Posted 03 January 2005 - 07:52 AM
[indent]In reply to:
2. Dvorak is a known Mac platform detractor. He's declared the death of the Mac platform so many times (and given so many alternate reasonings) that most people (especially myself) just ignore him. He likes getting people riled up, not reporting anything of value.
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d00d nailed it right there...
I've been a Mac owner since '94, and a user far longer than that. Dvorak has rarely ever made any positive statement with regards to the Mac, and has continually tried to preach his brand of doom and gloom on the platform for as far back as I can remember. At one point, when everyone spoke of "The sky is about to fall..." on Apple (a favorite Dvorak bedttime tale), I contested that Apple was in a far different situation than my previous platform (Amiga) was in. I saw great potential for Apple to survive at that juncture, because there was actually a murmur going around about them in the news and the fanbase was more rabid and the company less in shambles than Commodore was. The Amiga basically was swept under the rug in most media outlets, unless you had AmigaWorld magazine and even it had the cord yanked swiftly.
So here we are with new Macs, Apple stores, iPods, iMacs, eMacs, Airtunes, iTunes, and Dvorak is still wanting to put an axe in Apple. All I can say is... look at the Amiga... it's not anywhere near as healthy as we are, but it's not anymore dead (i.e. MorphOS and PowerPC-based systems running Linux kernals with new Amiga bits) than we are or will be. If the Amiga platform can survive almost 10 years after it's seminal death by way of Commodore, two-stepping from Gateway, and the various blunders post Gateway... and do so mostly by the communities reluctance and unwillingness to give up on it as their preferred platform... what does that say for Apple? Get a clue Dvorak!
Moral of the story... the Apple is not in dire straits. Would a growth in marketshare be a good thing? Of course, but not at the expense of profits. Many PC vendors have played the lowball cutthroat margins game only to end up in worse circumstances than if they just tried to sell for a lean profit.
So I see Jobs following the Carlos Ghosn approach. It's first and foremost about making profits, and secondly about increasing marketshare. If the forthcoming "headless" consumer machine that is being rumor-mongered on various sites comes to fruition, this is the perfect solution (assuming it's sold for a slim profit vs. a loss-leader approach per unit). It will hopefully also cause more of the used machine market to deflate in terms of over-inflated pricetags, perhaps cutting the costs of processor upgrades for older hardware (forcing said vendors to sell in greater volumes with slimmer margins per piece), which might also get more used Macs in people's hands while others flock to pad Apple's bottomline by purchasing a lean margin machine.
I say lean margin in that Apple should STILL retain a profit on a less/limited upgrade machine, and not sell each machine at a loss. Like I noted with the Carlos Ghosn approach (very successful exec. in the auto industry, was covered in a recent AutoWeek)... it's about profits first, and marketshare second. If you hit on the first one by being competitive in all necessary areas... your marketshare will increase. Apple hasn't necessarily been as competitive as I or many out there would like to see, but they have stuck to the profits approach and their bank account hasn't hurt any for it. That's exactly as they should do. If they can afford to cut margins a little thinner on a particular model and be me competitive on the bottom end, all the better. There's nothing that says Apple can't produce a reliable low-cost machine, and that should be the paramount goal IF said machine comes to light. After all... at a different time with different machine costs, the Mac LC was a very competitive model and one of the most successful Macs in Apple's history. The time might be ripe for a revival of said philosophy. Just don't kill yourself by taking a loss and going after an eMachine or any other PC vendor on the bottom end. You're Apple, you're a different platform, it's Apples to Oranges... and Apple people have always paid a premium over their PC counterparts. How much of a premium though? It doesn't have to be as significant as it has been. Just make a profit per unit.
As far as this software vendor... I don't wish to dis on anyone. I just don't think their product is viable enough anymore to really provide. As was said earlier, it's a niche, of a niche, of a platform that really in and of itself is a niche based on marketshare. That doesn't mean you can't be wildly successful as the #'s for the platform aren't like a handful, they're just small in comparison to the colossus the competition is. In fact, it's sometimes on the colussus platforms that you have 10-12 apps. that do the same thing, whereas since few are as persistent to tackle the smaller marketshare, you might find yourself with a bigger piece marketwise on the smaller platform. Don't count your percentage of the market before it happens.
That said... I find it disgraceful in the blame they've leveraged. Don't rule out the future of product development, and don't bash the people that helped you this far should be a motto all vendors look at. My suggestion is that they take things with a more open mind and shift their focus to products that are more of a profitable venture, much as other software companies have (I still can't believe Corel has become what it has of late). Like... a product with viability? Like a product that is a "can't miss" vs. a product that is a "Wow... that still is being made? Why?!?"
This program, pure and simply, died because it has been rendered obsolete. Any other form of excuse by said vendor is grossly missing the point. If you can't forecast any better than this... then you will see yourself in a similar situation again someday as a result of being short-sighted and ignorant to your market's demand. I don't wish ill on anyone... but that's the facts. What said vendor grasps out of it, is their own prerogative. It's also their loss if they fail to take it for what it's worth. As they say "The truth hurts."
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