A few days ago we published an editorial suggesting that Apple should be selling the eMac for 500 bucks or a bare-bones G3-based machine for $200-300 USD, in order to compete with the “cheap PCs” trend today. I was wrong. Creating such price differentation between the G5 and the G3 or eMac would cannibalize the sales of the high-end machines (where more margin for profit exists) and even worse, it would destroy the Apple brand name. But hey, you know me, I am as stubborn as it goes. I discussed the situation with some more people around me and we came up with an alternative plan, which in my opinion, makes more sense business-wise and it has some good potential.Note: Please excuse the bad grammar and syntax. It is 2 AM as I type this editorial quickly, a result of a stormy discussion we had this afternoon here…
So, the idea is to not cheapen the Macintoshes. Apple-heads in our forums are trying very hard to convince us about the fact that Apple is a premium company and they do have a point. Dragging the prices of Macs down to the ones found in the PC world, will only destroy the Apple brand. And the brand is all Apple has today, it is what keeps the Mac market together. The brand has to be kept and enhanced, not commoditized.
So, how do we bring Macs closer to these PC price-concious consumers you ask? Well, Apple will have to spin off a new brand. A completely new brand of computers that has nothing to do with the Mac brand. The new brand, let’s call it BrandX, will be G3-based, as all Macs would in the meantime be moved to G4/G5s, so there would be no direct competition. It is important to remember that this won’t be a Mac. It will still run Mac OS X and all its third party apps just fine (more on this later), but it will be a beast of its own. It won’t be called “BrandX by Apple Computer, Inc.”, but more something like “BrandX by Strawberry Inc.”. I am not even sure that it would make sense to sell this on Apple Stores instead of just retailers around the world! There should be enough differentiation between the two Apple products, otherwise kiss the Mac brand goodbye. Here’s how the differentiation will work:
1. BrandX is only based on G3s, while Macs are based on G4/G5s. When all Macs are moved to G4s, only then BrandX will see an upgrade to G4s.
2. The overall design of the case and peripherals doesn’t have to be expensive. A cheap modified taiwanese keyboard, a cheap usb mouse and a normal case are to be included. Not very fancy Apple stuff here, but not garbage either.
3. The mouse will be a 2 button mouse, plus a wheel+button. Remember, BrandX is not a Mac, and we don’t want people to think that it is a Mac. It is an Apple PC in essense, a cheap way to run Mac OS X and introduce users to the OSX world (just like Lexus is Toyota, but not exactly Toyota) and a way to be able to compete in the low-end market with the AMD/Cyrix-based PCs. Also, this BrandX machine is the introduction to the Macs for the consumer, the “middle step” during a user’s switch, therefore, the machine should have things that PC users love, e.g. some expandability (two PCI slots, additional hard drive space) while keeping a small form factor in the case and a mouse with more buttons and a wheel.
4. The box would be something between a Power Mac and a Shuttle PC. It will look like a Shuttle, so that will make it “cute” and manageable (even easily portable). There would be space for one more hard drive in the box. Think of it as a more expandable Apple Cube (everyone loved the Apple Cube, but people were not happy of its restrictions to expandability — more so the PC users that we try to capture here).
5. Graphics card is soldiered to the mobo, no AGP slot provided. Cheaper this way. If users want more 3D power, that would be a good incentive to buy a Mac instead (remember, we want to offer features on BrandX, but on the same time “cripple” it in a way that would drive users to condider the Mac brand instead of BrandX). It is not a rip-off, it is keeping the company out of a possible risk.
6. The external speakers would be cheap PC speakers, the ones that cost about 6 or 7 bucks. Nothing fancy, but usable nevertheless, same as the ones that come in the cheap PC line. But with a coloring that would match the case, keyboard and mouse. BrandX will be plain, but it will still have the Apple touch on it looks-wise. It won’t be garbage, but not as elegant as a PowerMac either, for example.
7. The Ultimate model as seen below, will offer two more USBs, one FireWire 400 and one 800, all on the back of the case (the other two USBs and the audio jacks should be in the front of the case).
8. Monitor is not included in the price, but a 17″ $149 CRT monitor would be available for purchase, or an Apple LCD.
9. Choice of Yellow Dog Linux 3.x or OSX Lite. The new company would be in interest in paying 2-3 bucks per copy the TerraSoftSolutions guys to sell an unsupported copy of their Linux with these machines. This way, the OSX Lite operating system would go against the Windows XP OEM PCs, while YDL would battle the raising Red Hat, SuSE or Lindows. Now, you ask, what is this OSX Lite. Read carefully, because the real meat of the differentiation follows:
BrandX won’t be running Mac OS X. It will be running a crippled version of Mac OS X instead, dubbed ‘OSX Lite’ (note that the word “Mac” is missing). Essentially, it will be the same OS, and it would be 100% binary compatible, so you could run all Mac OS X applications on your OSX Lite. But a few things will be missing from the Lite version of the OS. Premium things mostly, things that would be available only on a Mac or if you actually buy the upgrade OS box to upgrade your OSX Lite to Mac OS X. The special upgrade box (a vanilla Mac OS X CD won’t work on these machines) should cost between $150 and $200 USD. You of course now think “what? But, if I go and buy a Mac OS X box it only costs $130, not $200”. Yes, but you have already paid the difference when you bought your Mac. Or, if you bought your Mac second hand, the previous owner has already paid the Mac OS X premium in the Mac’s price. With BrandX, you haven’t. It is a cheap machine. Besides, if we make it too easy for BrandX users to upgrade to a full Mac OS X, we lose the differentiation between BrandX and a Mac. We lose the whole game.
So, what features will be missed from OSX Lite? Here is what will not be included by default:
OS features that are not included: Classic support, Rendezvous, Inkwell, FileVault, multi-processing, multi-monitor support, ColorSync, Speech recognition, ability to make a basestation out of an airport card.
Non-core applications that are not included: iSync, iChat AV, iMovie, iPhoto, DVD player, Sherlock, iCal.
All the other applications (Safari, FontBook, Mail, Address Book, iTunes (and its profitable Music Store), QuickTime Player, Chess, TextEdit, Preview, Grab, X11, developer tools, Calculator and all other Mac OS X Utilities etc etc) will be included. And all other third party Mac OS X applications will work as they are supposed to. All the basic functionality to run a modern OS will be there. At the end of the day, Windows XP doesn’t come with more functionality than that either! As for the users who can’t live without the non-core applications listed above, there are always good alternatives, often for free: VideoLAN, mplayer, Watson, photo management, Fire, AIM, Proteus, MSN, ICQ, scheduling apps etc., all to be found at VersionTracker.com. Charging for the iApps is not even a new idea, Apple already does it with iLife (and in fact, they wanted to charge for iMovie too but public outcry made them only charge for iDVD, literally at the last minute last January). And if some users just want the “real” thing, they just shave off the 200 bucks and they buy the upgrade to full Mac OS X. That’s a good and fair price to turn your cheap BrandX into –pretty much– a ‘real and premium’ Mac.
By having a Lite version of OSX, the product differentiates from the Macs without losing much value (as most needed functionality is still there and there are a lot of freeware to fill up the holes), and also, Apple makes money out of it, compensating for the low price of the BrandX products. Think of it as Windows XP Home and PRO. There is $100 difference between these two products, so why not pay this extra $200 to get all these OS features back, plus all the non-core Mac OS X applications?
In the meantime, the Mac line will have to be simplified. The iBook should be moved to the BrandX brand, but it is not clear if it should change its name or keep it. You see, from one side is good to not make any assumptions that this iBook is a Mac, but on the other hand, it is a good marketing “push” for the new BrandX that was just created. The lowest-end Mac should be the $999 flat panel iMac (today is $799). The eMac should go back to education-only, as BrandX will be filling up its product range and we don’t want products to overlap here. Powerbooks will be the only laptops for Macs, with the 12″ one be the most affordable one, for $1500. As you can see, Macs are increasing their prices slightly, going back to be a true premium brand, while BrandX will take care of the price-consious market segment, competing with the cheap PCs.
See below a mockup of the BrandX product with some configuration information.
Isnt that what they are already? They are cheaply built computers with a huge price tag. Maybe it makes sense to offer the same thing with a different name.
Case in point:
My client has a Titanium Notebook, purchased one year ago. Half way through the warranty it broke the soldered power connecter on the motherboard. Apple acknologed it as a problem and fixed it. 6 months later, 5 days after the warrantee expired, it broke again. A call to Apple. The response was, its WAY to expensive to fix now. So please buy a new one.
Lame.
It should fall under a lemon law.
I have looked into Macs hardware and most is cheap and crappy and sold to the apple crowd at very expensive prices.
So I am not so sure they should sell cheaper MACs maybe they all should be cheaper, cause they just arent built very well to begin with.
Nice idea. I’d almost certainly buy such a machine to run OS X. No way in Hell I’d buy a ‘real’ Mac at their prices. I doubt Apple are forward-thinking enough for this though, sadly.
PC users aren’t going to fork over the cash unless there’s a real benefit involved. Your solution looks like it’s something cheap for something cheap. Why would I want a Brand X machine if I can’t do all the things I could do with a Mac and OS X?
good idea, if something like this will be available, many users like me who are interested in trying “apple compatible” computers definitely can manage to get one.
>No.
Yes.
>PC users aren’t going to fork over the cash unless there’s a real benefit involved.
With the same logic, why wanna try out Linux? Windows XP can do everything for you too. This machine is targetting switchers. And PC users who were “that close” to switch but price made them step back.
Plus, PC users are not the only customers here. Old G3 Mac users will want to upgrade too.
> Why would I want a Brand X machine if I can’t do all the things I could do with a Mac and OS X?
Because it is a cheaper machine. Why do you ask for the full monty when you are not ready to pay for it?? Software is not cheap to create you know. Engineers are paid $$ to wtite it. If you don’t want to pay for a Mac, you will get OSX Lite. And as I said in the article, you STILL can do EVERYTHING you can do with a Mac. OSX Lite is 100% compatible with Mac OS X, so all third party apps will work (e.g. VideoLAN or Fire) if you are not willing to upgrade to MacOSX.
>”apple compatible” computers
Exactly. It is like bringing back the Clones, but instead of UMAX and the other cloners making money off Apple’s back, the money stays at Apple! It is like “Apple and compatibles” all over again, but with the difference that Apple controls the thing completely.
Macs aren’t disposable machines like PCs, they are entire “integrated solutions”, and you pay for getting to run a good OS. If your money means more to you than your time or patience, then get a PC.
> Macs aren’t disposable machines like PCs, they are entire “integrated solutions”, and you pay for getting to run a good OS.
YES. This is true.
But BrandX is NOT a Mac!! It is a DIFFERENT product!
A new product which is almost as good as a Mac, runs the same OS pretty much (minus some extra features and iApps that are replacable) but it is cheaper and competes with these “crappy PCs”. It is the answer to these “crappy PCs”. And again, this is NOT a Mac! It is very important to remember this, in order to understand the proposal.
To complete the new brand though, you’d have to rebrand MacOS X as well. Otherwise people would be like:
“I don’t have a Mac. But I’m running Macintosh Operating System. Waaa?!”
But then rebranding MacOS X would be very hard, and cause a lot of confusion. You’d have two operating systems, the same but with different names.
Also, I would question the wisdom of using G3s. Most of the CPU time would be sucked up by the OS! You can get cheap PCs that aren’t slow (like mine
, I’m not sure that would provide a compelling alternative.
> But then rebranding MacOS X would be very hard, and cause a lot of confusion. You’d have two operating systems, the same but with different names.
I don’t see the problem. Linux has a zillion distros with different names. Windows have a zillion versions: Windows XP HOME, and PRO. Windows 2003 Server PRO/Web/Enterprise and two more that I can’t remember their names.
“OSX Lite” is a good name as it is still OSX, but it doesn’t include the word “Mac” into it.
> I would question the wisdom of using G3s. I’m not sure that would provide a compelling alternative.
(Un)fortunately, this is what Apple can offer today on a cheap range. It is a take-it or leave-it kind of thing. Plus, I don’t think that the AMD Durons or even worse, the VIA Cyrix at 1 GHz are any better…
Outside the USA I doubt there is much demand for OSX or Apple compatible hardware.
In Australia Macs are just novelties outside the graphics and multimedia areas.
I don’t know a single person who has a Mac at home. It is not a money thing either. I live in an affluent professional suburb. Even multimillionaires in Australia usually buy whitebox PCs (my sister and best friend included).
My next door neighbour teaches multimedia at a university -even he doesn’t own a Mac.
Most universities in Australia are OSX/Mac-free zones except for very limited life sciences (mostly os9) and multimedia use.
as it exists even an opensource implementation, I think RendezVous should go in this “OSX-Lite”. In the other hand, I’m not sure for integrating X11 (what’s the interest for the average PC user ? and for Linux users, they will know how to put the other implementation of X11 via fink …)
The others misses seems fairs.
The whole idea is intriguing… I think it should be sold by apple, even in applestore (but be eventually available in others retailers) as they already provides a distribution circuit, and they will be able to redirect people on “real” macintosh when needed, and emphasis that it’s an entry level experience. I quite agree that the brand shouldn’t be Apple or Macintosh… and you need rebranding MacOSX in “OSX” (with two versions, “OSX lite” and “OSX pro”) (so people undestand that it’s really not an Apple “experience”
About the ibook : I wholeheartly disagree to include it 🙂 because in my opinion, it’s not a PC crap, it’s a really, really good laptop with good components (yes, I’m typing this on an ibook debian/ppc 🙂
Anyway, I don’t believe that there is a chance that Apple will do that… too much trouble for not so much financial marge. But hey, it could be an interessting movement. I’d like they will test it. btw this barebone idea is good, it looks cool.
>Nice idea. I’d almost certainly buy such a machine to run OS X.
>I doubt Apple are forward-thinking enough for this though, sadly.
Though I applaud Eugenia’s genuine commitment and thoughfulness in thinking about this ‘problem’, I think this sort of plan would be commercial suicide. Westyvw, your comments seem based more on your own value system than anything else. I’ve always considered my Macs extraordinarily good value, even when I was struggling to pay over $3000 for one. Now the people I know and teach can get a very decent mac notebook for just over $1,100 they’re buying them like hotcakes. It all depends on what you do with a computer, and what value you place upon the things it offers. I wouldn’t exchange my iBook for anything (well, maybe a 12″ PB :-).
Eugenia, I’m not really sure what the business aim of your plan is. To increase mac market share? To make Apple money? To secure developers for OS X? I’m not convinced it would do /any/ of those, though it might have a small impact on the developer base, which I’m certain would be offset by the cannibalisation that you hope to avoid.
Most mac users I know aren’t in the business of paying for luxury. They buy low-end iBooks, not 17″ PowerBooks. Sure they could get Windows boxes cheaper, but they see the things they’re paying a bit more for (HW/SW integration, elegant physical design, ease of configuration, excellent included apps) as non-negotiable essentials, not as extras.
It would cost Apple dearly to maintain two codebases (Mac OS X and OS X Lite as proposed), and customer confusion would be compounded by developers ignoring the things you see as peripheral (Rendezvous, iSync etc).
So Eugenia, I’m not criticising you for thinking about this (far from it!), just disagreeing with your logic. And I’d be interested to know what you really see as being the problem. By rights, Apple shouldn’t exist at all. All the ‘laws’ of a ‘standards’ based market like Hardware/OS/Applications point to only one system existing now. The fact that Apple is still here, developing the Mac platform more than ever it seems, is a measure of their success, and points to the marketplace being a much more complex beast than your model takes account of.
> I’ve always considered my Macs extraordinarily good value
Yes, but these are not Macs we are talking about here.
> Now the people I know and teach can get a very decent mac notebook for just over $1,100 they’re buying them like hotcakes.
Yes, but Apple has no machines to compete with the low end trend here in USA, the $200-$400 Dell and no-name PCs. I don’t know about the prices in UK, but the PC prices in USA are rock bottom. And Apple has no products to compete with those, they lose market share everyday. Hence, my editorials.
>Eugenia, I’m not really sure what the business aim of your plan is. To increase mac market share?
Yes. Apple fell to less than 2.5%, and a few months ago one of its chiefs said that their MAIN concerned lately was to get market share.
>It would cost Apple dearly to maintain two codebases
Not really. Not more different than Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X.
>Outside the USA I doubt there is much demand for OSX or Apple
>compatible hardware.
>In Australia Macs are just novelties outside the graphics and multimedia
>areas.
>I don’t know a single person who has a Mac at home. It is not a money
> thing either. I live in an affluent professional suburb. Even
>multimillionaires in Australia usually buy whitebox PCs (my sister and
>best friend included).
>My next door neighbour teaches multimedia at a university -even he
>doesn’t own a Mac.
>Most universities in Australia are OSX/Mac-free zones except for very
>limited life sciences (mostly os9) and multimedia use.
What does this post mean?
1) Australia is a unhappy country, they have no Macs :-))
2) Apples PR in Australia sucks or
3) Anonymous does not know how to recognize Macs .-))
4) His sister is a multimillionaire and I want her telefone number 🙂
Eugenia,
Well this seems to me like a good idea as long as the product is a well built product. Even if it is not put to market as a Macintosh people will still expect something which works great out of the box and some kind of customer service.
Will this be handle by Apple or outsourced?
You will also need to advertised and sale the brand, will that be done by Apple themselves.
You have a product (low cost solution to run OSX)
You have a price 400$ 500$
You will need promotion (costly)
You will need a place to sell it (web or supermarket?)
I reckon the main obstacle will be the cost of putting the thing the market initially. It takes big pockets to launch such a venture and it takes people with experience to make sure this company returns a profit.
If it has to be done, Apple should setup and entirely independant company to sale it and bring in some non Apple staff to run.
Being an Apple fan is a very dangerous thing when it comes to run a business.
Phil
With cheaper prices you’ll get people that are interested in different OSses. The number of people who currently have Linux installed, or ever tried to install it.
People don’t buy macs, because they are afraid to do something different. They don’t want to risk their money for buying something that might not be compatible with the stuff they do at work, stuff that they will do at work, and stuff their friends do.
Quite frankly people still have the idea that macs are incompatible and only for graphics people.
What apple needs is better marketing, worldwide not just in the us. They need to offer people a way to try a mac risk free. This can be done in several different ways:
Try-a-mac, where Apple gives you an ibook or imac for 60 days to try out, at a low cost. If you like it, buy the mac minus the cost you paid to rent it. Put trial software on it, such as office x testdrive.
Software-switch, give a list on the apple website of windows software manufacturers where you can buy a mac version of their software at upgrade costs. Try getting as much people as possible on board.
Education market. Get allot more aggressive on the educational market. Huge discounts for students and schools, give an alternative to the microsoft-software-rental, more free software and courses for teachers.
Enterprise market. It needs to be on the normal enterprise desktop, secretaries, call centers, marketing people,.. Offer a hardware replacement kit, so you are not dependant on Applecare. Market how good the TCO is, and mention the industry standard support (pdf, opengl, mpeg4, xml,..) so they are not locked in.
>Price is a fairly small issue
I am sorry, but this is not true. Proof:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3971
I would certainly be tempted to buy one for my kids at that sort of price!
“What does this post mean?
1) Australia is a unhappy country, they have no Macs :-))
2) Apples PR in Australia sucks or
3) Anonymous does not know how to recognize Macs .-))
4) His sister is a multimillionaire and I want her telefone number :-)”
1)Australia is a very happy country overall…regardless of Apple
2) Apple Australia couldn’t run a free brothel (as we say in OZ)- massively overpriced hardware (~20% above US prices)and virtually no dealers
3) I’ve owned 5 Macs – Classic, IISi,LC3 LC630, 7100/66
4) She is 48yo and happily married with 3 children
I think the author has clearly put a lot of time and thought in to this concept, and while the Lexus vs. Toyota idea is an interesting one, it does not apply. Computers don’t compare to cars. Why? Because to make a computer reach massive end users, you need to use them in BUSINESS. Cars don’t have to be used in business to be successful. Apple already has a computer that’s cheap enough, only $799, and that includes the full OS X and a G4 with a monitor (the eMac).
Price is not the problem… anyone who says that Macs are too expensive are drooling over the ones that they can’t afford… People who don’t know better want to buy PC’s cheap or otherwise because that is what they use at work… or that is what all their friends and family have. The switch campaign was a great idea… it may not have been taken to it’s fullest extent though.
Apple is making moves to make their stuff more desirable to the business world, and that is the track that they need to continue to push. If businesses will switch (mostly because they are so freakin’ fed up with Microsoft), then home users will also. Apple has stated that they have doubled their home user market share as a result of the switch campaign, but they have had little impact on business. They need some more stuff that makes them attractive to business users… some high end accounting software perhaps would be a good start.
Microsoft has a good product with Windows 2000 and XP, but there have been how many security flaws? More than I can count and they keep on coming. Not to mention the new SCREW-YOU pricing on their software licensing! Nahhh, Apple has a good thing. They just need to get a little more business desirability and leverage the security and licensing issues to their advantage.
I really don’t see the point of trying to sell a Mac (or a PC for that matter) in this price range. The people that buy these types of systems just aren’t good customers.
I seriously doubt that they are going to spend more on a copy of MS Office than they spent on their computer.
Regardless of the brand name, most people will still consider it a Mac. The main problem with the idea is the very real risk of damage to Apples brand for very little benifit.
I don’t have much time, so I haven’t read the other comments.
I think this is a sound plan. Thoughts:
– Apple should position this in its “digital hub” strategy. It should really come into its own when connected to other Macs. For example, information kiosks or near-ubiquitous home/work access of shared resources.
– 3-button mouse is good to bring up, but I think that these boxes should represent a “taste of OS X” so a 1-button mouse should be used. It shouldn’t be as pretty as the current jelly mouse, but should have the good ergonomics.
– Should not be conveniently expandable.
– Should serve as advertisement for Apple. Also should make clear it’s a Lite version somehow, perhaps in the Dock, menubars, startup and/or mouse.
If you use a PC (or Mac or Linux or BSD) at work you probably aren’t going to use a different OS at home because of familiarity. Geeks are different – most people aren’t geeks though.
Most people know Windows because they use it at work.
Many Munich city employees will probably install Suse Linux on their home machines.
Base eMac is 800 MHz G4, 128 MB RAM (many resellers boost to 256), ATI Radeon 7500 32 MB (not shared), higher quality 17″ monitor, CD-ROM, bunch of free apps for $799.
Dell Dimension 2400 Value Model is Celeron 2.2 GHz, 128 MB RAM (shared) w/ Integrated Intel 3D graphics, not as good a 17″ monitor, CD-ROM, WordPerfect for $699 (shipping extra).
Thus, I think that the eMac compares pretty favorably with the low-end Dell.
Lets all moan about how expensive and unatanable it is, lets make a SGI Lite as well that way more of use can have the power and a SGI machine at work or at home.
Mercedes…yeah they are expensive as well, lets make cheaper versions of them for the masses.
If you want an SGI workstation but an SGI!
If you want a Mercedes then buy a Mercedes!
If you want a mac…buy a mac!
I doubt Apple would ditch OS9 while trying to hype OSX and just for the masses create another OS, that being a lite version. Why don’t i buy that as well and forget OSX alltogether?
What features should be missing from this lite version?
MacOS kernel is Darwin, it runs x86, you can use it if you want…its opensource…if you don’t want to pay for the full thing then get linux instead…its another variant either way isn’t it.
But people will say “its to difficult learning linux and implementing a Darwin kernel”, its only as difficult as paying for a mac it seems. Some people are lazy and expect cheap computers, some other people just don’t think to help themselves while alot of others make the effort with no fuss, buy it or don’t buy it.
A better idea, leaving aside this nonsense is to better educate potential buyers when it comes to macs and forget this price/performance ratio we have when it comes to computer machines spitting out needless CPU cycles.
Example, i have a friend who is after a new machine which is fairly speedy, has optical disk writing capabilites and is easy to use, doing work from home. He is on windowsMe right now, discussing with him i find that he would be interested in a mac or another windows pcs, coming from win9x he would have to learn a new operating system either way. He also has a small house so he wants something space saving as well…and its got to be cheap. He is going to buy an eMac once he comes back off his holidays. He has simple needs so he is getting something simple…he doesn’t need 3Ghz of processing power along with a Geforce FX either.
Better education of technology all round and with regard to apple as well. Not all power want suped up specs, some have real life items they search for in a computer, is it big, does it weigh alot, is it loud, what colour is it, will it go with the room i recently decorated?
Once people realise those attributes and apple is selling them with these characteristics as well, they can make better decisions on buying a computer and maybe they might see value in buying an apple once seeing them for what they are and what they do.
Apple needs to lower their prices, not raise them. The introduction of the G5 vastly improves the performance/price ratio and that’s the way to go. I wouldn’t want to run Mac OS X on a non-Altivec CPU (suich as the G3s of today) and I’d like to be able to upgrade the GPU rather than having it soldered to the mobo.
That said, I’m not targeted by Eugenias idea.
“Base eMac is 800 MHz G4, 128 MB RAM (many resellers boost to 256), ATI Radeon 7500 32 MB (not shared), higher quality 17″ monitor, CD-ROM, bunch of free apps for $799.
Dell Dimension 2400 Value Model is Celeron 2.2 GHz, 128 MB RAM (shared) w/ Integrated Intel 3D graphics, not as good a 17″ monitor, CD-ROM, WordPerfect for $699 (shipping extra).
Thus, I think that the eMac compares pretty favorably with the low-end Dell.”
Both are pretty crap machines. The Radeon 7500 is an <abysmal> graphics card…it has almost no 3D capability at all…about 1/10 of the GF4. Most shared graphics sets are pretty useless except for office apps.
256 MB RAM is the minimum needed.
A quality 17″ monitor (Phillips, Samsung, Mitsubishi, CTX) is about US$150…cetainly better than the Apple or Dell.
If it looks like a Mac, runs like a Mac…
1.) Most people (at least here in Germany) don’t see any difference between Apple and the Mac. So if Apple would sell BrandX, people won’t notice that it’s no Mac and they would think all “Apples” were like them. Therefore I think Apple should not sell the BrandX machines at all, they should found a subsidiary company, so that people don’t consider the BrandX to be “Apple computers”->Macs.
2.) I don’t think Apple should stop offering cheap Macs. The BrandX computers should all be in the 250-350$ range while Macs are starting at 799$. That way, if you don’t have much money, you can still get a Mac with great design, all the iApps etc (as it is now) and the BrandX would not compete with the Macintosh at all. No one would compare a 350$ machine with a computer that’s more than twice as expensive. You could only compare BrandXs to cheap PCs and that would be a good thing, because that way the BrandX would not be seen as entry-level Macs, but as a differend Brand.
3.) iBooks have to stay Macs. PowerBooks are too expensive to be the entry-level Macs. And why should there be BrandX notebooks at all? Wal-Mart, e.g., offers very cheap Linux-PCs, but they don’t offer notebooks.
now these have come out, the G4’s and G3’s should have some sort of discount, a newer model has this effect whenever its realeased, just like the discounts with the current powerbooks, everybody who is in the rumour loop knows updates are on the way hence the price reduction.
Rather than Apple drop the price and the lowest machines however, instead they should stay the same price but upgrade them instead to something more recent.
Reminds me of how Commodore produced an A600 and an A1200 machine. All cost cutting and desperate dan marketing measures.
If Apple get into a cost cutting, depreciative spiral with PC makers, Apple will lose.
Apple needs to continue to work on the niche markets and keep its reasonable cost/profit margin.
Thus, you sell on 64 bit, Unix roots, Solid workstation, Good technology, Good OS, good software basis.
Apple has an opportunity to attack the high ground of SGI, SUN and others. It will not and cannot win a dog fight with low and medium PC areas, there is no money in that area and wishing for it just hurts Apple if they go there.
Do you really want to enter an area where a new machine gains the company a paltry amount of money? These machines would also simply be poor mans macs, and would put people OFF, which you do not want.
Apple should also cull the Emac and replace with a FLAT TFT screen and ultra small case design. Why? Ok, I’ll tell you why, the number one request we get today is ‘Give me a nice PC and I want a TFT screen so I get my desk back’, and that is going to be massive. Apple are not going places with an Emac with CRT screen.
And no, people do not want an Imac that looks like a table lamp, sorry.
AdmV
I wish i had some statistics regarding the mode of PC pricing. My understanding is that it is somewhere in the $1000 range. Perhaps it is lower now. Apple does not necessarily need to do a $300 computer. They just to be at the price point that people and companies usually pay for a PC. I don’t think that is $300. It is a bit higher from what i last read. Apple will get more sales from the $1299 G4 and i’ll bet they’ll lower that in time to the $1000 to $1199 range.
Still the proposal could be a good way to stimulate adoption of the OS X. It makes it easy to enter into the market and easy to get into apple. Many people would likely buy a real apple after that.
Macs are nothing like Mercs.
Mercedes is the worlds fourth largest car maker.
Mercs are built to order in Germany – radios, alloy wheels, metallic paint, carpets etc. are optional extras.
Most vehicles with the Merc badge are vans, trucks and buses. Mercedes makes Freightliner heavy trucks. Mercedes also makes aircraft.
The cheapest C class Merc sells directly against the Ford Escort in Germany.
Most taxis in Germany are diesel Mercs.
Merc has cheaper brands – Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Smart
Merc is like Dell, HP and IBM – nothing like Apple
>>No.
>Yes.
No!
>>PC users aren’t going to fork over the cash unless there’s a real benefit involved.
>With the same logic, why wanna try out Linux? Windows XP can do everything for you too. This machine is targetting switchers. And PC users who were “that close” to switch but price made them step back.
Hit the nail on the head. That’s another issue preventing Linux takeup. XP comes preinstalled, why take the bother to repartition, install, blahhdy blahhdy blah when everything’s already set up with XP and Office? The only incentive for Jane/Joe User to switch to Linux is if one is running a more unstable Microsoft Windows version, such as one running off the 9x kernel.
>>Plus, PC users are not the only customers here. Old G3 Mac users will want to upgrade too.
Not all of them will. Since Classic’s not included, how will pre-OS X customers transfer OS 9 applications for use on their OS X machine? The only winners here would be G3 users who have bought OS X, and applications already and are merely seeking a cheaper but faster machine.
However there’s still no clear incentive to “switch” from a PC: applications won’t be transferred (unless one purchases Virtual PC, an extra cost overhead), and re below, iLife apps aren’t included.
>> Why would I want a Brand X machine if I can’t do all the things I could do with a Mac and OS X?
>Because it is a cheaper machine. Why do you ask for the full monty when you are not ready to pay for it?? Software is not cheap to create you know. Engineers are paid $$ to wtite it. If you don’t want to pay for a Mac, you will get OSX Lite. And as I said in the article, you STILL can do EVERYTHING you can do with a Mac. OSX Lite is 100% compatible with Mac OS X, so all third party apps will work (e.g. VideoLAN or Fire) if you are not willing to upgrade to MacOSX.
I’m not asking for the Full Monty, but potential users of this new hardware will be. The key issue is the incentive to switch: this hinges around what this new offering has that will make a PC user want to use this offering. Since software’s not included, as you said yourself: “Non-core applications that are not included: iSync, iChat AV, iMovie, iPhoto, DVD player, Sherlock, iCal”, and the nontransferrence of a PC user’s existing software, then it hinges on speed, and that’s a whole another ball game — and speed’s becoming less of an issue anyway
Then all this machine is useful for is to use other Mac OS X apps such as Office et al. So the uptake for the machine becomes dependant on a “killer app”. The iLife suite you just described is somewhat better executed on a Mac, so without that, then it hinges on paying for the upgrade to the ‘full’ OS X, then there’s an extra cost. This hypothetical machine would fare much better with the full OS X suite of applications.
It doesn’t work. People will not buy these new brand because they want Macs for theirs design and charm. People will not buy a crippled, unknown and incompatible (with the PC world) hardware to run linux. Geek people (that likes linux) will prefer to buy a powerfull PC to run linux.
And if this new brand comes with MacOS X “Lite”, people will use pirated copies of MacOS X on it, as people use pirated Windows XP Professional Corporate instead of the crippled Windows XP home. This fact will be bad for Apple sales…
And Macs or Apple products are not popular outside USA. The only chance to Apple’s hardware becomes popular here is licensing to chinese motherboard makers, like Asus, Soyo, etc.
you missed the point…if you want to buy something then buy IT, not some carbon copy or lite version.
I wasn’t comparing mac TO mercs.
Eugenia, I think this is a brilliant idea. It targets the correct audience and it will do so without taking sales away from the higher end line. The only change I would make would be to include iPhoto with the list of apps. Other than that, I think we have a winner.
During the 20s and 30s Mercedes was forced to build affordable bicycles because the German economy was so bad.
Apple is more like TAG – a glitzy case covering a cheap mechanism – backed up by heavy marketing hype.
I sympathise as a fellow aussie but…
30% of computers in NSW Department of Education are Macs
also these large organisations use Macs
University of Melbourne (5,000 Macs; they also have PCs)
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne (500 Macs and 180 PCs)
Burnett Institute, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne
Edith Cowan University, Perth WA (600 G4s, 100 iMacs, 50 Powerbooks)
Queensland Police Service (but not as many as they used to
University of Queensland, Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Department of Cartography, Government of Tasmania
Phillips Fox (lawyers) several large practices in Australian cities
Flight Centre chain of travel agents
Optus (have some in some of their stores)
Let’s both you and I write to the new MD of Apple here in Australia – he’s from Dell so he should know something about marketing 😉
Eugenia,
From the reaction on this board it looks like you are onto a winner, everybody would like it too work but.
There are many worries about brand cannibalisation:
If it looks like a Mac, if it works like a Mac…
There are worries about not finding the iApps:
I need iPhoto, or without the iApps it’s not worth it etc..
Nobody sees the point as a Linux box:
If I want linux I build my own PC box.
Usuers want to be able to upgrade the Videocard:
This card sucks, I can’t play game and so on.(joe/jane average used to spend 400 bucks usually to play game.
To get back to my original post
You have a product (low cost solution to run OSX)
You have a price 400$ 500$
You will need promotion (costly)
You will need a place to sell it (web or supermarket?)
There is a way out of it, don’t sell it to the general public, don’t sell it on the web but sell in the enterprise market.
This price is exactly what corporation pay for their machine, they usually want low specs, they don’t care about videocards or iapps.
All they want is a cheap box which runs Microsoft office.
So you OEM office with it, you offer it with or without screen and you let IBM sell it under their brand.
IBM will be able to sell more G3, rentabilise their factory investment and will be less dependant from intel.
The users will be able to test a Mac at work and eventually buy one for their home.
They will not be installing pirated softwares on it to get MacOSX features.
You are not cannibalising entreprise Mac sales because theyre is no such things as entreprise mac sales.(I mean more than 1000 presons entreprise and government office)
and the support issue can be handle through your usual IBM helpdesk.
This is the only scenario where you will sell more Macs increase the market share without killing Apple sales or without going downmarket with the usual quality issues.
Phil
Sure this would attract the consumer who’s just looking for a cheap machine to do simple word processing with, but the reason I, for example, have always shunned Macs, is the price/performance ratio, not price period.
I’m not interested that much in how much it’ll cost, but I do care if I’m getting better value for my money. The main use for my PC is music production, and I need all the raw calculation power I can get for software synthesizers, samplers and audio effects.
Sure, G5 when it comes out will probably — unless the benchmarks are completely fabricated — be faster for that than any PC. But the price tag will be already SO much higher that there is simply no point for me, as I’m not, yet anyway, making millions. Same for Pro Tools and its hardware DSP solutions.
And after the programs that divide audio processing load over Ethernet become reality (Steinberg already provides one that works with optical audio, but obviously it’s not as handy), which will be soon enough, that’ll effectively signal the end of the hardware DSP era and will just incredibly increase the amount of PCs in the music industry, unless Apple has some really competitive pricing in mind and soon.
I never buy the fastest PC a money can buy when I’m upgrading. You always pay a pretty big “fastest computer tax” for that. I always get the second or third fastest solution, whatever indeed has the best price/performance ratio, from either Intel or AMD depending on which one is, again, offering a better ratio. Unless Apple can sell me a computer that competes in this category and wins in simply raw performance, I don’t consider myself a potential buyer at all, despite my interest in MacOSX and other Apple-only commodities.
Eugenia, great post and great idea. This is the sort of interesting discussion I enjoy here at OSNews.com.
However, I disagree with your thesis. In my opinion, I still think the right idea is to cut the price on the low end eMac and sell it for say $499 or something like that. Treat it as a loss leader. People are going to have to shell out money to make the switch software-wise, so the thought process should be gathering as many users as possible. Once people have made the switch by spending $499 on a cheap eMac plus who knows how much to switch their software (MS Office, games etc) then you have people hooked. They’ll pay $129 to upgrade to Panther. They’ll pay $99 for the .Mac service (which rocks, btw). They’ll buy music from the iTunes store. And, maybe, just maybe, they’ll one day upgrade to a nicer iMac, or ibook, or G5 or whatever where the profit margins are higher.
Selling a cheap eMac won’t cut into the sales of the higher end machines because established Mac users who already own a G4 or an iMac won’t buy the cheap machine. They’ve already made the switch, so it’s not as expensive for them to move up to a nicer machine. Once you buy Office and RTCW for the Mac, then it’s easier to upgrade machines in the future.
I honestly think the way to get people to switch is to offer them a cheap eMac with regular OSX.
I cannot believe your article!!!!!!!
“OS X lite”??? Please, my friend, go get some rest and think it over!
Even on crippled PCs you can run a standard edition of windows that HAS an addressbook, a messenger, and email program and so on and so forth! Apple cannot compete if they have OS X lite! (or whatever the company is).
Furthermore, I think this idea is OK for brandX but for apple… I think this is a bad move!
“I sympathise as a fellow aussie but…
30% of computers in NSW Department of Education are Macs
also these large organisations use Macs
University of Melbourne (5,000 Macs; they also have PCs)
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne (500 Macs and 180 PCs)
Burnett Institute, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne
Edith Cowan University, Perth WA (600 G4s, 100 iMacs, 50 Powerbooks)
Queensland Police Service (but not as many as they used to
University of Queensland, Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Department of Cartography, Government of Tasmania
Phillips Fox (lawyers) several large practices in Australian cities
Flight Centre chain of travel agents
Optus (have some in some of their stores)
Let’s both you and I write to the new MD of Apple here in Australia – he’s from Dell so he should know something about marketing ;-‘”
This probably represents at best 20,000 Macs in total.
Many of them would be older OS9 machines. A lot of life science software is only available on OS9 (I was a biotech postgrad). They often bundled a ‘free’ Mac with the (very expensive) software. I wouldn’t be suprised if many of the machines are in use are pre-G3 vintage. My lab at Griffith Uni was still using a Mac Classic as late as ’97. I expect a lot of this type of scientific software has or will be ported to Windows or Linux.
The 45 or so Australian unis have around 1 million students – and probably no more than 20,000 Macs between them, probably more than half are running OS9 or earlier.
The Windows:OSX ratio is probably something like 50:1 or greater in most Australian universities.
I like this idea. Sell it cheap to the enterprise segment. That would give apple a huge boost in sales and use and save the brand and image. Plus, it would stimulate consumers to buy macs since they’d be using them at work.
I was to add on to that point about the exaggerated demand for OS X.
As is little known I grew up in greece. Now Macs in greece are viewed by greeks for
1) people with a lot of dough
2) graphic artists
3) Multimedia Specialists
4) Hobbyists
5) The academia
In Greek colleges and universities not many macs exist, and people look upon them as inferior even though they are not. EVERYTHING is windows in greece, and this wont change for the foreseeable future. There is only a small percentage of hobbyists around in greece that even wants to experiment with other OSes (for the x86 architecture). What makes you think that people would buy brandX as opposed to a cheap as dirt PC? And secondly who would market it? In greece Rainbow S.A. has the apple dealership rights (and in my opinion they have royally f*ck*d up the platform making it inaccessible to people, only have 3 apple stores in all of greece and not having any leasing/payment options when the sub 1000euro PCs COME WITH SUCH LEASING/PAYMENT OPTIONS!!!!!
Furthermore with an OS X lite, you only get the eye candy of OS X, you dont get much of the functionality that we mac users like about OS X, therefore you are tainting people’s image of OS X and the Mac hardwaren that it runs on.
Yes I know it’s brand X, but people who buy these cheapo PCs and want them to do serious graphics work (misconceptions) might think that since this cheapo PC cant do it, the whole platform cannot do it…therefore it further discourages people from going one step up and getting a real mac!
Unfortunately Apple has already tried this; remember Umax and Power Computing? Most people don’t, Apple put the nail in that coffin a long time ago.
You’re wrong on a few points, although the idea has merit.
The G4 doesn’t cost much more than the G3. Apple can already sell an eMac with an internal display for $700 in the education channel. Instead of creating a whole new G3 design, just repackage the eMac mobo and parts in a case without a display. Maybe this turns the eMac into something Apple can sell for $500. People will spend $700 for a PC plus monitor.
The new box should be Apple branded. It should include the full version of OS X. It should support classic mode. It should be a full Mac in every respect. It should also come bundled with AppleWorks and the other apps that come with an eMac, iMac, or iBook.
The machine should have enough memory for decent performance under OS X — 128 MB just doesn’t cut it. 256 MB is adequate, and the stores could work to sell consumers another 256, 512, or 1024 MB stick for really good performance.
The design should be attractive, but not as refined as the current Macs. It should have two internal drive bays, two bays for CD/DVD drives. It should look like a personal computer and fit comfortably with a run of the mill CRT display. Add a new CD burner and it *shouldn’t* look out of place.
It should include support for Windows USB keyboards in the OS. No more need for a third-party driver.
As you suggest, no AGP. Onboard video. A single built in speaker — and sell nice speakers as an extra. Room for an AirPort Extreme card.
Two new features: USB and FireWire ports on front (not just the back — like the G5) and a PC Card slot (instead of PCI) for future expansion, flash card readers, etc.
Size? Maybe 8″ wide, 8″ high, and 8-10″ deep. Give it a handle so it’s easy to take to LAN parties. 😉
Call it the iCube — unless Jobs has a coronary at the suggestion.
Dan Knight, Low End Mac
>The Windows:OSX ratio is probably something like 50:1 or greater in most Australian universities.
Not at UNSW. Most of the labs are running Debian Linux on x86. There is 1 Windows and 1 Macintosh lab running OS X.
First of all let me say im really surprised at the people who basically say they don’t want to fork over money for a new system or something to the equivalent. Do you plan to keep your old POC system forever or what? Because every PC Company (DELL,Gateway,HP,etc.) are selling many PC’s so apparently lots of people are forking over the money for new systems.
Personally as a switcher long before that campaign ever started i think apple has a lot to offer but is going about their advertising all wrong. They need to have more commercials showing Mac OS X in general and it’s capabilities. You should show students in mixed environments (like me) and them using Mac OS X and Virtual PC or RealPC/Softwindows (if it comes out soon and is good) and teachers using OS X and so forth and show commercials for their hardware. I mean if nothing else continuosly advertise the PowerMac G5/eMac and another commericial for the PowerBook/iBook. I mean thats all DELL does is attempt to make some quirky joke and then show their hardware. DON’T show pro graphic designers,etc using it (we all know people think of this when they think Mac and we don’t need more of it.) Just show lots of people like the switcher campaign ads and show them actually using Mac OS X and the iApps or whatever. If they did that and hardware commericals and kept the consistency going like Dell does then they could do wonders for their marketshare without publishing another product. 🙂
Hell yeah. I’m a Mac user now and it would make an excellent second computer. The thing is, in terms of usability and technology Apple are ahead of Microsoft now, and OS X makes Apple suitable for power users too, in particular the astounding number of Unix apps available through Fink etc. (i’m writing this on Konqueror in OS X, having the KDE panel and OS X dock sitting next to each other is rather frightening!). This would be the perfect time to scoop up some converts.
I have to concur with one of the other posters. Home users get Windows PCs because they use them at work. They don’t want to learn a new system. Plus, they can take (pirate) software from the office to use at home. This has silently been encouraged by Microsoft until recently (now that they no longer have to strive to gain a monopoly). Look at the old license scheme that took a string of 1’s to install their products!
When businesses start seeing a value to adding Macs to their environment, they will bring them in and train their users. Once the users get familiar with it, if they like the experience, they will get a Mac for home (assuming they are available at a reasonable price).
So how do you
a: Get businesses to buy Macs
b: Give the users a good experience
a: Integrate easily into an existing environment so that the IT department is willing to accept them. This primarily means good Active Directory support. Good support for NDS or NIS is a plus.
They must be remotely manageable from windows PCs – IT doesn’t want to machines per desktop just to manage these things. Windows PCs can currently administer Windows, Unix, Netware, Vines, OS/400, Mainframes, etc with graphical tools in most cases.
They must support business apps compatible with existing Windows ones. This means getting vendor support or building a Windows emulation layer into the OS. Many offices use Access – often written by a small vendor who can’t afford to support multiple platforms. You can’t force the business to rewrite these, they won’t do it.
You have to do these things better than Windows, else there is no reason to switch except for political reasons – that ain’t good enough.
b: Provide good performance so that the users don’t groan when they switch.
Give them some easy to add eye candy (they love screen savers, wall paper, sounds and icons)
Don’t force them to change all their habits right away – common keyboard shortcuts, r-click menus, etc can’t change all of a sudden. Give a ‘Windows keyboard’ option like Word used to have a WordPerfect emulator.
I’m sure you can add more to this.
Not everyone uses computers in their line of work. May sound foreign to the geeks here, but when you think about it, a relevant fact.
MacOs X Su><ors badly. It is so slow : I remember using Next on a 12.5 Mhz box. It was so much faster than osX on a Dual G4. Really Apple Sucks so bad… How come they are not dead yet….
First, and most glaring, is your idea for OS X Lite. Bad, bad idea this is.
DVD player is essential. Combo drives are under $50 retail. Any box – even a low end one – needs a DVD player. And what good is a DVD player without DVD playing software? Bad call.
iMovie and iPhoto are big selling points for Apple. Yes, you want to brand your box something different. But these boxes you propose will not win the business market. That’s still a few years off. Any low-end box will have to be initially aimed at the home market. Stripping out two of the biggest selling points to home users is not going to be a winner.
Why take out Rendezvous? Mac OS X is all about ease-of-use. Yet you want to remove a feature that makes them easy to use? Same goes with iSync. Why take out iPod and .Mac sync support? It’s silly.
No, this whole OS X Lite idea is just plain daft. Apple already has OS X. It doesn’t have to piece it together from 3rd party apps that cost money. In fact, creating this new version of OS X is going to cost Apple to make (lowering even further the margin on these boxes).
Now, on to the boxes themselves. Apple would be foolish to dilute their brand. It would confuse the marketing effort and lower their marketshare numbers. (aside: do you know why the Toyota Solara was called the Toyota Camry Solara? so its sales would help the Camry become the best selling car in the US) Apple doesn’t need those kind of problems.
Mac can be a premium brand without being an expensive brand. It just needs to be “more expensive” than a comparable PC (with better design, great OS, etc…) to achieve your goals.
I totally disagree with the premise that a new low-end box will leech sales from the PowerMac line. It would steal sales from the eMac/iMac and it would cause sales of used Macs to drop. But even if an 867Mhz G4 was put in the box it wouldn’t be close enough in performance to a 1.6Ghz G5 to warrant attention from someone needing that much power.
And there is no reason to come out with 3 models. A new low-end model should be a single configuration (for store sales) or configurable when ordered over the web. A low margin model shouldn’t have three different configs sitting around in stores waiting to be sold.
The new model would just replace the eMac. Again, why confuse the marketing effort by having three low end systems (iBox, eMac, iMac) and different models of two of them? That’s the kind of foolishness that hurt Apple in the early-mid 90’s.
I was cheering along with the contents when it was about making another brand name for the Mac. I completely agree. The Mac has evolved from its “computers for the rest of us” roots and gone to “the best computing money can buy.”
So yes, Apple would do well to make an intro computer with another brand. Agreed.
However, when the article started talking about crippling things… that’s where I disagree. This new brand should simply have the goal of, “make a streamlined computer that is as cheap as the PC equivalents” and let it go at that. If it means onboard video, fine. If it means having an AGP slot, fine. Whatever. But having a “Lite” version of OSX will just be more of a PITA for Apple than anything else. Better to keep the OS as simple as possible: Server and Client. That’s it.
Where the user will be limited is in the hardware. If the computer is a G3, no altivec optimiziation. No superdrive. That is a lot of why people are buying the higher-end Macs nowadays. The user will be able to do simple stuff, but why get rid of iSync, Rendezvous, Inkwell, and the rest? The point is to evangelize those products, to make them have wide appeal and to show the power of the platform, esp. to people that might later go on to buy more expensive stuff (and if they aren’t going to but more expensive stuff, then you wouldn’t have gotten their money anyhow). Also, the point is to move the average consumer’s money from Dell or gateway to Apple, to extend the userbase. If you cripple the system, people are not going to adopt it, and the point of the cheaper system is useless.
Also, I think many people in the PC world are afraid of the way Apple traditionally cripples their machines. Onboard and crappy video, integrated CRT/LCD, and no upgrade path except in Apple hardware (no 3rd parties). I know that MacHeads rail against this, but darn it, let people upgrade their machines! Sure, have integrated everything, but add an AGP and 3 PCI slots for those people that want to add the extras that they need. Let people pick what monitor they want to have. Make a list of compatible hardware easy to find so people can go out and grab that extra optical drive, or PCI card, or whatever.
By the way, that is another reason the Mac doesn’t get the support it needs: the computer industry sees Apple as wanting to get ALL of the pie. MS just wants the OS and application pie, but lets the hardware people fight amongst themselves for the hardware. Apple wants it all, and therefore doesn’t get the support in drivers that it needs…. what if that chnaged a little? What hardware would be supported based on a detente with component manufacturers?
The thing is, Apple is so worried about canabalizing PowerMac sales (and by extention, MacHeads are worried about it, too), that they are losing sight of this whole computer revolution we are having: cheap computers for the rest of us, not just the rich. Which is why the Mac is no longer the computer for the rest of us….
What will be cannabalized is the iMac line, and good riddance. The powermacs I can see being expensive because they are Power Power Power, but the iMacs have gotten progressively MORE expensive in a market that has demanded less expensive product. The new LCD iMacs are slick, but they are way too expensive, when I can get a comparable Dell box for 1/2 the price (and the only real difference is that it runs XP instead of OSX). And I hate saying that, because I am as loyal a MacHead as anyone….
The specs listed are, no offense, pretty stupid. the whole point of making an integrated machine is that you don’t want different mobos. The “ultimate” would require a different mobo because of the firewire800 (??) and USB.
Why be skimpy on the USB connectors? Jeez, give all of ’em 4 USB 2.0 slots, keep the Firewire400 instead of the 800, and lower the Ultimate price to about $699 (even that is pushing it). Without firewire, you won’t evangilize all the really cool stuff out there, like iChatAV, etc.
I Agree. I Live in Israel, and here the conditions are the same.
I’d really want a Mac, mainly because of the “Apple Touch”, but I won’t I will get
one any time soon mainly because of these reasons:
1) Hebrew support: I wouldn’t use something that does’nt support my native language,
would I? This area probebly got better with recent Unicode support and support for
viewing hebrew web pages with Safari and Mozilla (But it’s not enouth for the average
israeli user to use a Mac for home and office tasks which are a bit more elementry then
editing video).
2) The market is controlled by one and only company, so the prices are high and the service
is not so high.
3) Price: the most important reason: For instance an “authentic” first-hand entry level eMac
consts at the Yeda Apple Store 5067 New Isreali Shekels (which is 1164 USD). A high-end
one costs 7976 NIS (which is 1833 USD).
When I checked the prices of the new G5 Macs, I got stroke: 11,473 NIS for entry level (2637
USD) and a whooping 17,302 NIS for high-end (4000 USD).
>”The Windows:OSX ratio is probably something like 50:1 or greater in most Australian universities.
Not at UNSW. Most of the labs are running Debian Linux on x86. There is 1 Windows and 1 Macintosh lab running OS X.”
I agree-Linux on x86 is probably much better choice for general use computers in Unis than Windows or OSX.
I can just read the review:
BrandX, a purposely crippled machine made by an Apple subsidiary…
…if they’d only spend a couple more dollars to add some of the missing features, like an AGP slot instead of their limited built in video…
Conclusion: why buy a crippled Mac, even if Apple isn’t calling it that? Either save up the money for a real Mac, or buy a good low-end PC.
What does this post mean?
1) Australia is a unhappy country, they have no Macs :-))
2) Apples PR in Australia sucks or
3) Anonymous does not know how to recognize Macs .-))
4) His sister is a multimillionaire and I want her telefone number 🙂
1) There is one Apple store in the whole of Canberra. The size of Canberra is 300,000-400,000. Even Wellington has more Mac shops that that and its population is only 115,000.
2) Apples Australian PR does suck. Again, as I have said, they are too US centric. It is though Steve Jobs considers that the world stops at the shores of the US. Maybe he should jump on a plane visit this mystical “over seas”.
3) The average computer in Australia is $1500-$1800 including a screen, normally 17 inch. There is nothing stopping Apple from competiting in such a market.
4) The US can keep those crap $200 computers. If it is anything like the beef industry, I’ll be happy to pay for them NOT to come to Australia.
” In Australia Macs are just novelties outside the graphics and multimedia areas”
lol- a suprising comment from a fellow ozzie.. So you can speak for all of then, eh? –LOL
A sweeping statement such as the one you posted- really shows one of two things:
1) You just have a personal dislike for Apple, so you choose to direct negative information at them at every opportunity given. or
2) You honestly dont know any better
)
you really cant be that missinformed.. can you?
You don’t like it that Apple is the only company that controlls the mac, when your pc is really controlled entirely by Microsoft (unless your running Linux) the only difference is that there is a different hardware company that will attempt to help you if something goes wrong hardware wise. But pretty much Microsoft owns your PC for the most part, and when the Palladin comes out then your system will really be owned by Microsoft. I know people who are aware of macs and have tried OS X some who say the instant palladin comes out they will go out and get a mac.
Nobody complains about Sun Microsystems and Solaris or IBM and AIX or their other OS’s, yet you have a problem with Apple? If the only problem with this is when the company is bad and makes bad decisions for their products. People have gotten the wrong idea about some companies controlling aspects of their products wrong mainly on account of microsoft being monopolistic.
You were tired! You want to not include features, fune, but your list includes things that are WHAT MAKES A MAC A MAC and things that are PART OF THE OS ITSELF! AAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHH!
You mean, you want a reasonably priced PowerPC+OpenFirmware that is able to run PC-components? http://www.pegasosppc.com should help.
Holy shit….
I think a majority of us Australians are really missinformed :O
“The average computer in Australia is $1500-$1800 including a screen, normally 17 inch. There is nothing stopping Apple from competiting in such a market.”
<a herf=”http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/80205/… job they are, eh
com’on fellas- this is embarrasing. For the record- we’re not all hermits
)
“” In Australia Macs are just novelties outside the graphics and multimedia areas”
lol- a suprising comment from a fellow ozzie.. So you can speak for all of then, eh? –LOL
A sweeping statement such as the one you posted- really shows one of two things:
1) You just have a personal dislike for Apple, so you choose to direct negative information at them at every opportunity given. or
2) You honestly dont know any better
)
you really cant be that missinformed.. can you?”
Yeah I really must hate Macs…thats why I have previously owned 5 of them. The point is Macs no longer have a compelling reason for most people to purchase. OSX is no easier to use or more stable than XP Pro. The hardware is mostly cheap oem wintel. Lack of software, poor price/performance. Lack of retailers in Australia. Apple lost most of its advantages by the late 90s.
I don’t hate Macs…I just think they are largely irrelevant- so does 90+% of the population.
http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/80205/…
Actually Apple doesn’t controll all of the Macs in Israel. Yeda soulutions does it on Apple’s behalf. I’m not talking about them to controll your computer directly. I’m talking about Yeda being the only one that imports and sells them, unlike the PC market where you have lots of compettion so the prices arn’t so high and the support of the users is better.
Speaking of Paladium, you can never know for sure in property operating sytems. Mybe tommorow Apple will put something in OS/X and won’t tell about it.
You’ve got me sold! I want one!
Although I think the one market this will really eat into is the Linux market. But then I would rather run OS X “lite” over Linux anyday.
Think I’ll pick up one of the $500 models.
compiled a version of OSX that ran on intel hardware and sold it for $99? I’d buy two or three.
“I don’t hate Macs…I just think they are largely irrelevant- so does 90+% of the population.”
well thats a fair call- as far as your personal opionion goes- however market share doesnt reflect the sentiment of a nation.
Most people dont know any better than wintel, but thats forgivable
)
I do agree the 90’s really fucked the perception of Apple here in Oz- due to Jobs getting arsed; but since he came back- I can see a sdeady flow of people who are finding Mac’s preferable. and now with King promoted to MD here, coupled with the release of the G5, I think things will get even brighter.
further, who gives a toss about market share?
I have a fantastic wallet- I’ll keep it till it crumbles, because its my personal preffrence. I really dont care about the manufacturers market share in the walet making word- All I care about is the fact that its still making wallets for some time in the future.
Same princible goes for Apple
)
And please- enough with the sweeping statements regarding what our nation rational
While your idea is cool, I don’t get one point:
Why do you doing this? Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t ment negative.
But why are you investing so much for your time in workung out this concept? Did Steve call you and ask for assistence? ;-))
Or is it just foolin’ around with business-concepts and ideas?
Too bad that you’re not allowed to work in the US Apple could hire you to build the new BrandX unit.
regards,
Ralf
P.S. Did you know that BrandX was a rockband of the seveties?
RE: IgKh (IP: —.inter.net.il)
Or do you mean YODA systems; “Buy a Mac you will” 😉
Reply…
I’ve been contemplating, and here is a solution. Scrap the iLamp and eMac, start from sratch:
1) Replace the Openboot with EFI. The benefit to Apple is this, rather than requiring the graphic card BIOS be compatible with Apples firmware, as so long as it supports BIOS (EFI has backwards compatibility), it should work.
Net result: Apple can source graphic cards from any vendor without the need for special modification to get working.
2) Replace the case with something simple. The cost of the eMac and iMac casing make up atleast 1/3 of the total cost of production. Make the case simply but funky. Take a look at SGI’s desktop line up such as the Indy, Octane or even the O2 for inspiration.
3) Offer CRT screens again. The vast majority AREN’T going to pay AUS$1299 for an LCD TFT display.
4) Boost the CPU and FSB speed. 133Mhz today is a joke, infact, a very BAD joke indeed. I am not saying to have a 800Mhz bus, but atleast get G4 FSB running at 266Mhz and the CPU speed at around 1.25Ghz.
5) Outsource production. The make the same mistake as SUN, continuing to think that they can make it themselves. Look at IBM, as soon as they outsourced their PC production, costs dropped, prices dropped and IIRC, their PC division turned a profit.
6) The world doesn’t stop at the borders of the US. Market to every tom, dick and harry who can afford a Mac and make the case to them WHY they should run a Mac instead of a PC. Use REAL LIFE examples no pre-arranged “customers”.
7) Listen to grevinces that developers have. Don’t dismiss them as “anti-Apple”, sit down and listen.
Yes, that’s right. Here, we find a iMac G3 600 Mhz CD(CRT) for US$ 1400, while a cheap PC (celeron 1800 15 inch CRT) costs less than US$900.
Is a big difference, since the average worker have a income of US$500/month. Actually this income is a little above the average worker, since the minimum wage is US$80 . I dont have statistics, but, i.e. a person with a good position, like me (i’m a java senior developer) usually don’t make more than US$1500/month.
But the brand apple is very respected and wanted. And OS X is just lovely. Everyone want this.
A US$1000 Xbrand machine, backed by apple would be successful even here, in Brazil.
Yeda and rainbow are monopolies in Israel and Greece. They are the only ones that are “authorized” to sell macs in greece (and israel). As a result if I import a mac from another EU country or the USA, or if I buy from a non-authorized dealer, I am refused assistance and even when I have FULL WARANTY from apple herself, I cannot get my equipment repaired in Greece, I have to send it ti the UK or some other country to take advantage of the warranty! ARGH!
As for x86 MacOS X… how short memories you have! It was tried, it was called Rhapsody! It ran on PPC and x86, and developper spoke! There were double the amount of applications for the PPC than the x86!
Furthermore take a look at what offering an x86 version did for other companies like NeXT and Be! It killed off their own brand eventually killed off their OS!
I built the following machine:
Athlon XP 2000+
512MB PC2100 DDR RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 SE 64MB DDR
40GB WDSE HDD with 8MB cache
52x24x52x CDRW
All for $314.
Will this pseudo-Mac be able to compete with this machine in terms of performance, gaming and otherwise? Not a chance. Why would I want to run a half-ass Mac compatible that is not even half the machine perofmance wise as the PC I built? To run OSX? Well the OSX that will come with this so-called compatible will lack iApps and other bells and whistles, which I can install Linux on the machine and enjoy the full benefits of games and office applications on a much faster machine. Even if I install Windows on it, the machine will be very fast and will be able to run anything but the very latest games at high resolutions. So I think I would stick with my little AMD. If I am going to get a Mac, I’ll get the real one.
Just my $0.02
I have a 700MHz iBook, I’d love your OSX lite. Maybe they could turn off a lot of the annoying eye-candy to speed things up too!
Me, I _never_ use the iApps. Heck, I find OSX a little annoying and have been finding myself using YDL 3 on it more and more these days.
(Oh, and I like the idea of your low-end not-Apple Mac. They could just license Terasoft to do it to start, as a bit of a pilot project.)
Buy used Macs! Deals can be found on used G3’s and G4’s.
When was the last time a PIII 500 was worth something?
To my knowledge, you cannot compile darwin without smp support. So squizing SMP from osx lite is not an option.
—
http://www.bebox.nu/registry.php
“Holy shit….
I think a majority of us Australians are really missinformed :O
“The average computer in Australia is $1500-$1800 including a screen, normally 17 inch. There is nothing stopping Apple from competiting in such a market.”
<a herf=”http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/80205/… job they are, eh
com’on fellas- this is embarrasing. For the record- we’re not all hermits
)”
eMac $AUD2499
1GHz PowerPC G4
256MB SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive
CPU- slower than Athlon XP1800+ – an AUD$100 processor
Monitor – oem quality 17″ – worth AUD$180 (about Likom quality)
RAM – obsolete, expensive, slow PC133
Radeon 7500 – worst performing 3D of almost any AGP card on the market (1/20th 3D performance of GF FX5200) – AUD$50 value (approx 1998 vintage)
Realistically thesystem is worth no more than AUD$1000 inc software.
Back in PC world:
All the following are available in an $AUD1500 system:
512 MB DDR333 . A 128 MB GF FX5200 AGP card. A P4 2.4 GHz . 800MHz bus speed. SATA.
I’m not even sure if a Xbrand is even needed. It was mentioned earlier that a cheap, OSX solution would be a great entry for fulfilling the “digital hub” strategy. A small box(which can be used as a set top box) with a 700-900MHz G3 processor, integrated graphics card with S-Video, 40G HD , 256 system RAM (hell it could possible be shared). It would of course have the bells and whistles like USB2, Firewire (hold off on Fire800) and digital/ analog audio out (so that it can be used as a set-top). The computer can be marketed as a settop box (by one for the grandparents and buy them an iSight connected to the TV), however, include all the features needed for it to be a viable home computer. I would hope this would be Apple’s goal when they are able to attain a large enough gap between their pro-sumer products and this Xbrand equipment. I right now, this sort of cheap box (400-700, depending upon capabilities) would cannibalize sales of eMac, iMac and possibly ibooks.
You must be either lying or stole that hardware. I have just tried to add that up and even taking into account the exchange rate plus GST, I still can’t get a system priced that cheap.
Sure, PC’s are cheaper, but not that cheap. When you hit $300, you hit the shit-house quality zone which one in the right mind would want to buy unless they’re absolutely despirate to by a computer. When I mean despirate, I mean like an addict to getting his daily fix despirate.
I really like the idea of a cheap, headless system capable of running Mac OS X. But without upgradeable graphics it doesn’t seem much less crippled than an eMac. If Apple were to create a system like that, I’d hope that they’d make it as upgradeable as equivalent cheap PCs.
I live on a college income and most of my money goes to purchasing books and I have a iMac and a cheapo Dell. If I can buy one anyone can.
I saw mentions of “OS X lite” and OS X for the PC. I think the lite idea is a bad one. But OS X for the PC a great one. Let me explain: first off IMHO Apple has a developper problem it uses Obj-c, as great a language as it can be it has a barrier to entry that is high: you need a mac!
Now for all of you thinking GNUstep, think again, it’s visual appeal and user adoption is not that great. Hence I suggest apple try (because of the digital hub) create what the new Amiga was(should) to be an OE(operating environment). This means abstracting as much as possible from the hardware.
And this can be done in at least two ways:
1) port Aqua to work on all versions of Darwin (or *BSD) (PC and Mac) and sell Aqua separatly (for PCs) now all of you moaning here please note that Apple only supports the GUI for basic users not the underlying *nix. Apple should also tie it to the *BSD but just to Darwin will be enough. This will bring PC coders to actually have a use for Obj-c, to use something else than Windows, Something with a name that people recognise (linux is getting there among neophytes). Apple doesn’t even need to support the hardware the GNUDarwin team is well on it’s way to port driver support (this would be the easiest, and by far best choice from a marketing point of view)
2) Actually port their whole OS to PC and sell it. But with either:
a) specially chosen hardware
b) a driver’s certification program where manufaturers pay to be certified
I really like number 1) because, it makes use of the userbase Apple is reaching out to : the geeks! I know that if I can get my “farm” to work with another OS than windows and be productive in the same way ( a state the gnome or KDE has not yet achieved to my liking). Plus the fact that I as a geek, influence many as much as 30 people on their computer buying habits. I know I would pay to buy Aqua for x86, heck I buy linux (Suse), openBSD, and FreeBSD CDs to support them.
But back to the digital hub an OS running on many platforms , ie an OE, with a programming API that makes porting just a matter of recompiling (no adjustments). it would make it a lot easier to push those expensive toys like the iPod, or their new webcam, because their user base, technology would be more present.
I think that apple staying on one platform is a bad move for a company doing so much R&D, look at IBM, the power4 is their technology but apple is using it! will they lose money? lose customers from their low-end linux workstations? no because they have made the best product for their consumers.
And for the analogies I can buy a BMW motor and hook it up to a Ford!! BMW doesn’t loose when I do so it actually wins because it shows that they are the best in what they do.
( sometimes spending 200$ just for an OS is better than changing the whole computer)
What a waste of mental effort Eugenia…unless it wasn’t that much effort.
Here is the solution, and it is very simple. License all G4 and below technology out to 3rd party cloners, while keeping the G5 to themselves. Apple keeps the cutting edge, and cloner can come out without harming the Apple high end. Apple sells more OSX to the cloners. Everyone wins.
Now for all of you thinking GNUstep, think again, it’s visual appeal and user adoption is not that great. Hence I suggest apple try (because of the digital hub) create what the new Amiga was(should) to be an OE(operating environment).
1) It won’t happend. Not while Apple is still largelly a hardware business.
2) GNUstep or related project already exists… If you are so interessted by OpenStep (and I fully agree with that
you better try to join us and improve GNUstep rather than wait for a totally irrealist move from Apple. GNUstep’s problem is lack of developers. GNUstep’s advantage is the use of really good foundations (OpenStep + ObjectiveC).
on a side note, the GNUstep’s look could be changed. I made various tests and even started a theme bundle (http://www.roard.com/camaelon). It needs works, but other things are perhaps more interessting in the short range than themes…
So I can buy a sloooooooowww G3-based Mac from 2 years ago (with a different label) for the price of a low-middle-range PC? Sweet!
The thing you forgot is that the G3 runs OSX slower than a turtle and is ancient technology. I had an iBook last year, and it lasted almost three days before aggravation destroyed any Mac lust I had ever had. Now I’m quite content (nay, happy) to cruise on my Pentium hardware with Windows 2000 – speedy, reliable, and I don’t have to wait all day for a program to respond. Also less than half the Mac sticker tag.
Most people who buy PC’s in the “Bargain basement” range want to spend the least amount of money. They get most of their software (games, etc) from PC owning ‘friends’ or through file sharing. They would not be interested in buying a mac because pirated software is limited in availability -they “don’t know anyone who owns a mac anyway”.
Selling cheap PC’s is the way many smaller PC companies have gone out of business over the years – the only ones who can offord to stay in business recoup their costs from quantity of sales or from profits on the higher range systems. They would rather make a small profit than see a competitor make a sale.
“CPU- slower than Athlon XP1800+ – an AUD$100 processor”
Actaully- I think u’ll find the value of a 800 – 1GHz G4 quite a bit more than a 100 bucks- correct me if Im wrong? + the resale value of a G4 is conciderably higher than an equivalent PIII
“Monitor – oem quality 17″ – worth AUD$180 (about Likom quality”
I think you’ll find that the eMac 17″ flat screen is just a tad higher than Likom quality, and you would be hard presed finding a 17″ flat screen for $180.. LOL
“RAM – obsolete, expensive, slow PC133”
hardly obsolete
I will give you that it is no longer competitive however
“Radeon 7500 – worst performing 3D of almost any AGP card on the market (1/20th 3D performance of GF FX5200) – AUD$50 value (approx 1998 vintage”
2001 vintage actually
– and on this one I have to agree, it is shithouse gfx preformence as far as todays cards go.
[i]”Realistically the system is worth no more than AUD$1000 inc software.”[i]
hmm- I have to dissagree on that comment.
factoring all the other features like HDD size, firewire ports, 5 usb ports, software, OS, etc- its about righly priced. maybe 100 or so over- but then again if you like paying for quaility, then you wont worry about the extra buck
)
So I can buy a sloooooooowww G3-based Mac from 2 years ago (with a different label) for the price of a low-middle-range PC? Sweet!
Ahem.
The thing you forgot is that the G3 runs OSX like my Grandma’s P-233 runs WinXP, ie, it’s completely useless. I had an iBook last year, and it lasted almost three days before aggravation destroyed any Mac lust I had ever had. Now I’m quite content (nay, happy) to cruise on my Pentium hardware with Windows 2000 – speedy, reliable, and I don’t have to wait all day for a program to respond. Also less than half the Mac sticker tag. So long Apple! Bad experiences kill any desire to switch, and I’ll guarantee anybody trying to run OSX on a G3 (WTF!) will stick to Wintel next time.
“I’ll guarantee anybody trying to run OSX on a G3 (WTF!) will stick to Wintel next time.”
You “guarantee”? Really? Gee, I run OSX Jaguar on my 700 megahertz iBook and it runs awesome. So what do I get for proving your “guarantee” wrong?
Look around, first, before making blanket statements. There are tons of users over at the macaddict forums who are running OSX on iBooks and other G3 Macs without any problems. Maybe some, such as yourself, have problems of some sort. But, from my experience, those with problems are in the minority.
So, before you start flaming, ask yourself: am I making a stupid blanket statement? If yes, don’t post.
Sheesh.
Please be so kind as to explain why G4 clones will increase profits for Apple.
And please refrain from magical handwaving (ala “it will increase market share”) without any solid analysis to back it up.
Incredably poor idea. You are creating an illigitimate child and believe that the buyer will not recognize the parent. If Apple wants a loss leader they will probably use an existing box whose costs have been amortized and build it on the third shift in deepest China.
Apple supports software development with hardware profits. Buyers of a bare bones Mac/Chery will still demand Apple service. No profits, ergo bad idea. The enterprise market is Apple’s target as can be seen in X-Serve and the generous license terms.
I am writing this on a B & W 400mg. G3 with lots of memory and OSX 10.2.6. Works fine for what I do. (If I need more capability I use my wises G4 iMAC.) If you want an entry MAC cheap, buy used. Mine cost $300 us.
Cheers,
V.M.
If Apple really wants to boost mindshare for OS X they only need to do one thing. License OS X to IBM for their portable and desk top offerings. If IBM was the only clone license, I don’t think it would canabalize Apple sales. But instantly, apple would have a way into enterprise computing, a market from which they are almost entirely excluded. This new offering would reinforce IBM’s linux/unix offerings by adding OS X and therefore add to it’s stable of software. Also, IBM is not known for undercutting price. Further, in one quick move, it would change the world wide opinion of Apples position in the computer industry. Can anyone say Apple/IBM team work breaking down the Wintel Monopoly. Oh well, even though this is a great idea, I somehow don’t think it has a snowballs chance in hell of happening.
well, just a couple of things.
these ideas are cute and all, but i can’t believe all the discussion that goes into them. i applaud the effort, but its really kind of silly to sit around and go “this is what they should do…” you aren’t involved with apple, and for you or anyone else to be so vain as to believe you have a better strategy for them is ridiculous. i don’t mean to be harsh, but its true.
secondly, apple (and windows) articles are mostly flame bait. so posting opinions as news just adds to the flaming wars and we all know how much those are liked anyway.
thirdly, having read the article, i simply dont agree. the computer industry is not like the auto industry and i’m fairly confident that this strategy would fail here. i can’t site any facts of failure, but neither can anyone else of success so i’m safe in my statement.
the thing is, a mac is a mac. its not cheap, but its doable. you get a unique product for your price. it almost gives an elitest look to it, but thats kind of what it is. not everyone can run os x on every pile of metal out there and that makes is kinda special. i say let apple do what they do best. stick around and make good products. you can’t fix what isn’t broken.
>Price is a fairly small issue
I am sorry, but this is not true. Proof: