“The future success of Apple, Dell and Intel lies with a licensing deal between Steve Jobs’ company and the PC maker according to analyst Gartner,” Andrew Donoghue reports for ZDNet UK.
“Increasing component costs and pressure to cut its prices mean Apple’s best bet for long-term success is to quit the hardware business and license the Mac to Dell, analyst firm Gartner claimed on Tuesday,” Donoghue reports.
Donoghue reports, “In a surprisingly ambitious report, called Apple Should License the Mac to Dell, Gartner says Apple should concentrate on what it does best — create software — and make use of Dell’s production and distribution infrastructure. ‘Apple should leverage its close relationship with Intel and team up with Intel’s closest ally, Dell,’ the report states. ‘We recognise that this move would surprise and even shock many. We are aware that Steve Jobs cancelled previous Mac licences when he took over at Apple and that he guards the Apple brand zealously.'”
“Apple increased its share of the PC market to around 4.6 percent in July this year, according to analyst figures,” Donoghue reports. “Gartner claims that with the right partners, distribution channels and a more affordable price, computers running the Mac OS could eventually account for 20 percent of the total PC market.”
“Apple will not be able to substantially increase this growth on its own because of increasing pricing pressure, Gartner warns,” Donoghue reports. “Apple’s margins for its Mac business, currently around 40 percent, are only sustainable because component makers such as Intel choose to prop up the business, Gartner claimed.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wow. “Surprisingly ambitious report?” More like “Surprisingly asinine report.” Nice to see that Gartner is finally realizing that Windows isn’t good enough, though. About two hours ago, Apple announced they had sold the largest quarterly number of Mac units in the company’s history. Dell is floundering. They jumped off the Intel Secretariat and onto the AMD glue horse at precisely the wrong time. Dell is not executing. Dell has no strategy. Apple became number one in Western Europe education earlier this year, pushing Dell down into second place. Dell has nothing of unique value. If Dell disappeared today, nobody but Dell employees would care and even they wouldn’t care after they found new jobs.
Comparable Macs cost less than Dell PCs already and Apple isn’t going to sell cut-rate Macs like Dell does with its loss-leader junk PCs. Dell is a commodity box assembler and a non-innovator. Dell PCs are, in short, mass-produced garbage with a badly faked, upside-down, and backwards Mac wannabe OS from Mafiasoft.
We have a better idea: Apple should continue to grow their hardware business, open more and more Apple Retail Stores worldwide, show the world Mac OS X for a change, license Mac OS X to nobody and, if they did license to select partners, never, ever license to beleaguered Dell. Dell should be left Mac OS X-less to flounder and wither and eventually die. What would we do with Dell? We’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.
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