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Actually, back in the 90's, when PC margins were much higher, there were a plethora of small boutique PC builders out there. Many of them were far nicer than t

by beloch 14y ago

Actually, back in the 90's, when PC margins were much higher, there were a plethora of small boutique PC builders out there. Many of them were far nicer than the Apple stores of today. Since they could turn a profit in the kilobucks on a good sale they tended to go to greater lengths to woo customers. Nice decor, not cold-looking ikea cast-offs. Free coffee and snacks. Aeron chairs in front of high-end demo rigs loaded with the latest software, whether it was AutoCAD or Half Life. The salespeople at these places tended to be genuine computer geeks who would enthusiastically gush about anything you asked them rather than bored kids who you can see going through the Apple protocol binder in their heads after every question you ask them. Most systems coming out of places like this were custom, right down to the installed applications. Of course, PC margins gradually shrank until they basically became commodity items. Assembling PC's gradually got easier too. e.g. When was the last time you had to set IRQ/DMA channels via dip switches or had to worry about which side of that ribbon cable goes to pin 0? Assembling a PC today is practically impossible to mess up, so a lot more people do it themselves. As nice as many of these boutiques were and despite the care that many of them put into their work, their business model simply became unsustainable. Note that Apple's computers were also sold in some boutique stores at one point, although in the 90's stores specializing in Apple products were already not doing well because Apple of the 90's was decidedly unsexy. (The stores of the 90's specializing in Apple products that I can remember were all decidedly dingy actually...) Please do not say that Apple "changed the way" computers are sold in person. They didn't. They leveraged their higher profit-margins to build stores similar to those that their own hardware had been sold in barely a decade earlier. This let them cut out retailers, increase vertical integration, and maximize profits. There is nothing new about Apple stores except scale and profitability in an era of commodity pricing. Don't get me wrong, that's admirable, but from a business stand-point, not from a user-experience stand-point.

corporalagumbo 14y ago
Apples and oranges. The computer store as rarefied design-temple cum chic-hangout-spot is all-Apple and a real innovation. An innovation that only became possible this decade, after Apple made computers mainstream and fashionable, with a little help from iPods and iPhones. There's a shift in the interface of computing technology and wider culture underway and it is embodied in a lot of what Apple is doing, and the Store is an important element in that shift.. Another important point of difference was that Apple built its retail experience on such an ambitious scale. But the real innovation was to see it before anyone else and execute so consummately, and execute without any prompting. Apple crossed all the ts and dotted the is -without- any real competition to one up - just because they thought it was the right thing to do. That's why Microsoft looks so weak with their stores. Because they're only doing it to try and look cool, after someone else did it. Whereas Apple simply is cool. Real cool is effortless. This isn't some checklist comparison, this is about the essence of how a corporation thinks and acts.
steverb 14y ago
I remember being the guy on the other side of the counter at a small mom and pop computer store in the mid nineties that catered to local small and mid-sized businesses. We always had fresh coffee and pastries, huge leather bound chairs to hang out and the owner always kept a decent selection of wine, scotch, and cigars on hand. We had regular customers who came by every week for a cup of coffee and to chat about what was new, and on Saturdays we came in and opened the store just to hang out with people and play games on the LAN. Every machine was custom built for the customer. People who didn't know much about computers got an education and our recommendation for the best parts (we knew what manufacturers parts we had to send back). People who knew what they wanted got exactly what they wanted. We would even take your old machine and copy/reconstruct all the software, settings and data to the new machine. Then the race to the bottom happened in the late 90's and there was no more margin for that sort of service. The company is still around, but they got bought out years ago by a services business and the owner left and started a business selling things made from reclaimed wood. I miss the craftsmanship, attention to detail and customer service.

by beloch 14y ago

corporalagumbo 14y ago

Apples and oranges. The computer store as rarefied design-temple cum chic-hangout-spot is all-Apple and a real innovation. An innovation that only became possible this decade, after Apple made computers mainstream and fashionable, with a little help from iPods and iPhones. There's a shift in the interface of computing technology and wider culture underway and it is embodied in a lot of what Apple is doing, and the Store is an important element in that shift.. Another important point of difference was that Apple built its retail experience on such an ambitious scale. But the real innovation was to see it before anyone else and execute so consummately, and execute without any prompting. Apple crossed all the ts and dotted the is -without- any real competition to one up - just because they thought it was the right thing to do. That's why Microsoft looks so weak with their stores. Because they're only doing it to try and look cool, after someone else did it. Whereas Apple simply is cool. Real cool is effortless. This isn't some checklist comparison, this is about the essence of how a corporation thinks and acts.

steverb 14y ago

I remember being the guy on the other side of the counter at a small mom and pop computer store in the mid nineties that catered to local small and mid-sized businesses. We always had fresh coffee and pastries, huge leather bound chairs to hang out and the owner always kept a decent selection of wine, scotch, and cigars on hand. We had regular customers who came by every week for a cup of coffee and to chat about what was new, and on Saturdays we came in and opened the store just to hang out with people and play games on the LAN. Every machine was custom built for the customer. People who didn't know much about computers got an education and our recommendation for the best parts (we knew what manufacturers parts we had to send back). People who knew what they wanted got exactly what they wanted. We would even take your old machine and copy/reconstruct all the software, settings and data to the new machine. Then the race to the bottom happened in the late 90's and there was no more margin for that sort of service. The company is still around, but they got bought out years ago by a services business and the owner left and started a business selling things made from reclaimed wood. I miss the craftsmanship, attention to detail and customer service.