“The answer clearly has nothing to do with technology. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Sony, and Toshiba, along with smaller players, have all the skills required to design just about anything,” Steve Wildstrom writes for TechPinions. “Everyone is building their systems using the same components and, for the most part, the same manufacturing partners.”
“I think the real problem lies in the marketing DNA of the computer makers, which has evolved to meet the demands of corporate customers and the retail sales channel,” Wildstrom writes. “While their requirements are entirely different, both drive design away from the clean and simple designs and low-cost, high-quality manufacturing that are Apple hallmarks.”
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Wildstrom writes, “Corporate sales are the lifeblood for many PC makers… The result of this need to meet very fine-grained requirements is great complexity. The buyer of a 13″Mac Book Air has one choice to make: a 128- or 256-gigabyte solid-state storage device. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1, one of the most Air-like products, offers three different processors, optional Bluetooth, two flavors of mobile broadband, four Wi-Fi radios, 4 or 8 GB or RAM, and a choice of a conventional hard drive or two different SSDs, making 432 total hardware combinations.”
Read more in the full article here.
K.I.S.S. method. Keep It Simple Stupid. Works everytime
KISS has nothing to do with it, It’s the software!
Ignorant piece of opinion. Apple developed and implemented unique for the industry technology process that allowed MBA to exist (among other unibody products) four years before competitors, which only catched up, partially, now.
Also, Apple is the only manufacturer in the world which is capable of ordering of tens of millions tonnes of metal per years directly from the biggest metal producers, so the scale and thus price component matters, too.
Not to say that the “DNA” has no role. Just to say it has nothing to do with quantity of configurations or any other of unconversant guessing made.
agree. obviously the others DO NOT have the skills to design just about anything. or maybe they do. maybe apple’s stuff is at the extreme end of engineering and design and they can’t match it. that must be discouraging to the others.
They DO have the skills to design just about anything.
They lack the creativity to come up with an overall concept, though. When Apple then releases their new concept, they are stumped, and are not able to replicate it as cheap as Apple. Not to speak that it would take them a long time to market.
KISS is definitely in the Apple DNA. Steve Jobs and his art of saying, “No.” But let us not forget Jonny Ive. He is a real difference maker. Nobody else has him.
Johnny Ive is a designer, not a tech visionary. His design talents have undoubtedly contributed greatly to Apple’s success. But without the input of Steve Jobs and his technical team, Johnny Ive would have no idea what to make.
I think you sell Mr Ive short.
Most have just the skills to assemble from off-the-shelf parts.
Speaking of corporate customers, my employer is issuing me a 13″ MBA this week, whoopee!
The real problem for the competitors is that they are stuck with Windows.
If I had to use a MacBook Air with Windows instead of Lion, I’d consider it junk and dump it.
Thats going a bit too far. The MBA without Lion is NOT “junk” (as you put it). It is masterly put together and is a finely engineered piece of mechanical and electronic hardware that no one else has yet engineered.
Correct. But if you had to run Windoze on your finely-engineered MBA, you would still be pulling your hair out from time to time.
That’s all I’m saying – I understand that the MBA is great – just not with Windows – Just like my (dream) Ferrari is fantastic – but not with a Hyundai engine.
They aren’t stuck with windows! They’re just too stupid/lazy and won’t design their own OS.
This was the hard lesson to learn for the US automakers as well. You used to be able to order a car with an infinite combination of options. The Japanese had to show them the way with three models. DX, EX and ES or something like that. That is the streamlined approach to manufacturing that Apple practices. Brings supply cost down as the parts are a constant. And, the manufacturing costs are lower as you only have to have one assembly line with no ability to deviate from the norm. I find the entire computing industry has become paralyzed by Apple right now. They are behind in laptop tech, tablet tech, phone tech. And, I don’t see them catching up anytime soon. They keep striving for an already released product. Meanwhile, Apple is already developing and getting ready to launch the next big thing. I love watching them all flail about. The other thing they all can only dream about… Profitability. Not one of them can come close even in their dreams to Apples profitability while being and remaining a premium product.
It wasn’t streamlining consumer options that killed US auto makers…
As I remember it, it was the a quality issue. American cars (and appliances for that matter) all seemed to have a inbuilt self destruct program. In order to sell more cars they required them to break down when they passed a certain milepost (excuse the pun). Whereas the japanese cars went on and on and on. It was quality and reliability that won the war for the japanese. And so it is with Apple.
The cars became junk it’s true… but I miss American-made appliances. My toaster dates from the 1950s, and my hand mixer is classic mid-60s (passed down through the family) and they *still* work beautifully 🙂
American manufacturing back in the day was all totally unsurpassed in quality and durability…. just look at some of the old “Scout” model vehicles… Those things are like tanks with regular tires!!!
Apple has kept true to the old american way of manufacturing. They maintain the highest standards of quality and reliability.
Has anyone at any of these non-Apple companies read Barry Schwart’s “The Paradox of Choice”? Probably not nor will they ever read it. Having 432 total hardware combinations is insane behavior. Most PC companies do this over and over and over – the very definition of insanity.
When I was in Germany some years ago, I noticed that German retail stores did not stock dozens of brands of everything. Instead, they offered just a few well-chosen alternatives. It immediately struck me how much easier it was, given fewer choices, to buy an iron or a toaster… or anything else that I didn’t want to research ad nauseum before making a purchase. Some people like doing exhaustive research and feel cheated if their choices are curtailed. But not everyone feels this way. Far from it.
Great book! Opened my eyes to all the time I was wasting worrying about getting the “perfect” X (X being the item currently on the purchase radar). I’m attracted to companies and the related products that attempt to keep it simple.
“The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less” is an absolutely essential book. Every time I read some idiot online claim that whatever will win because it offers “more choices” I think of that book.
People are hurt by too few choices, but it doesn’t take many choices AT ALL for people to become paralyzed. As my friend Declan Dunn said, “One option is a choice. Too options is a dilemma. More than two is a nightmare.”
That’s true for most people. But NO TECH COMPANY BUT APPLE seems to know it.
Lucky MacDog U 🙂
I’m waiting for that same day my company gives out a MacBook!
First opportunity my company paid for a Verizon iPhone 4 🙂
I know!!! But it’s a start 🙂
AAPL 2012 = $523 USA bucks 🙂
That’s $499 Canadian for those Canucks reading this blog.
I was pretty surprised – I didn’t even ask. One of the owners just came up on Friday and said “We’re ordering an MBA for you.” Very thoughtful of him 🙂
Well, only 2 choices for the 13″ Air isn’t exactly right. I just helped my daughter purchase one for school — she chose the 256 GB SSD. But there was also an option to select an i7 processor for $100 more. She didn’t pick that option, but including the processor option, there are at 4 possible configurations that I am aware of.
Hopefully, someone has something better than the X1. ThankPads are reliable, but, since the 90’s, they’ve always been the ugliest of all laptops. I think Adamo was the closest thing. Unfortunately, the specs weren’t there, and what do Windows people base purchases on? Specs…
Those that I’ve spoken to over the years have all based it on “cheap”. Geeks look at specs, but the general public does not, as far as I can see — not in any detail, anyway. The result of those conversations — ALL who switched were overwhelmingly grateful for my help/education/persuasion/support.
Jonny Ive isn’t simply interested in the case design, he is closely involved in the details of the manufacturing process and he has a lot of input at an early stage.
It’s not enough to simply design the prettiest case. Ive obsesses with how to design products so that they can be made efficiently in vast numbers.
There are many aspects of Apple’s success that are difficult for rivals to copy, but I think that Ive’s holistic view of the entire manufacturing process together with the scale of the manufacturing and procurement process is something that really is unique.
The problem for rivals is that they and their supporters keep fooling themselves. They tell the world that Apple products are overpriced – except they can’t make similar products for a similar price. They suggest that Apple products are bought solely as toys by dedicated Apple fans – but 30 million iPad owners is too big a number for that theory to be credible. They delude themselves into believing that every new product will be an iDevice killer – but we haven’t yet seen an iPod killer worthy of the name, even less so an iPhone or iPad killer.
If rivals really do believe what they say about Apple, they will never take Apple seriously until it is too late to compete effectively. Rivals can never hope to compete against Apple if they do it half-heartedly.