Analysts don’t see Apple’s Intel switch dimming ‘iPod Halo Effect’

21 years ago

“Industry watchers have noticed a ‘halo’ surrounding Apple Computer’s iPod: The popular music player is helping to bring new users to the company’s Macintosh line of computers,” Daniel Drew Turner writes for eWeek. “However, could the uncertainty surrounding the Mac’s upcoming switch from PowerPC to Intel processors take the shine off that halo?”

Turner writes, “‘There is a halo effect, leading to a definite increase in Mac sales, but it’s much broader than the iPod,’ said Joe Wilcox, an analyst for New York-based Jupiter Research of Jupitermedia Corp. ‘If there’d been any downward sales pressure, it’d have been in the first calendar quarter of 2005.’ This, he said, was the test for the iPod: whether it would be, in Wilcox’s words, ‘a blown-out supernova, or whether it had reached iconic status.’ Wilcox said, ‘I would be surprised if the [Intel] transition has any impact on Mac sales in the short term. In fact, the opposite might be the case.'”

“Ted Schadler, a vice president and principal analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc., agreed that it was too early to analyze hard data about sales behavior in response to Apple’s Intel switch.,” Turner reports. “Still, Schadler said, there are other factors driving Mac sales, which saw 35 percent growth year-over-year. ‘There’s a fear factor,’ Schadler said, ‘with Windows suffering brutally from virus and spyware attacks.’ He added, ‘I’m surprised they’re not selling more Macs.'”

“‘We do see some misunderstanding’ about the Intel transition, Don Mayer of Small Dog Electronics said. ‘But frankly, people don’t care what processor is in a machine. They care about the software and what it allows them to do. What I’d like Apple to do is lie. Say the new Macs are not coming until next summer, but then pop them out in January.'”

Full article here.