Apple's Leopard Strategy to Kill Microsoft and Dell? 661
RX8 writes "A Digital Trends article suggests that Apple's Leopard agenda is to get Windows users to use Apple hardware then convert them to the Apple camp and that Apple will also be directly targeting Dell by offering a better experience when it comes to media and related tasks. Lastly, they suggest that Steve Jobs held back on showing more Leopard features so people would not get too excited and stop buying in 2006. 'If you get too excited about what is supposed to be an incredibly amazing product you simply won't buy a new Apple this year.'"
Why Apple will never kill Dell (Score:3, Interesting)
People buy Dells because they are cheap, and they work.
They're not particularly good computers, but they do the job.
They're not even in the same market: Apple isn't competing with Dell's primary market to begin with.
Sounds good until... (Score:1, Interesting)
Until those converts from Windows run into how OSX handles Windows Media Video files and end up comparing it against what they saw when they used Windows instead. Don't forget about one of the largest multimedia formats, and how poorly it runs under OSX. I haven't seen Jaguar, yet, so I don't know how good it's WMV handling capabilities are, but I do know watching a 640x480 WMV on OSX is like upsampling a 160x120 video into 1080 high-def - UGLY.
Missed the Memo (Score:5, Interesting)
But, on the overall, I agree; Apple's not fighting for the bottom dollar, Apple's positioned themselves as just a tad bit more expensive than the baselines from the Big Three, but with an enormous amount of extra features that make it that "bang for the buck". That factor alone could be considered a part of the "pricing war"; for all you get with an Apple computer, it'd take you not only longer to find a way to configure a competitive machine, but it's unlikely you could do it for cheaper without a ton of rebates, mail in coupons, etc.
So really, it is the price. Apple won't beat Dell at the bottom, but in the middle and top, Apple's already got them beat.
What's holding me back from buying a Mac... (Score:2, Interesting)
(1) I don't want to buy a 32-bit processor. Yes, I know that 32-bit is good enough for a long time now. But 64-bit is just what I want. It'll make me feel better.
(2) First-release Mac products are often rife with problems. The first-release aren't out yet. So I'm going to end up waiting at least 6 months for Apple to get most of the bugs worked out of the hardware.
Once that's all taken care of, I'll be getting a light Mac notebook.
Re:Why Apple will never kill Dell (Score:5, Interesting)
What constitutes 'good enough'? Did their previous computer completely break, or are thy looking for something better? Wasn't there previous computer 'good enough' for 90% of possible tasks?
My 486 was 'good enough' to run netscape in 1995. It was 'good enough' to connect to the internet and run any programming language, windows 2000 or linux. However, I upgraded, not because my computer wasn't 'good enough' but because for X dollars I could get an (X+?) better experience, and since used the computer many hours a day, this improved my life. I wasn't looking for the least possible computer which would fit my set of requirements, I was looking for the computer that was the best computer I could get for the money I thought was reasonable to spend.
People like to buy things which they will enjoy using, whether it's a Dell or an Apple. That is why people buy leather couches (who could possibly say that cloth isn't 'good enough') and wide screen plasma TV's. That's why my wife picked out the Ethan Allen furniture instead of the stuff at Walmart. Nobody can say that a walmart bookshelf isn't 'good enough' to hold books. It does the job exactly as well as any other bookshelf. I'm probably a little stupid for spending orders of magnitude more. But I'm not dirt poor (anymore) and when I look at the furniture I got I am much happier sitting next to it day after day than I would be watching walmart pressboard slowly melt and chip away.
That is why I do much of my work on a powerbook. Sure, I could still be using my $1000 dollar Toshiba Satilite I bought in 2003. In every way it is 'good enough' to do everything I wanted to do. But it was hot, the screen resolution was low, and unlike my powerbook, it wasn't a joy to use. I find myself using the powerbook differently than I would have used the Toshiba (I gave it to a friend). I pull it out and am not as resistant to stopping work for short intervals. I can put it away without a lengthy shutdown procedure (close the lid and it is instantly in standby). I can pull it out and actually work from battery if I want to show someone something. It doesn't weight nearly as much, and it is far more durable.
That doesn't even take OS-X into account. It is fantastic. I now have the power of Bash and a unix environment, with python built in as well, with the ease of use and multimedia integration of Windows (although it is really several times better than Windows). And everyone in my family can use it without being taught to do every little thing.
I just 'sold' my mac mini to my father at a big loss (family discount?), but now he will actually be able to use his computer. He is the person you describe in your posting. His beige box duron I built for him before I knew better is 'good enough' to check email. He runs outlook express, and occasionally gets massive virus infections that i have to clean off (even though he has up to date virus scan). Despite this necessary expert help every few months, and the maintenance tasks it requires he considers it 'good enough'. He can't buy a digital camera because he wouldn't know how to set it up (he could easily do this with a mac) but that is 'good enough'. He can't accomplish anything on the computer besides pga.com and outlook express. That isn't good enough.
When people say that a dell is 'good enough' what they are really saying is a dell is 'good enough for what I know how to do on a computer'. Since the vast majority of people have only used windows, they only know how to do things they can already do on windows. My father is going to be very happy with his Mac Mini, because now he can use a digital camera, now he can avoid massive virus infections, now he can manage his computer without constant outside assistance. So although the old computer wasn't very good for him at all, he thought it was ok, because it allowed him to act within the bounds of computer use as he understood him.
Those bounds are about to be pushed way out.
Apple builds to last. (Score:5, Interesting)
And the thing about Apple is that the inside of these machines are just as good as the outside. The Apple Minitower design that was only phased out in favor of the aluminum "cheese grater" minitower was amazing. You unlatch one of the sides and pull it down, and you are inside the machine. No stupid sheet metal slidy doors or inverse-u shaped cowlings that are a bitch to tear down and even more of a bitch to replace right. And the parts used are good, sane parts. Not "hacked by Chinese" crap. You don't hear about explodey caps or random shorts with regard to these old machines. Yeah, you hear about explodey batteries on laptops, but let's face it, everyone except IBM has had problems with LiIon batteries, and I'm waiting for the reports of burning Thinkpads that I know will eventually come.
Apple builds to last with good solid parts and also by patronizing good facilities. Foxconn, ASUS, they don't deal with the Elitegroups of the world. If a top-tier Asian facility is unavailable, Apple has its own factories run to their standards.
Hell, people still use Mac SE30s after all these years. Why? They are BUILT.
Re:Haven't we heard this before? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but does a out-of-the-box PC have the same quality of applications (iLife, iTunes, iCal, Mail.app, etc) with the same level of seamless integration? Sure PCs come with Music Match, some basic calendar app, Outlook Express, and other bundled software, but it is nowhere near the quality of the Mac's bundled software; in fact, some of that bundled software may be spyware. Does an out-of-the-box Windows PC have the same security as OS X's out-of-the-box security? Once again, if I bought a Windows PC, I have to worry about installing anti-malware tools (which is basically a high memory tax), installing Firefox, and keeping up to date with every little Windows update. And don't get me started on Windows default admin mode, lack of full multiuser support, lack of user permissions (that work the same way as Unix permissions), and other stuff.
Apple doesn't compete on the low-end scale, so that is the reason why PCs are much more common; you can buy a nice Athlon 64 box for $600 or more (depending on the specs), or a decent Celeron M laptop for the same price. They are quite capable machines, and they run Windows/*nix very well. Apple would make a big sweep if they competed on the low end (imagine a $300 Mac Mini to counter those Dell $299 specials, or a $699 MacBook with a Core Solo processor). Not everybody needs a dual core laptop, for example. However, when configured at the same price, the Mac is usually a better deal, unless you must need Windows for your job, or you are a serious gamer (I admit, I'd rather game on Windows than OS X; my favorite game, Sim City 4, costs $60 on the Mac but $20 for the exact same version for Windows. Eh?).
PCs may be more popular, but there is a reason why Mac users buy Macs. It comes with a well thought out package of software that complements each other quite nicely with no hiccups.
Re:Missed the Memo (Score:4, Interesting)
"The Windows PC is a more or less open plattform."
That's gotta be one of the largest trolls I've ever heard in my entire life. Remember the whole "Anti-Trust" thing we went through years ago? Remember Microsoft being convicted of abusing their monopoly powers because of the fact that crucial parts of their platforms are closed? Ever tried to use NTFS on any other platform? Windows is as open as Aqua, and that is to say: NOT AT ALL.
"We often blame Microsoft but have to keep in mind that real mess is created by ugly third party drivers. Apple does not aim to support the whole hardware universe."
We often blame Microsoft for the same reason we should blame Microsoft; they sat back and let this happen to them. Microsoft could have been much more proactive from drivers from the start, including vendor certification and testing, and making their kernel hell to support devices. Things have gotten much better with a much better standardized OS (simply because it hasn't changed in 6 years), but the point remains.
Apple doesn't need to support all of the hardware under the sun; they're Apple, they sell Computing Platforms, not Computers and Operating Systems alone. Furthermore, other companies write drivers for Apple's operating system, and it honestly couldn't be much easier, as the Operating System is extremely friendly to driver writers (and there's extensive documentation on it). And of course, at the end of things, supporting every piece of obscure hardware in the world isn't the end of the world. We've got Linux for that.
"It is a interoperability hell from a competition perspective and a interoperability paradise from a plattform perspective. Happiness in proprietary slavery?"
Hypocrite much? Microsoft pushes Trusted Computing on you, is threatening to lock users out of hardware space altogether, and you're going to talk to us about Open Standards and Proprietary Slavery?
It is technically possible to port Mac OS X in order to be executable on general cheap Intel-Computers. But they do not want it. You know that GNUstep aimed at creating a runtime platform for Linux, Windows and Mac. So it should not be a problem for Apple to provide software which makes OS X apps run on Windows but they just don't want it.
It's technically possible to make monkeys fly out of people's asses too. But most people don't want that either. Apple could port the rest of Carbon and all of Cocoa to Windows for supporting Mac OS X applications to run on Windows if they cared to, but they're not caring to because, even though there are plenty of applications being written, they want to re-enforce the behavior, not restrict it. Maybe in the future when we have applications on the Mac that we absolutely "cannot live without", would Apple consider it again. In fact, there's rumors going around that Apple's had the code for ages, and that they're just waiting for the right moment to spring it on us, and it makes perfect sense.
What are the advantages of Apple? - a strong, often specialised, user community, esp. in media and design - many commercial applications esp. Video, graphic and Microsoft Office. Earlier IE was an argument. - a fame of good usability - some well designed applications such as iTunes - marketing
You forgot "an extremely flexible API", a great set of Open Tools and Open Standards, and extremely reliable hardware/software integration. Then again you have the disadvantage of being limited to one segment of the market, but that really hasn't stopped any programmers nor purchasers. And now that you can run Windows on your Mac, there's a lot less reason not to buy it.
On the long run I do not think Apple's Operating Systems will survive. If the Open source community chose GNUstep instead of GNOME Apple would be history or liberated today.
On the long run, I don't think Microsoft's OS will survive, and I'm basing my point on the same crazy speculation as you are. That is, of course, if Apple got an injunction on Microsoft from selling Windows.
So Really, it's the price. (Score:5, Interesting)
"So really, it is the price. Apple won't beat Dell at the bottom, but in the middle and top, Apple's already got them beat."
And of course, there's the fallacious point of "Apple's computers starting at $1000". Apparently you haven't heard of the Mac Mini, coming in at $599, just $199 more than Dell's "Bottom Line" and offering a ton more features.
Price is only the deciding factor right now because Dell set that one up a couple years back. Now Dell's cut so many corners on their machines their profits are beginning to fall, they're on the other side of the price slashing curve where quality isn't beating out quantity anymore. Apple's only cut margins slightly, and completely rebuilt their platform to make their machines entirely more marketable. All they have to do is show you the differences and let you play with the machines a bit.
With 50% of new purchasers being new to the Mac, we can assert their plan is working.
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about you try the other way round? Go have a look at Dell's cheapest laptop, then go & find an 'equivilant' Apple notebook.
Dell's market range is huge, Apple only competes with them in a few areas - pretending otherwise is.... deluded.
Dell competes on price, Apple competes on quality (that's one of the reasons why you hear about Apple defects so much).
Worked for me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow, he really is clueless (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead they were talking up their new OS, which will work perfectly with everything they are currently shipping and sells for a very reasonable cost.
Apple experienced the Osbourne effect already: In years past, when people would hold off Mac purchases if Apple trade shows were near, in case Apple would announce something new. They also went through it in the last 13 months since they announced the Intel switch, as many people waited in anticipation of the PowerPC-based machine they originally wanted being replaced in the product lineup with an Intel-based Mac. And each product introduction was followed by a flood of sales. The difference between Apple and Osbourne is that Apple had alternate income sources to sustain it through the sales dropoffs.
Now that the Intel transition is complete, the Osbourne effect is the last thing Apple needs to worry about-- they will probably be updating their machines much more frequently than in the past, to keep pace with what the other Intel-base computer makers offer-- not just announcing new stuff at their trade shows and developer conferences.
~Philly
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple isn't competing in price. In order to compete in price you have to be cheaper than the competitors lower end products. To use a car analogy, Kia competes with Honda on price. Mercedes doesn't compete with Honda on price, even though you could certainly say their lower end models featurewise are equilivent to some of Toyota's high end models at a similar cost.
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:3, Interesting)
Erm, I would say they DO get it... (Score:3, Interesting)
As for your argument that you have Windows-only stuff, part of the reason Apple is playing up virtualization is because it lets you move to a Mac and take your Windows-only stuff with you, if you must. Parallels Desktop kicks ass, runs at nearly native speed, and the VM runs all the Windows productivity apps my clients have thrown at it like a champ. I have more people asking about it every day.
~Philly
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:5, Interesting)
So yeah, you get better specs for the money with Dell, and if you plan on only keeping the system for short-term use, that's dandy. But in my experience the Apple price premium isn't *entirely* due to the brand-name factor; there does seems to be an overall better system quality.
Re:Haven't we heard this before? (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple MacBook Pro $1999.00
Inspiron 6400 $1212.00
I don't see this Apple is cheaper with same equipment comment. Looks like I save $700 dollars with Dell. And if I don't care about the 128MB ATI video card and Ultrasharp monitor it drops to $1073. I could even throw in Windows XP Pro to really even the OS and I still save $550/$750.
Am I missing something?
[sigh] It's about quality, not quantity (Score:5, Interesting)
Pricing as similar a machine as I can (replacing the ATI card with a quadra FX 3450, match RAM, lose monitor, add DVD-RW, add ethernet) I get $6282 before tax.
So, are Dell gouging an extra $2033 (or 47%) profit from their customers ? Or is it what the market will sustain for them ? Or is it that this time Apple managed to get a better deal on parts ? Who knows... It's pretty certain that if it were the other way around it would be Apple's "high prices".
Now my pricing includes a small discount, but since it seems Apple have to compete on price against Dell's discounts normally, I'm sure no-one will object to me using Apple's discounted prices against Dell, yes ? Even with the discount removed, it's still almost $1400 difference in Apple's favour.
My point is that you have to compare like with like. Sure there's no low-cost tower. Deal. If they don't sell it, you can't buy it - though in fact I'd be surprised if the gap wasn't filled soon enough... I'd expect Apple to launch the high-end towers first so there's a good population of high-end machines out there, and to exploit the pent-up demand. As soon as that demand starts to wane, I (if I were Apple
Simon (who can't wait for his new machine to arrive
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the high end of notebooks, Apple competes with Dell so-so. I just spec'ed an E1705 to be comparable to the standard 17" MBP in the way a Mac fanatic would (i.e. put in XP Pro, the GeForce Go 7900 GS, the 1920x1200 display -- all this because the lesser offerings don't quite compare to the MBP; never mind that the latter two are better -- and in the case of the GPU, significantly so). The price w/o the instant rebate is $2631, and the standard MBP is $2799. Ok, I didn't quite do it like a Mac fanatic. The more unreasonable ones would price it against an XPS, which is just ridiculous.
The "mid range" notebooks (which really have a CPU too expensive to be considered mid range) are similar, though the E1505 can't quite compare to the $1999 15" MBP. I don't think the Turbo Cache and Hyper Memory cards will work as well as the x1600. The RAM is also peculiarly 533 MHz... So, I think the 15" MBP would at the very least be comparable to the $1837 E1505 w/o rebates.
On the "low end" (again, CPU choice is the issue), the 13" MB looks like a steal compared to the E1405. I had to bump up the RAM and HD size on the MB this time (surprising, because Dell usually offers lower options), but the MB was $1249 compared to the E1405's $1543 w/o rebates. (Even with the instant rebate, the E1405 was $1234).
So it looks to me like Apple competes much more favorably in mid range thin and light notebooks than on the high or low ends (well, it doesn't have a low end product; if there were options to use a Core Solo or even a lower clock Core Duo, it might compete).
Perhaps Apple just needs to grow more before it can offer more competitive rates and more options. I feel like at every level the CPU is one step high and the GPU is one step low, but maybe that's because I'm a gamer, so I tend to value GPU performance over CPU. I bought the E1705 with standard display, GeForce Go 7800, 1.66 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM @ 667 MHz (alas! 2 DIMMs), and XP MCE w/ CD, and it cost me $1550. Those specs aren't fit for the enthusiast, but I think Dell still has the competitive edge for the gamer.
The desktop line is another beast, and no matter how hard someone tries, you won't be able to compare the two lines. Until I can find good benchmarks comparing Woodcrest to Conroe somehow, you won't be able to make them similar. However, one thing's for sure: there's a big gaping hole in Apple's current desktop lineup for middle range. I hope they decide to fill that gap sometime soon.
Re:Steve, you want my business? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apple doesn't get it...it's not about the HW or (Score:2, Interesting)
If your engineering applications require hardware specifications an Apple can't offer, okay. Use Windows, please; nobody is twisting your arm. I use both Windows and Linux myself, but I can meet my Windows needs by running Windows inside of VMWare Player or QEmu, and I use Linux for my day-to-day computing. If Linux couldn't meet my day to day computing needs, I wouldn't use it; it's that simple.
Re:Wild attribution of genius (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually it was a master marketing move and worked beautifully.
Coke was releasing a a new product. What better ways to get it out than apply all manufacturing capability to the new product to get it on the shelf?
In the meantime they knew all the other Cokers would bitch and moan and complain their Coke was gone.
After two weeks of media frenzy it came back.
But it was a changed formula. Corn syrup instead of sugar. Corn syrup is cheaper.
After the two weeks no one noticed the change in the formula. They had forgotten the original taste and CC got it close enough.
Throw me a bone here. Since when does a major company toss a flagship product for no reason?
Think about this in computer terms. MS pulls Windows whatever and only provides Diet Windows. The revolt happens and MS goes back to the previous Windows. Do you think that version is unchanged?
I think not.
Oh, BTW they did tout how it was unchanged in their history of Coke except for the corn syrup. They left out that cocaine was removed in 1929 [snopes.com]
Then we have this [snopes.com] which disputes what I have said but...
Study history with a bit of skeptcism. It helps.
qz
Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Mac Pro
dual 3.0Ghz Xeon woodcrests
16 Gigs RAM
nVidia Quadro FX 4500
23" cinema display
Mac OSX
$11,648
Dell Precision Workstation 690
dual 3.0Ghz Xeon woodcrests
16 Gigs RAM
nVidia Quadro FX 4500
24" widescreen flat panel
Windows XP x64 edition
$9,908
Guess it depends on how you configure them, doesn't it?
It's the Software Stupid-New Frameworks in Leopard (Score:3, Interesting)
There has been talk of the elusive "killer app" for years on the internet but I believe that these new frameworks (Core Animation), existing frameworks (Core Image/Video, Data and Audio) will usher in a true "killer app" that developers will struggle in vain to reproduce on windows and other linux. Some may manage to create a pale copy of it but it will not be so tightly integrated into the OS and you will not be able to easily share data with other apps. I would also venture that it would take 10X as much time, money and manpower to develop.
We can all "oooh and ahhh" all we we want about the flashy features in OS X or Vista how easy it is to implement innovative applications in a particular OS will determine which one has the attention of the public and media IMO.
I think the keynote only scratched the surface of the power the collaboration features in Leopard will have on the development landscape.
Re:Apple builds to last. (Score:1, Interesting)
And if you want to do something like add a second hard drive, you have the joy and option of sandwiching another hard drive on top of the existing one so tight it's touching it, or dremelling the backplane off the back of the 3.5" zip drive enclosure, and drilling new holes for screwing in teh drive under the CD-ROM and mounting it there.
The old PowerMac cases were nice and easy to open, but shit for actually upgrading.
Re:This is a pretty stupid article... (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey, it worked for Intel/AMD.
Re:Why would I want to... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Apple builds to last. (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't hold your breath.
1. There was already a factory recall [slashdot.org] for a certain model that was a potential fire hazard.
2. None of the workaday everyday batteries carry a charge long enough [levien.com] for it to reach flash point temperature.
Thinkpads were built like tanks, but they even took the tank analogy one step further: if the battery power were the gas, you get the gas milage equivalent of the tank as well.
To the "Dell sells a sub $500 computer" crowd (Score:3, Interesting)
Bottom line is, a > $500 desktop from Dell isn't going to run Vista for crap where as today you can buy and old Apple iMac on eBay for the same money and you can run Tiger.
People on Slashdot are sorely mislead. (Score:3, Interesting)
Often, you see trollish headlines that state "will Apple kill Microsoft?", "Will Apple kill Dell?", "is this the iPod killer?", etc. People here seem to be a little on the artsy/emotional side rather than on the purely logical side. They can't seem to grasp the gravity of a situation; instead they get lost in the details and forget the scale of things. For a forum that loves Star Trek, they sure don't think like Spock.
First of all, people underestimate the massive advantage of being the much larger company. Dell has a huge marketshare advantage over Apple. They have $55 billion a year in revenue vs. $14 billion a year. If worst came to worst, Dell could simply buy Apple. Microsoft could also easily buy Apple, but the US Gov wouldn't allow that. Still, if it were a fight to the death, they could afford to take losses to sap away Apple's marketshare.
I think people should stop to think for a moment before they post these unrealistic headlines, because if it came down to it, the larger company would simply gobble up the smaller company. It's business 101.
I'm not trying to troll here, I'm trying to inject a dose of reality into another one of these irrational threads.