Why Apple is poised for continued growth

20 years ago

“My Web reading this week produced three tantalizing bits of Apple news that may have big implications for where Apple is going in the not-so-distant future,” Carl Howe writes for Blackfriar’s Marketing.

Howe’s three tantalizing bits of Apple news:

1. Apple’s new Mac Pros are now dramatically cheaper than comparable Dell Precision desktops: Apple is working hard on eliminating business objections to buying their gear. One of those objections was always price, and the myth that Apple’s products were more expensive than PCs was always fueled by the fact different processors and components were being compared. Well, now those days are over.
2. Virtualization is good for more things than running Windows on Mac OS X — it works the other way around as well: virtualization can and has allowed Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. While I don’t expect this to be a mainstream application, it means there’s a very interesting “try before you buy Apple” marketing opportunity to businesses. Apple could give a business considering buying XServes a VMware image of Mac OS X to try out on their existing Windows or Linux servers. They can test software and compatibility features of the system before they have to commit to lots of Apple hardware and software.
3. The DVD Copy Control Association is about to provide processes and permissions to write movies onto blank DVDs: People often forget that one of the bits that differentiated the iTunes Music Store when it launched from other online stores was that Jobs negotiated with the music studios for the rights to write CDs of purchased music. The fact that this was legal and allowed (albeit only up to four or five times) was a real breakthrough and certainly fueled iTunes music purchases.\

Full article here.
Just a note that Howe made one little mistake in his article: users can burn iTunes Music Store songs an unlimited amount of times to CDs, not “only up to four or five times.” If a playlist contains any songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, you can burn the playlist up to seven times. Change the order of the songs and you can burn said playlist up to seven times again. And so on.

Reason #4 would be the ability to run Windows on Mac hardware. Really, it’s reason #1 why Apple is poised for future growth. We’ve gotten people to buy Macs who wouldn’t listen to a word we said for years, just because of Boot Camp (and Parallels Desktop for Mac) and the ability to bring along their “Windows Insecurity Blanket.” People think they need Windows. And that’s just fine; they’ll learn soon enough. Embrace first, then extinguish – Apple’s plan is working.

Other reasons why Apple is poised for growth include Apple’s growing network of retail stores, Windows’ continuing insecurity, and the iPod Halo Effect, to name a few biggies.