“Through its success in recent years, Apple has set the bar high for consumer devices. Now, various companies have products in the works whose sole purpose is to take market share away from Apple, by matching what it does well and exploiting its weaknesses,” Rob Enderle writes for TechNewsWorld.
MacDailyNews Take: Just. Plain. Stupid. Of course companies are looking at Apple’s successes and trying to emulate them, but if the “sole purpose” of these companies’ products are to “take market share away from Apple,” then they’re in trouble.
Enderle continues, “Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been meeting with vendors all over the country that range from those that build PCs to those that build tools and parts, to those that build back-end solutions. One common message has come through. They all are targeting Apple as the company whose performance they most want to beat. This has more implications for those who don’t currently buy Apple products than — at least near term — it has to do with Apple fans. Regardless, the projects are focused on learning what Apple does well, and what it sucks at, and then creating products that are significantly better.”
MacDailyNews Take: The man can barely write.
Enderle continues, “For well over a decade, I’ve used Apple both as an example of how to do things right and how to do them wrong. For most of this time, it has been more effective as a negative example because the companies I advise viewed Apple as a firm always on the cusp of going out of business. Over the last year this has changed dramatically, and suddenly Apple is the company that is more of an example of how to do things right than wrong and the result will be some amazing advancements in user experience.”
MacDailyNews Take: For well over a decade, Apple simply has not been “always on the cusp of going out of business.” They just haven’t. Any company thinking this way has to be run by idiots, but that is self-evident, of course, as they already employ Rob Enderle as an advisor. However, as rare as it may be, Enderle can still manage to happily surprise; he actually seems to understand that all of these companies trying to copy Apple will lead to “some amazing advancements in user experience” for everyone. In honor of this miracle, our headline is a pure gift to Rob. But, the question remains: Why buy a poor copy (or even a halfway decent copy) when you have have the original?
Enderle continues, “The change is pronounced, and it ranges from devices like Intel’s new MID (mobile Internet device) platform to as-yet unreleased MP3/video players (some of which are better than the nano but priced like the Shuffle)…
MacDailyNews Take: Define “better.” By not doing so, your sentence is devoid of meaning.
Enderle continues, “…laptops, desktops and monitors. Apple is suddenly influencing a broad range of products that aren’t even in its space including appliances, TVs, cable set-top boxes and automotive interiors. My friends, we are about to be pounded to death, with a smile on our faces, with Apple-influenced offerings.”
“On the PC side, and I can’t yet name the vendors, there is a massive push to eliminate the stickers, crapware and contract language on top, on the screen and on the bottom of premium products,” Enderle writes. “In the fourth quarter, one of the ways you’ll be able to determine if the PC OEM (original equipment manufacturer) is focused on improving your user experience will be just how hard it is to find anything stuck to the outside of your new laptop or desktop PC. We are talking about the emergence of entire lines of pristine products that don’t look like NASCAR advertising spin-offs.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, Rob, we know you enjoy reading MacDailyNews, but do you have to lift our lines, too? It’s ironic that in his article about derivative companies copying Apple, derivate Enderle copies us. We know you Mary read our article to you, Rob.
Enderle continues, “I’ve seen some of the coming products that potentially will out-Apple Apple… Thin, simple and sexy is the growing design trend with a huge push toward colors, which these OEMs believe will meet Apple where it is strongest (thin, simple, sexy) and beat Apple where it is weakest (choice/battery life/ports). However, this isn’t just about hardware and appearance — they are thinking about back-end services, user experience and working around Microsoft.”
MacDailyNews Take: Rob, where are they going to get their OS? They can’t develop it or — even if they somehow miraculously do develop their own OS — get it to catch on enough to matter. And don’t give us the failed dream of Linux on the desktop (despite years of hype, that simply is not happening – just look at the numbers). HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony, etc. can’t just go grab another mainstream OS off the shelf somewhere and slap it into their hardware. The box assemblers have made their beds, not they have to lie in them. They hitched their wagon to the rise of Microsoft WIndows during a time of tech ignorance and now, as people see the problems of implementing upside-down and backwards fake Macs the world over, they hunger for the real thing. And the real thing now even runs the fake thing faster than the box assembler’s products! Why would anyone buy a non-Mac, when a only a Mac can run all the world’s software? As more and more people ask themselves that question, Apple market share will continue to increase. And, as we Mac users who’ve tried to use WIndows know, once they really use a Mac, they will abandon Windows as soon as it’s possible for them to do so.
Enderle continues, “Many of the vendors get that the back end of the PC is one of the places that Apple currently has an advantage, but as good as iTunes is, anyone who has used it knows that it can be particularly irritating to a Windows user because of its Apple roots.”
MacDailyNews Take: Wha? Just another stupid, meaningless sentence to flow froth from Rob’s junky Acer. Mac OS X is Apples’ advantage that PC box assemblers cannot match. Not iTunes; which already runs on Windows PCs. Anyone trying to replace iTunes at this late date are tilting at windmills. And, which of the 100+ million Windows iTunes users are “particularly irritated” with the app “because of its Apple roots,” besides you, Rob?
Enderle continues, “This has been analyzed, quietly tested, and groups of largely ex-Apple people have come up with what I think will be something vastly better than iTunes. However, the details and the source for this offering are still months off and Microsoft will likely be as surprised as Apple will by the result.”
MacDailyNews Take: Puleeze.
Enderle continues, “Phoenix Technologies has been working quietly and acquiring a number of companies to build a solution that is being offered and adopted by OEMs specifically designed exceed with Windows many of Apple’s historic advantages. Ranging from virus resistance to synchronization between products to invisible migrations, each of the technologies Phoenix has quietly acquired appears to be secretly designed into the perfect Apple-beating tool set. Watch the future acquisitions this company makes closely because Apple appears to be its target, and its goal isn’t to just beat Apple but to provide an offering that will make obsolete Apple’s current advantages.”
MacDailyNews Take: We await with bated breath.
Enderle continues, “In what is the biggest cross-vendor effort of its type since the early ’90s, the OEMs are building and funding projects to ‘fix Windows.’ I can’t go into detail about who is doing what, but some are essentially efforts to find a way to recreate the Mac OS.”
MacDailyNews Take: We’re now so far into La-La Land that there may be no return. Microsoft has been trying and failing to “find a way to recreate the Mac OS” for decades now, but now some random low or no-margin hardware OEM is going to achieve the impossible in a fraction of the time? Deck to Rob: “We’re nowhere near full.”
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “OctoberMac)” for the heads up.]
Of course they all want to beat Apple’s performance.
But as they say here: fat chance.
Ha ha…
Enderle now lifting from MDN, while Shaw Wu has been lifitng entire paragraphs from AppleInsider user’s comments..
And to think, they get paid for this.
Rob Enderle is a hit troll. He advises failing PC companies that don’t see what a bad advisor he is. And now they are forcing him to accept the Apple practices that he has been complaining about for years. Practices of a company that he blindly thinks has been going out of business for years.
These companies are not trying to “exploit Apple weaknesses”. They are trying to stay alive while competing with Apple. Good luck!
I just love that us real Mac users know what everyone else is missing and what we have. I hope Apples percentage doesnt go too high, i dont want EVERYONE with a Mac.
Apple’s weakness is the minority… good luck targetting the minority
Rob Enderle is a tool. I could be more specific, but I why bother wasting the words. Besides, Rob Enderle being a tool is a given.
Enderle is a lunatic. Why do we even waste space on his articles? He can’t write, he’s obviously on Redmond’s payroll and is completely out of touch with the market, not to mention reality.
Apple’s supremacy will continue until hell freezes over. Period.
Enderle blathers, “…and suddenly Apple is the company that is more of an example of how to do things right than wrong…”
‘suddenly’ meaning: ‘for those pundits & analysts who’ve either had their heads buried in their asses for the last 10 years, or knew exactly what was happening and tried to fight it with FUD. The general public is beginning to realize how excellent Apple products are, and how crappy Windoze / Vista is, so we’re not able to get away with what we’ve been doing in the past.’
What a tool.
I sincerely hope nobody actually relies on this guy for information! I can’t imagine he does this for a living. The poor guy is consistently (and I mean over the period of years) clueless.
“Over the last year….”
WTF??? Where has he been since 2002?
Innovation not imitation will increase consumer choices and improve product design.
Whilst clearly the article is pure crap as a whole, for MDN to say that as yet unannounced and unseen products influenced by apple products will have a poor user experience is pure speculation. Belittling as yet unseen efforts is in itself devoid of any meaning and quite a desperate way to respond, MDN defends Apple territory to the point of pure hysteria.
Right on the money, Rob. Great work as always. My favorite line is this:
“…as good as iTunes is, anyone who has used it knows that it can be particularly irritating to a Windows user because of its Apple roots.”
Irritating? More like atrocious. The I-Tunes abomination is why I and millions of others are embracing Zune and Zune Marketplace. I downloaded I-Tunes once on my Dell. I felt ashamed and dirty. Never again. Microsoft makes the whole widget and I don’t have to put up with that namby-pamby Apple fluff nobody wants on a real world PC running Windows.
And you MAC sheep better not pester me with your ‘everything just works’ nonsense or how you smug lemmings think Apple is so cool right now. The reality is Apple’s ruthless I-Tunes monopoly is about to fall. Hard. For something much better because for Microsoft and their partners it has always been about quality and user experience. You MAC dorks might want to look into it.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Just a thought : Could “we” make a site that posted Enderle and his likes ( Turrot, that fat old guy wich name I don´t remember, ++) drivelled articles ? The purpose would be to get people NOT to vist their sites but rather this site/blog “we” could create. How can “we” make that a legal opportunity ?”
@MikeK,
“while Shaw Wu has been lifitng entire paragraphs from AppleInsider user’s comments.. “
Not that I don’t believe you, but I would be interested in knowing more about this.
Someone PLEASE tell me – Why do people leave those stupid stickers on. I saw a friends craptop (a sony Vaio) and it had an ATI radeon mobility sticker next to an intel inside sticker, next to a made for Windoze sticker. to make things worse, he put a name and address sticker below these. WTF?
This is like driving your car around for years with the faded and yellowing window sticker listing the feature/options/MSRP. They are supposed to be taken off after purchase.
Are people that stupid?!? Then again, they did choose Windoze.
Wow…he just writes bologna.
Soon, wicked awesome things are gonna happen. Cuz like, there are these companies who are like, we gotta be way better than Apple and their iPhone. So like, everyone of these companies are gonna start being awesome and start to chip away at Apple.
I am so glad this guy talks to all these companies. No wonder they can’t succeed!
Hey guys, its Enderle after all. And I find it funny and sad at the same time that he is still trying to push how great PCs and Windows is.
They just need a little patching here and there and they will be greater than Apple!! — That comment must have stuck in his craw.
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Just trust Enderle, soon windows will be greater than Apple, trust us, please, oh and pay us as well. LOL
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PC manufacturers have only themselves to blame. Quality of Windows aside, they let Microsoft do all the work for them and now when they need something better to compete with Apple the only options they have are to either: “Fix” windows, build something from scratch, build up Linux, or somehow convince Apple to license their golden goose. None of which are gonna happen – at least not anytime soon. Apple made the commitment to hold their destiny – good or bad – in their own hands. If they succeed they make all the profit and take all the glory, if they fail they at least do so trying.
@WindozeKiller,
Those stickers are Winblows users little badges of pain – a daily masochistic reminder.
“suddenly”?
How long of a success rate does Apple need before columnists will stop using words like “suddenly” to describe Apple.
I think that is the biggest insult really.
For a guy who does not even understand Apple to advise Apple’s “competitors” on how to attack Apple, is flat out ridiculous.
Marketing goons who pay this guy – and others like him – are so out of touch as to what a good product is, it is no wonder they higher Rob and ilk to “advise” then as to what to do.
Companies trying to go after Apple and copy their products… Gee this sounds familiar. Oh yes, MP3 players. This is exactly what was tried, and it only catapulted Apple to 70%+ MP3 market share, while everyone else was set in the white noise of a wanna-be product.
Keep going Rob and crew. Rob can take your money, while you spit out late-to-market, un-innovative copy products of Apple’s.
Wow! You’d think Enderle is like a secret tech agent or something privy to a lot of information he could tell us but he’d have to kill us. Incredible that this one-man tech advisor knows so much! Every tech company willing to share their most treasured r&d;secrets with him.
if the “sole purpose” of these companies’ products are to “take market share away from Apple,” then they’re in trouble
Many of the auto industry players exist solely to take market share away from each-other. And yes some are in trouble there as well.
Well-run companies are all about profitably providing the best possible products and services. Market share will set itself.
MDN reacts to any press about Apple as bad press, but this is the best press Apple could ever get.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This strong vindication should make Apple feel very, very good. If fifteen years ago, I had been the nerdy kid that no one liked, and now everyone was trying to be like me, I’d be ecstatic beyond bounds.
What’s really interesting is that Apple’s influence has extended into other, completely unrelated industries! No one will ever top Apple’s excellence, of course, but even if they just make it up halfway, what an improvement that will be for us–everything from cars to can openers are about to get easier to use. Not as easy as if Apple made them, but easier than they are now, and I’m looking forward to it. Just the prospect of a TV remote control I can actually figure out is enough to get me excited.
Steve Jobs has now experienced the business equivalent of being canonized a saint. Congratulations!