“The collective Apple community has been so intoxicated by the iPod, the success of the iTunes Store, MacBook sales, and excellent Mac OS X security that no one is reflecting on the areas where Apple is vulnerable. Perhaps it’s unpleasant to think about, but neither do we want to live in a state of denial. So here are some areas where I think Apple should pay more attention,” John Martellaro writes for The Mac Observer.
1. High Performance Computing
2. Enterprise
3. Music industry
4. Entertainment industry’s plans
5. iPhone stress and meddling
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Add:
Better marketing in Europe.
Right now (and for the last 20+ years) it has been terrible.
“a state of denial”
It could have sworn it was a district of denial wedged between Maryland and Virginia.
In three years time tell me where Apple failed in any of these areas…
This guy must be a russian spy- he says ‘irradication’.
Denial, it’s not just a river in Africa.
Ok. So who is “the collective Apple community”? I mean is this the investing community or the purchasing community? or both? I always hate these kind of statements because the only community who should care about Apple’s vulnerability are the investing community who is only looking at Apple as a quick buck to get wealthy. The true Apple community are the millions of users who ACTUALY PURCHASE their products, and for them who cares? It’s more important to them (me) that Apple continues to create interesting and thoughtful products that we want to use. For us it’s not a battle between good and evil (well ok maybe a bit), but a growing echo-system of products that work together. I think this is the strength of Apple. We can talk about “innovation” etc all we want, but the true innovation here is that Apple works hard to develop a cohesive (sp) product line that works together transparently. This is so simple and yet so complicated. The pubic in general is starting to wake up and realize that there is more to our technological life than seperate islands: Cell phone, television, computer (desktop), laptop, pda, music player, tivo, etc.
An interesting article, though the guy seems to be a little bitter that Apple hasn’t focused more on HIS areas of interest (HPC, enterprise). Apple SHOULD be better in those areas, but it’s tough when their senior execs are focused on the living room, not the server room. I can’t really say they’re wrong in their focus, either. One is a fairly virgin market, while the other is generally stacked against them with legacy Windows apps and Windows-centric IT personnel. The only reason to stick with enterprise (and HPC) is because it IS strategic high ground in the computer business and Apple’s technology provides a solid foundation.
Hanz Und Franz,
YES!!! Apple definitely needs a better European presence.
Here’s another area that needs some work:
I need a new server with large data storage (>3 TB RAID 5) capability.
The only option from Apple is an Xserve plus external fiber-channel Xserve RAID, which goes for about $12,000. Just the external RAID is $7,000 on its own.
Dell has a comparable server with internal hard drives (same processors and memory) for about $8,000.
That’s a 50% price difference. Even my love of Macs can’t justify that difference.
Apple needs a different server solution, perhaps a tower or 3U server configuration with up to 8 hard drives that can be configured in a RAID
How abourt succession planning?
I agree with Andrew’s take on the article. Apple is about user experience. This week I purhase an external hard drive. There were 6 steps for PC’s to take to intall the drivers to run the hard drive. For The Mac, the instructions were:
“Plug in the Firewire Cable. The drive will appear on the desktop.”
I did. It worked.
As far as the Enterprise market is concerned, Apple could add some software to its package in the areas of simplified spreadsheet and project planning, which would help a fair bit for small to medium size business.
Perhaps it’s unrealistic to expect Apple to gain major market share in the big business domain without making its OS available to other computer manufacturers, because it would be seen to be a virtual monopoly if its success was excessive, as it were. Its servers are a great start, and if it decided to buy Sun Micro for example, it could gain instant market share. But what would be the point?
By paying more attention to the big business domain, management would have less time to pay attention to the market where its competitors are absent, the domestic market. As McArthur said in his island hopping ventures in the Pacific, hit them where they aint.
Losing concentration and focus are great ways to reduce the price per share, and that’s what would happen if Apple went enterprise at the cost of domestic. This is not to say that business that switch to Mac OS X would not have major productivity advantages, incuding lower IT service costs, especially now that X is so far ahead of V.
Here’s the problem with Apple. The stuff just works. It runs with minimal setup and maintenance. What the hell will I do with all the free time on my hands?
I make my living off of perceived lower costs, equipment instability and software insecurity. Apple offers none of those critical facets of IT responsibility.
Is their really money to be made in high performance computing? Sure you can sell some systems but for the most part they are discounted heavily and I thought, if anything, this was done mostly for bragging rights.
I agree with potential vulnerability in the entertainment industry. It appears pretty cut-throat but it looks like Steve is the master, so I am not overly concerned.
All in all, Apple is not overly weak in many areas and incredibly strong in others. Maybe that is why I bought stock yesterday
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If Apple has proven anything over the last few years it’s that they believe the action is in the consumer market, not the enterprise market. Some people need to get it thru their heads that Apple simply isn’t interested in the enterprise. You can’t really argue with the results either, as AAPL is at an all-time high.
Apple IS interested in enterprise and building it slowly. They’ve the xserve, xserve raid and xsan but they’re targeting industries: eg. video and film production, sciences, etc.
They’ve already a base of users in those areas so Apple sells them another piece of hard/software to extend their Mac presence.
No need to start from scratch and jump into HP and Dell large biz territory right now. They’ll get there eventually.
Strategy is about the things you don’t do as much as about the things you do.
The battle for the enterprise is lost.
Long live the consumer!
Husker Mike: “here were 6 steps for PC’s to take to intall the drivers to run the hard drive. “
B.S. FUD to you Mike!
I just hooked a new external hard drive on my brother´s PC. I plugged it in and started the computer, it worked.
From Seagate Tech support page for an external drive hooked up to Windows Me/2000/ or XP computer:
“Windows will automatically detect the device as a USB Mass Storage Device and install the necessary drives”.
Plug and Play, Husker (FUD) Mike.
One of the things that cripples Mac OS in the enterprise is the scalability of Windows and their interoperability. Macs beat Windows on the client side by tying applications together and to the OS (services, etc), but Windows has built an ecosystem that scales from PDAs and Smart Phones through Clients, Servers, Tablets and embedded devices. This should be something that Apple needs to address.
Apple needs to develop an embedded version of the Mac OS complete with an SDK or it will continue to get marginalized. Embedded Windows is steadily pushing UNIX out of the embedded market and Apple, with the largest installed UNIX base, could claim a significant territory with an embedded OS.
Apple needs an OS for mobile (PDA/Smart Phone) devices for more than a few reasons. The handheld devices you see being used in the Apple Store near you is running Windows. No Apple solution is available in this market. It’s doable.
Apple needs to develop a Tablet device, if not for the consumer market, for the education and enterprise markets. Tablets have great advantages in specific markets and are gaining traction in Healthcare, field engineering, utility work, warehousing, transportation, sales and education. Since Mac OS already supports handwriting recognition, it would require little to get this project launched.
Finally, Apple needs something to directly compete in the ‘whitebox’ market. A tower that can be customized by OEM’s that need to be able to easily expand/modify the memory, graphics cards, etc without going to the expense of a Pro level Mac in it’s highly impractical Aluminum case.
This kind of damage can happen easily in shipping to the Apple case and costs $300+ to replace.
Something more affordable, repairable, upgradeable for pro OEM computing is desperately needed.
It’s time for Cupertino to Think Different.
“the collective Apple community”?
Oh what the heck, You will be assimilated, resistance is futile!
I’ve got what may be the only Xserve and XRaid in my Agency – can’t tell you which one because the powers that be might come take it away. I’ve currently got some 3 TB of space NFS-shared to our Suns. The biggest problem, aside from the “maverick” status of this project? It’s so trouble free I haven’t touched it in the last year, so I’m not building up any real expertise! Windows support people, in contrast, have to build up *lots* of expertise just to keep their *&!# boxes running.
This should be not confused with Apple’s Stratego weaknesses like losing the Spymac while pushing too far for the Redmond Marshal and ironically, a weak international distribution of forces.
“There were 6 steps for PC’s to take to intall the drivers to run the hard drive. “
Either you brought a lemon or you’re on a very old version of Windows. If the drive meets Microsoft’s mass storage spec, and almost all do, then you just plug it in and it works.
Fuçk enterprise. Go Federal.
Desktop publishing at the Federal Reserve. Yeah, baby! That’s where the money’s to be made.
The intelligence community and the Federal government should adopt XServe and Macintosh system wide. (Look what the Navajo Code-talkers did for combating the enemy intelligencia.) That alone would be an immediate setback for all the code talkers and doomsday hackers who know the weak underbelly of the Windows platform.
Imagine a day when people running for office will literally run on the Mac platform to promote security from cyber-terrorism and will have to denigrate Windows in the process! Windows has made this nation vulnerable and unsafe. Can I get an amen from the Department of the Navy, Federal Aviation Administration, and the FBI?
Macintosh. As American as Mom and Apple pie.
Apple needs couple of things at least:
1. Way better marketing and presence in Europe (Apple Store in to the biggest/most forward thinking city of every country).
2. Russian localization (200M speakers)
3. Arabic localization (150M speakers)
4. Hindi (600M? speakers) (three languages mentioned totals to 1/6 of planets population!)
Translations don’t cost that much if you think about the mindshare it creates.
5. HTPC: Mac Mini kicks ass in the tests ’cause of the eyeTV and FrontRow. Now add possibility to record video.