Pegoraro reports, “In its quarterly earnings announcement Monday, the Cupertino, Calif., company blew away Wall Street’s expectations, shipping more Macs in a quarter than ever before — 3.05 million — for a $1.67 billion profit. The New York Times noted that ‘Macintosh sales have now grown faster than the rest of the PC market in 19 of the last 20 quarters,'”
“Analysts and critics can insist that Apple has to ship a netbook to stay competitive, and Mac shoppers can wish that the company would turn its considerable talent for design to that category of computer. But Apple doesn’t have to do that any more than Cadillac owes the world an $18,000 subcompact… As grotesque and incomprehensible as Apple’s existence may seem to people content with an affordable PC, the company seems to have taken up residence at a spot in the market that other vendors seem unable to barge into,” Pegoraro reports.
“Manufacturers of Windows-based PCs can craft higher-end models… But they can’t do much to differentiate the software on those deluxe models — whether it’s Windows Vista or the new Windows 7, shipping Thursday — from what they ship on the $400 boxes lining mass-market retailers’ shelves. Apple won’t license Mac OS X to them,” Pegoraro reports.
“This could be a self-reinforcing trend: As PC builders keep having their profit margins squeezed, they have fewer resources to devote to high-end consumer products, while Apple’s focus on the most profitable end of the market leaves it with ever more money to dump into product design,” Pegoraro reports. “Or buying small islands.”
Full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Clearly, Pegoraro gets it.
Macintosh is the aspirational brand in the personal computer market and Apple is smart to keep it that way. – MacDailyNews Take, October 24, 2008
Get a Mac!
You give away the farm, You starve yourself to death!
Apple is doomed will be wiped off the face of the earth by 2012. Anyone else whose seen a Mayan calendar or Sony movie trailer will back me up on this. SIDAGTMBT-me!
I like it, “or buying small islands”. LOL
Just bought me an imac 27″ Quad Core i7 !
Apple have certainly got the balance right. After the earning conference call I was expecting the unit cost for the new mac products to go down. It looks like the pricing is the same for the MacBook and the Mini which was disappointing. I assuming they were referring to the iMac updates as being responsible for the drop in margins.
Hopefully Apple will trim the prices in the New Year. Then they will be following the same path as the iPod. Reducing prices as volume grows. Dell and others dropped prices to drive market share. Apple do it a bit differently – they drop prices once the market share increases to protect their margins.
No, he does not get it! The HP Voodoo line has style for style sake (questionable style on top of it) but not style for function sake. Apple understands that industrial design is not just about style and glitz but style and function. Combine that with an OS that also has style and function and then you get it.
“Clearly Apple is Doomed. Except it’s not”.
Best quote regarding Apple… ever.
Apple doesn’t lower prices on hardware; it increases the value you get for the price. Compare current Macs to the Macs we were using when OS X debuted. They cost the same, pretty much, but the value now is unprecidented!
And this is why Psystar is putting up the fight. These computer manufacturers would kill to be able to sell a computer with higher margins. They think they’ll make money on a computer running OSX that undercuts Apple prices. Fools.
Apple could also offer to buy California. However, if Apple holds off while California keeps tanking, Apple could get paid to take it over soon.
@Jersey_Trader:
Northern California, yes [particularly for Sonoma, Napa and Paso Robles].
Southern Cali can return to the desert it once was for all the good it is…
…”Apple understands that industrial design is not just about style and glitz but style and function. “
Exactly right. And nowhere can it seen better than in the intro video for the new iMac. Johnathan Ive (Senior Vice-President for Design) talks about the design of the new iMac with such passion and conviction that you can clearly see his (and his team’s) relentless desire to design a perfect product in every way.
Well my advise to manufacturers is to stop depending on MS for their OS. Want to succeed? Do what Apple did. Change your OS. Right now, one can get quality Linux platforms. Put in a little effort and unclutter the front end. A company like HP should be able to do this. And you get 2 in one. A server and a workstation.
There is nothing you can’t do on Linux that can be done on Windows nor Mac for that matter.
I have loved the Mac since I first owned one in 1984, and not the 1MB model either. I make my living writing M$ software, but I write Mac apps because I love the system.
Why aren’t people talking about the $999 OS X Server – Mac Mini?
“…may seem to people content with an <strike>affordable</strike> bargain-basement PC…”
Fixed. (Macs are affordable, compared to comparably equipped PCs. If someone doesn’t need those features, then a lesser computer will be enough.)
@Huey Long
Northern California is no more useful than Southern California really.
The whole state is one big drag on the nation.
Then again, we are a perfect laboratory/model for the policies of the current President. We’ve done it all already.
HP Doesn’t need to use linux they already have HP UX, one of the four UNIX 03 certified UNIXs. (Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, and Apple OS X being the other three.)
Enron – remember them? – bilked California out of $billions, bragging internally about ****ing over poor grandmas on their electric bill.
And then the first act of Governator Celebrity Schwarzenegger was to drop a lawsuit and fraud investigation by the state against Enron and GOP-led federal agencies who had been derelict in their regulatory duties. A lawsuit that could have recovered some of those $billions for California’s citizens.
California is a showcase for what happens when Republicans are running the economy: they loot the treasury on behalf of their cronies and run the economy into the ground – so more people will turn to the military for employment and fight wars based on neoconservative BS and lies.
@@wyatt:
The problem with HP UX is that its not a Mac. The ease of use is very telling when comparing the two. I’m just a basic user. The difference is humongous.
@DogGone;
Since read comprehension isn’t your strong suit, let me type this out slowly for you;
” The New York Times noted that ‘Macintosh sales have now grown faster than the rest of the PC market in 19 of the last 20 quarters”.
@@theloniousMac:
I could not help to be to rebut to your comment. I just wanted to let you know that the current President is putting the US in TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICITS. It is bankrupting the US with his socialistic agenda. So, if you really want to argue whicht party is doing what to whom, you should argue that both are corrupt–not jut republicans. If you want some examples, here they are:
1. Pelosi, last year, made a comment that this was going to be the most ethical Congress evahhh….yeah right!
2. Rangle should be demoted for evading all those taxes.
3. Dodd should be demoted too for the same reason as Rangle.
4. Ensign should just resign for a lack of morals…but then again, does Congress have any?
To me, that is the biggest problem with the Congress. Almost all of them are lawyers that want to protect their own interests. If these idiots were really working for their constituents, we would not have this mess.
Congressmen should have term limits like the President has a two term limit. If you go beyond that, you are not helping the people that you purported to help.
Yes Apple WILL make a netbook like computer. It will be called an iTablet or something similar.
With the money they make from that, they can buy a bigger island.
@ silverwarloc
Agreed, but I wasn’t comparing HP UX to OS X, I was comparing it to linux.
I think a better compression than BMW to a Chevy would be a Ford F-150 to a Ranger. The Ranger is cheeper and can be more fun, but if you want a truck to do work you need a F-150. Ford makes a lot more money on their F-150 than Rangers. A F-150 cost more, but you can make more money with it; it is a tool not a toy. Same with Macs. The Mac was designed for people to do work on it. PC are cheeper, and more fun to take apart and play with. Apple sell to people who are willing to pay a little more so they can do their job better.