“Apple Computer Inc. is known for its remarkable ability to wow the world with its hot new products. That’s why its July 2 announcement was so disappointing. Without citing specific reasons, the company said it would not roll out a new version of its iMac home PC until September, rather than in July, as it had hoped. Since the outfit also announced that it would run out of stocks of the existing iMac in a few weeks, Apple won’t have a home PC to sell for the most crucial part of the back-to-school buying season,” Peter Burrows writes for BusinessWeek.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple won’t have a “home PC” to sell, except for eMacs, iBooks, and, yes, even PowerBooks and Power Macs.
Burrows writes, “reinvigorating the iMac is urgent. Apple needs it to help regain share in the education market, where the company has staged a modest comeback in recent months, grabbing a 14.1% share in the past quarter, up from 12% in the fall, says IDC. While more students are opting for laptops such as the PowerBook, Apple needs a strong iMac to prevent further share gains by now-dominant Dell Inc.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple sells eMac (get it, Peter, “e” as in education, and iBooks to schools – much more so than the mid-range iMac.
Burrows, taking the roundabout way to the truth, finally gets it right, concluding, “It’s instructive that investors didn’t hammer the stock harder upon learning of the iMac delay: Shares are still up 42% for the year, compared with Dell’s 2.7% rise. Rather than demand Microsoft-style market share or Dell-like operational consistency, investors value Apple’s cool products. When you build concept cars for the industry, there are bound to be some crashes. This one won’t be fatal.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, “reinvigorating the iMac is urgent,” but the delay “won’t be fatal. And even though Apple targets education mainly with eMac and iBook, “Apple needs a strong iMac” to sell to the education market. Much thanks for the informative article, Mr. Burrows.
Obviously, mtoda has no eye for design whatsoever. The hideous G3 all-in-one has absolutely nothing in common with the eMac. The G3 was a leftover from the bleak Gil Amelio days at Apple, and had the look of 12 different designers all working on the same project, much like several other one piece Macs of those days. The eMac is large, but the materials are identical to the iPod in front, only BIGGER. The speakers are obviously just the modular ones that shipped with the goose-neck iMac incorporated into the case. All in all, it is a very clean design, which I think will stand the test of time better than the heavily stylized iMac. The iMac was just too radical of a design for most people, in some ways looking as if was taken from a Dr. Suess book of some kind. The numbers don’t lie, it was never the tasteful equal of the original Bondi iMac. I can only hope that it’s replacement is more in line with some of Apple’s better designs.