>It’s a tired trope to imagine what Jobs would have done, but when he returned to Apple he saw a myriad of macs and decided that Apple would kill them all and s

>It’s a tired trope to imagine what Jobs would have done, but when he returned to Apple he saw a myriad of macs and decided that Apple would kill them all and sell 4: a laptop and a desktop in pro and consumer models. I honestly don't understand how anyone can suggest this is a smart thing to do. The reason Apple did that in the late 90s is because the product line had too many SKUs, but also because Apple was close to bankruptcy. Focusing all your marketing and product development on a few products is a good way to make sure you aren't holding the bag on unsold inventory (part of why Tim Cook is now CEO). Today's Apple is in a fundamentally stronger position and can manage the supply chains for multiple products (and multiple SKUs of them). Indeed, Steve Jobs later eschewed that consumer/pro grid with the iPod, which had a SKU for every price point.