Why Apple Should Kill Off the Mac(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Why Apple Should Kill Off the Mac
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apple-should-kill-off-the-mac-1434321848
10 comments
So many things wrong in this article but the base most fundamental issue is that iOS is in the position it is because of the app store and the stellar quality of the apps available in it. This is overwhelmingly driven by the XCode and MacOS X development platform. Microsoft showed during the 90's if you want to control a platform win the developer market. Sure lots of developers hated them but they had such a large dedicated group that it drove the adoption of the platform and made it dominate. Apple is in a similar position, not in market share but in revenue and profit certainly. They aggressively invest in their developer community while for the most part google invests very little. Mac's are key component of that strategy.
Couldn't agree more. The article is half-baked without an understanding for how much of the developer community relies on macs and how important that is to Apple. I know I personally don't use a single Apple product other than the Macbook Pro that is so ingrained into my workflow I can't imagine how I'd work without it. Doing non-dot net work in Windows is a joke and there is no *nix supported laptop with enough ease of use to get out of the way so I can get anything done.
The article continues the long tradition of giving Apple business advice it neither wants nor needs. Apart from the Mac's value as a developer platform for iOS, the Mac's market share as a PC, though small, is growing (5.7% in 2014) while others, notably Dell, are declining. And market share numbers don't capture the Mac's influence in Silicon Valley - look around the room at any presentation in the Bay Area, including Google IO, for the Apple logo on laptops.
I just want some computer company to focus on power users. I know its a relatively smaller market, but if someone (Apple, Dell, Lenovo, etc.) focused on high quality hardware and software that "just worked" for power users and less focused on the consumer-y features, that would be awesome. Macs have a great build quality but the OS seems less focused on improving the experience than assimilating you into their ecosystem (this is true for Microsoft and Google as well). Every new feature involves creating an account to more tightly couple you to the respective company. I get this strategy but would love to see someone concentrating more on the overall experience than locking me into _their_ world.
They're supposed to kill off a highly profitable business just so that they can focus on other things?
That doesn't make any sense. They have like $100 billion dollars in cash sitting in the bank. If anything, they are focusing on too few things, not too many.
That doesn't make any sense. They have like $100 billion dollars in cash sitting in the bank. If anything, they are focusing on too few things, not too many.
Clip & save this to your Apple scrapbook, next to articles reporting Michael Dell's 1997 "shut it down and give the money to shareholders" assessment.
Author Mims casually overlooks how crucial Mac/OSX is to the iOS development ecosystem, and how important "screens that have more pixels than any PC ever" are to the leading-edge creators for every other tech and cultural platform. It's a reminder why tech columnists aren't asked to manage/turn-around tech companies.
There is one true insight here, though, about where the future mass-market volume and profits will come from. But let me suggest a diametrically opposite strategic direction, suggested by the same insight:
It may again be time for Apple to welcome OSX on third-party hardware.
OSX is now a complement to the real cash cows – iOS devices, media stores, and cloud service – via the OSX development stack and other tight integrations. Apple could give OSX away for running on any clone PC (or virtual host), and reap benefits in the markets where it has stronger profit margins.
Apple would still produce showpiece Macs – the creation/development/knowledge-work hardware you get when you can afford them – but most OSX users would simply be throwing OSX onto their econoclones, because it's what works best with the iOS devices they spend most of their time on.
If you squint, you could see "free OSX anywhere" as a followup step in the progression that's included ITunes everywhere and free XCode.
Author Mims casually overlooks how crucial Mac/OSX is to the iOS development ecosystem, and how important "screens that have more pixels than any PC ever" are to the leading-edge creators for every other tech and cultural platform. It's a reminder why tech columnists aren't asked to manage/turn-around tech companies.
There is one true insight here, though, about where the future mass-market volume and profits will come from. But let me suggest a diametrically opposite strategic direction, suggested by the same insight:
It may again be time for Apple to welcome OSX on third-party hardware.
OSX is now a complement to the real cash cows – iOS devices, media stores, and cloud service – via the OSX development stack and other tight integrations. Apple could give OSX away for running on any clone PC (or virtual host), and reap benefits in the markets where it has stronger profit margins.
Apple would still produce showpiece Macs – the creation/development/knowledge-work hardware you get when you can afford them – but most OSX users would simply be throwing OSX onto their econoclones, because it's what works best with the iOS devices they spend most of their time on.
If you squint, you could see "free OSX anywhere" as a followup step in the progression that's included ITunes everywhere and free XCode.
This I would support, I have a hard time seeing it in action but two years ago I'd have a hard time seeing Apple open sourcing there main language and standard lib (I know Obj-C is open source but no the lib) or them making MacOS X free. Only issue is driver and driver support. I think it would likely take too much of Apples time to support all that hard ware and users would certainly blame them for faulty driver code, they did to Microsoft.
I completely disagree with the article's author - just because they don't "need" the revenue and there are lots of new areas of development on which to focus is not enough of a reason.
Anyone have a mirror not behind a paywall?
Google "Why apple should kill off the mac" and click on the article link.