“Coming off the best quarter in the company’s history that didn’t involve a holiday miracle, don’t expect Apple to make major strategic changes,” Tom Krazit reports for CNET.
“The worst recession in decades has had a limited effect on the consumer electronics powerhouse that is the modern-day Apple. The company’s second-quarter earnings results shattered Wall Street expectations…,” Krazit reports. “As the economic situation has worsened, some analysts and observers have opined that Apple needs to embrace low-cost Macs and additional wireless carriers to keep its economic engine running. Apple COO Tim Cook would disagree.”
Krazit reports, “Cook made it very clear Wednesday that Apple believes in its strategy of protecting the Mac as a high-end, high-margin brand and slowly evolving the iPhone’s distribution opportunities. ‘Do I care about US (market) share? Of course I do, but I think cycles come and cycles go, and what we’re about is about making the best computers in the world, not making the most, and not getting to a point where we’re not building products we’re not proud of. If we do that over the long term, we’ll gain share.'”
Krazit reports, “Cook can’t say outright that Apple doesn’t care about Mac market share; one, because it isn’t entirely true, and two, because his marketing team will yell at him. But to a certain extent, Apple is indifferent to Mac market share: the PC wars are over, and Microsoft won a long time ago, as Steve Jobs himself said back in 1996. Apple has long chosen to position the Mac as ‘the best personal computer,’ not the mass-market personal computer.”
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs said that when he wasn’t with Apple. As he said many things that were intended to bring about exactly what happened. So, if Microsoft won the war, why are Apple Macs still here? Why has Mac market share more than doubled in recent years? Because the “PC wars” are not over, despite what some say, wish, dream, hope or type. Microsoft did not “win” any war. They’ve won some battles, for sure. But, for years now, all Microsoft seems to be doing is losing; and badly, too. Even as people buy iMacs and MacBooks and Mac minis, and Mac Pros and MacBook Pros in numbers easily exceeding 2 million every 90 days, the next battle is being waged to put “PCs” in your pocket. Apple has 37 million OS X “PCs” in pockets today. Microsoft has 37 half-ton Big Ass Tables scattered about in U.S. hotels and casinos. Today, Microsoft OSes power cheap computers for uncool people who’ve never really tried a Mac. For Microsoft, ignorance is indeed bliss. Some accomplishment. The “PC wars” aren’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.
Krazit continues, “Cook pointed out that a lot of the market share gains in the U.S. made at Apple’s expense have come as the result of the popularity of cheap Netbooks, which he described as having “cramped keyboards, terrible software, and junky hardware.” Left unsaid was the worst thing about Netbooks–their profit margins compared with full-size notebooks–and while Cook refused to rule out entirely the prospect of Apple releasing a Netbook, he made it sound like Apple has different ideas in mind.”
“‘If we find a way where we can deliver an innovative product that really delivers a contribution, than we’ll do that. We have some interesting ideas in this space,’ he said. It’s not hard to imagine three or four different Netbook/tablet Mac prototypes lying around in top-secret Cupertino labs as Apple experiments with the right combination of usability, style, and profit before taking the plunge,” Krazit reports.
There’s much more in the full article, including possible signs that Apple and AT&T are thinking of an even less expensive iPhone, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “breeze” and “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
