“I was saddened by the timeline announced for shutting down CompUSA, but wasn’t in the least surprised,” John Dvorak writes for MarketWatch.
“As I have said in columns here and elsewhere, the idea of a computer megastore working is sketchy. Investors in Apple Inc. should pay attention,” Dvorak writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Thanks, but we’ll pass on advice from the world’s preeminent bloated gas bag who once stated, “The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a mouse. There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”
Regardless of the complete uselessness of his advice and his total lack of integrity, Mr. “I Bait Mac Users For Hits” plods on with, “I have been to CompUSA dozens of times and rarely found what I needed. The store cannot carry enough weird cables or esoteric tanks of printer ink; no one can.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple obviously can, you oaf.
Dvorak continues, “Competing with the Internet. Most savvy computer users shop for much of their hardware online. The Net works like a mall in a way that makes it hard to compete. Say you have some random item you need to find. A search engine will locate the one merchant that has it.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, John, and for Apple, 9 times out of 10, that would be Apple Store Online. How will Apple ever manage to compete?
Dvorak’s not done yet, “My concern is that the Apple stores are getting too big… It began these high-end stores with the spectacular glass-cube place in New York — an architectural delight on very expensive 5th Avenue real estate — and now has fancy new digs in the meatpacking district, incorporating a stunning, three-story glass staircase. While things are all working out for Apple during the iPod era, if there is any sort of slump the company will have to deal with what could be a herd of white elephants. It’s something investors need to monitor.”
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
Surely Apple investors are hanging upon John Dvorak’s every utterance. After all, this is the man who said in 1998, “Folks, the Mac platform is through – totally,” which, of course, means that AAPL has only multiplied about 25 times since John delivered his sage advice. Yes, Apple investors, especially those who listened to him in 1998, simply must love John Dvorak. More recently, the Round Mound of Unsound advised Apple to “Pull the plug on iPhone.” More great advice, John.
Newsflash: Apple knows what they’re doing and John C. Dvorak, as usual, knows nothing about Apple.
A few flagship stores in large cities is hardly “getting too big” and Apple’s retail store network is nothing at all like CompUSA’s was. Was. Apple’s stores generate over four times the sales per square foot of Best Buy, over seven times those of Neiman Marcus, and 66% more than Tiffany’s! CompUSA stores are currently generating liquidation sales; probably their best sales in years.
So, his rent was due.
Ahhhh what MDN said.
Dougless
Oaf! Good one. I tend to call him what he has so richly earned …. an asshat.
The contrarian indicator speaks……
How about the fact that Apple retail has given a few extra million in profits every year? Investors beware of what? This guy is trippin’.
Love the MDN takes. Dvorak is a tool. He cannot ever seem to form a logical conclusion.
Has that clown ever been in charge of so much as a lemonade stand?
Something tells me that a company that holds the record for sales per square foot in the entire retail industry doesn’t need Dvorak’s advice.
-jcr
Surely Apple investors are hanging upon John Dvorak’s every FLATULENCE
yea his rent was due, so he talks this way so he can get enough visitors to the site for advertising pay for clicks. thanks for the pr, he really is a charm of good luck charm for ying and yang balance.
Ummm who takes this guy seriously? Please see what he said back about the mouse on the Mac.
“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse.’ There is no evidence that people want to use these things.” – John C. Dvorak, Feb 1984
to be honest – and as a firm mac user – i have to agree with at least the headline…
the computer market is different to any other – why are WinPC bricks and mortar stores not doing well?… because the market has become saturated. And online sales took over.
If Apple reaches a massive market share they will have saturated their own market… and their online store will be used by more people.
at them moment they are in a transitional phase – people are ‘coming’ to the world of mac – and thats why they need all the bricks and mortar stores – they are essentially a place to demo the machines…
but what happens 7 or 8 years from now?…
A Self-help guru once said, “Behind every problem lurks an opportunity.”
Now we all know John C. casts a large shadow, and behind that spherical umbra must be something besides methane. I say humor, for this guy has carved out a lucrative niche with hyperbole, wincing illogic, and hypergolic prediction.
I see great opportunity, indeed! Time to crank out a barbed site.
dvorak looking for a maximum number of page views. i suggest not posting anything about this idiot anymore and he’ll disappear.
I guess he missed the news that Apple is America’s most profitable retailer?
Here’s some advice: DON”T click… don’t give him the hits.
“My concern is that the Apple stores are getting too big…”
I seriously doubt that D’Forjack is concerned in the slightest about anything accept online profile.
He’s like Fake Steve making geographic mistakes, right? Got to be a joke! He’s talking about the most productive space in the entire history of retail.
Apple’s ability to do retail is probably the most unexpected jawdropping “think different” success in the company’s turnaround. People will be studying Apple stores for years if not decades to learn wtf they did RIGHT?
The only fly in the ointment is that Apple’s resurgence is overwhelming the stores. That’s the kind of problem investors dream of.
As Carl Howe points out, there are very few stores outside the US. One of Apple’s many huge growth opportunities that simply require decent business execution, expanding and tuning what clearly works.
He doesn’t understand retail and margin. Apple gets better margins on their own products.
Computers (Apple and PC) have terrible margins for retailers.
Software isn’t much better.
“Apple’s retail store network is nothing at all like CompUSA’s was.”
Yes, indeed, for Apple’s stores are making money hand over fist. Imagine a concept like that!
…world’s preeminent bloated gas bag who….
Toonie’s Take: Don’t be calling the kettle black.
…his total lack of integrity, Mr. “I Bait Mac Users For Hits” plods on with…
Toonie’s Take: Don’t be calling the kettle black. MDN baits regularly and has very little claim on integrity.
“While things are all working out for Apple during the iPod era, if there is any sort of slump the company will have to deal with what could be a herd of white elephants.”
Toonie’s Take: Good point.
I find Dvorak entertaining and sometimes enlightening….a lot like MDN.
Come on… does anyone else get Dvorak’s MO? Because to me it always reads like something from The Fountainhead – Praising with Faint Damnation. The silly little fruit company creates a store that he calls “Stunning”, then makes up some intensely stupid reason that it’s a bad thing.
Dvorak is having us all on, which is why he laughs when the hate mail starts rolling in.
Actually, I’m convinced that John Dvorak is really a Kuato.
The only person dumber or with less integrity than Dvorak is Rob Enderle…
I think that says it all…
CR
I told you. In the near future, the death knell will toll for Apple. It is only a matter of time before they become a thing of the past. No one is buying their crap anymore. The Shepherd and his flock need to wake up and see the light.
Their just isn’t enough people to support a obvious monopoly like Apple. How many cases for my iPod do I need. Well none, since I use a Zune.
@ ChrissyOne
Or maybe Dvorak’s a devotee of John Galt. Oh. Wait a minute. Dvorak would definitely end up on the wrong side of that equation! He has neither intelligence, nor ability. And no sense of comedic timing. But he’s got bathos nailed 8^P
“While things are all working out for Apple during the iPod era, if there is any sort of slump the company will have to deal with what could be a herd of white elephants.”
Clearly the solution is not to open any stores for fear that business might slow down one day. In fact, why bother making any products? What if there’s a slump? What then?
Does he know that Apple Stores are NOT computer megastores? They are nothing like a big-box retailer
The Apple stores are much more to Apple then Retail outlets (though they are that and very profitable at that) the Apple Stores about visibility of the Apple Brand. The stores reflex that brand and enforce that brand among the consumers. The Apple Stores are about adverting and making the Apple Brand a more of a household brand. They are not about selling the odd cable that a PC Geek might need to build his own computer system. On the sales side the stores sell and promote Products designed and or works for Apple Products and Apple Products.
The Internet is great for selling everything but to sell Apple Products you need to get them in the hands of the Windows Users and answer their questions fully. Best Buy, Fry’s and CompUSA who sell Macs also try to steer who be Mac buyers to the Windows PCs because that is what they know and they can’t answer questions about the Mac or the MacOS.
@ Hm…
Whatever the case… I’m not defending the man’s career by any stretch. But I think most people don’t really get the subtext of his reviews.
One thing is for sure, he’s NO John Galt.
@ max and paddy,
Didn’t know that you mac lot had a firm.
Maybe your firm can meet me and my firm. It’d be fun to see who had the most game blokes, the mac heads or the football lads…
“My concern is that the Apple stores are getting too big…
Ever been to a Super Wal-Mart, Johnny? Their foyer alone is bigger than many Apple Stores.
It began these high-end stores with the spectacular glass-cube place in New York — an architectural delight on very expensive 5th Avenue real estate — and now has fancy new digs in the meatpacking district, incorporating a stunning, three-story glass staircase.
It’s called CLASS, moron! Perhaps cookie-cutter blandness with every inch calculated for sales (again, Wal-Mart) would be better?
Anyone can build cheap, few can build good. Kinda amazing when even Apple’s storefronts reflect this.
Gotta love the Rand…
“the Round Mound of Unsound”
MDN,
I’m telling Charles and he’s gonna come kick your @$$!
My sphincter made me do it.
Obviously Mr. Dvorak knows little, or nothing, about the Apple Stores. First of all, everything in the store works. Need help on using an application ? Not a problem, the in-store staff can show you. Want to see how the computer connects online ? No problem. All of the Macs are on line. Need one-to-one training, still no problem. As long as Apple concentrates on the customer and doesn’t lose that focus, they will be around for a long time.
Dvorak’s right about shopping online. Apple Stores are full retail because they can get away with it. I’ve never bought anything at an Apple Store.
Independent Apple retailers are doing okay because they offer customer service and repair. You can’t even get anyone on the phone at an Apple Store. You have to leave a message and wait for a call back.
CompUSA is the pits though. They should have gone big in consumer electronics (TVs, Stereos, DVDs, CDs etc) like Circuit City did.
As far as what Dvorak said about a mouse way back when, he was right. At the time, there was no evidence, now there is.
Dvorak is to the tech world as people like George Will, Richard Cohen, Jonah Goldberg, David Ignatius, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, and Thomas Friedman (creator of the Friedman Unit) are to foreign policy, especially the Iraq War. Their pronouncements and predictions have been dead, flat wrong for the past five years, yet they still get to continue their punditry…in the pages of our most influential newspapers.
We must continue to call these people out–the Dvoraks, Enderles, and Thurrotts of the tech world. Surely, they will someday pay the price for their ineptitude and idiocy.
@ ChrissyOne
I was just enjoying your Rand pointer – I agree with you. He’s happy when anyone falls for his galling troll-bait. To think he used to write a column for a Mac mag!
Even if and when the day comes that Apple has to close all of their retail stores, they will have made so much money off of them that it won’t really matter. The properties values will be astronomical by then (if they aren’t already) and will bring a tidy profit. No problem.
I was wondering why this jerk has been quiet for SOOoooo long.
Where has he been?
@ Jerry T
problem with you football lot is your no good in a real 1 – 1 scrap… just group messy brawling… so uncouth.
one of ours – 1-1 against all of yours… game over.
Hey, what happened to the stars?
“I was wondering why this jerk has been quiet for SOOoooo long. Where has he been?”
Steve Ballmer forgot the safety word. There was a great deal of pain. A blackout. A few EMTs. A dozen roses. Then, he wrote this.
Ballmer calls it “Wednesday Without the Wife”.
This guy is a fat oaf that refuses to shut the hell up. I have no respect for this assclown. Why he allowed to write in any publication is beyond comprehension.
How can one compare compare CompUSA with Apple Retail? CompUSA failed because they tried to compete with the likes of Best Buy, their stores were filthy and dark, and they were terrible at customer service. In contrast, Apple stores are fun to shop at, brightly lit, clean, well staffed with knowledgeable employees and they have a specific set of products rather than selling “everything”.
Dvorak is a moron of epic proportions who just does this to screw with our minds. I’m just as guilty as the next guy for letting him get under my skin, but he can accomplish this by just standing there with that stupid smirk on his face.
anti-creative cretin: Nice. But you have got to stop bogarting the stash.
What a pc-biased fanboy shill.
Comparing Apple stores to a chain of computer megastores makes about as much sense as comparing a sports car to an 8-passenger road hog. What a moron!
Come to think of, perhaps he’s trolling for click generation. He needs some extra Christmas money to replace all the return Zunes he is giving to his relatives with iPods after Christmas day. LOL
Oh SH*TE!!!!!! Sell your shares everyone! Apple is going down because they are spending all their money on new fancy stores which generate huge marketing in their locations! What was Apple thinking, creating a buzz about their products? Are they stupid? Their billions of dollars are just gonna fade away because of the big store – Whilst sales continue to grow!
Make sense? I think not. This guy is a twot (don’t ask me what a twot is, i just thought it sounded cool). Some people make me laugh. This guy didn’t, he just made me feel sorry for him for being so ridiculously stupid.
Yet another sensationalist windbag has vomited up a rag article. Everyone, rejoice!
Comparing CompUSA to the retail Apple Store is about as incompetent as anyone can get. Problem is, all those CompUSA hirelings have to go somewhere, and let’s hope no-one in charge of hiring at Apple considers them for one breath. It’s bad enough a failed business model is unleashing its hordes on an otherwise unsuspecting IT zone, like major universities, including one, to remain crimsonally nameless, in Cambridge, MA.
Two important facts here:
1. You don’t have to read D’Vorak’s tripe. I know I’m not required to and my day is actually a bit brighter when I don’t.
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2. He will continue to sabotage his own credibility as a “Tech Writer” the more he writes things that are:
a. Completely False
b. Are meant to discredit other companies or individuals.
c. So completely insane.
There you have it.
It used to be said, and I’m certain that Dvorak would have joined in if not been the source, that Apple’s downfall was certainly coming because no retail stores carried their wares. I’m sure if somebody was willing to sift thru his detritus they could find a great quote. I never knew that the 5th Ave store began it all.
I’ve been to near empty CompUSA and not found anything I wanted to buy as well. I’ve also visited the the 5th Ave store and found it mobbed by people like me that where stopped not by lack of things I wanted but by available funds. Gosh Apple’s stock holders had really better be worried. Oh, I’m one and I’m not at all worried about their retail strategy leading to their demise.
That’s funny, I thought the SoHo Apple store was the first NYC flagship, not the 5th Ave store…
The most remarkable revelation here is that Dvorak was once in a computer store.
@NewtonsApple,
You are correct, SoHo was there first. But now the new 14th st store is the biggest one of all, anywhere.
@Unemployed drifter,
You are also correct about Dvorak being in a computer store, period.
And finally @anti-creative cretin,
I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.
well he made a good point, if the iPod stops selling, what are those stores worth?
i mean the iPod is the high margin unit, the laptops, sales of which are skyrocketing, hardly make a profit when compared…. to…..
wait….
i take it back, he IS an asshat.
@ max and paddy,
Fair play on the group brawl bit, we do like that. But to think we ain’t up for a 1-1 row is a bit dangerous thinking on your part mate.
Uncouth? Maybe, but we ain’t snooty little twats at least.
BTW, I misread your tag as max “the” paddy. I thought you might be a celtic lad.
> Round Mound of Unsound
That’s a good one, MDN.
> I have been to CompUSA dozens of times and rarely found what I needed. The store cannot carry enough weird cables or esoteric tanks of printer ink; no one can.
That’s exactly why Apple focuses on Apple products at Apple retail stores, exactly so it doesn’t have to carry all the “weird or esoteric” stuff. When an Apple customer goes there, he or she knows that the Apple-related item being sought will probably be there on the shelf. And in addition to the Apple retails stores being a point-of-sale, they are now becoming a point-of-service, as in ongoing tech-support and training services.
There is a huge gulf between CompUSA and Apple stores. For one thing, CompUSA stores have five cash registers, but usually there are only one or two cashiers with a long line waiting to pay and leave. Apple stores have NO cash registers, but you can usually pay and leave in about two minutes, even when it’s crowded. I am not surprised CompUSA is closing up shop.
anti-creative cretin: touché with a nice touch of tush
Well done, amigo.
I really hope Dvorak doesn’t believe what he writes. If he does, he is one sad, sad, person.
Gotta love MDN’s hard-hitting, insightful, well presented comments. You guys are in a (high-school) class all your own.
MDN commented, “the world’s preeminent bloated gas bag”.
MDN commented, “you oaf”.
MDN commented, “Round Mound of Unsound”.
What’s next MDN, “Dvorak has cooties”?
I’ll bet anything he isn’t throwing rocks at the girls anymore.
The Finest Most Sought-After Tool<i> (the www), Is Useless in the Hands of a Fool (MDN).
I think everyone’s take on Dvorak is wrong.
I think at home he IS a Mac user, but professionally says otherwise because that is where his bread and butter is at and it provides free marketing for Apple when people come behind him and deconstruct his arguments.
@ Murasaki,
The Careless Caveat applies:
Never attribute to malice (or intelligence) that which can be explained by mere incompetence.
Think before you link. Every link or reference to a dvorak article just boosts that article’s standing with search engines.
Comparing a CompUSA store to an Apple store is like comparing a Yugo dealership with a Ferrari dealership. What an ass.
“Every link or reference to a dvorak article just boosts that article’s standing with search engines.”
And God kills a kitten too.
Why? Because we detest him, that’s why. Nothing odd about that.
You over the hill moron. Your time ended years ago. Anyone can make trouble to keep their own name in the media. Being destructive is easy (and evil).
It’s those PROFESSIONALS that do constructive things, which, by the way, takes hard, honest work, that have long term success in the marketplace.
I liken you to the crazy people who go out and shoot innocent people in public just to get the publicity.
You just don’t get it.
By the way, Apple has so much cash that they could buy out their leases for less than 5% of their petty cash. IT’S THEIR TIME BECAUSE THEY PAID ATTENTION TO THEIR MARKETS (i.e. customers).
Guess who, besides Microsoft, hasn’t paid attention to their customers? It’s a long term writer from PC Magazine that I used to read every month when he lived in reality.
John C. Dvorak: Proudly announcing the demise of Apple since 1983.
The funny thing about Dvorak is he’s been consistently wrong for over twenty years, and people still pay him for his inane drivel.
“My concern is that the Apple stores are getting too big… It began these high-end stores with the spectacular glass-cube place in New York — an architectural delight on very expensive 5th Avenue real estate — and now has fancy new digs in the meatpacking district, incorporating a stunning, three-story glass staircase.”
Screw Dvorak.
Apple, give Manhattan a blockbuster store with the design, scale, and grandeur of the old (and still sorely missed) Penn Station.
If we’re gonna build, let’s build WAY big!
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“I was wondering why this jerk has been quiet for SOOoooo long.
Where has he been?”
Drowning his sorrows after the WVU loss in White Lightning & Wine, probably. He probably had a pretty hefty hangover, too.
BJ
Dvorak should be called DorkAct.
“”I was saddened by the timeline announced for shutting down CompUSA, but wasn’t in the least surprised,” John Dvorak writes for MarketWatch.
“As I have said in columns here and elsewhere, the idea of a computer megastore working is sketchy. Investors in Apple Inc. should pay attention,” Dvorak writes.”
Poor John!
He can’t write three sentences without showing how out of touch he is.
Apple doesn’t run ANY computer megastores.
Sad.
Oh, the responses on this forum. Please, if you’re a PC fanboy, try to understand that you wont understand Macs, ever. Because you use PCs, you have very little appreciation for intelligent software and thus, you base a computer’s worth on its ‘features’ and its hardware. For the rest of you and Dvorak: I work at an Apple Store. It’s like Disneyland in there from the moment we open till 30-40 minutes after we close. ESPECIALLY now during holiday season. People are buying left and right. For an overwhelming majority of people, they need to see the mac and experience the mac before they purchase. We show them the software, we discuss their wants and needs and try to find the best solution for them. Remember, there are people who still don’t understand computers out there. Even more who’ve never touched a mac before (not everybody is tech savvy). In fact, about every other person who walks through our doors has never touched, experienced, or even seen a mac before. The stores are key, they are trendy, they are informative, and they sell well.
One of the saddest things I ever see are PC users who come only to realize that what they’ve been buying for the past 12 years has been utterly and completely worthless, and they defend it at all costs. The latest one, “I don’t want a mac. I need to be able to upgrade my hardware because in about a year, I’m going to be behind the times and I need to have the latest hardware. Always. Gotta be able to do that.”
I say, “Ok, well, what do you run on your PC?”
“Word and some Excel. I don’t do pictures or movies. I surf the internet too. Do you have any computers that can handle that kind of workload?”
I’ll let the mac fanboys guess how I felt at that moment. Oy…
To be fair, there’s really only one flaw (albeit a major one) in Dvorak’s logic: square footage of computer store = business model (i.e. “megastore”). Nevermind what that square footage contains, or what market(s) it attempts to target. Big = Won’t Work in Dvorak land. Simplistic, but hey, so is most of his likely audience.
If John Dvorak is as astute as he claims to be, he would be writing about the gutting of the retail market. NPR even did the initial leg work and got the ball rolling.
Last summer NPR carried a story examining how Walmart’s “ultra-low profit margin strategy” was effecting other retailers. A traditional retail store uses a strategies that rely on profit high margin at the introduction of a new model to make up for smaller profits in the middle and end of a model cycle. Walmart does not adhere to that strategy, they are large enough to sacrifice profits at the start of a new model cycle if it allows them to dominate that market. For example, if they can take a loss and kill off a competitor by doing so, they will! Remind you of Microsoft?
How does this effect CompUSA and Apple? CompUSA relied on those “front-end” profits from high-end entertainment systems to stay profitable. Last year at Christmas, Walmart undercut them and others by sacrificing their initial profits on new 42″ high-definition televisions. (Remember how quickly the price dropped on those new models? Remember how your local volume electronic retail went out of business?)
Apple on the other hand has not competed on price alone for over a decade. Apple has not commoditized their products. Apple is very select in what they produce and what they sell in their retail stores. Apple is profitable.
Currently, no one can compete with Walmart on price! (It will be interesting to see if Walmart can survive their own success, given that it has been at the price of gutting our low cost manufacturing sector.)
Our little corner of the economy does not drive the larger and longer established sectors of the economy like retail. Retail drives us. Adapting to economic and market realities or the retail market has served Apple well. Not adapting sunk CompUSA. If John Dvorak can make a living distributing his distorted world view regarding the tech sector, it says more about his inconsequentialness that anything else.