“While the Mac line gets its own refreshes, Apple often treats it like a stepchild,” Mark Rogowsky writes for Forbes. “The bulk of the profit comes from the Macbook Pro line that still doesn’t have Intel’s latest Haswell chips, which have been in PCs (and the Macbook Air) for months. Apple had nearly 2 months last year where it had no iMacs to sell through its own stores. It should be no surprise then that where Mac sales had been outstripping the moribund PC industry, lately they have flat-lined.”
“Apple captures a huge portion of the PC industry’s profits despite its small share. But Apple is no longer growing meaningfully on the top or bottom lines,” Rogowsky writes. “That has investors restless, but should also have the company restless. It sits atop a mountain of money accrued from a nearly uninterrupted run of success over the past decade but now needs to chart a path to avoid becoming the next Microsoft.”
“You have to grow or die and for the moment Apple isn’t growing. Making “the most profit” isn’t enough. Apple has a chance to be the de facto seller of tablets and seems intent on expanding its offerings to fight for share there. That’s why you saw the Mini and will likely see a larger screen iPad (13 inches) next year,” Rogowsky writes. “What it hasn’t done so far is seized on the weaknesses of HP, Dell and others, though, to build a world-class corporate sales organization to push its tablets and PCs aggressively into thousands of organizations worldwide. It seems content to let it happen organically. With the cash it has and the sales talent that’s doubtless available from struggling competitors, the time is ripe for the company to build a world-class group that can sell into the Global 5000… It says a lot about how big Apple is that it can be so cavalier about its computer division, but as a 5% player in a 80-million-unit-per-quarter market, maybe it should consider getting more interested.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Amen.