“While iPods sizzle, Macs and laptops are sluggish. It doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s how to get that computer market share surging… Let’s call them ‘Six Steps to a Bigger Mac Market,'” Alex Salkever writes for BusinessWeek.
Salkever’s six-point plan:
1) Price trumps style in the computer market: Apple charges too much for its computers.
2) Make ’em cool and cheap: Give us a really cheap, really cool PC.
3) Ditch the all-in-one mantra: Offer a headless Mac at a decent price.
4) Sell that soap: Offer a $200 bounty on a PC exchanged for a new iMac or iBook.
5) Sell that soap II: offer all Mac buyers a try-and-buy program.
6) Sell security: debut an Apple ad campaign playing up the fact that Macs remain largely virus-free.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 1-4 are all the same: Salkever wants a cheaper Mac. Point 5 (really his second point) has been done in the past by Apple. Maybe it’s time to try it again, but it doesn’t strike us as a huge draw. Point 6 (#3 in actuality) is what we’ve been saying all along and we couldn’t agree more with Alex. Even if it irks some malcontents to try attacking Mac OS X, why not advertise the Mac’s security advantage? It is huge! Surely even a massive ad campaign highlighting Mac security is unlikely to provoke the tens of thousands of viruses and worms Windows has and has had in the past.
Related MacDailyNews article:
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003
And the Porsche argument does not hold water. Porsche is in bed with VW and Audi, and they share a lot of parts and R&D. Porsche would have a hard time making it alone. Same with Ferrari/Fiat and Saab/GM.
Apple should start doing a commercial that runs a bit like a 30 or 60 second news cast where they announce breaking news that virus xxx is making the rounds screwing up PC’s everywhere but Macintosh remains unafected.
Start a new one each time a new virus is spotted in the wild. Tell viewers to go to [url=http://www.security.apple.com]http://www.security.apple.com[/url] to find out more. At that site offer good tips on how to secure your home network and PC’s but also suggest that a Mac might be a good choice if they are looking for a new machine. The network security site should be aimed at the home (clueless) user of PC’s and should be second to none in the amount of usefull info presented. That way people go their for free info to solve the immediate problem on their PC but are exposed to the Mac solution on a regular basis.
Right now is the time to do this sort of campaign too – statistics are starting to show that the insecurity of windows is having a cooling effect on internet sales. Big problem. People are getting scared to surf or buy on the web. Big opportunity for Apple.
If there is anything more stupid than the car analogy, it is trying to equate an emac to an entry level dell. This ground has been gone over before. Simply put, the $800 spent on an emac buys a lot more pc because the emac starts in a slow, unexpandable, ugly hole. Even the better os cannot make them match up, as much as Steve would like it to.
AND, I want to see sources for turnover stats, not meaningless blather from an opinionated cultist. All the pc’s around here are getting quite long in the tooth, and work just fahhnnnn.
I might have to save my energy for a new mac offering. See you in Sept for the announcement, in December for them to be on hand and available to be bought.
Poor performance and high price = No sales
No upgrade path = No sales
Forced monitor on you = No sales
Dorky styling = No sales
I think we can all agree Apple didnt want to sell to consumers,prosumers,gamers but did want to sell to grandma’s without a clue.
CAPITALISE ON iPod SALES: What Apple should do is capitalise on the fact that there are millions of people who own Windows PC’s who have bought an iPod, downloaded iTunes and shop at the iTMS.
Surely they must have details of these people? If so, get some direct mail to them!
‘Now that you’ve bought an iPod and seen the quality of Apple’s goods, here’s a 10% rebate voucher when your next computer purchase is a Mac.’
Apple’s already made money from them in terms of the profit from the iPod, so the 10% discount is covered.
CAPITALISE ON THE MAC’S LACK OF VIRUSES, SPYWARE & ADWARE: This has to be done carefully. Imagine if Apple ran an advert that stated that Mac’s were virus, spyware and adware free, and then somehow a really bad virus escaped. It’s a remote chance, but we must all admit that it is possible. It wouldn’t be as bad as a Windows virus, but the PC-press would crucify Apple and Apple know this. This is why it’s not publicised. Dan’s idea is a good way around all these problems though.
A HEADLESS iMac: This has been said time and time again – not including a monitor with a Mac would reduce the price by $50. The headless iMac would not be a cheap PC. A cheap PC is a piece of crap that has a low-class monitor, slow chip, tiny hard drive, no dedicated video card and look’s like a biege breeze-block. This is not who Apple are, and they would NEVER realease a Mac to such a low standard.
“Sell that soap: Offer a $200 bounty on a PC exchanged for a new iMac or iBook.”
You dumb shit! Ther are too many PCs out there.
don’t worry guys, the iMacs will be announced and for sale in Sept.
Apple’s already said that.
Ahh, yes the price myth. I still don’t understand why people don’t realize that you get what you pay for. Sure, you can buy a Windows PC for $399 but don’t expect it to have the features or the quality of a $799 eMac. You can also buy a 27″ off-brand TV for $199 or so, but don’t expect it to have the features or the quality of a 27″ Sony that costs $499. The same thing goes for cars, stereos, or any other item you buy in everyday life. Why people can’t get it thru their skulls that this also applies to computers is absolutely beyond me. It just shows that some people have absolutely no common sense whatsoever.
For those of you criticizing those using the “car analogy”, please enlighten us and tell us what major consumer product doesn’t apply to this same analogy?
So comparing a PC to a Mac isn’t the same as comparing a Ford to a BMW? Why the hell not? Would comparing a cheap no-name washing machine to a Maytag not be the same then? They both will wash your clothes, but the Maytag costs 2-4 times more. Or as was mentioned above, comparing say an Apex TV to a Sony? If they’re both the same size TV, then why does the Sony cost 2-3 times more?
The reason for those that can’t comprehend it, is that the BMW, Maytag and Sony are of much higher quality and have many more features than their cheaper counterparts. The same damn thing applies to the difference between a low end Dell and an eMac, or a low end Dell laptop in comparison to an iBook, or any other Mac to PC comparison you want to throw up against the wall.
So if you don’t like the “car analogy” then fine. Just remember the washing machine analogy and the TV analogy. And if those don’t work for you, I’m sure we can think of any other consumer product out there and find the exact same kind of thing working. Speaking of which, have you ever shopped for a mattress? Tell me why some of those cost 5-10 times more than some of the others when you can actually get a night’s sleep on any of them. Basically, if you don’t “get it”, then you’ll never get it. Whether you’re talking about computers or mattresses or anything else, like it’s been said, you get what you pay for…
You don’t always get what you pay for. Or at least the differential becomes ever diminishing as you increase what you’re willing to pay.
�500 CRT TV or a �1500 gas plasma display. Which is better ? Well, for actually looking at a good image, it’s almost certainly the CRT.
�500 CRT or a �1500 CRT ? Side by side, the �1500 is probably marginally better and it probably has better sound and a nicer case. But it’s doubtful that it’s 3 times as good. More like a 10% improvement. But if people are dumb enough to pay it, thinking that they’ve got a much better TV, then they’re welcome to do so.
It’s simple. Some people are satisfied with cheap crap, while others demand the best, or at least far more than just what is strictly average. For those who are happy with their Dell, more power to them. I know a Mac is far better and I don’t mind spending the extra to get one. Same goes for the reason why when I bought a big-screen last year I went with a Pioneer over some brands that were considerably less. I didn’t want a cheaper television that would only last half as long and didn’t have but half the picture quality. Like Lance said, the same goes for any purchase you make whether is clothes, furniture, appliances, cars or even computers. Besides, if you have to buy a new PC twice as often as a Mac due to the cheap parts or buggy OS they come with, you’re really not saving any money over the long haul anyway. And if you do get a nice PC with high end components, you’d quickly see that in many cases it’s costs just as much as a corresponding Mac does.
Price is not the problem. Perception is.
Anyone who knows how to value the cost of something at all, knows you need to calculate the real cost. For example, how much does it cost to drive somewhere in your car? The real cost is more than just the gas – it’s the wear and tear on your car towards repairs and the devaluation, etc…
Same goes for Mac’s. The real cost of ownership, even at equal pricing to a PC includes time spent troubleshooting, cost of repairs, time spent learning/maintaining, depreciation over time, how many times you injure yourself hitting your computer, etc…
By the way, Apple is a profitable company, in case no one has noticed.
It is huge! Surely even a massive ad campaign highlighting Mac security is unlikely to provoke the tens of thousands of viruses and worms Windows has and has had in the past.
I think the problem is ignorance. Vulnerability exists for all operating systems. No company has a perfect OS. The problem is, some people and companies think that vulnerability == insecurity. This perception is worsen by Microsoft shills spreading FUDs and security companies trying to sell solution for OS X.
If Apple has a huge campaign highlighting security and then a vulnerability is found, then there will be a backlash, proportional to the campaign size. Forget the fact that no virus still exists, the press will pounce on the news and say that OS X has worse security (didn’t we hear that already from Secunia?). Play it safe. Let Mac pundits and Mac users drive the point. It insulates Apple from “deceptive advertising” like in the UK.
I don’t want to buy the same computer that ignorant people buy.
I laugh whenever anyone says “price myth” … and then discloses that they have a Macintosh. Good shoppers (whether then end up with a Mac or not) know where to get good deals. Good shoppers who get Macs know what they are paying for. But these sad bad shoppers end up with Macs for all the wrong reasons … like they can’t friggin’ find an inexpensive PC.
Here is a good article on why Macs are more secure:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows