Better Value Macs

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  • Reply 41 of 109
    Apple definitely has an uphill battle in regards to making ?greater value? Macs, partly because different segments of their current market can?t agree what a ?greater value? Mac is. Some want G5?s moved into every line as quickly as possible, while others want expandability improved in the lower tier products. And everyone wants to see lower prices across the board. I believe that Apple would love to meet all these different desires and/or needs, they have some things hindering theirs efforts. Some have been within their control to change, and some have not. Here?s my take on what needs to happen for Apple to give us greater value for our dollar:



    \t(1) Prioritize Reducing Fixed Costs. Since Apple is both a software and hardware company, it has costs that Dell, etc. don?t have. Apple?s software division is not profitable (as they found out during the clone era), so they have to subsidize software development through hardware sales. That alone takes them out of being able to compete directly with PC makers, who usually only license any software they provide that doesn?t come with Windows. They also have to pay for R&D for the CPU?s, custom ASICs and other support chip sets that are platform specific.



    \tI believe that Apple has already addressed this issue to a great extent. Their software division is much more focused than when I first started using Macs, with regular OS and app revisions. On the hardware side, I think that using IBM for their chip supplier is going to lower their fixed costs for chips, etc. The tech sites are buzzing about how successful Big Blue has been in it?s transfer to the 90nm process, and the yields are much improved in recent weeks. This can only help Apple, which has been hamstrung by Moto for years. My hope is that by Summer we bid au revoir to that sinking ship and look forward to better things ahead.



    \t(2) Better Product Differentiation: Right now Apple has 3 desktop lines, and 2 notebook lines. I don?t believe that there is enough differentiation between products within their respective segments, particularly the desktop line. I love the G5. the eMac is OK, but too costly for its competition. The iMac is simply a product with no place to go. It?s too expensive for the entry level. Its underpowered and its expandability is too limited for anything else. On the notebook side, Apple has had to remove options like DVD burning from the iBook to keep the Powerbooks attractive. the trick is, how do you improve the attributes af the lower tier products without killing sales of the top tier? I think that Apple will go back to using 2 CPU families to do this.



    \tThey did have just such a lineup when they used the 603 and 604 families. It allowed Apple offer Performa lines that with limited upgradability alongside the PM?s. The PB?s also used the 603?s due to their more efficient energy consumption. With the 970fx seemingly so powerful and efficient , I think they have the horsepower for their Powermacs and Powerbooks. They just need something to replace the G4 in their lower tier lines. I?ve heard endless speculation of a 750 variant w/ altivec and improved memory support and throughput. Could this be the SOC that was referred to last week? that could explain why the article was remove so quickly. I?m just guessing on that subject, so I won?t speculate further. However, having such a chip would allow them to make their middle lines more fully featured while still being sufficiently different from their top-of-the-line products.



    \tMy wish would be that they would revise the iMac line to include at least some sort of video upgrade. My MDD is less than 2 years old, and the original video card is too slow for many games that are coming out. I think any mid-consumer level Mac needs to have a 24 month window where upgrades like this are possible. I?m already paying more than the minimum, I think I should have more options than the minimum. Looks are nice, but for many it?s not the overriding factor. If all current hardware is going to be completely obsolete within 18-24 months, why pay more for a machine that can?t be upgraded? My Performa 578 had more upgradability than the current iMac!



    \tI?m sure to add these features, the iMac would have to be completely redesigned. Maybe no monitor, more conventional styling. I for one like AIO?s, but YMMV. Regardless, Apple needs to make their products more enticing to potential customers, however it?s done. I believe that the window of opportunity for Apple is quickly closing. Intel will work out the bugs with their 90nm process, and the successor to the P4 will be coming down the pipe. Then we?ll be back to the same numbers game we?ve been playing(Ours really do more work per clock, no Really!) and the G5 will be yesterdays news. Thanks to IBM, more tech-savvy people are looking Apples way than in some time. What they think of Apple depends on what Apple shows them in the next months.
  • Reply 42 of 109
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon

    No kidding!



    Big Mac, I enjoyed your post. Calling it as it is. Weird how the entry iBook is just a little more expensive than the entry eMac. What with the eMac supposedly being the edu' machine. No wonder Apple is selling more iBooks than iMacs, the iBook offers way more value. Not surprsingly Apple gets those large iBook edu' contracts... [SNIP]



    Lemon Bon Bon




    Thank you for the compliment, LBB. I enjoy your commentaries, too. It would be nice to think that someone at Apple is listening to us, but I suppose that is doubtful.
  • Reply 43 of 109
    One thing some of you seem to be missing out on is some of the basic hardware and software that comes with the mac.



    Gigabit Ethernet on most models

    A wireless network card slot

    Video Card that does not share Ram with the machine.

    Not one but two Operating Systems that come with the machine.

    Plus a small bundle of software.

    Firewire in both flavors.

    A great looking design. (OK the emac might be the most ugly mac made in recent years but it is still far more attractive than most PC's)



    Ok the processing power on the entry level machines is not perfect, but to find these features which we take for granted on a cheap PC is not realistic.



    A PC case which is sleek by design and well made will cost you $$$

    A motherboard with these features will also set you back a fair bit.



    Lots of people that end up buying a PC for home end up having to ask someone who knows a bit about computers to help them get it up and running.



    Apple has standards which they set so that people can walk away with a new mac and be happy and up and running an hour after getting it home.



    I work for a large company where we have over 500 macs and I have only ever had one DOA. Sure every few weeks one of them might break down but 9 out of 10 times it is the hard drive that fails and the machines that they fail on are usually well over a year old.



    In the past I have worked for other large firms where the majority of computers were wintel based. The amount of time spent sending things back to Dell or Compaq and arguing with their support staff was frankly alarming. The return service was also bad enough. I once had a client phone the head of Dell Europe and threaten to replace all of the 20 new Pentium 2 machines they had just bought for Compaq's because Dell support kept messing us about when it came to sending us a pretty basic part.



    As it is now I just have to call up my Apple dealer tell him the problem (I am an Apple Engineer) send him the machine or in some cases the part and within a week I have the machine back and fixed or the relevant part. I know that talking to Apple support directly can be a pain but atleast they do have dealerships and stores that you can walk into and explain your problem and in most cases be happy.



    I don't see Dell having any such stores (in Europe atleast)



    I don't see ACME cheap PC seller really doing anything else but offering to do a quick re-install or swapping the part that is broken, with something that is comparable but not what you paid for..



    This apart from the ease of use is why lots of people buy Apple. They pay a higher price for a better service. That is something that Apple needs to protect. If doing that means they don't stretch themselves by selling a cheap and cheerful machine, which might compromise their higher standards then I am all for it..



    I remember when I worked for ACER the amount of people that phoned and complained about their notebooks was amazing.

    Things like using a harddrive which had pins made of one type of metal and having the IDE connector gold plated. 3 Weeks after that notebook went on sale we started getting calls from people not able to boot into an OS. Reason was the 2 metals reacted badly and in effect melted the connectors on the drive. Things like that are avoided by not cutting corners and costs.





    sorry about the spelling I have a hangover
  • Reply 44 of 109
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by SideShowBob

    One thing some of you seem to be missing out on is some of the basic hardware and software that comes with the mac.



    Gigabit Ethernet on most models

    A wireless network card slot

    Video Card that does not share Ram with the machine.

    Not one but two Operating Systems that come with the machine.

    Plus a small bundle of software.

    Firewire in both flavors.

    A great looking design. (OK the emac might be the most ugly mac made in recent years but it is still far more attractive than most PC's)







    All of these things are available in a low cost machine also.

    Quote:



    Ok the processing power on the entry level machines is not perfect, but to find these features which we take for granted on a cheap PC is not realistic.



    Why not. Besides for certain applications processing power is everything. On an entry level machine it can be more important than expandability and a plethora of ports. What Apple doesn't need happening is to have their hardware be catagorized by entry level people as slow and unresponsive. It is a perception in the market place that is hard to over come once it has established itself.



    At the retail level it is very possible to come up with a PC that has a motherboard that is more than a match for the "low cost" Mac line. In fact it could be easily argued that such a machine is feature rich.

    Quote:



    A PC case which is sleek by design and well made will cost you $$$

    A motherboard with these features will also set you back a fair bit.



    Not even at the retail level is this the case. But Apple isn't buying its hardware at the retail level so this is not a meaningful discussion.

    Quote:

    Lots of people that end up buying a PC for home end up having to ask someone who knows a bit about computers to help them get it up and running.



    Well Mac users aren't above doing that either. Also if you do have trouble with your PC, you have many options for getting support especially local to your hardware.

    Quote:

    Apple has standards which they set so that people can walk away with a new mac and be happy and up and running an hour after getting it home.



    Many PC's set up just as fast.

    Quote:

    I work for a large company where we have over 500 macs and I have only ever had one DOA. Sure every few weeks one of them might break down but 9 out of 10 times it is the hard drive that fails and the machines that they fail on are usually well over a year old.



    This pretty much proves the point. There is very little differrence between Apple hardware and PC hardware these days. Sure some of the logic board is unique to Apple but for the most part these have always been rather cheap parts for Apple with repsect to the PC market. There is little justification in the hardware for Apples high prices. On the low cost line it is really the opposite case as the parts in these machines are rather old.



    Look at it this way Years ago Apple came out with the current rev iMac. The day it was introduced it had third generation hardware in it. A year or so later there has been no change whatsoever. In effect Apple married an expensive case, to what is now three year old technology, and expected to be able to sell this stuff at a unreasonable price. Is it any wonder that the iMac didn't take off???

    Quote:

    In the past I have worked for other large firms where the majority of computers were wintel based. The amount of time spent sending things back to Dell or Compaq and arguing with their support staff was frankly alarming. The return service was also bad enough. I once had a client phone the head of Dell Europe and threaten to replace all of the 20 new Pentium 2 machines they had just bought for Compaq's because Dell support kept messing us about when it came to sending us a pretty basic part.



    If this is an issue with Dell why on earth would you deal with them?

    Quote:



    As it is now I just have to call up my Apple dealer tell him the problem (I am an Apple Engineer) send him the machine or in some cases the part and within a week I have the machine back and fixed or the relevant part. I know that talking to Apple support directly can be a pain but atleast they do have dealerships and stores that you can walk into and explain your problem and in most cases be happy.



    I don't see Dell having any such stores (in Europe atleast)



    I don't see ACME cheap PC seller really doing anything else but offering to do a quick re-install or swapping the part that is broken, with something that is comparable but not what you paid for..



    Technology changes quickly what do you expect? Would you rahter hear that the machine is not repairable du to the part not being available. I look at this as a company being responsive to a customers needs.



    In contrast on the Apple side of the fence some of those parts become unavailable at which point you have no repair options at all.

    Quote:



    This apart from the ease of use is why lots of people buy Apple. They pay a higher price for a better service. That is something that Apple needs to protect. If doing that means they don't stretch themselves by selling a cheap and cheerful machine, which might compromise their higher standards then I am all for it..



    There is no need for Apple to compromize their standards. To keep hearing this refrain is rather sickening. A low cost machine is an issue of design, not an issue of compromise or stretching themselves.

    Quote:



    I remember when I worked for ACER the amount of people that phoned and complained about their notebooks was amazing.

    Things like using a harddrive which had pins made of one type of metal and having the IDE connector gold plated. 3 Weeks after that notebook went on sale we started getting calls from people not able to boot into an OS. Reason was the 2 metals reacted badly and in effect melted the connectors on the drive. Things like that are avoided by not cutting corners and costs.



    Things like that are avoided by hiring engineers that have a clue. In the end product there is little differrence in cost between doing it right and screwing up.

    Quote:



    sorry about the spelling I have a hangover



    I don't wish to come off as a supporter of the PC world, that simply isn't the case. All I'm saying is that a great deal of misinformation about hardware costs are thrown about that simple do not reflect the PC world accurately. Apple hardware costs simply are not that high, if you look at the parts on the PC boards. Trim the PC board a bit, throw it into a low cost box and Apple has the makings of a true lowcost entry into the market. Pull off another iMac and Apples will be wondering where the slaes have gone to.



    It is obvious that even with a quality machine like the G5 Tower Apple is havign trouble regaining market share. Part of that is due to pricing and part is due to alienation of its customer base. Apple has to work hard to recover from these issues. Since one of the market place perceptions is that Apple's hardware cost to much they HAVE TO ADDRESS the issue.



    Thanks

    Dave
  • Reply 45 of 109
    Have a look at Dell's cheapest no frills computer and look at the features it is missing. OK it is a faster machine in terms of MHZ but it is missing things which come as standard with even the basic emac (firewire $50 more, Dell Optical Mouse $30 extra, shared ram for the graphics card & no complete out of the box software package). To compare a G4 with a P4 in terms of clock speed is not realistic, although I admit that consumers are tempted by the higher numbers rather than real world performance.



    This is changing with the G5 processor as they do easily match and in most cases out perform their Intel and AMD equivalents.



    I only mention Dell as they are the largest PC maker I don't have any real gripes with what they do. (I am even the happy owner of self made P4 and don't have an issue with mac's or pc's being superior)

    I just think Apple as a company puts that little cherry on top of what it sells.



    So lets say Apple does makes a headless imac sub $500 -$700 range with a reasonable sized hard drive, G5 1.4 or higher, 512MB, Firewire, Ethernet, Airport Slot, AGP graphics card & CD burner or DVD Rom. No fancy case like the cube just something that is easy and cheap to produce for them.

    What would happen?



    They would sell by the bucket load.



    All of the big apple customers would have no reason to purchase a G5 tower. Why pay upto 4 or 5 x more for a tower when you could buy this nice little machine which would happily run most of the power hungry apps. There might be a few exceptions with people needing expansion slots. So where as before they might have sold 50 G5 towers to a company, they would now be selling say 1-5 towers and the rest would be these nice little headless imacs which they barely break even on. Apple can't afford to make an xbox sized loss like Microsoft.



    If it has an AGP slot you could swap the graphics card with what you want and still be saving a fortune.

    If it has a tiny harddisk you could go grab a nice new 250gb one for $150+ from your local store and swap it.



    Maybe Apple could bring back the Apple clones and really kick their sales and brand status where it hurts.



    The imac and emac worked for Apple because you could not make a serious graphics or video editing station out of it. It was an all in one machine with a few upgradeable parts and was perfect for the average home / office user. The cube was a nice enough machine because of it's form factor and unique style. Apple thought they could still sell it for a reasonable amount and look how that went. So sure they might be able to sell lots of mini macs but they would be hurting the sales of the towers beyond belief.



    I see Apple as an innovative company. Someone that brings new technology to the table and lets it loyal subjects rejoyce for a few months or years before licensing some of that technology to the PC world. Then they go back to their drawing boards and think up something else innovative. I don't see Dell or Compaq stunning the world with anything.



    They were the first company to offer DVD burners with their machines for a then highly reasonable price.



    First with Gigabit Ethernet on their workstation machines as standard.

    First with Firewire.

    First with an Optical mouse as standard.



    It's these little features which make Apple what they are. If you force them to rely on other companies to come up with exciting things for them to use we will be living in a pretty dull early / mid 90's mac world. Where nothing made them stand out and where they lost a large chunk of their user base.







    The life span of a computer at a company in Germany where I now work is 4 years. So lots of companies are still using OS9 because they have not bought new machines yet or upgraded software licenses. Newspapers and magazines here are still running Quark 3.3 because there is no need to change at the moment and Quark 6 might mean new hardware and software for them to produce a few layouts which they have been happily doing for the past few years on beige G3's with OS9.



    So for Apple to bring out something which they don't make real money on, which comes with a free OS and which companies like these and the one I work for would snap up in an instant because they know they will happily work for a good few years would be a disaster for Apple. Apple has it's user base which is growing bit by bit and they know they have loyal customers who will purchase a new mac every few years. For all of us as home consumers I agree it would be fantastic.



    Dell & Compaq don't need to spend as much on R&D as they can easily snap up a large shipment of OEM boards from a company like ASUS, slap them in a generic case put a few easily available bells & whistles on it and they have their next money spinner. It is only that simple because of the OEM licensing that exists in the PC world. For Apple it is a different story. If in 1984 they had licensed their technology out the world would be a diferent place. They didn't do it and now all they can do is gradually chip away at the wintel user base by being innovative. To do this they need to make the mac more common in offices. People will then consider buying one for home but it is a gradual process and not something they can solve overnight by bringing out a headless imac this year powered by a G5.



    In a year or so we might see them bringing out a cheap mini G5 but I can't see this happening until the processors and the features in the towers and powerbooks far exceed the specs of the mini G5 if it even comes to pass. Something like a Fiat Panda with a BMW engine might sell lots becase it's fast and cheaper than a BMW but it would still rust as fast as a Fiat Panda with a Fiat Engine which I think is something Apple also wants to avoid.



    Sorry about the long post.









    Still nursing the hangover
  • Reply 46 of 109
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Hi SideShow;





    See my comments below.





    Quote:

    Originally posted by SideShowBob

    Have a look at Dell's cheapest no frills computer and look at the features it is missing. OK it is a faster machine in terms of MHZ but it is missing things which come as standard with even the basic emac (firewire $50 more, Dell Optical Mouse $30 extra, shared ram for the graphics card & no complete out of the box software package). To compare a G4 with a P4 in terms of clock speed is not realistic, although I admit that consumers are tempted by the higher numbers rather than real world performance.







    On the other hand consider the features that the Dell has compared to the iMac line. The fact is that such a machine meets the requirement for many seats in a business environment. You do not see Towers being installed in most locations in a large business situation.



    Tell me though, what is the difference between shared graphics on a PC and an iMac with an outdated graphics chip and a slow I/O bus? Yes I know that integrated graphics is not the high peformance solution in the PC world but neither is the "solution" that Apple delivers in its low cost product.

    Quote:



    This is changing with the G5 processor as they do easily match and in most cases out perform their Intel and AMD equivalents.



    I only mention Dell as they are the largest PC maker I don't have any real gripes with what they do. (I am even the happy owner of self made P4 and don't have an issue with mac's or pc's being superior)

    I just think Apple as a company puts that little cherry on top of what it sells.



    True Apple does put a shine on things. I don't have an issue per say with repsect to Apple and PC performance. Except one has to admit that the low cost line, that is the EMac and the iMac, are rather pathetically slow with repsect to PC hardware in the same price range.



    A minor speed differrence has never meaned much to me. What is an issue though is drastic differences in speed.

    Quote:



    So lets say Apple does makes a headless imac sub $500 -$700 range with a reasonable sized hard drive, G5 1.4 or higher, 512MB, Firewire, Ethernet, Airport Slot, AGP graphics card & CD burner or DVD Rom. No fancy case like the cube just something that is easy and cheap to produce for them.

    What would happen?



    They would sell by the bucket load.



    They would sell a bucket load into markets they can't even penetrate with the G5 Towers. Do delete the airport slot as that would be a deal killer for some locations.

    Quote:



    All of the big apple customers would have no reason to purchase a G5 tower. Why pay upto 4 or 5 x more for a tower when you could buy this nice little machine which would happily run most of the power hungry apps. There might be a few exceptions with people needing expansion slots. So where as before they might have sold 50 G5 towers to a company, they would now be selling say 1-5 towers and the rest would be these nice little headless imacs which they barely break even on. Apple can't afford to make an xbox sized loss like Microsoft.



    This is where you fall of the cliff in my opinion. Towers are targetted to a completely different market. It is not likely that Apple would loose any tower sales. We are talking about sales where the Tower won't be sold mostly due to its price.



    This would be a machine targeted at companies and individuals who have no desire for a tower. It is not a case of selling 50 low cost machines in place of a similar number of G5 towers. It is a case of selling machines where they can't market the current G5's. It is pretty tough to get a IT manager to approve putting a $3000 computer on the average desk in a corporation.



    You are also making an assumption about profitability with the machine. If Apple goes the SOC route they could have significant pricing advantages over the equivalant Intel product. The economics of a sub $700 machine come not from the old way of doing things but instead looking at how a machine should be produced in the future.



    The 90nm 970 is amazingly small chip, a huge amount of inteligence could be added to the 970 and it would still be smaller than the nearest Intel competitor. The potential is there if Apple want to pursue it.

    Quote:



    If it has an AGP slot you could swap the graphics card with what you want and still be saving a fortune.

    If it has a tiny harddisk you could go grab a nice new 250gb one for $150+ from your local store and swap it.



    Maybe Apple could bring back the Apple clones and really kick their sales and brand status where it hurts.



    The imac and emac worked for Apple because you could not make a serious graphics or video editing station out of it. It was an all in one machine with a few upgradeable parts and was perfect for the average home / office user. The cube was a nice enough machine because of it's form factor and unique style. Apple thought they could still sell it for a reasonable amount and look how that went. So sure they might be able to sell lots of mini macs but they would be hurting the sales of the towers beyond belief.



    The imac worked at one time because it sold at a reasonable price for a given performance point. This is no longer the case.



    Where do you get the idea that the cube ever sold at a reasonable price point?????????????????????? The cube was a good idea that was very poorly marketed. No body in their right mind would have purchased that machine for the easking price. It is a classic example of trying to market a product that has no base to stand on. People saw quickly that the cube was another Apple machine that cost to much and delivered far to little.



    You are rambling on abotu the towers agian. So I will ask how is it tht you expect a low cost make would eat into the sales of the towers so badly?? By the time this low cost machine comes out the G5 Towers will probally be running at 3GHz and have a load of features that the low cost machine could never support.



    I'll repeat it is tow differrent markets one of which Apple does not even compete in at the moment!!

    Quote:



    I see Apple as an innovative company. Someone that brings new technology to the table and lets it loyal subjects rejoyce for a few months or years before licensing some of that technology to the PC world. Then they go back to their drawing boards and think up something else innovative. I don't see Dell or Compaq stunning the world with anything.



    They were the first company to offer DVD burners with their machines for a then highly reasonable price.



    First with Gigabit Ethernet on their workstation machines as standard.

    First with Firewire.

    First with an Optical mouse as standard.



    They could just as weel be the first with a high performance SOC implementation. Remember we are talking about new hardware here.

    Quote:



    It's these little features which make Apple what they are. If you force them to rely on other companies to come up with exciting things for them to use we will be living in a pretty dull early / mid 90's mac world. Where nothing made them stand out and where they lost a large chunk of their user base.



    Who is forcing them to do rely on others?? To the contrary I want them to innovate. I want them to build and sell a low cost machine that they can make a profit on.

    Quote:

    The life span of a computer at a company in Germany where I now work is 4 years. So lots of companies are still using OS9 because they have not bought new machines yet or upgraded software licenses. Newspapers and magazines here are still running Quark 3.3 because there is no need to change at the moment and Quark 6 might mean new hardware and software for them to produce a few layouts which they have been happily doing for the past few years on beige G3's with OS9.



    So for Apple to bring out something which they don't make real money on, which comes with a free OS and which companies like these and the one I work for would snap up in an instant because they know they will happily work for a good few years would be a disaster for Apple. Apple has it's user base which is growing bit by bit and they know they have loyal customers who will purchase a new mac every few years. For all of us as home consumers I agree it would be fantastic.



    You seem to mis the whole point here, it is possilbe for Apple to make a profit. It is an engineering question, nothing more.

    Quote:



    Dell & Compaq don't need to spend as much on R&D as they can easily snap up a large shipment of OEM boards from a company like ASUS, slap them in a generic case put a few easily available bells & whistles on it and they have their next money spinner. It is only that simple because of the OEM licensing that exists in the PC world. For Apple it is a different story. If in 1984 they had licensed their technology out the world would be a diferent place. They didn't do it and now all they can do is gradually chip away at the wintel user base by being innovative. To do this they need to make the mac more common in offices. People will then consider buying one for home but it is a gradual process and not something they can solve overnight by bringing out a headless imac this year powered by a G5.



    In a year or so we might see them bringing out a cheap mini G5 but I can't see this happening until the processors and the features in the towers and powerbooks far exceed the specs of the mini G5 if it even comes to pass. Something like a Fiat Panda with a BMW engine might sell lots becase it's fast and cheaper than a BMW but it would still rust as fast as a Fiat Panda with a Fiat Engine which I think is something Apple also wants to avoid.



    Sorry about the long post.



    Me too. I was out late tonight, I wanted to respond in more detail to some of your perspectives but my mental capacity is shrinking fast.



    Lots of luck

    DAVe



    Quote:



    Still nursing the hangover



  • Reply 47 of 109
    Hi Dave.. here goes with some more rambling. .



    The shared graphics card point was just an example of where Dell are cutting corners.



    True a cheap Dell meets lots of the requirements of a business machine. As I am afraid an imac or emac does in a company already using macs.



    We have over 500 machines. 90% are macs of various flavors.

    So we have lots of users that only need to check their mails, work with a calender program and make documents in Office. The Emac does this fine and will continue to do this in Office2004.



    Then we have our users who need to work on the road and do presentations. They have ibooks or powerbooks depending where they are on the food chain. These are fine for presenting or working on the go. Notebooks don't last that long in this kind of enviroment so they have a shorter lifespan but this is mostly down to the user and not the machine.

    Spilling coffee or coke on a notebook is not a good idea. Chicken soup is something else



    Then we have the creatives that work with Quark, Adobe Apps and Final Cut. They all have G4 Towers 350Mhz upwards. 20+ inch screens or multiple displays. Some of these machines are underpowered for serious work in Creative Suite, which we have just bought in preperation to change to OSX.





    At the moment we would purchase G5 towers to replace them with, which we are gradually doing. If Apple did bring out a cheap sub $700 G5 we would replace them in an instant with these machines. We would purchase no more towers except for our video editting dept but thats only 2 machines. We would have no reason to justify the cost of a tower which is something we can easily do now. We will still be using Creative Suite for atleast 2 more years and these machines would get the job done.





    I don't agree with you that if Apple does make this machine they will instantly penetrate markets which they don't have a foothold in. Would you instantly think great I am just going to order 500 cheap Macs, replace all of my PC's, purchase new licenses for all the software I own and organise training for all my users???????? You would have to check that you can get all of the software you use for the mac and make it a gradual process in switching platforms. Even then it is a bold and brave move for any IT manager.







    As for the cube I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was a reasonable price I meant that Apple did. They thought that the novelty factor would sell it, it didnt and that was the end of that. It didnt take anything away from the towers because it was really in the same price range but underpowered.







    Last thing delteing the airport slot from a cheap mac would mean they couldn't persuade people to buy Apple made airport cards and base stations!







    Sideshow











  • Reply 48 of 109
    One very last thing.



    Apple could make a cheap home entertainment machine which could be powered by a G3 / G4 (or even modify the base of the 3rd gen imac) with a blue tooth control device. Reasonable sized drive and monitor and Tv output. Put a DVD burner in it and bundle it with ilife and OSX.



    As DVD recorders of the stand alone kind are still expensive Apple could break that market pretty easily.

    The average cheap barebones small formfactor PC with similar features comes in at more than $400. Lots of them are run by



    Via Chips which are not that hot on performance. here is an example of one of these machines.

    http://www.techcase.de/product_info....roducts_id=411







    That is something which might win them lots of new fans quickly.





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  • Reply 49 of 109
    One very last thing.



    Apple could make a cheap home entertainment machine which could be powered by a G3 / G4 (or even modify the base of the 3rd gen imac) with a blue tooth control device. Reasonable sized drive and monitor and Tv output. Put a DVD burner in it and bundle it with ilife and OSX.



    As DVD recorders of the stand alone kind are still expensive Apple could break that market pretty easily.

    The average cheap barebones small formfactor PC with similar features comes in at more than $400. Lots of them are run by



    Via Chips which are not that hot on performance. here is an example of one of these machines.

    http://www.techcase.de/product_info....roducts_id=411



    IBM could also produce a cheaper cut down G5 processor (something like the IBM version of the Celeron) and then Apple could produce a cheap headless no frills computer. This might also work for Apple. They would still have their superior range of macines and could produce something which propels them into more homes and offices.



    These are things which might win them lots of new fans quickly and add sales instead of moving them from one range to another.





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  • Reply 50 of 109
    I wholeheartedly reject the notion that Apple can't sell any form of low-end tower because it will cannibalize sales of the PowerMacs.



    1) PowerMacs are high end machines. If someone would buy a low end mini-tower instead, it means that they didn't need a PowerMac in the first place. By refusing to sell them the product they actually wanted, you are trying to bamboozle them into buying a much more expensive machine to pad profit margins. That may work with a limited set of business customers who are locked into a Mac purchasing cycle, but it will never wash with consumers, and will never help market share.



    2) Many people don't want an all-in-one. It's as simple as that. Apple ignores this basic fact at its peril. To say the eMac and iMac satisfy a lot of users' needs is to miss the basic point. It's not what they want. To force people to consider the PowerMac just to avoid an AIO machine is outrageous.



    There are a lot of potential customers (many or most of them switchers) for whom Apple's current product line offers nothing. I'll never understand how this can be considered unavoidable, or how Apple's current product line is the only possible successful approach.



    Finally, my standard caveat: I think that for some people, the AIO is a great thing. Apple should continue to produce them, though they need to be either more aggressively priced or on the leading edge of the performance curve, because that's the best way to justify being locked into buying the integrated monitor. The purpose of the consumer headless machine is to address huge portions of the market that Apple is currently thumbing its nose at.
  • Reply 51 of 109
    One more thing: As of now, with the 970FX, there is plenty of room for differentiation within the G5 product line. A dual 2.5 GHz machine does not compete with a single 1.6 or 1.8 or even 2.0 GHz machine. In fact, this would seem a nice opportunity to make the PowerMacs all dual (which many have been clamoring for anyway) and make the consumer/prosumer machines single. At the lower end, they can ratchet down the memory bus, go with regular ATA drives instead of SATA (though I'm not sure how much that'd save), or whatever. It'd still be way better than the current G4-based machines, but would leave no doubt which machines the professionals would want.
  • Reply 52 of 109
    rickagrickag Posts: 1,626member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by neilw

    I wholeheartedly reject the notion that Apple can't sell any form of low-end tower because it will cannibalize sales of the PowerMacs.



    1) ...



    2) ...





    Finally, my standard caveat: I think that for some people, the AIO is a great thing.... The purpose of the consumer headless machine is to address huge portions of the market that Apple is currently thumbing its nose at.




    Pretty simple isn't it, once you cut through the bs and look at the problem, "increasing market share". Past history aside, I think the time for Apple to address this is now or very shortly. We shall see.
  • Reply 53 of 109
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by SideShowBob

    Hi Dave.. here goes with some more rambling. .



    The shared graphics card point was just an example of where Dell are cutting corners.







    Yes that is one way to look at it, but nobody ever accused Apple of cutting corners on the original Macs that did frame buffering out of main memory! A graphics processor with shared memory is just one way to deliver a machine with reasonable performance at a low cost. My point is that many of these shared memory systems perform better, graphics wise, than the iMac line from Apple.

    Quote:



    True a cheap Dell meets lots of the requirements of a business machine. As I am afraid an imac or emac does in a company already using macs.



    Well that depends on what the company is looking for. If they are looking for a low cost machine that meets a specific price point for a certain amount of computing power than no the iMac or eMac are not acceptable. The high price of the iMac keeps it out of certain organizations, because it has nothing to offer for that high price.



    There are certainly businesses that don't care about the pricing structure of there computing hardware. But many do especially when we start to talk about larger organizations.

    Quote:



    We have over 500 machines. 90% are macs of various flavors.

    So we have lots of users that only need to check their mails, work with a calender program and make documents in Office. The Emac does this fine and will continue to do this in Office2004.



    Your organization does not strike me a the norm. Many places would require a special approval for a PC that deviates from the company norm. Buying a Mac would require an even more involved approval process.



    I'm not saying this is right. In fact in many cases I consider the base machine spec'ed out by these companies to be a little weak. But there is the reality of ecconomics, some places can not justify putting any more computing resources on a desk than is absolutely required. The price point is really the only consideration.



    Quote:



    Then we have our users who need to work on the road and do presentations. They have ibooks or powerbooks depending where they are on the food chain. These are fine for presenting or working on the go. Notebooks don't last that long in this kind of enviroment so they have a shorter lifespan but this is mostly down to the user and not the machine.



    I can make an argurment that part of the reason Apple has had good success with the portable line is related to the much better pricing structure. Apples portables are price competitive. Well they where up until the time that the Centrino arrived, now it is much more of a toss up.

    Quote:

    Spilling coffee or coke on a notebook is not a good idea. Chicken soup is something else



    Then we have the creatives that work with Quark, Adobe Apps and Final Cut. They all have G4 Towers 350Mhz upwards. 20+ inch screens or multiple displays. Some of these machines are underpowered for serious work in Creative Suite, which we have just bought in preperation to change to OSX.





    At the moment we would purchase G5 towers to replace them with, which we are gradually doing. If Apple did bring out a cheap sub $700 G5 we would replace them in an instant with these machines. We would purchase no more towers except for our video editting dept but thats only 2 machines. We would have no reason to justify the cost of a tower which is something we can easily do now. We will still be using Creative Suite for atleast 2 more years and these machines would get the job done.





    I don't agree with you that if Apple does make this machine they will instantly penetrate markets which they don't have a foothold in. Would you instantly think great I am just going to order 500 cheap Macs, replace all of my PC's, purchase new licenses for all the software I own and organise training for all my users???????? You would have to check that you can get all of the software you use for the mac and make it a gradual process in switching platforms. Even then it is a bold and brave move for any IT manager.







    As for the cube I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was a reasonable price I meant that Apple did. They thought that the novelty factor would sell it, it didnt and that was the end of that. It didnt take anything away from the towers because it was really in the same price range but underpowered.



    I see your still hung up on this thought of one product taking sales from another. Its time to get over that, Apple is loosing sales simply becaue they don't play in the low cost market. Apple is actually loosing sales of G5 Tower due to the lack of balance in there line.



    Everyone realizes that Apple needs to grow its market share. The problem is that the market for high end systems is rather small to begin with. So you have a much smaller market to grow share from. The market at the low end is huge, one only has to look at the PC market place to confirm this.



    Apple needs to take advantage of its technological position with respect to 90nm processes and introduce a low cost machine. Done right this low cost machine could be very profitable for them.



    Quote:



    Last thing delteing the airport slot from a cheap mac would mean they couldn't persuade people to buy Apple made airport cards and base stations!



    As cute as airport is, just having the port in a PC/Mac will be considered a security risk at some corporations. So oabviously this is one of those things that depends on a point of view. Some places don't even want CD writers in their machines do to a number of issues. Yes I know this sounds a bit to much for some, but the corporate world is often motivated by fear. The fear of lost data or the fear of being tapped by an advisary.

    Quote:







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  • Reply 54 of 109
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Yep a very large number of things could be done to produce a low cost machine. On the other hand I don't see a need to ratchet down performance to much. There will be a huge gap in performance once the 3 GHz machine hit the market. So if Apple releases a 1.8 or 2 GHz low cost machine it really won't be competeing with the Towers.



    One must realize right off the bat that most of the tower slaes have been duals. Just to get feasable sales numbers, the low cost machine would have to provide an awfully good bang for the buck. Unfortunately the G4 towers do not offer this, nor does the single G5 tower, thus the rather poor sales of both. At this moment in time the only way I could see Apple being successful selling a single processor 970 box is if it cost well less than $1000.



    Some here do not think that this is possible, with the objection that it would not be profitable. My position is this: if Apple wants to expand market share they have to make it profitable. That is they must produce a machine that consumers want at a price point they are will to pay.



    I'm not sure what the perfect mix of featues for this machine is, that is for Apples marketing department to determine. I do know what I need for a desk top machine. One of the key elements here is very good CPU/GPU performance with a minimal of ports.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by neilw

    One more thing: As of now, with the 970FX, there is plenty of room for differentiation within the G5 product line. A dual 2.5 GHz machine does not compete with a single 1.6 or 1.8 or even 2.0 GHz machine. In fact, this would seem a nice opportunity to make the PowerMacs all dual (which many have been clamoring for anyway) and make the consumer/prosumer machines single. At the lower end, they can ratchet down the memory bus, go with regular ATA drives instead of SATA (though I'm not sure how much that'd save), or whatever. It'd still be way better than the current G4-based machines, but would leave no doubt which machines the professionals would want.



  • Reply 55 of 109
    I agree that lots of people don't want an all in one machine and that the Towers price them out of the mac market. The one thing Apple doesn't want to do though is to lose the customers they already have willing to buy a high end machine to a cheaper smaller sibling.



    If on the other hand they really strengthened their product line by introducing a really basic machine, a medium sized machine and a full blown monster machine with 3 varities of each. I would agree that it would help them pull in more switchers, first time users and companies that otherwise would have thought twice about buying a mac. If it was also easier to upgrade macs it would also do Apple the world of good. (readily available processor upgrades, mac graphics cards which match their PC counterparts etc)



    To increase market share they also have to have a big bag of readily available software for people to consider it though. The best thing in my oppinion that Apple could do would be to persuade more developers to convert programs that are not available on the mac to OSX and to then bring out this broad range of machines that appeals to all computer users (including Gamers one big area that is keeping market share down). As it is though it is a catch 22 situation and if it fails, what do they do then?



    I am not agreeing with the way Apple plays the game. I see them as having been boxed into a corner once, almost being wiped out and/or taken over by their biggest enemy to staging a mini comeback and winning all the users they lost back. They got a few converts too. I just want them to really have the far superior hardware and apps before they do anything. Bringing out an office killer would be something as well. Office on the mac is even more flakey than the PC version.







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  • Reply 56 of 109
    Quote:

    Thus spake Wizard69:

    At this moment in time the only way I could see Apple being successful selling a single processor 970 box is if it cost well less than $1000.



    Not sure exactly why you think this. At $1000, a single 2 GHz machine (say) would be $600 cheaper than the current cheapest PowerMac (a huge difference!), and by far the best value in the Apple lineup. You could add a monitor and still cost the same or less than the equivalent iMac. If it had a proper AGP slot, which I'd certainly hope for at that price, it'd be that much more desirable.



    I, as a consumer, would certainly buy such a thing in a heartbeat over any alternative in the current product line.



    Mind you, I would still like to see the headless line extend into much lower territory as well (like down to $700), but I think you could still sell a lot of machines a little higher up the line.
  • Reply 57 of 109
    Quote:

    Wrote SideShowBob:

    I agree that lots of people don't want an all in one machine and that the Towers price them out of the mac market. The one thing Apple doesn't want to do though is to lose the customers they already have willing to buy a high end machine to a cheaper smaller sibling.



    I understand what you're trying to say, but it still sounds like you want to weasel people into buying more than they need or want, which is what the PowerMac is for a lot of people. Those customers who want the power (and there are plenty) will pony up for the big machines; those that don't need any more than a cheaper, lower-end machine should have the option of buying one. That makes for more happy customers in the long run.



    In any case, I would certainly expect there to be a performance and feature gap between the consumer and professional machines. My personal favorite approach would be to have the PowerMacs go all dual, and have the consumer machines be singles, up to the speed of the low-end PowerMac (i.e.: PowerMacs dual 2 Ghz and up, consumer machines up to single 2 Ghz). That also frees up the consumer machines to be quite a bit smaller than the PowerMacs (it's really pretty ridiculous having the single-processor PowerMac in the same gigantic case as the duals.)



    It's very possible to have a coherently conceived product line that offers a continuum of options for most customers' needs. Right now, Apple is so far in the other direction it's ridiculous (as I think we agree.)
  • Reply 58 of 109
    No weasling going on here..



    Like I said if Apple did bring out these super cheap computers which had an AGP slot we would replace all of our ageing G4 350 - 550 machines in a flash.

    These new machines would still be a vast improvement on the ones people have been using.



    At the moment we are moving to OSX and in the next few months we will be buying more and more Dual 1.8 G5 towers. We see the dual machines as better value than the single processor in the long run. However if the single cpu machine was more than half the cost and had the features which we needed. We would go for the cheaper option.



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  • Reply 59 of 109
    idaveidave Posts: 1,283member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by neilw

    ...At $1000, a single 2 GHz machine (say) would be $600 cheaper than the current cheapest PowerMac (a huge difference!), and by far the best value in the Apple lineup.



    The difference is actually $800. For Apple to justify doing this, they'd have to cripple the machine to the point where it can be produced for at least $700 less.



    I hate to beat a dead horse, but high-end Power Mac sales would tank, immediately, because 90% of those buying them would no longer have the need. Where do you suggest Apple would make up the loss? Not with a $250 profit on a $1000 machine, that's for sure.
  • Reply 60 of 109
    Quote:

    The difference is actually $800. For Apple to justify doing this, they'd have to cripple the machine to the point where it can be produced for at least $700 less.



    Price of admission for a PowerMac right now is $1599 if you omit the SuperDrive.



    I don't really know exactly what it'd cost Apple to build the machine I'm proposing. I do know it's possible to build something quite a bit cheaper than the current single-processor PowerMac monstrosity. Don't forget that the 970FX and system controller promise to be somewhat cheaper than their 130 nm predecessors. I'd also expect that at some point Apple will have, if not an SOC-based processor designed for lower-cost single processor systems, then at least a reduced system controller. They'll likely want that for PowerBooks if nothing else. Don't know when they'll have either one of these, but they might already for all we know.



    If the idea is that Apple can't sell a G5-based system for a lot less than the current $1599, I say that's absurd.



    By the way, I was arguing against the idea that it needed to be a whole lot less than $1000. But anyway.



    Quote:

    I hate to beat a dead horse, but high-end Power Mac sales would tank, immediately, because 90% of those buying them would no longer have the need. Where do you suggest Apple would make up the loss? Not with a $250 profit on a $1000 machine, that's for sure.



    Again, I argue that those who really need PowerMacs would still buy them. Those who never really needed them in the first place are no longer forced into buying more machine than they need (which I feel is bad for the long term). And lots of people for whom no machine addressed their needs would have something to entice them.



    I hate to beat a dead horse as well, but the point is that right now is that Apple exploits its "us or nothing" position in the Mac market to extort some of its customers into buying much more than they need, while others just say no thanks and move on. I fail to see how that is a healthy strategy to pursue.
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