Well I still don't get it, the GeForce Ti was suppose to be out in January and didn't come out til June, But nvidia can build a whole board and have it available for the Mac in July, maybe that's what took so long on the Ti, they were building the nForce?
The base powermac is $1600. Apple's average margins are about 30% ($480), meaning 70% is manufacturing costs ($1120).
PowerMac sales have slumped these past two quarters. So much so, that they are at LEAST 100,000 units behind projections based on last year's sales.
$1120 x 100,000 = $112,000,000 = huge hunk o' cash.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple's AVERAGE margin is in the 25-30% territory, then the margin on a PM is MUCH, MUCH HIGHER than 30%. Apple sells way more consumer machines that have a lower margin than the pro machines and yet they average 30% (27 or so I think) There's no way it costs more than 800-900 bucks to put together a QS 800. The CPU was 125USD (months ago, expect it to be lower now) SD-RAM is cheap, ATI7500 is likewise cheap, HDD - cheap, CDrw? Cheap. Mobo? They've been making it since forever, same with the case. No-no my friends, they could dump QS 800's out the door for 1200USD and still make pretty money on them, probably more than they make on a 1299 iMac! QS733's showed up in edu stores at great prices (1250ish) a while after Apple made the 800-DP1Ghz rev. And that's the reason why, they could still make money on them even after they unloaded a ton onto edu/institutional buyers.
There's nothing in the 800 and 933 to warrant their prices (component wise) It's all fairly generic/established MoBo tech plus a video card and some depreciating drive tech. The dual CPU card in a DP 1Ghz may cost a little more to make, but that's it. An QS 800 could probably drop 25-30% out of it's price and still turn a profit, but an iMac couldn't. Even superdrives could easily be recycled to iMacs if need be. They BTO superdrives, and I suspect 95% finished macs sit in factory-warehouse waiting for users to make final BTO decisions. A certain percentage get pre-config'd but those are mostly sent out to resellers. Anything of expense on the current QS's could quickly be swapped for a lesser component and dumped to the edu/institutional market. Powermac is one machine they can dump into the channel (even in relatively large numbers) with no ill effect whatsoever. It will sell at a still profitable price untill it's gone. A higher-spec replacement PM would big life with the old versions obscene margins, and if iMac sales happen to go to EOL'd PM's, so what, those EOL'd (discounted) PM's would still have similar margins to an iMac (even after discounts!)
OMG are some of you bent, APPLE is NOT getting an nForce. That's an integrated chip-set. PM's are supposed to have user upgradeable cards! Besides nVidia has exactly zero experience building PPC chip-sets. Get real.
When I meant an update on displays I was thinking something more like 17", 19", 23" Cinema... possibly all HD? that would be really nice, who is going to buy a G4 tower and a 15" monitor, sorry just doesn't make sense to me.
There's nothing in the 800 and 933 to warrant their prices (component wise) It's all fairly generic/established MoBo tech plus a video card and some depreciating drive tech. The dual CPU card in a DP 1Ghz may cost a little more to make, but that's it. An QS 800 could probably drop 25-30% out of it's price and still turn a profit...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Good post Matsu. We also have to remember that the price of the super drive is about 50% of what it was when Apple introed it, so on all of the high ends Apple is making a better profit from that. Another factor is Ram pricing, which changes daily. Apple didnt discount their computers last year when Ram prices were going down, yet raised prices earlier this year when they peaked again. Apple has room to move with the PM pricing when they clear go to clear out inventory, as they always do. The 800's would sell well for $1299-1399, just as the 733's did, and if they REALLY wanted to move them Apple could put them in at $1199, and any losses could be taken off on their taxes at the end of the quarter.
<strong>Another factor is Ram pricing, which changes daily. Apple didnt discount their computers last year when Ram prices were going down, yet raised prices earlier this year when they peaked again.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has a contract with a fixed price for RAM (which has higher costs). So no matter how the market goes up and down, Apple pays the same amount. I'm not too sure how often this contract is renewed. I think I heard it's annual, but don't quote me on that.
If Apple's AVERAGE margin is in the 25-30% territory, then the margin on a PM is MUCH, MUCH HIGHER than 30%. ...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, on the high end PMs this is probably true, but not at the low end. Remember that Apple has increasing software revenue coming in at 90% margin that skews that average. But yes, Apple can do some pretty heavy discounting and still come out okay.
To those that think Apple won't trim these margins - think again. Apple is very pragmatic about it's margins and savings. It's not a contest for the highest margins and most money in the bank. You keep these high in good times so that you have room to work when times get tough. Apple will allow margins to temporarily slide if it's needed to get revenues, and they will dip to their savings to achieve the same goals (e.g. buy a bunch of profitable companies). These conditions are exactly why you want a 27 point margin - you can trim that back to 18 points and get more product to consumers to stimulate sales.
Apple will never bring system prices to low levels because they know that there will be cries of 'foul' if they raise them again to restore the margins. Look for the price points to stay, but the value to go up. Toss in a copy of Office if you need, but don't drop prices.
Everyone has been saying that announcing a new Power Mac (G5, or beefy G4) early would kill present G4 sales. Well Duh. That would be the idea of the big promotion that goes through MWNY. It is saying yes if you wait you could get a better computer, but it won't be the same price. If they are going back to the same line up where the processor in the Desktop is one "G" better than the laptop they would have to drop the G4 Desktop line. That means that I could buy a professional level machine for less money just befor one that I can't afford comes out. The idea of the promo going on after MWNY would be to pomote bargain buyers.
<strong>OMG are some of you bent, APPLE is NOT getting an nForce. That's an integrated chip-set. PM's are supposed to have user upgradeable cards! Besides nVidia has exactly zero experience building PPC chip-sets. Get real.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The integrated nForce 2 would be a perfect choice for the iMac, iBook and Powerbook. It's reasonably balanced and powerful, and can be produced inexpensively.
The non-integrated nForce 2 (stuff any 'ol AGP card in there) may well be good for the Powermac. The original nForce set was good, but not the greatest thing on earth.
They don't have experience with PPC, but Apple has been working with them for at least a year and a half now. They have experience with both Intel and AMD and with technologies common that platform. They have experience building graphics cards for PPC. I don't think it's too much of a stretch - Apple stuff is pretty straightforward these days. It's not like building a mobo in the 601 days.
Of course, if Apple really wanted to rock us, they could do a clean desktop sweep - new nForce mobo's/graphics, faster CPUs, 17" LCD in the iMac, and the whole megillah for the Powermac (non integrated version of the nForce, though).
"Motherboard manufacturers are said to regard the new chipset as having great potential, given its price/performance ratio. Based on the DDR400 platform, the nForce 2 supports the USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 and ATA-133 interfaces. For the integrated chipset, a GeForce4 MX440-equivalent core also allows the new product?s graphics technology to lead Intel?s latest 845G by two generations."
GeForce 4MX would certainly not suck for QZX on the iMac, and toss in a R300 or nVidia's upcoming GeForce 5 (esqu) card for the Powermac. Waiting on nVidia and Mot to come into sync would certainly explain the lagging performance of the pro line. The specs above are not out of line from what we've heard from others. nVidia hinted towards big things with Apple and Steve hinted towards big performance gains later this year.
Or with nVidia promising to announce a new digital media platform at the same time, it could all be a big coincidence.
What struck me about the two reports is how similar they were. C|Net basically just reprinted what ThinkSecret wrote a few hours earlier (just about enough for a quick talk with your editor and a writeup). The only difference was that where ThinkSecret refered to "just use common sense!", C|Net used "sources say". I think the source they used was Nick DePlume
Add to this the fact that editors at ZD/C|Net are appalled at Apples behaviour towards the mac press lately, and you are left with something close to a provocation on their part. So, DePlume is trying to get back at Apple and publishes a nasty opinion, and CNet copies it almost to the letter to send Apple a message!
In my country we have a saying for things like this: This is the feather that turned into five chickens
So it might be disinformation, but not on Apples part ...
If his Jobness doesn't announce DDR g4's at MWNY, he better have something really, really hot (ie better than 17in imac and Jaguar "really soon") to take attention away from it.
Oh, and I have no doubt that Apple makes far better PPC chipsets than nVidia ever will.
Aside from design, OS and iApps, this is what Apple is relly all about - making chipsets and mobos. (Everything but the case design and chipset/mobo in a mac is off-the-shelf-stuff
[quote] Everyone has been saying that announcing a new Power Mac (G5, or beefy G4) early would kill present G4 sales... <hr></blockquote>
What G4 sales? Few is buying the current PMG4s. Whats the idea behind waiting to release the new machines until the current stock is sold? As time goes even fewer people are going to buy the current machines.
Id say release the new hot machines call them workstations and let the PowerMac be a midrange choise with midrange prices. Maybe thats why there wont be any PM at MWNY, theres going to be workstations instead, for the first time in mac history. :cool:
<strong>I'm willing to bet that the delay is as simple as the need to deal with the current inventory pileup of PowerMacs. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I must insert a note via an experience I had about two months ago... I ordered a DP PowerMac along with the 17" LCD, FC3, DVDPro, etc... Note, when I ordered, the web stated 3-5 business days. Three days after ordering, I received an email from Apple stating that my tower wouldn't ship for atleast another 10 days... 8 days later, I called to get my status, and they said it would be atleast another 5 days... So - the moral of the story: If only two months ago they had such a glut of inventory - why the heck could they not get my tower shipped? The ONLY change I made to the tower when I ordered online was dropping the MX for the ATI option - could this be the sole reason for the delay? If so, I'm having a hard time believing it. By that point, I had received everything but the tower - so I cancelled, waiting to see what would happen come MWNY.
There seems to be more to this current situation than simply an inventory glut of [DP] PowerMacs...
Damit! Stop with the OSX for Intel already! It's not gonning to happen.
Intel hardware is too slow. Yes, you heard me, TOO SLOW.
No Altivec means no iDVD, no ~16X MP3 encoding, slow iMovie, no real time effects in FCP, poor MPEG4 performance in QT6, and the list goes on.
Mactel users would feel like second class citizens because Apple couldn't offer the whole widget to these customers.
Come on people. Intel hardware isn't the answer to Apple's problems. Altivec gives us too much performance in too many important areas. If faster 3D is all you want then you'll have to wait for faster clocked G4s/G5s.
Think Secret is very, very, very, very good. In the past, anything and everything they say has turned out to be true, and they never emphasize how "stone cold" anything is. As a result, I am extremely inclined to believe them.
The other box makers are in a commodity market because other manufacturers produce goods that are easily substitutable. Ideal examples are CDs or books--all the sellers stock identical copies of the product so they must compete on price. Dell constructs its PCs from the same standard parts as other manufacturers so they are very close to being commodities and price matter a great deal.
Apple will not enter a commodity market no matter how large it's market share. Unless it allows clones again - which is unlikely.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Point taken, but the "market" defines what is a commodity not the manufacturer. And commodities typically have the attributes you list. However, at 5% Apple is serving a niche market that does not define computers as a commodity and hence doesn't buy strictly on price. My point was that the next 5% share would be from consumers who do consider computers a commodity. Thus, to get to 10% market share, Apple would necessarily have to accept the price the market is willing to pay-just like Dell- which would make Macs a commodity.
Comments
<strong>
Rough calculations, so bear with me...
The base powermac is $1600. Apple's average margins are about 30% ($480), meaning 70% is manufacturing costs ($1120).
PowerMac sales have slumped these past two quarters. So much so, that they are at LEAST 100,000 units behind projections based on last year's sales.
$1120 x 100,000 = $112,000,000 = huge hunk o' cash.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple's AVERAGE margin is in the 25-30% territory, then the margin on a PM is MUCH, MUCH HIGHER than 30%. Apple sells way more consumer machines that have a lower margin than the pro machines and yet they average 30% (27 or so I think) There's no way it costs more than 800-900 bucks to put together a QS 800. The CPU was 125USD (months ago, expect it to be lower now) SD-RAM is cheap, ATI7500 is likewise cheap, HDD - cheap, CDrw? Cheap. Mobo? They've been making it since forever, same with the case. No-no my friends, they could dump QS 800's out the door for 1200USD and still make pretty money on them, probably more than they make on a 1299 iMac! QS733's showed up in edu stores at great prices (1250ish) a while after Apple made the 800-DP1Ghz rev. And that's the reason why, they could still make money on them even after they unloaded a ton onto edu/institutional buyers.
There's nothing in the 800 and 933 to warrant their prices (component wise) It's all fairly generic/established MoBo tech plus a video card and some depreciating drive tech. The dual CPU card in a DP 1Ghz may cost a little more to make, but that's it. An QS 800 could probably drop 25-30% out of it's price and still turn a profit, but an iMac couldn't. Even superdrives could easily be recycled to iMacs if need be. They BTO superdrives, and I suspect 95% finished macs sit in factory-warehouse waiting for users to make final BTO decisions. A certain percentage get pre-config'd but those are mostly sent out to resellers. Anything of expense on the current QS's could quickly be swapped for a lesser component and dumped to the edu/institutional market. Powermac is one machine they can dump into the channel (even in relatively large numbers) with no ill effect whatsoever. It will sell at a still profitable price untill it's gone. A higher-spec replacement PM would big life with the old versions obscene margins, and if iMac sales happen to go to EOL'd PM's, so what, those EOL'd (discounted) PM's would still have similar margins to an iMac (even after discounts!)
<strong>
There's nothing in the 800 and 933 to warrant their prices (component wise) It's all fairly generic/established MoBo tech plus a video card and some depreciating drive tech. The dual CPU card in a DP 1Ghz may cost a little more to make, but that's it. An QS 800 could probably drop 25-30% out of it's price and still turn a profit...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Good post Matsu. We also have to remember that the price of the super drive is about 50% of what it was when Apple introed it, so on all of the high ends Apple is making a better profit from that. Another factor is Ram pricing, which changes daily. Apple didnt discount their computers last year when Ram prices were going down, yet raised prices earlier this year when they peaked again. Apple has room to move with the PM pricing when they clear go to clear out inventory, as they always do. The 800's would sell well for $1299-1399, just as the 733's did, and if they REALLY wanted to move them Apple could put them in at $1199, and any losses could be taken off on their taxes at the end of the quarter.
<strong>Another factor is Ram pricing, which changes daily. Apple didnt discount their computers last year when Ram prices were going down, yet raised prices earlier this year when they peaked again.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has a contract with a fixed price for RAM (which has higher costs). So no matter how the market goes up and down, Apple pays the same amount. I'm not too sure how often this contract is renewed. I think I heard it's annual, but don't quote me on that.
<strong>
If Apple's AVERAGE margin is in the 25-30% territory, then the margin on a PM is MUCH, MUCH HIGHER than 30%. ...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, on the high end PMs this is probably true, but not at the low end. Remember that Apple has increasing software revenue coming in at 90% margin that skews that average. But yes, Apple can do some pretty heavy discounting and still come out okay.
To those that think Apple won't trim these margins - think again. Apple is very pragmatic about it's margins and savings. It's not a contest for the highest margins and most money in the bank. You keep these high in good times so that you have room to work when times get tough. Apple will allow margins to temporarily slide if it's needed to get revenues, and they will dip to their savings to achieve the same goals (e.g. buy a bunch of profitable companies). These conditions are exactly why you want a 27 point margin - you can trim that back to 18 points and get more product to consumers to stimulate sales.
Apple will never bring system prices to low levels because they know that there will be cries of 'foul' if they raise them again to restore the margins. Look for the price points to stay, but the value to go up. Toss in a copy of Office if you need, but don't drop prices.
<strong>OMG are some of you bent, APPLE is NOT getting an nForce. That's an integrated chip-set. PM's are supposed to have user upgradeable cards! Besides nVidia has exactly zero experience building PPC chip-sets. Get real.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The integrated nForce 2 would be a perfect choice for the iMac, iBook and Powerbook. It's reasonably balanced and powerful, and can be produced inexpensively.
The non-integrated nForce 2 (stuff any 'ol AGP card in there) may well be good for the Powermac. The original nForce set was good, but not the greatest thing on earth.
They don't have experience with PPC, but Apple has been working with them for at least a year and a half now. They have experience with both Intel and AMD and with technologies common that platform. They have experience building graphics cards for PPC. I don't think it's too much of a stretch - Apple stuff is pretty straightforward these days. It's not like building a mobo in the 601 days.
Of course, if Apple really wanted to rock us, they could do a clean desktop sweep - new nForce mobo's/graphics, faster CPUs, 17" LCD in the iMac, and the whole megillah for the Powermac (non integrated version of the nForce, though).
"Motherboard manufacturers are said to regard the new chipset as having great potential, given its price/performance ratio. Based on the DDR400 platform, the nForce 2 supports the USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 and ATA-133 interfaces. For the integrated chipset, a GeForce4 MX440-equivalent core also allows the new product?s graphics technology to lead Intel?s latest 845G by two generations."
GeForce 4MX would certainly not suck for QZX on the iMac, and toss in a R300 or nVidia's upcoming GeForce 5 (esqu) card for the Powermac. Waiting on nVidia and Mot to come into sync would certainly explain the lagging performance of the pro line. The specs above are not out of line from what we've heard from others. nVidia hinted towards big things with Apple and Steve hinted towards big performance gains later this year.
Or with nVidia promising to announce a new digital media platform at the same time, it could all be a big coincidence.
Add to this the fact that editors at ZD/C|Net are appalled at Apples behaviour towards the mac press lately, and you are left with something close to a provocation on their part. So, DePlume is trying to get back at Apple and publishes a nasty opinion, and CNet copies it almost to the letter to send Apple a message!
In my country we have a saying for things like this: This is the feather that turned into five chickens
So it might be disinformation, but not on Apples part ...
If his Jobness doesn't announce DDR g4's at MWNY, he better have something really, really hot (ie better than 17in imac and Jaguar "really soon") to take attention away from it.
/penhead
Aside from design, OS and iApps, this is what Apple is relly all about - making chipsets and mobos. (Everything but the case design and chipset/mobo in a mac is off-the-shelf-stuff
What G4 sales? Few is buying the current PMG4s. Whats the idea behind waiting to release the new machines until the current stock is sold? As time goes even fewer people are going to buy the current machines.
Id say release the new hot machines call them workstations and let the PowerMac be a midrange choise with midrange prices. Maybe thats why there wont be any PM at MWNY, theres going to be workstations instead, for the first time in mac history. :cool:
<strong>I'm willing to bet that the delay is as simple as the need to deal with the current inventory pileup of PowerMacs. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I must insert a note via an experience I had about two months ago... I ordered a DP PowerMac along with the 17" LCD, FC3, DVDPro, etc... Note, when I ordered, the web stated 3-5 business days. Three days after ordering, I received an email from Apple stating that my tower wouldn't ship for atleast another 10 days... 8 days later, I called to get my status, and they said it would be atleast another 5 days... So - the moral of the story: If only two months ago they had such a glut of inventory - why the heck could they not get my tower shipped? The ONLY change I made to the tower when I ordered online was dropping the MX for the ATI option - could this be the sole reason for the delay? If so, I'm having a hard time believing it. By that point, I had received everything but the tower - so I cancelled, waiting to see what would happen come MWNY.
There seems to be more to this current situation than simply an inventory glut of [DP] PowerMacs...
<strong>hi keeksy</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, don't call me that. You'll blow my cover.
1) Updated iMac : speed bump and screen bump
2) PDA
3) NewPM (at least based on XServe, best is G5, high speed bus...)
4) Jaguar
5) Easy Switch : Jaguar running on AMD and or Intel processors !
That's all folks.
Thank you.
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
[ 07-11-2002: Message edited by: Appleworm ]</p>
The new PM's will be announced when they are ready and based on what I've read here MOTO has got some work to do.
[ 07-11-2002: Message edited by: popz ]</p>
Intel hardware is too slow. Yes, you heard me, TOO SLOW.
No Altivec means no iDVD, no ~16X MP3 encoding, slow iMovie, no real time effects in FCP, poor MPEG4 performance in QT6, and the list goes on.
Mactel users would feel like second class citizens because Apple couldn't offer the whole widget to these customers.
Come on people. Intel hardware isn't the answer to Apple's problems. Altivec gives us too much performance in too many important areas. If faster 3D is all you want then you'll have to wait for faster clocked G4s/G5s.
sure, i've seen 2GHz P4s encode at over 30x.
:eek:
<strong>
The other box makers are in a commodity market because other manufacturers produce goods that are easily substitutable. Ideal examples are CDs or books--all the sellers stock identical copies of the product so they must compete on price. Dell constructs its PCs from the same standard parts as other manufacturers so they are very close to being commodities and price matter a great deal.
Apple will not enter a commodity market no matter how large it's market share. Unless it allows clones again - which is unlikely.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Point taken, but the "market" defines what is a commodity not the manufacturer. And commodities typically have the attributes you list. However, at 5% Apple is serving a niche market that does not define computers as a commodity and hence doesn't buy strictly on price. My point was that the next 5% share would be from consumers who do consider computers a commodity. Thus, to get to 10% market share, Apple would necessarily have to accept the price the market is willing to pay-just like Dell- which would make Macs a commodity.