“Due to a combination of supply constraints and an admitted level of cannibalization due to the iPad, Apple’s Mac sales dropped 17 percent last quarter, with the unit posting its lowest numbers in some time,” Kevin Bostic reports for AppleInsider. Apple CEO Tim Cook “remains unperturbed by such figures. ‘If you look at when we came out with the iPad, what did people worry about? They worried, ‘Oh my god, you’re going to kill the Mac,” Cook explained. ‘The cannibalization question raises its head a lot. The truth is: we don’t really think about it that much. Our basic belief is: if we don’t cannibalize, someone else will.'”
Bostic reports, “Cook reiterated a position he espoused late last year: that the firms that have the most to worry about with regard to cannibalization by the iPad are Windows PC makers, not Apple. ‘In the case of iPad particularly, I would argue that the Windows PC market is huge and there’s a lot more there to cannibalize than there is of Mac, or of iPad.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dominick P.” for the heads up.]
All this talk about cannibalization is making me hungry.
I like your train of thought.
Cook is obviously correct. Mac sales will only decrease going forward. That’s just an evolution in computing. Having said that, I need to replace my Mac Pros! Laptops and mobile devices are great but professionals need power and capacity. Mac Pro is the only answer. Hurry up Tim! Remember that it’s the long time professional user that helped keep Apple going in it’s dark days. I realize that all the Johnny-come-lately Apple fanboys and investors in the last 10 to 12 years think that they are Apple’s base but Apple knows better. As a business professional myself I understand the need to make a profit and keep margins high when possible. It’s the only reason you’re in business! But Tim, you can afford to maintain the Mac Pro line for a number of years going forward. We will gladly pay whatever it is so you can maintain a reasonable margin on a niche product. Hurry up!
If any company can afford to protect a low-margin niche market, it’s Apple. They will; only a dope would decide all-in-ones can replace configurable towers.
I believe that the delays are due less to component constraints or foot-dragging, and more to a desire to reinvent the workstation. Apple is not casual in its approach to any part of its limited product line; it’s “all in” or the “trash bin”.
You’d be surprised how many people out there think an iMac will replace a Mac Pro! They do a little video project or two and think the iMac is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I two own 27 inch iMacs (1 brand new and 1 a year old) and I think they are fantastic! And for the professional and amateur who can make their iMac and or MacBook Pro their workstation good for them. But they are low end users. Some people can get by with a pick up truck others need an over the road 16 wheeler. Different strokes for different folks.
Yes, Apple will certainly not bring something to market (especially for the professional) that is not the best. I just think they have had enough time by now. But I don’t have much choice other than to wait.
It DOES replace a Mac Pro for graphics professionals. The iMacs are capable machines. Many graphics pros were using Mac Pros which were totally overkill for the basic photoshop/illustrator/fireworks stuff they did.
For VIDEO professionals, I completely agree that they need BEASTs of machines. In fact, historically, they wouldn’t use consumer branded machines at all! Workstations like AVID were used.
ProTools : Gotta have that big old Mac. And Avid is still used some for video professionally.
[i]If we don’t cannibalize, someone else will.[/i]
I realize he was just putting it like that for convenience, but you can only cannibalize your own products.
Tell that to cannibals who eat other tribes. 🙂
Acknowledging the practice of eating your own is just stupid. Stupid is as stupid does. AAPL takes another dive. Tim, translated: “Oh well, no worries, everything is going to be okay. My executive team and I sold our stock before the collapse so we are rich and don’t care what the hell happens to the company now.”
What? You expected them to sell when the stock is in the toilet? You make more money when you sell the stock high rather then when you sell the stock low. Everyone has that option you know. You could have sold in September like I did. Or you could be holding a $250 per-share loss right now. The choice is always yours. And the choice is always theirs. And they have to make their moves public.
there’s no helping pp. Just has to be a wet blanket on everything good.
too close to reality for you?
(the other Mike writing):
If Cook isn’t concerned about a 17% drop in Mac sales, then i propose we give Cook a 17% drop in salary and see if he starts to care.
Some people worship every move that the company makes, but objective review indicates Apple is NOT firing on all cylinders with Cook at the helm. The evidence keeps piling up that the leadership team is not on top of things. As a product-focused company just a few years ago, the MacRumors buyers’ guide used to have several Apple products that were bleeding edge, brand new, gotta-have-it devices. Apple at that time always had “one more thing” that was truly new.
Now the product list is full of derivative products, and many late responses to some other company’s cheap knockoff products. Scan the buyers’ guide and most products are woefully in need of updating. One of the newest products, the late 2012 iMac, is an embarrassment of outsourcing; what else can explain Apple’s inability to ship? The Mac Pro, the company’s last product designed for enterprise customers, hasn’t seen a serious update since the Nehalem processor update in 2009, about the last time Apple rolled out a Pro-level application worth looking at. This has allowed Windows 7 machines to eat away at high-end computing market (graphics, video, audio, media production, etc) that Apple had formerly dominated. Now too the “mother of all markets” is being eroded away by Google/Samsung’s aggressive push, and despite Microsoft’s ineptitude, it looks like CIOs will probably start snatching up Surface Pros instead of MacBook Airs — and Cook doesn’t seem to care.
Cook: you are paid far too much for how poorly you have treated your customers and your shareholders. Get with the program, or turn over the company to somebody who will demonstrate a more decisive handle on new product development and expansion (or defense of) markets where Apple should have clear advantage. If you roll out a Galaxy IIIS phone look-alike, as some have suggested, then we will have proof positive that Apple is truly adrift and you are not fit to be at the helm. At your compensation rate, loyal Apple customers and shareholders expect better.