well-known major weakness. While there are only rumors of the vaunted G5 it is nowhere to be seen. AMD and Intel release faster and more powerful CPUs every few weeks and major improvements in core design and die shrinks every 6months to a year.

    So maybe Apple will only be a niche player. It is now. Again so what? So maybe design work will be done on Macs and the heavy-lifting of rendering will be off-loaded to a server farm of AthlonXP's or P4s or Sparcs. Mac users still get the "user experience" and "life enhancements" of being Mac people and the work still gets done.

    as Mr. Spock once said "there are always possibilites".
  • Reply 2 of 9
    glurxglurx Posts: 1,031member
    The author <a href="http://www.business2.com/articles/web/print/0,1650,37330,FF.html"; target="_blank">responds to criticism</a> he received.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    Ask the New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Cnet, ZDnet, and The LA Times what they think.



    This crack pot has problems writings things that people wrote back in 1997. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
  • Reply 4 of 9
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Think of the hits this article got! (Is this really how dot bombs make money?)
  • Reply 5 of 9
    [quote] Originally posted by Linuxman

    Apple will never be a major player in the computing world simply because their products are boutique. They cannot realistically compete in the corporate desktop maket (which is HUGE) or nor can they compete with Sun, HP, IBM, etc in the server market. There are several factors of which the installed army of IT people born of Unix iron and Windows NT is one. None of my collegues would ever dream of using Macs for "real work". So changing a mindset is an uphill battle especially one firmly entrenched. <hr></blockquote>

    I don't know, but what Apple bought from NeXT and transformed in Mac OS X smells like something to break into the corporate market with; still, they may not be a major player in the corprate market, but they certainly could influence it with the simplicity and elegance of the Macintosh. Hell, companies could start using Mac OS X on their servers because of its powerful UNIX underpinnings.



    You can call Apple a boutique computer company now, but in the next couple of years I see Apple becoming a major player with the evolution of Mac OS X. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />



    [ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: Mac_OS_X_Addict ]</p>
  • Reply 6 of 9
    norfanorfa Posts: 171member
    Let me count the apples in my house, hmmm, three, now let me count the PC's hmmmm none. So where is this PC reality? In my house PC's are imaginary products i've heard exist in other dimensions, but definitely not here.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    Well you have a point Mac_oS_X_Addict.

    Having a Unix based operating system does seem to offer an opening into the server market. But I seriously doubt this will happen for a couple of reasons.

    1) Price and performance - Apple hardware just does not lend itself to serving duties. The current G4 has weak interger performance and fairly weak FPU performance unless Altivec is used. But Altivec isn't the only SIMD instruction set around. 3DNOW!ext and SSE2 provide similar FPU performance boosts as Atlivec. I will grant that Apple could easily make a 1U rack mount G4 system so form factor is not a problem. The cost of Apple hardware is signifcantly higher than the ugly x86 stuff. So we have moderate performance at a large price premium.

    2) Incumbent mind-set - basically it boils down to the classic Ford-Chevy truck debate. You know the "i would rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy" cliche. Most x86 IT people would not ever consider Apple hardware for the "serious" stuff. Even OSX is not a reason NOT to use Apple hardware when LinuxPPC is available.



    The future could be a whole new era but it will be a struggle. If any one of the major server players felt threatened by Apple's push into the server market, they would engage in a war of attrition that Apple simply could not sustain. Dell is many times the size of Apple with huge resources. HP or heck IBM would simply squash them. I have to wonder why bother? Apple makes great cool funky stuff for a small crowd. Apple owns the design market and desktop publishing. They are still a major player in education despite the Dell/MS onslaught.



    Are they doomed if they stay a 'niche' player? Nope.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    bogiebogie Posts: 407member
    I read the rebutle, I will never respect anyone who claims to be a professional journalist when they choose to use the terms "ignorant slut" it just shows that they are in fact ignorant.



    Hmm, we have one PC in the house, we call it the kick me box because if you look at it funny it will crash or lockup.



    How many Macs? Well, lets see...



    3 Power Macintosh 7200/120s

    1 Mac IIci

    1 Macintosh Quadra 800

    1 PowerBook 1400c

    1 PowerBook [G3 FireWire/Pismo]

    3 Power Macintosh G3s [Beige]

    1 PowerBook G4

    1 Power Macintosh 8600/200

    1 Power Macintosh 7600/132

    1 Newton Message Pad 2000



    So, that looks like 13 Macs and one Newton and one crappy PC. Should really just install Linux on it and move on.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    I totally agree with you Linuxman, but why is Apple secrectly porting Mac OS X, I think they are, to x86?? One thing that I thought of when I read this a year ago is that Apple might just offer OS X Server to run on the Mac platform and on the x86 platform while leaving the consumer line to run just on Mac hardware. By Apple doing this, they would keep their Consumer and Professtional Lines Mac Only while opening up a Server line in which Mac OS X Server could run on any line. Thus, Mac OS X Server could run on Dell, HP, Compaq, IBM Servers. One thing that would be neat is if IBM adopted Mac OS X Server as their default OS for their servers. Now that would be cool!! <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />



    [ 01-25-2002: Message edited by: Mac_OS_X_Addict ]</p>
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