“We note with both a smirk and a worried frown, that even Dell are struggling in the PC world. But standing tall among the debris, and as Chris Seibold noted with his clever graphs, rising from it, is Apple,” Chris Howard writes for Apple Matters.
“With Lenovo buying the IBM line, the fall of other PC brands, by the end of the decade, we may also be buying our computers only from the Asian nations. Who would have believed it late in the 90’s with American brands IBM, Dell, HP, Gateway and Compaq dominating the world market? For the Asian nations of course, this is a great thing, for us we are going to have to reinvent ourselves and our place in technology. The irony is Apple Macs may outlast all of those American PC brands,” Howard writes.
Howard writes, “2005 has been an extraordinary year of product announcements – probably the biggest in Apple’s history – with two or three of them registering 10 on the Richter Scale.”
Howard then reviews the past year and looks forward to Macwordll Expo San Francsco in January 2006, of which he writes that Apple is preparing “to follow up their most significant year in history, with one to match. And if they succeed, they could change the face of computing and home and portable entertainment, more than we’d even dared hoped 12 months ago.”
Full article here.
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Related articles:
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How Apple can win the OS war – October 19, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
Intel’s built-in virtualization tech could be one way to run Windows on Intel-based Apple Macs
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Why buy a Dell when Apple ‘Macintel’ computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005
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Not really surprising. Apple is the oldest of all of today’s American computer makers and is the most unique and innovative of all of the current makers.
The significance of the patent application allowing for multiple operating system instances cannot be measured. This is outstanding work being patiently executed. The comparison with the Gates/Ozzie wake up call memos is both entertaining and pathetic.
Well it’s hard to be unique in the PC world, the only thing you can change is the colour of the plastic, light or dark beige
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Apples may be designed in America but they are built in China.
Tandy is still by far the most innovative
The secret to the survival of Apple is that the key to the Mac universe is only available from Apple. Very little differentiates one generic Windows PC from another as they use mostly the same components from the same suppliers. The average Joe/Jane will buy the cheapest thing that will get the job done if it is ‘good enough’.
“Apples may be designed in America but they are built in China.”
True, but that has nothing to do with being innovative or unique.
“Apples may be designed in America but they are built in China.”
That doesn’t mean the company is not American. Have you ever heard of “outsourcing”? Alot of companies do it, and not only American companies.
Beside, what does that have to do with anything?
‘That doesn’t mean the company is not American. Have you ever heard of “outsourcing”? Alot of companies do it, and not only American companies.
Beside, what does that have to do with anything?’
uh, Kelso…30 million manufacturing jobs lost in the United States in the past six years may “have to do with anything”. If a country doesn’t make anything, it doesn’t have an economy.
it has a lot to do with everything if you are not overeducated and need farking job.
I’d like to see a list of jobs that are outsourced to the USA.
make some of each model in a special facility in the US.
You could opt to pay more for an American-made version, and I for one would do it. I’d be willing to pay double.
But Apple can’t make them ALL that way or they’d simply go out of business.
Macnut wrote:
“Apple is the oldest of all of today’s American computer makers”
No, HP is older than Apple. IBM, too, but they don’t make ’em here anymore.
Hey Botswannik — Give it up with the outsourcing complaints.
Times change, industries shift, markets adapt. Happens all the time. And now some companies are pulling their outsourced work BACK home to America. Why? Because the market spoke and people were pissed. So, companies are doing what they do: responding to the market.
Stop whining.
And by the way, I find articles like this — about a company that was always referred to as “beleaguered” just a few years ago — absolutely hilarious.
My stock portfolio loves it too.
Jobs are outsourced because American production workers require higher salaries than their Asian counterparts. Simple economics
Are any of that great ‘Stars and Strips’ waving company Nike’s running shoes made in America?
I thought they were all made in the Phillipenes…
If a company can pay a foreign worker $10 to produce one item on a production line, why pay an American worker $100 to produce the same item on an American production line?
Doesn’t make sence.
“No, HP is older than Apple. IBM, too, but they don’t make ’em here anymore.”
I know that. I was solely referring to the manufacturing of personal computers.
Outsourcing has little to do with American workers wanting too much, and Asian slaves accepting so little.
It’s corporate greed celebrating the cash grab of now, while ignoring the repercussions in the future.
Not everyone will be a multi-degreed techie (whose jobs can be done cheaper by some guy with a PhD in Bombay than your sorry behind ever could)- our society has those who thrive in manufacturing, and in turn, SPEND that money.
Sending money overseas to exploitive areas doesn’t “build markets”, at least not for much I sell. A guy making $2.00 a day or so can’t buy much.
If they were at least required to be competitive- by that I mean earn our minimum wage, etc.- well, THEN markets would be built.
Our financial security, economy, and sovereignty is easily sold for $3 less at Wal-Mart.
Well at least we still produce the most porn in the good ole USA. Or do we?
Apple’s strategy with the Intel switch/multi boot system is brilliant. All the nimrods predicting that an Osborne effect will kill Apple are going to look back on this period in history and realize how dumb that prediction was.
The level of economic ignorance on this thread is breathtaking.
FACT: The proportion of American manufacturing jobs lost in the last few years is much SMALLER than the proportion of Chinese manufacturing jobs lost in the last few years (i.e., China provides a good comparison because it has the fastest growing manufacturing sector in Asia, by a good margin).
FACT: While individual industries (e.g., computers) may differ, overall U.S. manufacturing production is at the highest levels ever, though the number of manufacturing jobs is at the lowest level in a long time.
FACT: The cause of this difference is a massive increase in manufacturing productivity, mostly driven by technology and the new management systems it permits, with similar improvements in productivity causing the much GREATER loss of Chinese manufacturing jobs.
Fact: The best analogy for what is happening today in manufacturing is what happened in agriculture previously. Today, the U.S. produces more agricultural products than ever, but the number of agricultural jobs is minuscule compared to previous levels (I believe around 1-2% currently in the U.S.; last century agriculture was a majority of the workforce).
Fact: This is a GOOD thing because anytime you increase productivity it allows you to: a) increase wages and wealth; b) redirect labor to other useful activities, such as services, creative work, analytic work. In any case, this change is inevitable.
BTW, I’m too lazy to find cites/links for all of the above but any of you who care enough can readily find them yourself in objective sources such as government databases. (And any of you who question the objectivity of government databases on this type of thing aren’t worth talking to anyway.)
Whew!
Kate
Kate, kate … you need a break from that exhausting lecture. Come … sit a while.
“b) redirect labor to other useful activities, such as services, creative work, analytic work.”
Kate, would you feel all warm & fuzzy knowing the economy was stronger because your career got “redirected”? Like Wall Street’s wonderful advice: “If your job disappears, then just go back to school and learn to do something else”. Thanks. Not all of us get golden parachutes to help the transition.
Anyway, back to Apple:
“The secret to the survival of Apple is that the key to the Mac universe is only available from Apple.”
Another secret is Apple didn’t get pulled into the battle to the bottom. Why lose money selling junk? Even Dell has acknowledged this by pitching more upscale PC’s.
FACT: I have an economics degree, but this is basic and trivial, you don’t need one.
FACT: As a business concerned with making a profit, in a Global economy, Apple needs to find suppliers who build suitable quality products at the cheapest price.
FACT: If that is an Asian country, so be it.
FACT: I DON’T LIVE IN THE USA!
FACT: 50% of Apple’s customers don’t live in the USA, you small minded morons – get over it!!
FACT: OK, just one fundamental economic principle: everyone’s living is highest if every country only produces items it has a competitive advantage in. Protectionist policies, designed to protect domestic industries may debatably have a short term benefit, but in the medium term lead to cost ineffective industries and a lack of innovation, ie lower living standards.
FACT: This is just another sign that Apple’s leadership is more enlightened and progressive than many of it’s parochial and prejudiced customers and competitors.
Oh come on people. The #1 reason products and services are outsourced to lower-wage countries isn’t because of corporate greed (though that’s in the top 5).
It’s because YOU and I want to pay the lowest possible price. We are the ones looking for the lowest price, waiting for the sales, etc. How much would a $2500 PowerBook cost if all the labor involved was paid at North American rates?
I actually do choose to pay somewhat more for local, organic food, even though I’m not rich. I want local farmers to prosper. I want organic food to gain traction. That’s never going to happen if I and others continue to hold out for the lowest Wal-Mart, sweatshop-supporting bargain. The most powerful form of voting is your dollar. What you do with it affects the world more than your political vote.
And there’s more for this thread:
“According to the Organization for International Investment, the numbers of manufacturing jobs insourced to the United States grew by 82 percent, while the number outsourced overseas grew by only 23 percent. ([5] Organization for International Investment (OFII)website at http://www.ofii.org/insourcing/). Moreover, these insourced jobs are often higher-paying than those outsourced.”
Will you stop buying Nissans because they’re Japanese…even when they’re assembled by Americans in Tennessee?
Who among us would work for the hourly rate that Chinese workers get?
Seems that we globalised everything except wages and conditions…