“PC makers have begun a radical overhaul of their machines’ appearance. They’re racing to replace boring boxes with sexy silhouettes that will differentiate their products, entice new buyers and command higher prices,” Robert A. Guth, Justin Scheck, and Don Clark report for The Wall Street Journal.
“In the process, they’re hoping to compensate for factors over which they have little control, such as software options. Unlike Apple, famous for its easy-to-use operating system and other original programs, PC makers largely rely on Microsoft Corp. for the underlying software. And that company’s latest version of Windows, called Vista, has been panned by some reviewers, despite healthy sales,” Guth, Scheck, and Clark report.
MacDailyNews Take: We couldn’t have written that little paragraph much better ourselves except to point out that Vista’s “healthy sales” are due to its being preloaded on most new PCs. Buyers are stuck with it by default. They certainly aren’t buying boxed copies of Microsoft’s latest mess. The dime-a-dozen PC box assemblers made their beds, now they have to lie in them. Microsoft’s Windows is the albatross around their necks.
Guth, Scheck, and Clark continue, “PC makers need new ways to spur consumer demand in the U.S. and other mature markets. By wooing buyers who care little about technical features, they hope to better tailor PCs to specific users — including women, students, PC gamers and sports fans.”
“‘It’s a very dangerous route to go,’ says Sohrab Vossoughi, founder and president of Ziba Design, which has designed PC prototypes for Intel. ‘Things go up, and things go down.’ A possible pitfall, notes Mr. Vossoughi, is misinterpreting the lessons of Apple’s success, which is hardly based on design alone. Rather, Apple’s forte has been to create synergies among its hardware, software and retail stores in order to make its cool machines more au courant and simpler to use,” Guth, Scheck, and Clark report.
MacDailyNews Take: Today is “French Day.”
“During most of the industry’s 30-year history, PC makers didn’t worry much about style… the biggest change agent was Apple’s iMac, introduced in May 1998. The unusual one-piece design, in its first iteration, sported a colorful casing in translucent turquoise and gray. The computer sold so well that competitors scrambled to improve their own designs,” Guth, Scheck, and Clark report.
“Apple’s Steve Jobs, who in the prior year had returned to lead the company he co-founded, kept conjuring up design breakthroughs. The iMac, for example, slimmed down as cathode-ray monitors gave way to flat-panel displays. With better prices and profit margins than its competitors, Apple can simply pay suppliers for design changes such as shrinking a circuit board, says Patrick Gelsinger, an Intel senior vice president who has spearheaded its design crusade,” Guth, Scheck, and Clark report.
“The company in 2001 elevated the utilitarian laptop with a PowerBook model clad entirely in titanium, a metal more frequently found in fighter airplanes. That same year, it introduced the first iPod, which transformed digital music players with features such as its smooth shape and DJ-like wheel for navigating through songs. Along the way, it made white cords a staple of the new tech-chic,” Guth, Scheck, and Clark report.
“Will more-engaging designs pay off? The numbers from Apple are encouraging; for the quarter ended Sept. 29, the Cupertino, Calif., company says Macintosh sales rose 34%, more than double the world-wide PC growth rate of 15.5%,” Guth, Scheck, and Clark report.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Citymark” for the heads up.]
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: They can try (and fail) to match Apple designer Jonathan Ive’s award-winning team all they want, but, as Mac users know and the general population is finally picking up on, it’s the inside that really counts. PC box assemblers’ OS-limited machines cannot offer Mac OS X, iLife and all of the rest of Apple’s often-best-in-class applications. A chrome-plated turd is still a turd. Only Apple Macs are OS-unlimited and capable of running all of the world’s software.
Here’s a note from a colleague of mine:
Hi xxxxxx. I bought my first Mac last week – got an iMac. I was skeptical at first, but I am totally in love. By far the best computer I have ever owned. I was driven to it by an HP laptop with Vista that I puchased a few months ago. Supposedly a high end machine, the performance and reliability are terrible. I am now considering selling that machine to replace it with a MacBook.
Mac OS X is very impressive. The best of all worlds – the UI is terffic and I love being able to open a terminal, and the activity montior is very well done. I now use four operating systems on a regular basis (my main work machine is RHEL 4, I use XP and Vista, some Solaris, and now OS X). OS X is so much better than the others it is comical.
Cheers and happy new year,
Yyyyy
You decided to buy that sweet deal from Futureshop.
Some whatever PeeCee, that is pre-loaded with Vista or even XP. Now, something goes wrong so what do you do?
Futureshop and all other venders sell their PCs with a Restore Disc. Sounds nice, nice and easy. But GUESS WHAT – it’s not a re-installable OS. What a freakin’ joke. With Apple you get the OS and a Restore Disc AND some truly nice software that actually work together. Yeah, in a box that looks sweet too.
But no – seemed to rich to high and mighty at the time.
PEOPLE !!!!
They gave you a basic reset disc. That doesn’t fix the problem at hand but restores the a box assemblers PC with setting lose your valuable data. If you don’t want to lose your data then you need to return the machine to Futureshop for servicing. If you didn’t buy into the service plan or protection plan. Ummmm – they got ya reaching into the toilet with your hands!
Suddenly you see that your toilet is jammed, you get the plunger
and that sweet deal is finally realized for what it is… a “TURD”.
You bought a turd. That’s right! Smell it, T-u-r-d.
So – remember to ACTUALLY buy the OS when you see those sweet deals. By adding in the actual price of Vista your deal starts to sour. Because you realize that TURDs don’t taste good right. And to have to select through four options of OSes smells unlike roses anyways.
Face the facts. Shop wisely, look at spec for spec, check what is included and what you really get.
There is Apple and the rest are Turds.
Some, apparently, are even chrome-plated – now would you like that jammed down your toilet.
Liquid drano can’t even dissolve chrome.
So think before you stink.
I like how the photo slideshow on the article shows the 2002 15″ desk-lamp iMac and calls it the 2007 model.
Also, MDN, another reason for Vista’s “healthy sales” is that many of Microsoft’s corporate clients (like the company I work for) are on subscription. When they pay their annual windows+office subscription fee, Microsoft counts that as “sales” of the latest versions of Windows and Office. That doesn’t mean the company is actually running that software. I’m sure every one of the thousands of computers at the company I work for have been counted as “sales” of Vista and Office 2007, even though every one of them is running XP and Office 2003. Getting large corporate clients onto subscription plans five years ago was genius on Microsoft’s part…it ensured that they would have a steady stream of revenue even though they had no products to release for five full years.
The ONLY way to install a new operating system is to back up your data, erase your drive and install it clean. Anything less will cause problems. I don’t care if it’s windows, mac or linux, OS “upgrades” never, ever work. Clean install is the only way to go.
Think about it. When you click “upgrade”, you’re telling your machine to bring every little problem/bug/glitch that annoys you about your current OS with you into your new one. Why on earth would you want it to do that?
what if you like turds and they are your friends?
Here’s a funny quote from the full article:
“At the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, during a keynote speech by Chairman Bill Gates, Microsoft will hold a PC “fashion show” with judges — including Nigel Barker of “America’s Next Top Model” — to size up various machines and pick three winning designs.”
I certainly won’t tune in…
And some people say Apple goes to extremes in pr and marketeing. Only differende is Steve Jobs pulls it off..
“Elegantly designed cases will inevitably cost more than the tin boxes that are currently in favour for PCs. Therefore either prices will have to rise, or margins will be further squeezed.”
Actually, most PC vendors’ “attractive” machines cost a bit more than an iMac, from what I’ve seen.
This is actually an interesting point, though. As Mac users, we get elegant design by default. We can talk about how much we love the sleek design of the iMac, but it’s not like we chose the iMac over something else. There is nothing else.
If Apple pulled the monitor off the iMac and stuck it in a cheap-ass ugly PC case and lopped $400 off the price, would it sell better than the iMac?
One of the problems in the PC world is that element of competition. I might love the “attractive” designs of the Dell XP One, but when I can get the same guts for $500 cheaper (through Dell or elsewhere), I have to question whether or not it’s worth it. How much extra is the typical PC user willing to pay for “attractive” designs?
It is all about mimicing Apple has has 0 to do with the fact that modding scene has been doing this stuff for years right? I mean it can ONLY be Apple right?
As usual, MDN gets it all wrong.
When a PC switcher sees a Mac they first see something different and when they use it they find it different as well, therefore a justifiable purchase over bargain brand PCs. The fashion PC makers are stuck because the moment the customer turns it on … it’s the same old thing inside, showing itself to be only a mere skin, and few will pay a premium for little more than looks.
This is pretty old news, though I suppose a lot of people are just now realizing it.
Good business school note: it may take 5 years or more of continuous, solid strategy execution, even in “fast-moving” industries, before payoffs start to show in the form of market position improvement. (And how many companies actually have the stability and patience to stick with anything for that long?)
Actually, stylish case designs have been around for a while, but you have had to leave the mainstream PC builders….hobbyists have been building their own neat looking machines (though nothign that touches Ive’s designs) for some time. Only recently, as customizers like Alienware and Voodoo get bought up, are you seeing the manstream manufacturers build stylish rigs aimed at gamers and other target markets.
Its another example of the rest of the computing world playing catch-up…
I Love All Apple Products. I Only dislike Dell & Microsoft’s Operating System. I would of loved being able to build my Computer from scratch & being able to Run Mac OS X on it.
Like a recent post mentioned, It’s all about the OS.
2008 will be the year all PC makers, other than Apple, regret being so dependent on Microsoft. It’s fortunate for the world that Apple survived the years when other companies offering an alternative to Windows were squashed. Imagine, if the only OS options today were Windows and Linux.
shen and James, I was quite careful to give OSX its props for being easy to use and easy to configure. The fact that something CAN be done on a Linux system in no way means it can be done by “Joe Sixpack” or even that “Joe El33t” is going to find it easy.
Mr Reeee, Ralph M and any one else who commented on my upgrade to Leopard … I did the same things with the AliMac that I did with my Dual G5 and the result was spectacularly different.
As for making a full disk backup, wiping the HD, then doing a pristine install … nobody bothered to suggest how I can connect a Leopard system to my NAS – now THAT would have sent me screaming to the Genius Bar! “Help! My system won’t work AND won’t talk to my backup disk!” <u>Great</u> suggestion … NOT!
CandTsmac, if I’m the “Dave” referred to, I’d druther have tea – it soothes while making you more alert – unlike coffee or cola.
Gates presiding over a CES fashion show for PC’s signals a change for the industry and will become a mainstay for all future shows. Microsoft will capitalize on the hype by positing that fashionable machines demand greater hardware performance and only then can Vista truly save them.
Fashion is the meme that is going to restore profitability by creating an upper tier of computers with greater profit margins.
The PC industry will milk this for all it’s worth; bragging about how many doctors of design they have on board, a newly refocused energy throughout the company, your stylish fashion-industry-approved machines stamped with monikers and fanciful silk-screened images and politically correct color schemes that would make any owner proud to show off and then the only thing to detract from its breath-taking beauty will be the thousand-meter stare as you gaze at the horror that is Vista!
The PC industry will once again be waiting on Microsoft to craft something as elegant as their machines.
I think everyone here realizes that if Apple licensed OS X to the PC industry, Microsoft would be as welcome as a turd in a Jacuzzi and its fortunes would change overnight. We all know a move like that would make both Microsoft and Macintosh irrelevant, however as new productivity software comes to fruition, they should continue to offer it to the PC industry as they have with iTunes and Safari because I believe things like that work heavily in Apple’s favor.
At the CES “fashion show” just plonk down a 24″ iMac.
Maybe put a nice aquamarine blue ribbon around it as well … just to tart it up a bit.
“Without good software, its just a box with flashing lights”
Dog shit in a designer doggy bag is still dog shit.
Your comment “The dime-a-dozen PC box assemblers made their beds, now they have to lie in them” is a bit infantile given they have no choice. OSX is the only other viable OS and is not available as Windows is. Perhaps Apple would be nowhere near as innovative if the Wintel dominance had not pressured them to be the best…