?It's a luxury car computer in a Ford Fiesta world. What do you want??<hr></blockquote>
What I want is to stop the asinine trend on web boards of making a connection between computer platforms and automobiles.
I?m not directing my angst solely at you, pscates, but I really wish people would realize that Ford Festivas and BMWs run on exactly the same fuel. Macintoshes and PCs run 100% differently. Every single bit in every single calculation that your Macintosh performs every single second of the day is EXACTLY REVERSED from those very same bits on an INTEL/AMD chip. EVERY addition. EVERY subtraction. EVERY multiply. EVERY divide. They are all 100% incompatible.
For god?s sake, folks, if you?re gonna use an automobile analogy, compare gasoline automobiles to diesel automobiles. Or battery to gasoline. Or fuel cell to solar.
[quote]pscates also wrote:
?But dammit, when it comes to computers, I WILL NOT sell myself short and buy a piece-of-shit, cookie-cutter PC.?<hr></blockquote>
Again, not trying to focus my questions DIRECTLY at you, pscates, but can anyone tell me why every Macintosh user believes that PCs are crap?
The IDE connectors, power supplies, heatsinks, fans, hard drives, and video cards are EXACTLY the same as they are on a DELL. Or a Compaq. Or an eMachines. Which means that PCs can only be crap with respect to the motherboard, the processor, or Windows.
Believe me, PC hardware lasts just as long as Macintosh hardware does. And it fails just as much as Macintosh does. If you?ve got issues with Windows, then that?s another story.
[quote] OverToasty wrote:
??but it would be a really bad move for them to panic and totally slash prices into a loss leader position just to maintain a market share number. They'd wind up whizzing away their cash reserves and when the economy picks up, there'd be few willing to buy their new machines at a profit since they already bought machines when they where cheap.?<hr></blockquote>
Dead-on, OverToasty. There is a powerful difference between lowering sales costs and slashing them.
[quote] BRussell wrote:
?You people who talk about prices - do you think prices are just some independent factor that can be chosen at will and without consequence?
Think about what it would mean to have thin margins on Macs. With selling just a couple hundred thousand a quarter, their margins could provide them with maybe just a few million in revenue each quarter, before paying their expenses like employees and R & D etc.?<hr></blockquote>
No, I don?t think prices are an independent factor. However, I?ve built several PCs, and I know enough to know that Apple is making WAY the hell more profit on their machines than anyone else in the market.
I can go online, order parts, and assemble my own x86 machine that is comparable to the dual 867 Apple Powermac for $600.00.
Now, I realize that this isn?t a fair comparison, because Apple has extraneous costs: R&D, Software Creation, Hardware design, Employee costs, Assembly costs, etc.
However, the comparison becomes a bit more balanced when one realizes that the $600.00 figure (above) is RETAIL. You can bet the farm that Apple is getting its parts IN BULK, for WHOLESALE, at a HUGE DISCOUNT.
Even if we concede that the ?extraneous? costs add a whopping $300.00 to the cost of a given Powermac, that puts the price tag up to $900.00 (pure retail). They?re selling these PowerMacs for $1700.00 folks! Trust me, there?s room to move, here.
[quote] pfflam wrote:
?These are schools where Macs were networked this summer using OSx 10.1+, and which need drivers for scanners and printers and generally need their own security software to mesh with the OS without crashing and/or causing problems.
Apple needs to get all of the peripherals compatible and working now.?<hr></blockquote>
Dead-on, pfflam. Apple seems to have a strange perception of the computing industry whereby EVERYONE else should bow to their needs. They completely revamp an operating system, and supply NO drivers for ANY scanners AT ALL. Then, they wonder why the creative industry isn?t rushing forth to buy their products.
They blame Epson, and HP, and everyone else for not supplying drivers.
Meanwhile, consumers are left with $129.99 worth of software that will not work with peripherals purchased less than a year ago.
One has to wonder if a million-dollar investment of Apple?s 4+ billion-dollar liquid cash could?ve been used to facilitate printer/scanner drivers when OSX was first released. One also has to wonder whether this TINY investment would have yielded greater adoption rates and hardware purchases.
26% Profit Margin (or something like that) is dead. It died the day their stock went from the 60's down to the 20's... (00-01) (tech bubble burst)
Until their hardware is halfway up to par with wintel, people will hold back from buying. The "Buy new, every two (years)" is also dead. Im using a 400Mhz G3 iMac DV and i don't really have any plans to upgrade. Why should I? It has firewire, a decent graphics card (for QIII, SIMS, Civilazation, etc). It runs OS X, it has Firewire...
So again....lower the profit margin. Get the iMac down to 999.00 for a CD-RW. Get the iBooks down to 999.00 for a CD-ROM. Get the PowerBooks down to 2000.00 starting. Get the Towers down to 1399.00</strong><hr></blockquote>
Let me just elaborate on this a bit more....i was rushed and had to get to class.
------------
Again like i said before, the days of the 26% profit margin are over. Apple hasn't figured out that this is a new era of the tech sector. It's a new economy. People aren't just going to slap down money for a new computer without doing some research. And this is why the price/performance ratio is slowly bleeding them to death. Lets look at each product's Price/Performance ratio colors:
iMac G4:
This used to be as green as a traffic light. But aside from maybe the 17" iMac, this product is about as red as you can get. (red being bad). It screams, "DON'T BUY ME"
eMac:
To me, it's pretty clear that this little guy is the sucessor to the CRT iMac. But until it's price comes down, they can't get rid of the little G3 bugger. The eMac is a little better. It's only in the faint red tint color. a simple speed bump (CPU and BUS) and 100.00 price cut would push this up almost in the green.
iMac G3:
Oddly enough, This little guy a just out of the green. If you don't count the other models (with more RAM), the 799 isn't a bad deal. Replace the 750Cxe with a 750Fx and replace the SDRAM video card with a DDR one, and it would be in the green. Unfortunatly, this lttle guy needs to go. Or at least get renamed. Having to products named the same isn't generally a good idea.
PowerMac:
This product used to be as red as blood. But the recent speed bump has pushed them up into the "road construction orange" color.
iBooks:
Barely Green. One of the few "good buys"
PowerBooks:
Right now they are also in the road construction orange. The performance just doesn't warrant the Price tag. A speed bump in the CPU/Bus (920Mhz 1.16Ghz), Bluetooth, and 64MB Graphic card would push these into the barely green color.
xServe:
Another barely green product. But not exactly something all of us are going to buy....
iPod:
Green. And the recent iPod for Windows announcement only made it more green
I think what would happen is that they would start losing money and people would see Apple as a doomed company and their marketshare would decrease, not increase. The "give stuff away at cost to increase mindshare and marketshare" philosophy is what made the tech bubble a bubble. It doesn't work. Companies have to be profitable first.
In any case, that's where the debate should be. Not "they should lower prices dude! I can get a dell for $600!"</strong><hr></blockquote>
But the fallacy continues to be that companies lost money selling cheap PC's and that just isn't true. Apart from an ill conceived/ill fated foray into free PC's with advertising/web service commitments, none one one of the cockamammy schemes of the tech bubble involved selling PC's at a loss. Hosting web services, providing infrastructure, e-stores of every type... a host of printer and ink models where the no one was sure exactly what constituted either printer or ink. During all this time PC's just got cheaper, and now that the bubble has burst PC's are still getting cheaper. They have been a constant source of revenue and profit for any well managed builder. An utter lack of common sense was the source of the bust not price competition. Companies may like to blame price competition because it diverts interest from some very poor judgement, but even now as they divest themselves of foolhardy dot.com dreams they continue to sell cheaper PC's at a nice profit and distribute those funds throughout their infrastructures to pay for past mistakes and plan for future ventures. NO ONE is losing money selling cheap PC's or they wouldn't be doing it, this is as silly as those stickers on gas pumps claiming that petrol companies only make a 1-2% actual profit. Even Gateway, that favorite refrain of apologists everywhere, would be in good shape if they hadn't made a mess of retail and world-wide distribution. Now that they're back to selling direct in NA, they're doing well.
The 'tech bubble' companies you speak of were trying to invent marketshare in markets that didn't even exist, or melding traditional markets to the internet just because they thought they could. So when people didn't want to cars online or pay for virtual services, they went bust, this has nothing to do with computers.
The PC model is buttoned down solid and it won't change much. Growth has to slow down, companies have to be efficient, prices will drop because consumers have voted with their cheque-books: they want it cheap. Everybody understands that even the priciest computer won't be worth anything in 3-4 years so why waste it on expensive machines when very capable affordable machines are always available or right around the corner. Cars have a similar depreciation and peopel still buy expensive cars, but expensive cars carry status, they can get you laid, they can seal the business deal, and if nothing else they let you show off. Computers don't do that. They only do it to the extent that consumer electronics do that. Look at your average high-end a/v manufacturer: they have miniscule market-share. Computer platfoms can't afford that, they need to be popular as a pre-requisite to survival. Any number of PC makers can have market-share less than a quarter the size of Apple's and still be considered great successes but they do not bear the burden of supporting Windows alone. Apple supports mac all by itself and a match-stick is never as strong as a bundle.
Change will come to Apple one way or another. Either they'll get cheaper, or they'll get out of the consumer hardware business.
Those are the realities of the market ad they will not change to suit the Jobs' demands.
<strong> ...but expensive cars carry status, they can get you laid, they can seal the business deal, and if nothing else they let you show off. Computers don't do that. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Satchmo flashbacks to last weekend when he brought the girl back to his place...
"Oooh Satchmo, that's a great looking iMac you've got. Wanna f*ck?"
<strong>Apple's marketing may be conservative, but the current economy calls for it, as there aren't as many people with money to burn on a new system as there used to be. Apple's hunkering down and doing its best to ride out the downturn.
Even so, their switch campaigns are targeting the right people, IMO--people fed up with PCs and ready to consider an alternative. This may not be a relatively big segment, but it's the one that Apple has the best chance of wooing to their side. They're pushing the strength of the Macintosh platform which even a lot of PC users recognize--ease of use, and the "digital hub" concept.
Once the hardware catches up to the software, we'll most likely see a differnt campaign appealing to power users rolling out.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think this statement about people not having the "money to burn" is false. I think there are plenty of people, though not on these message boards <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> that have enough money but are just not spending it. Americans are not suddenly poor and this is definately not a depression. People have money, money that they are not spending on personal computers or electronics for that matter.
While I agree that Macs are expensive, I don't think that they can cut prices by much and still stay in business. People are saying that they have a profit margin of 26% -- I'm not sure if that is across the entire line, but lets say it is.
If they cut their profit margin in half, down to 13% percent, they would need to sell twice the number of Macs as they do now to make the same amount of money. Do you really think that dropping $150 off the low end items and a few hundred more off the high end stuff would double their sales? Of course not.
The main problem Apple has now is the speed of their current hardware lineup. They have a great OS and wonderful iApps, but they are being strangled to death by the poor scalability of the G4.
If things go well and Macs become faster then windows machines again (via a version of the IBM Power4 or a fast G5 from Motorola), Apple's sales will pick up and we will see an increase in market share next year. If they stay behind in computing power, their market share will continue to shrink.
<strong>Apart from an ill conceived/ill fated foray into free PC's with advertising/web service commitments, none one one of the cockamammy schemes of the tech bubble involved selling PC's at a loss.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But Apple can't sell Mac as cheaply as PCs, unless they sell them at a loss, so the point is moot.
But this is what I don't get. I know Macs can't be AS cheap as some PCs, but why can't they be cheaper? From the processors to the HDs, the internal components Apple uses ARE cheap! In the new iMac, they are using dated processors, 5400rpm HDs, dated graphics cards, loud generic fans (in some) and SDRAM. So, where's the premium coming from? Why do some think that these dated components equate to a 'better computer'? Yeah, the design is nice, but if not enough to justify the premium.
I've said it a million times before, it's one thing not to have the processors available - no big deal. BUT, when you DO have access to faster internal components and simply do not use them to make up for the lack of processing power, well - that's just insulting. From the iMac to the PowerMac.
I for one am waiting for an eMac with a 7200rpm HD, at least a 1GHz G4, a 4X 64MB Graphics Card and a 32X DVD/CDRW combo drive (hopefully they will have a fix for the admitted defect in many eMac displays as well). My question is, how long to I have to wait for a Mac with internal components that are already available for reasonable prices (but Apple refuses to use?) I just don't get it. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
But the fallacy continues to be that companies lost money selling cheap PC's and that just isn't true.
Hosting web services, providing infrastructure, e-stores of every type... a host of printer and ink models where the no one was sure exactly what constituted either printer or ink.
They have been a constant source of revenue and profit for any well managed builder.
NO ONE is losing money selling cheap PC's or they wouldn't be doing it, this is as silly as those stickers on gas pumps claiming that petrol companies only make a 1-2% actual profit. Even Gateway, that favorite refrain of apologists everywhere, would be in good shape if they hadn't made a mess of retail and world-wide distribution. Now that they're back to selling direct in NA, they're doing well.
The PC model is buttoned down solid and it won't change much.
Any number of PC makers can have market-share less than a quarter the size of Apple's and still be considered great successes but they do not bear the burden of supporting Windows alone. Apple supports mac all by itself and a match-stick is never as strong as a bundle.
In a new series of ads, Gateway Inc. pits its Profile 4 personal computer against Apple Computer's iMac, daring potential customers to choose sides. Tough call. Many Apple users feel passionately about their machines. Gateway Â? those folks who ship their PCs in boxes that resemble Holstein cow skins Â? engenders about the same brand loyalty these days as a glass of lukewarm milk.
More are betting these days that Gateway will be put out to pasture than beat Apple as the computer of passionate choice.
Gateway's souring state gives us another excuse to focus on the whole personal-computer industry. When last visited, the sector was in huge turmoil, courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. While plenty of shareholders and other assorted busybodies seriously questioned Â? and still do, for that matter Â? the rationality of HP grabbing Compaq and creating the world's largest PC vendor, the $18.7 billion merger aptly demonstrated the extent of industry consolidation. Expect more to follow.
The market certainly hasn't strengthened in the almost five months since the merger closed. According to technology research firm IDC, total shipments of PCs dipped 0.5% in the second quarter of 2002 compared with a year earlier. It marked the fifth consecutive quarter of decline.
Chances are, the second half won't be any better. A hoped-for back-to-school boost never materialized. Inventory levels are higher than expected, leading some to predict yet another price war in time for the holidays.
Part of this continued softness could be attributed to economic jitters and ongoing consumer wariness. But some of it reflects the growth limitations of the product itself. Hard to believe, but personal computers Â? those icons of our high-tech universe Â? have become a mature industry. And there are good reasons why hardware manufacturers Â? despite efforts to branch out into everything from printers to Internet access Â? are stuck in the same kind of cul-de-sac as those manufacturers that produced the icon of another technological era, the television.
To begin with, just how many computers can one family have? Trade-ins are essentially trade-downs. Because of competitive pressures, today's machine boasts twice the computing power as last year's model, but costs barely half as much. The fact is, parts are interchangeable, and any savvy 13-year-old can assemble a PC almost as good as what Gateway or HP hawk.
Born on an Iowa cattle farm, raised in a South Dakota cornfield and now based in the eucalyptus-clad San Diego suburb of Poway, Gateway is suffering more than most of those computer manufacturers still standing. According to IDC, the number of units shipped at fourth-ranked Gateway dropped more precipitously Â? an 18.4% decline from second-quarter 2001 to second-quarter 2002 Â? than that of any other major player. Its 5.8% market share is about half what it was three years earlier.
For the first six months of this year, Gateway sales fell 43% to $2 billion. The company lost $187.4 million. Its bonds are rated junk. It expects sales of $4 billion this year, less than half the almost $10 billion in sales recorded in 2000. (That year, the company's then-CEO, Jeffrey Weitzen, predicted $30 billion sales by 2004. Talk about overly optimistic calculations. He was overthrown less than a year later.) Its $930 million market cap is now lower than its cash and marketable securities on hand.
Gateway recently installed a poison pill to make takeovers more difficult. But the company's woes have led to market rumors of a buyout, specifically a possible management LBO. (One banker we know expressed Gateway's future with more succinctness and a bit less tact: "They're finished," he said.)
Last week, Gateway chieftain Ted Waitt dodged the issue during a brief conference call.
"We're always looking at various opportunities," said Waitt, Gateway's co-founder, who owns about 31% of the company and still thinks the world of himself.
Opportunity is something Gateway sorely lacks these days. The company once battled respectably with Dell Computer Corp. in the made-to-order, catalog market. Gateway faltered badly. Its decision to open hundreds of retail outlets only made matters worse.
Despite its foray into bricks-and-mortar stores, Gateway has developed none of the customer devotion enjoyed by Apple, or even Dell for that matter. That means the company must compete on price. That is inevitably a losing proposition for those with higher overhead. Thin margins get hacked into nonexistence. Already, the company's sales, general and administrative expenses outweigh its gross profit.
That computers have become commodities is nothing new. For manufacturers, however, the bad news doesn't stop there. Consumers now demand certain goodies on their PCs, regardless of how cheap the machines may be. So it is that Gateway now offers for less than $700 a Pentium 4 desktop that comes complete with 17-inch monitor and read/write CD-ROM. Add $85 more and get a DVD drive.
The new Gateway ads tout a more expensive machine with, presumably, a bigger profit margin for its creator. Why Gateway believes it can now move upmarket is anyone's guess. Perhaps Gateway has in mind another computer ad campaign: "Think different."
Faster chips but lowered stocks
Advanced Micro cuts laptop chip prices as much as 35%
Â*Â*Â*SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. cut the price on some Athlon processors for laptops by as much as 35 percent, as the chipmaker introduces faster models and challenges Intel Corp. in mobile personal computers.
Â*Â*Â*The cost of an Athlon XP 1800+ for notebook PCs dropped to $196 each from $301 in 1,000-unit shipments, Advanced Micro said on its Web site. A 1700+ fell 18 percent to $169 from $205.
Â*Â*Â*Advanced Micro last night introduced a mobile Athlon XP 2000+ that runs at 1.67 gigahertz, as the company branches out from chips for desktop systems into markets such as laptops. The chipmaker's share of global sales for those processors doubled to 12 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, Advanced Micro said, citing market researcher Gartner Dataquest.
Â*Â*Â*Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's biggest PC maker, will have systems with the new chip right away, Advanced Micro spokeswoman Whitney Otstott said yesterday.
Â*Â*Â*The 2000+ costs $345, and a new 1900+ model that operates at 1.6 GHz costs $239, she said.
Â*Â*Â*The mobile 1600+ fell to $169 from $180, and the 1500+ dropped to $150 from $169. Other prices were unchanged, according to the Sunnyvale, California-based company's Web site. Advanced Micro typically cuts prices on older products as new ones come out, Otstott said today.
Â*Â*Â*Advanced Micro shares fell 23 cents to $5.75 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has declined 64 percent this year. Intel shares rose 20 cents to $14.33 and have lost 54 percent of their value in 2002.
Dell getting into the lucrative printer business - cause printers make more money than cheap PCs
In the coming Â?Printer War,Â? Dell wins Â? American workers lose
Hewlett Packard is at the top of the printer business.Â* Dell is presently at the top of the PC business.Â* When HP bought rival Compaq last year, they wanted to position themselves as a Â?one-stop-shopÂ? for their customersÂ? computer needs by offering PCs, printers and services.Â* ItÂ?s no surprise that Dell wants to do the same thing, but can DellÂ?s usual strategy of undercutting their competitors work against HP in the printer department?
Sure, Dell has plenty of cash in the bank to burn along with thousands of relatively high-priced American employees they can dump and move operations to China in an effort to undercut HPÂ?s printer business.Â* It should be a snap for Dell!
Hewlett PackardÂ?s move to buy Compaq shocked everyone in the fall of 2001, including Dell.Â* The thought of their Texas-based archrival Compaq teaming up with HP to become the number one PC powerhouse in the world gave Dell a kick in the pants.Â* Dell had just fired thousands of employees, politely asked some of their most expensive executives to retire and climbed to the top of the PC market share totem pole.Â* Dell certainly didnÂ?t want to get knocked off the top rung of the ladder by virtue of combined HP-Compaq market share stats.
Dell insiders in 2001 would tell me about Dell-produced Power Point slides showing the lionÂ?s share of HPÂ?s revenue being tied to their printer/ink business.Â* DellÂ?s proposed strategy was to produce their own line of printers, bundle them with Dell PCs and sell the ink for slightly less than comparable HP ink offerings using the Â?Dell DirectÂ? method.Â* Now, almost a year later, DellÂ?s strategy has basically been made common knowledge after the July 19th interview with a Dell corporate exec that ran in the Austin American-Statesman, the local Austin, Texas newspaper.Â* HP quickly severed ties with Dell Â? refusing to sell HP-branded printers, handheld computer devices like the Journada PDA or anything else through Dell Â? while Dell played innocent for the stock analysts and press: Â?So youÂ?re not gonna sell printers through us anymore over one little quote in the newspa--Â* Huh?!Â* YouÂ?re not going to sell anything through us?Â* Why?Â* WhatÂ?s wrong, guys?Â?
The attitude amongst Dell employees from execs to factory workers in Austin is certainly smug when it comes to the possibility of a Dell-branded printer.Â* Dell thinks that HP needs them more than Dell needs HP when it comes to printers and rightly so.Â* Dell, like Compaq did before them in 1998, will make a deal with Lexmark to manufacture cheap inkjet printers with a blue Â?DellÂ? logo on the front of them at the factories in South Korea.Â* Dell will then bundle those Lexmark/Dell printers with every PC purchase as a Â?free printer upgradeÂ? or for an incredible low price as part of some other Â?Dude, yer gettinÂ? a printerÂ? TV promotion.
An idea like this sounds great to Dell: Embarrass HP by using cheap South Korean labor to produce Dell-branded printers and sell the printers with every PC.Â* The only soft spot is that HP (and Dell) admits that itÂ?s not the printing hardware that makes the money Â? itÂ?s the ink.Â* DellÂ?s fortunes have been made because they donÂ?t have retail stores and sell Â?directÂ? to customers over the phone or via the Internet.Â* If a Dell/Lexmark ink cartridge is sold at Office Depot or CompUSA, Dell will see a PR backlash against their Â?Dell DirectÂ? profit model along with erosion in their profits.Â* If Dell/Lexmark ink carts are only sold on the Dell website how will that benefit my wife when she runs out of ink Saturday night after sheÂ?s printed out a dozen digital photos from our day trip to the lake on her Dell printer and has to print out documents for her job on Monday?Â* Unless Dell has made strides in shipping efficiency that rivals Bugs Bunny mail ordering earmuffs that instantly arrive for the opera singer high-note, my wife canÂ?t wait three business days to get a replacement ink cartridge for her Dell printer and wouldnÂ?t think itÂ?s such a great deal.
Of course, Lexmark will probably make the Dell printers to be compatible with their existing ink carts (like they did with Compaq) and that will be a non-issue.Â* If Dell revs up their printer business but loses any ground to HP, they will cut jobs in Texas or Tennessee in America and reassign those jobs to China or Malaysia where workers gladly take $1 per day job with a big Western high-tech firm as an honor and consider the wage a kingÂ?s ransom.
Dell execs and shareholders may get to crow about the stock going up to near $30 after that.Â* TV pitchmen Â?StevenÂ? and Â?DaveÂ? will flash their toothy grins that women 18-49 love so much on the news of Dell being number one in printer market share.Â* Wall Street will break out the champagne and everyone will be happy with their Dell printersÂ?Â* Everyone except for the thousand or more out of work Americans that Dell said werenÂ?t team players because Dell wanted to embarrass HP in the printer business.
Let Dell put their stickers on Lexmark printers so people can get cheap PCs and let Apple make 15% more profit margin so they can invent cool products like iPods, Rendezvous and Firewire. Gateway can do whatever they want - no one cares anymore. IMHO
<strong>But this is what I don't get. I know Macs can't be AS cheap as some PCs, but why can't they be cheaper?</strong><hr></blockquote>
It comes from the fact that Apple develops its own operating system, frameworks and software without a substantial enterprise operation or other truly high-volume, high-margin stream of revenue. They also put a larger portion of the money they do make into R&D, and they put more time and money into their hardware development, even if the components are cheaper.
Everyone either thinks of Apple as a competitor to Microsoft or as a competitor to Dell. Apple competes against both.
The last official tally was 2.7+% for 2Q02, which is pretty much where Apple has been for worldwide marketshare for the past two years. Apple waivers between 2.5-3.0% worldwide per quarter.
Note that 2Q02's marketshare numbers are up from 1Q02's
Chalk up another troll to Matsu.
Also, this is based on Gartner's Dataquest total PC shipments numbers and Apple's shipment numbers.
I think performance is hurting Apple more than price. When the GPUL finally arrives and Powermacs have performance that is equal to superior to that of Wintels, then hardware sales should pick up. But as long aa Apple is using the G4 they will have a difficult time convincing buyers to invest in new hardware.
People are willing to pay more for a Mac because of OS X, but they will balk if the hardware performance isn't comparable to that of Wintels. Apple needs the high margins on their hardware because of low volume sales and the extra expense of R&D, so it's unrealistic to ever expect Apple to match Wintels for price. However, when Powermac sales are up, then Apple will be able to afford to drop the price a bit on their low end computers like the iMac and eMac.
Another important point is that the impact of OS X on Apple's market share has yet to be realized. Operating systems sell based on reputation, and Apple is still battling a reputation based on OS 8 and OS 9. Most people who profess to hate Macs base this hatred upon a bad experience with pre-OS X Macs. It takes several years for an OS to gain a reputation, and for Apple it may take even longer because their reputation was so bad concerning the Mac OS. Yeah it was a great GUI, but it crashed far too often and people remember it.
OS X is currently making a name for itself among IT folks, and this is exactly where Apple needs to be making an impression. As more Unix gurus acclimate to OS X, more and more IT depts will begin to respect Apple and OS X, and this respect will trickle down to the masses. Never underestimate the influence of IT dudes, it is primarily because of them that Macs are so rare today. Many casual computer users will ask IT guys about computers when they're making a purchase, and if they recommend OS X, this will have an enormous impact on Apple's sales...more than any advertising campaign could. Give it another 2 years or so for Apple to gain a reputation based on OS X. This rep will be generated by word of mouth and it will be the catalyst for increasing Apple's market share.
At about the same time that OS X begins to gain a word-of-mouth reputation, Apple will be offering hardware based on the GPUL and on faster G4s. Optimally, the Powermacs will use GPULs that turn in performance benchmarks superior to any from x86, and consumer Macs will be based on G4s or G5s from Moto that are competitive with x86 (130 or 90 nm process, 1.8-2.4 GHz). With the right combination of hardware and OS X penetration and reputation, Apple will be poised to make immense gains in market share.
Currently, it seems like Apple is doing everything right to set the foundation for increasing their market share. The only weak link in their strategy is their hardware performance, but that is really out of their hands until IBM starts supplying CPUs. Until then, Apple would do well to put G4s with the faster FSB in EVERY Mac, with DDR RAM. That includes the iMac, eMac, and even the iBook. There is no reason to hobble the consumer Macs with a 100 MHz FSB and slow RAM.
Another thing to look forward to is that as LCD prices come down, Apple's hardware will become more attractively priced. The iMac will come down to CRT iMac prices as LCD prices drop, and of course Apple's displays will all become more affordable, and finally ADC will be more appreciated because more people will be able to afford Apple LCD displays.
That's 2.7%+, total shipments of course down from last year, but pretty much holding steady in marketshare. Marketshare increased from Q1 to Q2. Blah blah blah the sky is falling!
Like I mentioned before, companies in trouble now are there because of previous fvck-ups. The market has to shrink a bit, but it's damn big and that won't change. Gateway was and is running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. If they'd just streamline production and keep seling cheap PC's, they'd be OK. Losing 50% of your sales revenue will happen when you scale your operations back to exclusively N.American markets, don't get too excited about that. But they farted around with overseas markets, retail stores, even Amiga for chrissakes. No-no. Make cheap PC, sell cheap PC, make money. It works.
So the market is bad? What did Apple do when the market was good? They lost a lot of share, and now they're losing just a little. The fuzzy numbers you guys like to cook-up don't count. White boxes count, anything sold that runs windows counts. You can't just lop off 30% of the Windows market because those sales come from small, and very small, vendors. Everybody suffering still doesn't come down to price competition if you want to argue that people aren't buying because the market is cool or it's stabilizing and growth is slowing. That happened to the auto market too, and makers there compete on price, the biggest players are all there cause they have something cheap to sell, hardly any luxury marque of the past century has survived as an independent: Porsche, and to a lesser extent BMW and Daimler -- though perhaps none are really pure luxury marques -- are the only examples, the rest have either been bought out or bankrupted.
I think this statement about people not having the "money to burn" is false. I think there are plenty of people, though not on these message boards <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> that have enough money but are just not spending it. Americans are not suddenly poor and this is definately not a depression. People have money, money that they are not spending on personal computers or electronics for that matter.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did I say that people are poor anywhere in my post? Jeez, take a reading comprehension class. What I said is that people do not have as much disposable cash as they did in previous years ("money to burn"). Whether they are putting their money away in money markets and CDs, or just plain don't have it, the effect is the same--their cash isn't disposable, and they aren't looking to purchase big ticket items like a new computer.
check out this recent thread on slashdot entitled <a href="http://slashdot.org/articles/02/09/26/0058238.shtml?tid=107"; target="_blank">flirting with mac os x</a>. Note the number of people doing real work on their macs (lawyers, game programmers, sysadmins and academics) and note that only a tiny proportion complain about speed and those are mainly running early versions of X on old portables. And slashdot is all about complaining, whatever the topic.
If you have been reading slashdot for the last few years then you will agree the turnaround in opinion is nothing less than startling. The FUD used to be unbelievable but now even Cmdr "one-button-mice-suck" Taco is considering switching.
The one big concern is price but even the slashdot crowd can figure out that Mac laptops offer value for money and most of them are getting their employers to spring for them.
Yeah these guys are geeks but their mindshare is worth a lot to apple.
Anybody who thinks Jobs didn't save Apple was asleep in 1997.
Anybody who doesn't think that Apple is at least as aware of its problems as we are is deluded.
Apple, like every other company in the world is interested in maximizing its profits, to provide a good return to shareholders. If they thought they could maximize their profits with an 0.05% market share, sold at extremely high margin, they would do so.
<strong>Porsche, and to a lesser extent BMW and Daimler -- though perhaps none are really pure luxury marques -- are the only examples, the rest have either been bought out or bankrupted.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They still sell cars equivalent to lesser domestic and Japanese makes at a premium. Would you pay $30K for a Mercedes-Benz C-Class 4-door or $15K for a Nissan Altima?
Comments
?It's a luxury car computer in a Ford Fiesta world. What do you want??<hr></blockquote>
What I want is to stop the asinine trend on web boards of making a connection between computer platforms and automobiles.
I?m not directing my angst solely at you, pscates, but I really wish people would realize that Ford Festivas and BMWs run on exactly the same fuel. Macintoshes and PCs run 100% differently. Every single bit in every single calculation that your Macintosh performs every single second of the day is EXACTLY REVERSED from those very same bits on an INTEL/AMD chip. EVERY addition. EVERY subtraction. EVERY multiply. EVERY divide. They are all 100% incompatible.
For god?s sake, folks, if you?re gonna use an automobile analogy, compare gasoline automobiles to diesel automobiles. Or battery to gasoline. Or fuel cell to solar.
[quote]pscates also wrote:
?But dammit, when it comes to computers, I WILL NOT sell myself short and buy a piece-of-shit, cookie-cutter PC.?<hr></blockquote>
Again, not trying to focus my questions DIRECTLY at you, pscates, but can anyone tell me why every Macintosh user believes that PCs are crap?
The IDE connectors, power supplies, heatsinks, fans, hard drives, and video cards are EXACTLY the same as they are on a DELL. Or a Compaq. Or an eMachines. Which means that PCs can only be crap with respect to the motherboard, the processor, or Windows.
Believe me, PC hardware lasts just as long as Macintosh hardware does. And it fails just as much as Macintosh does. If you?ve got issues with Windows, then that?s another story.
[quote] OverToasty wrote:
??but it would be a really bad move for them to panic and totally slash prices into a loss leader position just to maintain a market share number. They'd wind up whizzing away their cash reserves and when the economy picks up, there'd be few willing to buy their new machines at a profit since they already bought machines when they where cheap.?<hr></blockquote>
Dead-on, OverToasty. There is a powerful difference between lowering sales costs and slashing them.
[quote] BRussell wrote:
?You people who talk about prices - do you think prices are just some independent factor that can be chosen at will and without consequence?
Think about what it would mean to have thin margins on Macs. With selling just a couple hundred thousand a quarter, their margins could provide them with maybe just a few million in revenue each quarter, before paying their expenses like employees and R & D etc.?<hr></blockquote>
No, I don?t think prices are an independent factor. However, I?ve built several PCs, and I know enough to know that Apple is making WAY the hell more profit on their machines than anyone else in the market.
I can go online, order parts, and assemble my own x86 machine that is comparable to the dual 867 Apple Powermac for $600.00.
Now, I realize that this isn?t a fair comparison, because Apple has extraneous costs: R&D, Software Creation, Hardware design, Employee costs, Assembly costs, etc.
However, the comparison becomes a bit more balanced when one realizes that the $600.00 figure (above) is RETAIL. You can bet the farm that Apple is getting its parts IN BULK, for WHOLESALE, at a HUGE DISCOUNT.
Even if we concede that the ?extraneous? costs add a whopping $300.00 to the cost of a given Powermac, that puts the price tag up to $900.00 (pure retail). They?re selling these PowerMacs for $1700.00 folks! Trust me, there?s room to move, here.
[quote] pfflam wrote:
?These are schools where Macs were networked this summer using OSx 10.1+, and which need drivers for scanners and printers and generally need their own security software to mesh with the OS without crashing and/or causing problems.
Apple needs to get all of the peripherals compatible and working now.?<hr></blockquote>
Dead-on, pfflam. Apple seems to have a strange perception of the computing industry whereby EVERYONE else should bow to their needs. They completely revamp an operating system, and supply NO drivers for ANY scanners AT ALL. Then, they wonder why the creative industry isn?t rushing forth to buy their products.
They blame Epson, and HP, and everyone else for not supplying drivers.
Meanwhile, consumers are left with $129.99 worth of software that will not work with peripherals purchased less than a year ago.
One has to wonder if a million-dollar investment of Apple?s 4+ billion-dollar liquid cash could?ve been used to facilitate printer/scanner drivers when OSX was first released. One also has to wonder whether this TINY investment would have yielded greater adoption rates and hardware purchases.
Unfortunately, we?ll never know.
-theMagius
[ 09-25-2002: Message edited by: theMagius ]
edit: subject-verb agreement
[ 09-25-2002: Message edited by: theMagius ]</p>
<strong>As stated above, it's simple. Lower Prices...
26% Profit Margin (or something like that) is dead. It died the day their stock went from the 60's down to the 20's... (00-01) (tech bubble burst)
Until their hardware is halfway up to par with wintel, people will hold back from buying. The "Buy new, every two (years)" is also dead. Im using a 400Mhz G3 iMac DV and i don't really have any plans to upgrade. Why should I? It has firewire, a decent graphics card (for QIII, SIMS, Civilazation, etc). It runs OS X, it has Firewire...
So again....lower the profit margin. Get the iMac down to 999.00 for a CD-RW. Get the iBooks down to 999.00 for a CD-ROM. Get the PowerBooks down to 2000.00 starting. Get the Towers down to 1399.00</strong><hr></blockquote>
Let me just elaborate on this a bit more....i was rushed and had to get to class.
------------
Again like i said before, the days of the 26% profit margin are over. Apple hasn't figured out that this is a new era of the tech sector. It's a new economy. People aren't just going to slap down money for a new computer without doing some research. And this is why the price/performance ratio is slowly bleeding them to death. Lets look at each product's Price/Performance ratio colors:
iMac G4:
This used to be as green as a traffic light. But aside from maybe the 17" iMac, this product is about as red as you can get. (red being bad). It screams, "DON'T BUY ME"
eMac:
To me, it's pretty clear that this little guy is the sucessor to the CRT iMac. But until it's price comes down, they can't get rid of the little G3 bugger. The eMac is a little better. It's only in the faint red tint color. a simple speed bump (CPU and BUS) and 100.00 price cut would push this up almost in the green.
iMac G3:
Oddly enough, This little guy a just out of the green. If you don't count the other models (with more RAM), the 799 isn't a bad deal. Replace the 750Cxe with a 750Fx and replace the SDRAM video card with a DDR one, and it would be in the green. Unfortunatly, this lttle guy needs to go. Or at least get renamed. Having to products named the same isn't generally a good idea.
PowerMac:
This product used to be as red as blood. But the recent speed bump has pushed them up into the "road construction orange" color.
iBooks:
Barely Green. One of the few "good buys"
PowerBooks:
Right now they are also in the road construction orange. The performance just doesn't warrant the Price tag. A speed bump in the CPU/Bus (920Mhz 1.16Ghz), Bluetooth, and 64MB Graphic card would push these into the barely green color.
xServe:
Another barely green product. But not exactly something all of us are going to buy....
iPod:
Green. And the recent iPod for Windows announcement only made it more green
<strong>
I think what would happen is that they would start losing money and people would see Apple as a doomed company and their marketshare would decrease, not increase. The "give stuff away at cost to increase mindshare and marketshare" philosophy is what made the tech bubble a bubble. It doesn't work. Companies have to be profitable first.
In any case, that's where the debate should be. Not "they should lower prices dude! I can get a dell for $600!"</strong><hr></blockquote>
But the fallacy continues to be that companies lost money selling cheap PC's and that just isn't true. Apart from an ill conceived/ill fated foray into free PC's with advertising/web service commitments, none one one of the cockamammy schemes of the tech bubble involved selling PC's at a loss. Hosting web services, providing infrastructure, e-stores of every type... a host of printer and ink models where the no one was sure exactly what constituted either printer or ink. During all this time PC's just got cheaper, and now that the bubble has burst PC's are still getting cheaper. They have been a constant source of revenue and profit for any well managed builder. An utter lack of common sense was the source of the bust not price competition. Companies may like to blame price competition because it diverts interest from some very poor judgement, but even now as they divest themselves of foolhardy dot.com dreams they continue to sell cheaper PC's at a nice profit and distribute those funds throughout their infrastructures to pay for past mistakes and plan for future ventures. NO ONE is losing money selling cheap PC's or they wouldn't be doing it, this is as silly as those stickers on gas pumps claiming that petrol companies only make a 1-2% actual profit. Even Gateway, that favorite refrain of apologists everywhere, would be in good shape if they hadn't made a mess of retail and world-wide distribution. Now that they're back to selling direct in NA, they're doing well.
The 'tech bubble' companies you speak of were trying to invent marketshare in markets that didn't even exist, or melding traditional markets to the internet just because they thought they could. So when people didn't want to cars online or pay for virtual services, they went bust, this has nothing to do with computers.
The PC model is buttoned down solid and it won't change much. Growth has to slow down, companies have to be efficient, prices will drop because consumers have voted with their cheque-books: they want it cheap. Everybody understands that even the priciest computer won't be worth anything in 3-4 years so why waste it on expensive machines when very capable affordable machines are always available or right around the corner. Cars have a similar depreciation and peopel still buy expensive cars, but expensive cars carry status, they can get you laid, they can seal the business deal, and if nothing else they let you show off. Computers don't do that. They only do it to the extent that consumer electronics do that. Look at your average high-end a/v manufacturer: they have miniscule market-share. Computer platfoms can't afford that, they need to be popular as a pre-requisite to survival. Any number of PC makers can have market-share less than a quarter the size of Apple's and still be considered great successes but they do not bear the burden of supporting Windows alone. Apple supports mac all by itself and a match-stick is never as strong as a bundle.
Change will come to Apple one way or another. Either they'll get cheaper, or they'll get out of the consumer hardware business.
Those are the realities of the market ad they will not change to suit the Jobs' demands.
<strong> ...but expensive cars carry status, they can get you laid, they can seal the business deal, and if nothing else they let you show off. Computers don't do that. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Satchmo flashbacks to last weekend when he brought the girl back to his place...
"Oooh Satchmo, that's a great looking iMac you've got. Wanna f*ck?"
<strong>Apple's marketing may be conservative, but the current economy calls for it, as there aren't as many people with money to burn on a new system as there used to be. Apple's hunkering down and doing its best to ride out the downturn.
Even so, their switch campaigns are targeting the right people, IMO--people fed up with PCs and ready to consider an alternative. This may not be a relatively big segment, but it's the one that Apple has the best chance of wooing to their side. They're pushing the strength of the Macintosh platform which even a lot of PC users recognize--ease of use, and the "digital hub" concept.
Once the hardware catches up to the software, we'll most likely see a differnt campaign appealing to power users rolling out.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think this statement about people not having the "money to burn" is false. I think there are plenty of people, though not on these message boards <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> that have enough money but are just not spending it. Americans are not suddenly poor and this is definately not a depression. People have money, money that they are not spending on personal computers or electronics for that matter.
If they cut their profit margin in half, down to 13% percent, they would need to sell twice the number of Macs as they do now to make the same amount of money. Do you really think that dropping $150 off the low end items and a few hundred more off the high end stuff would double their sales? Of course not.
The main problem Apple has now is the speed of their current hardware lineup. They have a great OS and wonderful iApps, but they are being strangled to death by the poor scalability of the G4.
If things go well and Macs become faster then windows machines again (via a version of the IBM Power4 or a fast G5 from Motorola), Apple's sales will pick up and we will see an increase in market share next year. If they stay behind in computing power, their market share will continue to shrink.
<strong>Apart from an ill conceived/ill fated foray into free PC's with advertising/web service commitments, none one one of the cockamammy schemes of the tech bubble involved selling PC's at a loss.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But Apple can't sell Mac as cheaply as PCs, unless they sell them at a loss, so the point is moot.
I've said it a million times before, it's one thing not to have the processors available - no big deal. BUT, when you DO have access to faster internal components and simply do not use them to make up for the lack of processing power, well - that's just insulting. From the iMac to the PowerMac.
I for one am waiting for an eMac with a 7200rpm HD, at least a 1GHz G4, a 4X 64MB Graphics Card and a 32X DVD/CDRW combo drive (hopefully they will have a fix for the admitted defect in many eMac displays as well). My question is, how long to I have to wait for a Mac with internal components that are already available for reasonable prices (but Apple refuses to use?) I just don't get it. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
<strong>
But the fallacy continues to be that companies lost money selling cheap PC's and that just isn't true.
Hosting web services, providing infrastructure, e-stores of every type... a host of printer and ink models where the no one was sure exactly what constituted either printer or ink.
They have been a constant source of revenue and profit for any well managed builder.
NO ONE is losing money selling cheap PC's or they wouldn't be doing it, this is as silly as those stickers on gas pumps claiming that petrol companies only make a 1-2% actual profit. Even Gateway, that favorite refrain of apologists everywhere, would be in good shape if they hadn't made a mess of retail and world-wide distribution. Now that they're back to selling direct in NA, they're doing well.
The PC model is buttoned down solid and it won't change much.
Any number of PC makers can have market-share less than a quarter the size of Apple's and still be considered great successes but they do not bear the burden of supporting Windows alone. Apple supports mac all by itself and a match-stick is never as strong as a bundle.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
A dying company is slashing prices
<a href="http://www.thedeal.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=TheDeal/TDDArticle/TDStandardArticle&c=TDDArticle&cid=1032886543480&B ox1=NULL&Box2=NULL&banner=NULL" target="_blank">link</a>
Cattle drive
by Matt Miller
UpdatedÂ*02:37Â*PM EST,Â*Sep-24-2002
In a new series of ads, Gateway Inc. pits its Profile 4 personal computer against Apple Computer's iMac, daring potential customers to choose sides. Tough call. Many Apple users feel passionately about their machines. Gateway Â? those folks who ship their PCs in boxes that resemble Holstein cow skins Â? engenders about the same brand loyalty these days as a glass of lukewarm milk.
More are betting these days that Gateway will be put out to pasture than beat Apple as the computer of passionate choice.
Gateway's souring state gives us another excuse to focus on the whole personal-computer industry. When last visited, the sector was in huge turmoil, courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. While plenty of shareholders and other assorted busybodies seriously questioned Â? and still do, for that matter Â? the rationality of HP grabbing Compaq and creating the world's largest PC vendor, the $18.7 billion merger aptly demonstrated the extent of industry consolidation. Expect more to follow.
The market certainly hasn't strengthened in the almost five months since the merger closed. According to technology research firm IDC, total shipments of PCs dipped 0.5% in the second quarter of 2002 compared with a year earlier. It marked the fifth consecutive quarter of decline.
Chances are, the second half won't be any better. A hoped-for back-to-school boost never materialized. Inventory levels are higher than expected, leading some to predict yet another price war in time for the holidays.
Part of this continued softness could be attributed to economic jitters and ongoing consumer wariness. But some of it reflects the growth limitations of the product itself. Hard to believe, but personal computers Â? those icons of our high-tech universe Â? have become a mature industry. And there are good reasons why hardware manufacturers Â? despite efforts to branch out into everything from printers to Internet access Â? are stuck in the same kind of cul-de-sac as those manufacturers that produced the icon of another technological era, the television.
To begin with, just how many computers can one family have? Trade-ins are essentially trade-downs. Because of competitive pressures, today's machine boasts twice the computing power as last year's model, but costs barely half as much. The fact is, parts are interchangeable, and any savvy 13-year-old can assemble a PC almost as good as what Gateway or HP hawk.
Born on an Iowa cattle farm, raised in a South Dakota cornfield and now based in the eucalyptus-clad San Diego suburb of Poway, Gateway is suffering more than most of those computer manufacturers still standing. According to IDC, the number of units shipped at fourth-ranked Gateway dropped more precipitously Â? an 18.4% decline from second-quarter 2001 to second-quarter 2002 Â? than that of any other major player. Its 5.8% market share is about half what it was three years earlier.
For the first six months of this year, Gateway sales fell 43% to $2 billion. The company lost $187.4 million. Its bonds are rated junk. It expects sales of $4 billion this year, less than half the almost $10 billion in sales recorded in 2000. (That year, the company's then-CEO, Jeffrey Weitzen, predicted $30 billion sales by 2004. Talk about overly optimistic calculations. He was overthrown less than a year later.) Its $930 million market cap is now lower than its cash and marketable securities on hand.
Gateway recently installed a poison pill to make takeovers more difficult. But the company's woes have led to market rumors of a buyout, specifically a possible management LBO. (One banker we know expressed Gateway's future with more succinctness and a bit less tact: "They're finished," he said.)
Last week, Gateway chieftain Ted Waitt dodged the issue during a brief conference call.
"We're always looking at various opportunities," said Waitt, Gateway's co-founder, who owns about 31% of the company and still thinks the world of himself.
Opportunity is something Gateway sorely lacks these days. The company once battled respectably with Dell Computer Corp. in the made-to-order, catalog market. Gateway faltered badly. Its decision to open hundreds of retail outlets only made matters worse.
Despite its foray into bricks-and-mortar stores, Gateway has developed none of the customer devotion enjoyed by Apple, or even Dell for that matter. That means the company must compete on price. That is inevitably a losing proposition for those with higher overhead. Thin margins get hacked into nonexistence. Already, the company's sales, general and administrative expenses outweigh its gross profit.
That computers have become commodities is nothing new. For manufacturers, however, the bad news doesn't stop there. Consumers now demand certain goodies on their PCs, regardless of how cheap the machines may be. So it is that Gateway now offers for less than $700 a Pentium 4 desktop that comes complete with 17-inch monitor and read/write CD-ROM. Add $85 more and get a DVD drive.
The new Gateway ads tout a more expensive machine with, presumably, a bigger profit margin for its creator. Why Gateway believes it can now move upmarket is anyone's guess. Perhaps Gateway has in mind another computer ad campaign: "Think different."
Faster chips but lowered stocks
Advanced Micro cuts laptop chip prices as much as 35%
<a href="http://www.detnews.com/2002/technology/0209/25/technology-596027.htm"; target="_blank">http://www.detnews.com/2002/technology/0209/25/technology-596027.htm</a>;
By Cesca Antonelli / Bloomberg News
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Â*Â*Â*SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. cut the price on some Athlon processors for laptops by as much as 35 percent, as the chipmaker introduces faster models and challenges Intel Corp. in mobile personal computers.
Â*Â*Â*The cost of an Athlon XP 1800+ for notebook PCs dropped to $196 each from $301 in 1,000-unit shipments, Advanced Micro said on its Web site. A 1700+ fell 18 percent to $169 from $205.
Â*Â*Â*Advanced Micro last night introduced a mobile Athlon XP 2000+ that runs at 1.67 gigahertz, as the company branches out from chips for desktop systems into markets such as laptops. The chipmaker's share of global sales for those processors doubled to 12 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, Advanced Micro said, citing market researcher Gartner Dataquest.
Â*Â*Â*Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's biggest PC maker, will have systems with the new chip right away, Advanced Micro spokeswoman Whitney Otstott said yesterday.
Â*Â*Â*The 2000+ costs $345, and a new 1900+ model that operates at 1.6 GHz costs $239, she said.
Â*Â*Â*The mobile 1600+ fell to $169 from $180, and the 1500+ dropped to $150 from $169. Other prices were unchanged, according to the Sunnyvale, California-based company's Web site. Advanced Micro typically cuts prices on older products as new ones come out, Otstott said today.
Â*Â*Â*Advanced Micro shares fell 23 cents to $5.75 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has declined 64 percent this year. Intel shares rose 20 cents to $14.33 and have lost 54 percent of their value in 2002.
Dell getting into the lucrative printer business - cause printers make more money than cheap PCs
In the coming Â?Printer War,Â? Dell wins Â? American workers lose
<a href="http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz07302002.asp"; target="_blank">link</a>
Hewlett Packard is at the top of the printer business.Â* Dell is presently at the top of the PC business.Â* When HP bought rival Compaq last year, they wanted to position themselves as a Â?one-stop-shopÂ? for their customersÂ? computer needs by offering PCs, printers and services.Â* ItÂ?s no surprise that Dell wants to do the same thing, but can DellÂ?s usual strategy of undercutting their competitors work against HP in the printer department?
Sure, Dell has plenty of cash in the bank to burn along with thousands of relatively high-priced American employees they can dump and move operations to China in an effort to undercut HPÂ?s printer business.Â* It should be a snap for Dell!
Hewlett PackardÂ?s move to buy Compaq shocked everyone in the fall of 2001, including Dell.Â* The thought of their Texas-based archrival Compaq teaming up with HP to become the number one PC powerhouse in the world gave Dell a kick in the pants.Â* Dell had just fired thousands of employees, politely asked some of their most expensive executives to retire and climbed to the top of the PC market share totem pole.Â* Dell certainly didnÂ?t want to get knocked off the top rung of the ladder by virtue of combined HP-Compaq market share stats.
Dell insiders in 2001 would tell me about Dell-produced Power Point slides showing the lionÂ?s share of HPÂ?s revenue being tied to their printer/ink business.Â* DellÂ?s proposed strategy was to produce their own line of printers, bundle them with Dell PCs and sell the ink for slightly less than comparable HP ink offerings using the Â?Dell DirectÂ? method.Â* Now, almost a year later, DellÂ?s strategy has basically been made common knowledge after the July 19th interview with a Dell corporate exec that ran in the Austin American-Statesman, the local Austin, Texas newspaper.Â* HP quickly severed ties with Dell Â? refusing to sell HP-branded printers, handheld computer devices like the Journada PDA or anything else through Dell Â? while Dell played innocent for the stock analysts and press: Â?So youÂ?re not gonna sell printers through us anymore over one little quote in the newspa--Â* Huh?!Â* YouÂ?re not going to sell anything through us?Â* Why?Â* WhatÂ?s wrong, guys?Â?
The attitude amongst Dell employees from execs to factory workers in Austin is certainly smug when it comes to the possibility of a Dell-branded printer.Â* Dell thinks that HP needs them more than Dell needs HP when it comes to printers and rightly so.Â* Dell, like Compaq did before them in 1998, will make a deal with Lexmark to manufacture cheap inkjet printers with a blue Â?DellÂ? logo on the front of them at the factories in South Korea.Â* Dell will then bundle those Lexmark/Dell printers with every PC purchase as a Â?free printer upgradeÂ? or for an incredible low price as part of some other Â?Dude, yer gettinÂ? a printerÂ? TV promotion.
An idea like this sounds great to Dell: Embarrass HP by using cheap South Korean labor to produce Dell-branded printers and sell the printers with every PC.Â* The only soft spot is that HP (and Dell) admits that itÂ?s not the printing hardware that makes the money Â? itÂ?s the ink.Â* DellÂ?s fortunes have been made because they donÂ?t have retail stores and sell Â?directÂ? to customers over the phone or via the Internet.Â* If a Dell/Lexmark ink cartridge is sold at Office Depot or CompUSA, Dell will see a PR backlash against their Â?Dell DirectÂ? profit model along with erosion in their profits.Â* If Dell/Lexmark ink carts are only sold on the Dell website how will that benefit my wife when she runs out of ink Saturday night after sheÂ?s printed out a dozen digital photos from our day trip to the lake on her Dell printer and has to print out documents for her job on Monday?Â* Unless Dell has made strides in shipping efficiency that rivals Bugs Bunny mail ordering earmuffs that instantly arrive for the opera singer high-note, my wife canÂ?t wait three business days to get a replacement ink cartridge for her Dell printer and wouldnÂ?t think itÂ?s such a great deal.
Of course, Lexmark will probably make the Dell printers to be compatible with their existing ink carts (like they did with Compaq) and that will be a non-issue.Â* If Dell revs up their printer business but loses any ground to HP, they will cut jobs in Texas or Tennessee in America and reassign those jobs to China or Malaysia where workers gladly take $1 per day job with a big Western high-tech firm as an honor and consider the wage a kingÂ?s ransom.
Dell execs and shareholders may get to crow about the stock going up to near $30 after that.Â* TV pitchmen Â?StevenÂ? and Â?DaveÂ? will flash their toothy grins that women 18-49 love so much on the news of Dell being number one in printer market share.Â* Wall Street will break out the champagne and everyone will be happy with their Dell printersÂ?Â* Everyone except for the thousand or more out of work Americans that Dell said werenÂ?t team players because Dell wanted to embarrass HP in the printer business.
Either Dell should stick with what they do best and make PCs or Dell employees should start sending out résumés now.
Let Dell put their stickers on Lexmark printers so people can get cheap PCs and let Apple make 15% more profit margin so they can invent cool products like iPods, Rendezvous and Firewire. Gateway can do whatever they want - no one cares anymore. IMHO
[ 09-25-2002: Message edited by: seb ]</p>
<strong>But this is what I don't get. I know Macs can't be AS cheap as some PCs, but why can't they be cheaper?</strong><hr></blockquote>
It comes from the fact that Apple develops its own operating system, frameworks and software without a substantial enterprise operation or other truly high-volume, high-margin stream of revenue. They also put a larger portion of the money they do make into R&D, and they put more time and money into their hardware development, even if the components are cheaper.
Everyone either thinks of Apple as a competitor to Microsoft or as a competitor to Dell. Apple competes against both.
Note that 2Q02's marketshare numbers are up from 1Q02's
Chalk up another troll to Matsu.
Also, this is based on Gartner's Dataquest total PC shipments numbers and Apple's shipment numbers.
In short: 2.7% and risen.
[ 09-26-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
People are willing to pay more for a Mac because of OS X, but they will balk if the hardware performance isn't comparable to that of Wintels. Apple needs the high margins on their hardware because of low volume sales and the extra expense of R&D, so it's unrealistic to ever expect Apple to match Wintels for price. However, when Powermac sales are up, then Apple will be able to afford to drop the price a bit on their low end computers like the iMac and eMac.
Another important point is that the impact of OS X on Apple's market share has yet to be realized. Operating systems sell based on reputation, and Apple is still battling a reputation based on OS 8 and OS 9. Most people who profess to hate Macs base this hatred upon a bad experience with pre-OS X Macs. It takes several years for an OS to gain a reputation, and for Apple it may take even longer because their reputation was so bad concerning the Mac OS. Yeah it was a great GUI, but it crashed far too often and people remember it.
OS X is currently making a name for itself among IT folks, and this is exactly where Apple needs to be making an impression. As more Unix gurus acclimate to OS X, more and more IT depts will begin to respect Apple and OS X, and this respect will trickle down to the masses. Never underestimate the influence of IT dudes, it is primarily because of them that Macs are so rare today. Many casual computer users will ask IT guys about computers when they're making a purchase, and if they recommend OS X, this will have an enormous impact on Apple's sales...more than any advertising campaign could. Give it another 2 years or so for Apple to gain a reputation based on OS X. This rep will be generated by word of mouth and it will be the catalyst for increasing Apple's market share.
At about the same time that OS X begins to gain a word-of-mouth reputation, Apple will be offering hardware based on the GPUL and on faster G4s. Optimally, the Powermacs will use GPULs that turn in performance benchmarks superior to any from x86, and consumer Macs will be based on G4s or G5s from Moto that are competitive with x86 (130 or 90 nm process, 1.8-2.4 GHz). With the right combination of hardware and OS X penetration and reputation, Apple will be poised to make immense gains in market share.
Currently, it seems like Apple is doing everything right to set the foundation for increasing their market share. The only weak link in their strategy is their hardware performance, but that is really out of their hands until IBM starts supplying CPUs. Until then, Apple would do well to put G4s with the faster FSB in EVERY Mac, with DDR RAM. That includes the iMac, eMac, and even the iBook. There is no reason to hobble the consumer Macs with a 100 MHz FSB and slow RAM.
Another thing to look forward to is that as LCD prices come down, Apple's hardware will become more attractively priced. The iMac will come down to CRT iMac prices as LCD prices drop, and of course Apple's displays will all become more affordable, and finally ADC will be more appreciated because more people will be able to afford Apple LCD displays.
29.895 million PCs shipped in 2Q02.
<a href="http://a528.g.akamai.net/7/528/51/2eb510691ed89e/www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q302data_sum.pdf"; target="_blank">http://a528.g.akamai.net/7/528/51/2eb510691ed89e/www.apple.com/pr/pdf/q302data_sum.pdf</a>;
808 thousand Macs shipped in 2Q02.
That's 2.7%+, total shipments of course down from last year, but pretty much holding steady in marketshare. Marketshare increased from Q1 to Q2. Blah blah blah the sky is falling!
[ 09-26-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
So the market is bad? What did Apple do when the market was good? They lost a lot of share, and now they're losing just a little. The fuzzy numbers you guys like to cook-up don't count. White boxes count, anything sold that runs windows counts. You can't just lop off 30% of the Windows market because those sales come from small, and very small, vendors. Everybody suffering still doesn't come down to price competition if you want to argue that people aren't buying because the market is cool or it's stabilizing and growth is slowing. That happened to the auto market too, and makers there compete on price, the biggest players are all there cause they have something cheap to sell, hardly any luxury marque of the past century has survived as an independent: Porsche, and to a lesser extent BMW and Daimler -- though perhaps none are really pure luxury marques -- are the only examples, the rest have either been bought out or bankrupted.
<strong>
I think this statement about people not having the "money to burn" is false. I think there are plenty of people, though not on these message boards <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> that have enough money but are just not spending it. Americans are not suddenly poor and this is definately not a depression. People have money, money that they are not spending on personal computers or electronics for that matter.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did I say that people are poor anywhere in my post? Jeez, take a reading comprehension class. What I said is that people do not have as much disposable cash as they did in previous years ("money to burn"). Whether they are putting their money away in money markets and CDs, or just plain don't have it, the effect is the same--their cash isn't disposable, and they aren't looking to purchase big ticket items like a new computer.
So basically, I said the same thing you just did.
[ 09-26-2002: Message edited by: jesperas ]</p>
Many have had enough of waiting and chose to go PC.
If all the things you say do happen, yes Apple will be poised to grow market share.
But those are some pretty big if's.
Meanwhile, prices are still high and marketshare remains pathetic.
If you have been reading slashdot for the last few years then you will agree the turnaround in opinion is nothing less than startling. The FUD used to be unbelievable but now even Cmdr "one-button-mice-suck" Taco is considering switching.
The one big concern is price but even the slashdot crowd can figure out that Mac laptops offer value for money and most of them are getting their employers to spring for them.
Yeah these guys are geeks but their mindshare is worth a lot to apple.
[edit: their and there, d'oh]
[ 09-26-2002: Message edited by: stupider...likeafox ]</p>
Anybody who doesn't think that Apple is at least as aware of its problems as we are is deluded.
Apple, like every other company in the world is interested in maximizing its profits, to provide a good return to shareholders. If they thought they could maximize their profits with an 0.05% market share, sold at extremely high margin, they would do so.
<strong>Porsche, and to a lesser extent BMW and Daimler -- though perhaps none are really pure luxury marques -- are the only examples, the rest have either been bought out or bankrupted.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They still sell cars equivalent to lesser domestic and Japanese makes at a premium. Would you pay $30K for a Mercedes-Benz C-Class 4-door or $15K for a Nissan Altima?