“Apple’s ambition may be starting to get ahead of the company’s ability to achieve it,” Troy Wolverton writes for The Mercury News.
“Renowned in recent years for its operational excellence, Apple in the past two months has delayed two high-profile products, the Apple TV set-top box and now, it said Thursday, Leopard, the upcoming update to its OS X operating system. The company pushed back the release date of Leopard so it wouldn’t have to delay an even more highly anticipated product, the iPhone,” Wolverton writes.
Wolverton writes, “The problem Apple is running into is that it’s a relatively small company compared with tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM, said Van Baker, an analyst with research firm Gartner. As of last fall, Apple had about 18,000 full-time employees, compared with 156,000 for HP, according to the companies’ annual reports. ‘Clearly there’s evidence that they’re not executing to the same level they have in the past,’ Baker said.”
“While Apple hasn’t been known for such delays, they’re not surprising, Baker said, noting that Apple is ‘broadening their product offering, and they have only so many engineering resources to go around,'” Wolverton writes.
Wolverton writes, “Apple said Thursday that it was delaying Leopard, the fifth update of its OS X operating system, because it had to pull some of its engineering and quality assurance personnel from that project to help out with the iPhone. The much-hyped device, which Apple plans to release in June, will contain a new, slimmed-down version of the OS X operating system, which powers Apple’s Macintosh computers.”
Wolverton writes, “By shifting resources to the iPhone, the company is favoring an unproven product that will compete in a very challenging industry, notes Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC, a market research firm. The delay – and the reason behind it – are ‘a risk and a sign of how Apple is changing and diversifying,’ Shim said. ‘It’s also a sign that they’ll have to be more careful with spreading themselves too thin.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You can’t shift paradigms without pushing the envelope beyond the limit. And Troy Wolverton’s penchant for the negative angle on anything to do with Apple is tiresome (here’s but one example).
Related articles:
eWeek’s Morgenstern: Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard delay is no big whoop – April 13, 2007
InformationWeek blows it again: reports second delay of Leopard this year due to Vista compatibility – April 13, 2007
Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Piper Jaffray: Use Apple’s Leopard delay as buying opportunity – April 13, 2007
Analysts unconcerned over Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard delay – April 13, 2007
Apple shares drop nearly 3%, dip below $90 on Mac OS X Leopard delay – April 12, 2007
Apple delays Mac OS X Leopard until October 2007, blames iPhone – April 12, 2007
Time will show that this was the wise decision. Apple needs to get the iPhone to market because it is a new product. Leopard can wait because Tiger is very stable. The only concern would be if Micropenis gets a SP1 out for Fista and it gets good hype.
macgoog
Delaying Leopard to release the iPhone? This makes no sense. The iPhone is a novelty. How many iPhones are you going to sell compared to copies of Leopard?
I’ll go with 2 million copies of Leopard in a month and 4 million iPhones in the same period.
Apple? Maybe. But that’s obviously not a problem for Rosie O’Donnell.
Leopard is CRITICAL to my business. I don’t even know what’s in it, but I HAVE to have it by June. PERIOD! Now what will I do?
My business will go down the tubes! I’ll have to switch to Windows. And now I have this unidentifiable sore on my toe. And I’ll probably get herpes!
Damned you Apple! Damned you to pieces!
Thar’s BS. Working Apple retail really does suck though.
Rubbish! Working Apple retail really sucks though!!
Announcement Post Yesterday MDN
From: Hard, Tough Take
Apr 13, 07 – 12:23 am
1- Apple needs to hire more software engineers. They have +/- 1,000 SW engineers in their employ & with an expanding line of applications and platforms (Mac/iPod/iPhone/TV/Server), it’s obvious they need more. With a UNIX base, I’m sure more than a few former SGI, IBM, SUN & other SW engineers could be found. They should have a not too difficult learning curve.
2- Apple needs to expand it’s beta testing program. More testers would make for faster bug ID and save a lot of diagnostic time better used quashing bugs.
3- This means that the back-to-school sales season will feature Macs without the new OS. One can only guess at the sales hit.
“Troy Wolverton’s penchant for the negative angle on anything to do with Apple
I won’t argue Wolverton’s (or any MS fanboy’s) penchant for negativity, but the simple matter is that Apple basicly admitted to robbing Peter to pay Paul. From a business perspective, that says a lot about how Apple operates (at this particular time) and none of it is good.
For a reasonable assessment from a pro-Mac developer about what it implies and why, check this out:
http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/321/leopard-isnt-the-problem“
So I read it and guess what. It isn’t a reasonable assessment. But It is an arrogant one. Operating System development requires experience and discipline. Good OS Developers are not so easy to find, just look at Microsoft. If one woman takes 9 months to have a baby you can’t get nine women pregnanat and get a baby in a month. Most of you are too young to have read “The Mythical Man Month”, but if you want to understand the problems of growing versus scheduling I suggest you read it. Leopard is shipping on time. It is the original announced date that was wrong.
Apple, the ex-Computer company is betting its future on gadgets and toys.
> This means that the back-to-school sales season will feature Macs without the new OS. One can only guess at the sales hit.
Since the alternative is a PC with Windows Vista, I’d say the “sales hit” will be minimal. If a student needs a computer, the purchase will not be delayed to wait for Leopard.
Vista’s lukewarm (at best) reception allowed Apple to take this delay without too much risk. If Vista had been greeted with massive popularity (or even modest acceptance), I’m sure Apple would have cut features and cut-short testing to get Leopard shipped as early as possible. As it stands now, Tiger is more than enough to put up against Vista. PC switchers don’t care if it’s Tiger or Leopard, as long as it’s not Vista.
Tommy Boy
You a carpenter?? Cus you sure hit that nail on on the head!!
My thoughts exactly.
I think Apples’ size IS the advantage!
Is everyone worried someone else is going to do better …..Sooner!
Give me a fucking break!!!
TR
So what should they do??? spend more money on potentially poor developers that cant yet be trusted to rush the worlds most advanced OS to market… I think not.. they already have the worlds most advanced OS currently on the market.. I say they did the right thing, and are playing it safe.
What everyone seems to be missing the importance of is that Apple is producing a single OS code base for ALL its platforms, Macintosh, Apple TV, iPhone and presumably in the future the 6G iPod. This will give Apple an ENORMOUS advantage in terms or innovating and improving the software across all its products. At this moment we are seeing the strain of making that happen (a 4 month Leopard delay) but once this is done Apple will be the nimblest, fastest most productive software engineering company and that will be achieved without adding huge numbers to their software engineering staff.
pdb,
I totally agree. As previously mentioned, Apple products are not one-offs. They’re an ecosystem of intertwined products whose developments occur in tandem.
Apple produces the most solid, comprehensive product line in the tech industry. And to do that, they must set their own pace.
Would you really want a bunch of disconnected, barely interoperable devices?
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/13/pcw_leopard/index.php
Apple really DID drop the ball on mac computers, of which I am barely disappointed since I love my old school Powermac G5. And you people who whine about the whiners don’t understand the frustration of waiting that Apple is making its consumers go through. It really *is* a waiting game, and everyone is just going to have to stop visiting Apple news and rumor sites and get back to living life offline. That’s a lot to ask for, Apple! But I hope Leopard will be worth the wait!
toonie,
Is that you Troy? I’m sorry, but you are no more than a piece of dust, a minute one at that, on Apple’s mirror!
I think there’s a chance that Leopard was supposed to release in Spring as defined April – May but fell behind. Once it slips to June it bumps into iPhone and Apple can’t mess up ATTs plans so it has to push Leopard later. Marketing, PR etc can only work so many product lines at once and 2 major releases would have been taxing. Once it became clear that April wasn’t going to happen Apple could focus on iPhone knowing Leopard was off until at least August-September.
Probably not but I’ve read stupider notions in the last 2 days.
Badly written but I’m too tired to re-read and edit.
I don’t buy the line that leopard is being delayed because of the iPhone, I don’t care what Apple says. Mr. Steve’s companies CAN chew gum and walk. Me guess is that Vista is just that lame, and there is no need to have the iPhone and leopard competing against each other for sales during the same month.
Digital Mercenary
“Leopard is shipping on time. It is the original announced date that was wrong.”
Well put! Thx.
I love apple, But i do think they should go back to keeping everything a secert until the day of the release. I have been waiting for leopard since they first showed it at mac world. So this kinda kills it for me.
Agree with article.
Apple is acting like some tiny boutique software company.
Management could not figure out how to allocate resources properly to do all jobs at once?
(And lets not discuss the lack of other new products….)
Kind of like George Bush and Iraq – not bringing in enough troops early enough.
Apple is obviously betting the farm on the iPhone.
Hope it is not an iFlop.
Computers now come third at Apple after iPhone and iPOd.
@Mindless Fanboy
“Apple is a hardware company” doesn’t cut it anymore. They’re not large enough to supply a large market, and from the latest news, they don’t seem really interested in it either….
I guess 100 million iPods is child’s play?
P.S. And 1280×720 > 640×480. Try getting your HD from legal alternate sources (even if it they are not mainstream movies
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MDN is exhibiting very poor business sense with their comments… it has nothing to do with pushing the paradigm shift and more on how to effectively execute a business plan.
Tired of Retards:
Best. Take. Evah!
LOL!