“Apple’s iPad 2 hits U.S. retail Friday, and already many of the 100 competing tablets shown at CES this year are being terminated, withdrawn, shelved or otherwise dumped,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “That’s because competitors now know what I’ve been telling them: their expensive and less well-featured alternatives are DOA.”
“Among the many ways Apple has stitched-up its competitors, the company has held to a low $499 entry price,” Evans writes. “No one else can match this, in part through the cost of components and manufacturing.”
Evans writes, “Apple’s low prices leave little margins for struggling third-party vendors, and word out from Taiwan/China is that already 2-3 notebook brand vendors that had intended introducing tablets are now postponing the release, while they go for a redesign and try to cut manufacturing costs.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
It’s Over. That being said, it’s been over for awhile.
If the vaporware vendors ever release a tablet that is competitive both in function and price, then Apple can reduce margins and drop the price. Bamm! Competition gone!
Do you folks recall when Apple was buying up components not so long ago? I call this great business acumen. I think it’s one of the missing elements in some of these other companies.
No matter what you think of Apple, the fact is they are a remarkable strategic company. One has to admire that.
D
You can thank Apple’s COO Tim Cook and his team for that particularly brilliant strategy.
That and unwavering confidence…
And an almost fanatical devotion to the pope…
OK, now I have Mt Dew all over my keyboard…
I’m glad mine was just water!!
Which pope the pedophile or the Nazi?
The one that sired you…
Apple has shown a great example of how to run a business if you want to be #1. You can’t start @ #1, unless it is truly a new product never seen before, and you think it will be a hit.
You have to make a long term strategy to achieve a goal others do not see or at least do not implement.
If I were to sum it up in a sentence, Apple chose to make SIMPLICITY its hallmark and do what was needed to get there in the personal computing arena. Apple rightly concluded you could not do it with DOS & Unix command lines & mismatched hardware and software full of bugs, nor could you do it by selling 10-20 different models of desktops & laptops.
Apple will be used as a case study in business schools for the rest of this century at least.
Bing!
What people don’t realize is that Apple really had little other choice in regards to using their cash. Everyone knows Apple has $60B in cash and kind. What most don’t know is that $35B is in foreign subsidiaries, meaning that Apple can’t repatriate those profits without paying taxes again to Uncle Sam. So, rather than paying more taxes, Apple is leaving its cash in foreign subs and using it to lock-up component supply. Brilliant!
Well, I’m sure Apple could find a great use of this large amount of cash by building more Apple Stores, foreign employees, component supply, etc…
The iPad will eventually have “competitors” but they will be cheap pieces of sh*t running equally cheap & derivative operating systems. Reminds me of the early 90’s! Hope Apple’s learned a thing or two this go ’round.
Boy, this is fun!
Who is this Fred Mertz guy? (I’m not talkin’ about the original Fred Mertz of “I Love Lucy” fame.) Is he your unpaid research assistant, MDN??
Obvious isn’t it; Zune Tang in disguise.
@Cleetus — Sure they have. Apple’s stuff is not only better, but cheaper. There’s NO benefit to going with the other guys (not even an up front cost).
http://taketotask.wordpress.com/
It’s only a war if someone comes out to fight. Otherwise it’s just a beating. 😉
Forget the competition – let’s compare Apples to Apples… the growth over time of the iPad is crushing that of the iPod. When will iPad pass iPod in unit sales? It could happen as early as this year. If you look at a graph of the growth rate of the 2 products, the iPod is a nice long gradual curve up to 70% of the mp3 player market, while the iPad takes off vertically like a rocket ship. With the competition going back to the drawing board, it looks less and less likely that the iPad will drop from 95% of the tablet market to 70-80% in 2012 if the competition isn’t even showing up in 2011… that growth line for the iPad is only going to get more vertical in year 2. Apple needs to move about 3.5 million iPads a month (at $499-829) to beat unit sales of the iPod (pricepoints $49-$399).
My impression is that many new-to-computing iPad buyers will likely buy an iPhone within months, or at least an iPod Touch for its power and pocketability. Maybe even a Mac….. So many Apple customers buy multiple products.
Once bitten, many will buy up and down stream of the iPad.
Isn’t the iPad entrance price $399 now? I bet those 1stGens aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Agreed. Smart move to keep at least one or two models.
The next iPhone 5 will be the lock and ppl will finally learn Apple is superior in every way. Easy of use, elegant intuitive “just works” usability, fun, smooth, fast, powerful, affordable for the tremendous reliable value one gets. The whole Apple ecosystem rocks. The iPad 2 looks like it will be indispensable. Especially with mirroring to HDTV! Still in love with my i7 27″ iMac. Awesome!
great line and of course rith on ponit.
R2, I’ve been saying this for a while now. I too think that some iPad 1 models will stay in production, to be sold at $399, just like iPhone has done, the previous model at cheaper price-point.
The no camera thing on the iPad 1 would give IT weenies in enterprise a stiffie.
One thing that Apple has and that’s a halo lock. If a person owns an iPhone, iPod Touch or Mac, they’re sure not going to be buying some Android tablet. All those 200 million iTunes credit card account owners aren’t likely to buy an Android tablet, either. Apple has reduced the prices on the original iPad and there are going to be a lot of reselling of older iPads on eBay, so there will be a large number iPads to be had for less money than any rival tablet vendor has to offer.
Those deluded Android fanbois will be doing a lot of weeping this year since they won’t be able to get their hands on some Honeycomb/Tegra2 tablet for $300 as they thought they would be able to.
I think it was a clever trick TO LEAVE OUT the camera(s) in iPad 1:
1) it kept it cheap
2) they have more to add now
3) most importantly: people had to ask themselves: what is this for??? aaahhh, apps!!! (and not just facetime)
Missster Lowry…. Mister SAM Lowry…..
Mr. Lowry
I want to talk to you about ducts!
they are available now in hundreds of different colours to suit your individual taste!
T I P P I N G P O I N T
Let the geek fanboys have their Android tablets. The iPad was built for everyday people in mind and when it comes to making a purchase the iPad is the safe choice.
I also dare to say that as great and easy to use the Mac has been over the years, the iPad is truly the first computer “for the rest of us”.
sticking with a Apple since 1992, it’s been a joy to watch the rebirth of the company, the decrease in costs it has to maintain/upgrade Macs for my business and the wonderful profits from their stock.
I don’t have to sell the product to friends and family or justify my choices anymore. the world knows about Apple products and what they represent.
it’s now the SAFE choice like Windows was in the 90’s and early 2000’s
With the obvious and ironic caveat that Windows being the “safe” choice in the 90s and early 2000s left you utterly exposed to viruses and hacker attacks 🙂
I have one year on your splat, having gone Apple in 1991.
But keep in mind that the ‘rebirth’ POV is a journalistic invention, they having pronounced Apple dead after the 1996 Marketing-As-Management $1 billion deficit caused by stockpiling Mac Performas nobody wanted. Throwing the bums out of management and the return of Steve Jobs with all his new and kewl friends and technology was actually a rejuvenation and massive invigoration of Apple.
Plus, you have to thank the spread of MBA mill tardation into the business world resulting in massive Marketing-As-Managment / Marketing-Moron Disease that corrupted and corroded other businesses right, left and center. That’s what you get when your hero is Microsoft. 😆
SamLowry and Macromancer:
“I want to talk to you about ducts.”
I think Apple should continue to produce the original iPad and sell it at the new price point starting at $399. It would draw even more people into the stores and they could up-sell many while making it absolutely impossible for anyone to compete (even with a free OS)
These “articles” on Macdaily are nothing but a joke. I feel like I’m reading the National Enquirer.
Its like its the only thing Apple fanboys can do, is consantly trash the competition. Thats why you get so many people angry with Apple fanboys… its for this VERY reason. Nothing but a bunch of pricks.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. IF you knew anything about the history of Apple, and it’s fans, you wouldn’t be so ignorant….
Oh yeah, Windows and Android fanboi’s are beyond reproach in their lofty towers above the fray and carefully mannered enthusiasms. Hardly. Painting all with the same brush is pointless. There are always fans that run the spectrum frm polite to rude to fanatic so you can’t use the same brush on all.
Hahahaha, what?
MDN didn’t even SAY ANYTHING. The whole “article” is just quotes from Jonny Evan’s ComputerWorld blog. If you’ve got a problem with what Evans wrote then shouldn’t you take it to Evans?
Or do you think it’s all a conspiracy and “Jonny Evans” is MDN’s super secret alias?
Either way, confused troll is confused.
Folks it’s not just the geeks creaming on Andtoid. The average consumer is now being inundated with Android winning market or Amdtoid more open more choices or cheaper. Android is a rip off iOS and Google is winning mindshare and marketshare by giving it a free. When is Apple going to bring that hammer down and stop Google free ride to the top? Or is it too late for Apple to catch up?