Comments on: Has Apple blown it? Did the company squander the competitive chance of a lifetime?

By: josola

josola — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:51:15 +0000

I used to run a big network a decade ago(in a media company) base in the old MAC 9.0 OS. And it was too painful to move to a different OS (Windows NT in that time) when Apple almost disappeared. My lesson (business lesson) is that you don’t make that mistake twice (using something so closed). Yet I’m still a fan of Apple products but not of the stock.
Today they seem to make the same mistake Some analysts said that the price of AAPL stock already includes the growth in China; in where btw the sales of the iphone had been in the order of a few thousands in a market that have millions of new users per week (a disappointment).
I differ with Mr. Jubak with the exclusive approach for the Iphone. At that monent it appears that Verizon rejected the deal. So it had sense to have an exclusive deal when no one knew how that market was going to develop. But I agree that it will be a strategic mistake to renew such as exclusive deal.
Most people don’t want to pay for excellent products (mp3 is the perfect example of low but acceptable sound quality) and that happens in computers specially. Otherwise no one would be buying those clunky and slow netbooks.
Microsoft will come back with something decent. It’s a monster that can wait. And like Mr Jubak says google has a very decent mobile OS that I see eroding the Iphone.
Apple is amazing but I wonder why to use a big cat name for an OS given the future that big cats have in our planet.

By: viwi

viwi — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:01:14 +0000

I love Apple products. However, it always strikes me that they are not exactly what I want. Software for Mac’s is somewhat limited. Windows is far from being ideal, but if you use it right, i.e. have all the proper anti-virus software, do not continuously install/uninstall new software, it does a good job for you. At least, in more than 15 years I never experienced a crash.

iPhone is a separate story. It is not a good phone, but a good gadget. I do not need a gadget, I need a good phone, so, after playing with iPhone for a while in a local store, I bought Sony Ericsson phone, which worked for me in the past.

Sure, Apple has an edge in innovation, but it require Apple to continuously maintain this leadership through heavy investment into R&D, which results in higher prices and lower profit margin. As a result, if someone sees that Apple came up with something worthy, in less than 6 months you see the marked loaded with copycats and clones.

To make a long story short, I am trying to stay out of buying Apple. It is OK to buy it on dips, but buying it when it goes up seems to be unjustified.

By: co3159

co3159 — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:53:18 +0000

I’m a 25 year user of PCs and I bought my 1st Mac a year ago. Even though I never had the Vista experience, I would never buy another PC. Yes — never. The differences are that dramatic and well worth the premium price.

By: Jim Jubak

Jim Jubak — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:10:02 +0000

I wrote this piece more in sorrow than anything else. I love my Macs, would love to own an iPhone (but dont want to deal with AT&T’s network) etc. What we’re missing in this discussion is someone speaking for the 800 pound gorilla of the computer market, the corporate customer. From all the numbers I can find Apple hasn’t dented that world at all. That’s where the big volumes are in PCs and that’s where Wintel continues its dominance. All of Apple’s strategy that I can see has ben directed to the individual consumer. And they’ve ben very successful in that part of the market. But I haven’t seen any signs that they atacked the corporate market when there was so much disgust with Vista. I mean when 80% of your customers decide not to upgrade, it’s a big problem/opportunity. Here’s where the high margin strategy hobbled them since yo can’t get in the door EASILY with a high differential on purchase price. But you can get in the door on ease of use, on lower support costs, etc. I’d love to hear from anyone who knows what Apple tried to do in that market. (By the way I’ve owned Apple on and off during its recovery. Just don’t own it at the moment.)

By: bobisgreen

bobisgreen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:40:11 +0000

I read all the comments…agree with some, raise an eyebrow at others…I thought about Jim’s point this summer when I went to NYC for a few days. The Apple store there (just like here in Florida) is lightyears ahead in customer service and the machine and its OS is reliable.

WHY didn’t Apple take advantage of MSFT’s inferior OS and the clone hardware? Dunno! They missed the boat! My next PC will be an IMAC mainly because of VISTA (yuck)!