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Archive for May, 2009

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Monday, May 25th, 2009

As I’ve said in these columns on more than a few occasions, the media is desperate to convince Apple to build a netbook. They see the apparent success on the Windows side of the computing universe, and they feel Apple is losing big time not to have their own contender.

Well, maybe so, except I think the jury is out as to whether netbooks are going to prove to be major successes or passing fads. Indeed, that’s a question that may not be fully answered until later this year, when a hopefully improving economy and the holiday season allows the public to demonstrate its real preferences.

The other model being talked up is the so-called tablet computer. Now a common iteration of a tablet is a notebook with a swivel screen and the ability to write on the display courtesy of a stylus. In that sense, you might consider it a grown up version of a Palm Pilot.

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Sunday, May 24th, 2009

I often get the feeling that some so-called tech writers would love to trade places with Steve Jobs. That way, they could direct the affairs of Apple and have it build the products they really want.

Unfortunately, though it is real easy to be an armchair critic, actually running a multibillion dollar global corporation is another thing entirely. It takes real special skills, and you can see that Apple has had trouble filling the top spot over the years. From John Scully to Gil Amelio, all were tragic failures in one way or another, perhaps because they couldn’t see the long-term impact of their decisions.

That, more than anything, may be the biggest advantage Steve Jobs holds over the other CEOs who have run Apple over the years — and some say almost into the ground. He and his fellow executives don’t look only as far as the next quarter in plotting their strategy for Apple. So a temporarily falloff in sales or a temporary craze won’t interest them, because they don’t believe that serves the long-term success of the company.

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Thursday, May 21st, 2009

When you look at the latest ad campaign from Microsoft, the ones featuring an actor pretending to be a regular person, whose given a sum of money to buy a personal computer that suits their specific needs, what do they want you to believe?

Well, the common assumption is that there’s a real Apple Tax, the extortion allegedly charged for buying a Mac instead of a Windows PC. But there’s more involved, and the conclusions some viewers are apt to reach is quite different from the one Microsoft wants to convey.

You see, for example, their fake customers entering a consumer electronics store with the most modest of requirements. One wants a notebook with a 17-inch screen, another requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM, while a third seeks the ability to edit video. In each case, the Macs are disparaged as being too expensive, not having the features they want, or, worst, that the buyer just isn’t cool enough to own an Apple product.

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Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

All things being equal, you’d expect more and more Mac notebooks to sell in the months and years to come, at the expense of desktops. Some day, not even the iMac would have any reason to exist, and might disappear in favor of a few portable models with larger screens — or at least that’s one possibility.

The other has it that people are looking to save money in any way possible, and that may be one of the key reasons why Microsoft is squandering so much cash on its new ad campaign. Forgetting the obvious flaws in those annoying TV spots, they want to show people that you can get PCs real cheap if you shop around.

In yesteday’s commentary, I suggested that any movement on Apple’s part towards a lower-cost Mac would probably involve a little cost-cutting and perhaps a MacBook and iMac with smaller screens, to knock $200 or so off the retail price. There is, however, another way.

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