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As the Mac Turns 30, Apple Ponders ‘Post-PC’ Era

40 points by arikrak 13y ago

coldcode 13y ago
In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. Of course if you include all of Apple's devices they have both. When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's they had neither and I gave up on them shortly before Steve came back. Aw, crap.
- sosborn 13y ago
  >In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't get this. They are so concerned with "winning" that they lose sight of what's important.
  - FigBug 13y ago
    Yup, sure the PC won, but what did IBM get? 1.75 billion from Lenovo.
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      Isn't that 'just' for their server division? I'm fairly certain IBM is up to much more than hardware sales at this point. Although for awhile they were the eponymous PC manufacturer.
      - chx 13y ago
        Nope, he means the 2004 sale of the PC business. The servers sale now is 2.3B.
        ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        Ah so!
- webwright 13y ago
  >In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. With network effects and other market effects, sacrificing profit for marketshare for years/decades might be the longer/smarter play. For example, Amazon is happy to undercut their competition and lose money for years. Is that a bad decision? Remains to be seen, but if they'd focused on sustainable profit, I suspect they'd have a lot more competitors. Walmart jumps into a new small-town and buries their competition with non-stop deep discounts. Competition closes, Walmart now has tremendous power to price however they want. I think Apple's appetite for profit is awesome, but it leaves less room for their "partners" (carriers), which means every other player in the marketplace has incentives to push Android/etc. Result: http://www.statista.com/chart/1099/smartphone-operating-system-market-share/ http://www.statista.com/chart/1099/smartphone-operating-syst... And from the existential side of things... Would you REALLY rather have the 40% margin business that owns 5% of the market or would you rather have the 1% margin business than owns 95%? Either way, you're a gazillionaire. I'd personally rather impact more lives.
  - gress 13y ago
    It sounds as though you think the best way to impact more lives is to use predatory pricing to drive the competition out of business in order to establish a monopoly. It's logically true that this might work as a strategy, but it's rather depressing.
    - webwright 13y ago
      Walmart certainly takes it to predatory levels. I only used them as an example of what can happen to businesses that focus on "sustainable profit" above all else. I'm not sure the strategy of "earn zero-to-no profit to gain market share and scare away potential competitors" is inherently evil or predatory (though it certainly can be).
      - gress 13y ago
        I think that the reason why it's problematic is that it is focused on reducing diversity of competition, which reduces the number of ideas that get developed and tested in the marketplace and retards progress.
charleswalter 13y ago
microsoft is so stupid, haha
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Someone has to be the 'professional' for someone else to be the 'hipster'. Comparison is important to Apple's brand. Unless I was reading those John Hodgeman commercials all wrong.
  - pooriaazimi 13y ago
    Please don't dignify trolls with an answer. Just downvote them and move on.
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      But... but... funnies!
    - charleswalter 13y ago
      This is not a troll. You have to be legitimately stupid to be in such a position of power as Microsoft, and then to waste it all and to voluntarily hand it over to Apple.
bigdubs 13y ago
This comment struck me: "He compared the PCs changing status to how trucks took a diminished role when the U.S. shifted to an industrial nation from an agrarian one." It seems myopic now as the F-150 is still the #1 best selling vehicle in the US. I do see the point of the PC as the 'utilitarian' device vs. the iOS devices as the more mainstream, recreational devices. The analogy was just bad.
- sosborn 13y ago
  The F-150 might be the best selling vehicle, but are trucks the largest selling segment?
  - MrVitaliy 13y ago
    Yes
  - gregpilling 13y ago
    Yes. "light-truck share at 51.2 percent with sales up 10.4 percent from last year." https://www.nada.org/Publications/NADADATA/ https://www.nada.org/Publications/NADADATA/
    - stephencanon 13y ago
      “light trucks” is a category that includes both things that are obviously “trucks” (F-150, Tacoma, Ram, etc) and things that no sane person would ever call a truck in casual conversation, but are classified as such by the manufacturer (Outback, CR-V, Odyssey, etc).
      - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        I think that has changed since 2006ish. Outback/CR-V, etc are now classified as Crossovers (at least for sales purposes). The light duty truck classification has to do with loaded weight rather than anything else as far as I remember... But maybe that has changed also?
yslow 13y ago
Why are Microsoft's profits from Windows excluded from the numbers while profits from OS X are included? Why isn't MS considered part of the PC industry?
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Because... Reasons... The headline doesn't look as clickbait-y otherwise most likely. Or because Microsoft doesn't make "PCs"(well not really) and Mac does. But MS does make devices/phones/Xbox (which is a PC in console's clothing). Edit: I'm glad that they at least lump it in with PCs now though... It used to be that people would get angry if you called their Apple Computer a PC. But now that they are just Intel PCs running OSX it seems hard to debate.
  - aestra 13y ago
    >It used to be that people would get angry if you called their Apple Computer a PC People still get angry if you call their Apple branded personal computer a PC and will argue with you forever about why it isn't one. It makes as much sense as saying the iPhone isn't a phone and the iPad isn't a tablet.
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      I notice that this is changing (albeit very slowly) and people generally give up the argument when you point out to them that any Intel based PC can run OSX (and any mac can natively run windows) because Apple PCs are just Intel computers with different shells.
    - MaysonL 13y ago
      It does amuse me when people refuse to lump iPads in with PC's (which points up the fact that Apple is by far the leading PC vendor).
      - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        Well in a sense they are not. The difference was made up by Apple many years ago (before the John Hodgeman commercials even) that Apple Computers were not PCs. The point made sense to the extent that they used their own architecture and chips (not just Intel computers running a different OS). But in the classic sense yes iPads are Personal Computers. They just are not PCs in the 'I bought an IBM' (when you purchased a Gateway/Dell/Compaq) and you really mean an x86 sense.
tux05 13y ago
So profit w low market share, thats just doomed to lose marketshare and profit, nice formula :D specially w/o including MS. On the other hand Free OSX? who cares, their file system is just horrid. Better start praying for another iPod idea Apple, or you will become Sega so fast not even Sonic ll be able to catch you.

40 points by arikrak 13y ago

In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. Of course if you include all of Apple's devices they have both. When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's they had neither and I gave up on them shortly before Steve came back. Aw, crap.

sosborn 13y ago
>In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't get this. They are so concerned with "winning" that they lose sight of what's important.
- FigBug 13y ago
  Yup, sure the PC won, but what did IBM get? 1.75 billion from Lenovo.
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Isn't that 'just' for their server division? I'm fairly certain IBM is up to much more than hardware sales at this point. Although for awhile they were the eponymous PC manufacturer.
    - chx 13y ago
      Nope, he means the 2004 sale of the PC business. The servers sale now is 2.3B.
      - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        Ah so!
webwright 13y ago
>In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. With network effects and other market effects, sacrificing profit for marketshare for years/decades might be the longer/smarter play. For example, Amazon is happy to undercut their competition and lose money for years. Is that a bad decision? Remains to be seen, but if they'd focused on sustainable profit, I suspect they'd have a lot more competitors. Walmart jumps into a new small-town and buries their competition with non-stop deep discounts. Competition closes, Walmart now has tremendous power to price however they want. I think Apple's appetite for profit is awesome, but it leaves less room for their "partners" (carriers), which means every other player in the marketplace has incentives to push Android/etc. Result: http://www.statista.com/chart/1099/smartphone-operating-system-market-share/ http://www.statista.com/chart/1099/smartphone-operating-syst... And from the existential side of things... Would you REALLY rather have the 40% margin business that owns 5% of the market or would you rather have the 1% margin business than owns 95%? Either way, you're a gazillionaire. I'd personally rather impact more lives.
- gress 13y ago
  It sounds as though you think the best way to impact more lives is to use predatory pricing to drive the competition out of business in order to establish a monopoly. It's logically true that this might work as a strategy, but it's rather depressing.
  - webwright 13y ago
    Walmart certainly takes it to predatory levels. I only used them as an example of what can happen to businesses that focus on "sustainable profit" above all else. I'm not sure the strategy of "earn zero-to-no profit to gain market share and scare away potential competitors" is inherently evil or predatory (though it certainly can be).
    - gress 13y ago
      I think that the reason why it's problematic is that it is focused on reducing diversity of competition, which reduces the number of ideas that get developed and tested in the marketplace and retards progress.

charleswalter 13y ago

microsoft is so stupid, haha

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
Someone has to be the 'professional' for someone else to be the 'hipster'. Comparison is important to Apple's brand. Unless I was reading those John Hodgeman commercials all wrong.
- pooriaazimi 13y ago
  Please don't dignify trolls with an answer. Just downvote them and move on.
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    But... but... funnies!
  - charleswalter 13y ago
    This is not a troll. You have to be legitimately stupid to be in such a position of power as Microsoft, and then to waste it all and to voluntarily hand it over to Apple.

bigdubs 13y ago

This comment struck me: "He compared the PCs changing status to how trucks took a diminished role when the U.S. shifted to an industrial nation from an agrarian one." It seems myopic now as the F-150 is still the #1 best selling vehicle in the US. I do see the point of the PC as the 'utilitarian' device vs. the iOS devices as the more mainstream, recreational devices. The analogy was just bad.

sosborn 13y ago
The F-150 might be the best selling vehicle, but are trucks the largest selling segment?
- MrVitaliy 13y ago
  Yes
- gregpilling 13y ago
  Yes. "light-truck share at 51.2 percent with sales up 10.4 percent from last year." https://www.nada.org/Publications/NADADATA/ https://www.nada.org/Publications/NADADATA/
  - stephencanon 13y ago
    “light trucks” is a category that includes both things that are obviously “trucks” (F-150, Tacoma, Ram, etc) and things that no sane person would ever call a truck in casual conversation, but are classified as such by the manufacturer (Outback, CR-V, Odyssey, etc).
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      I think that has changed since 2006ish. Outback/CR-V, etc are now classified as Crossovers (at least for sales purposes). The light duty truck classification has to do with loaded weight rather than anything else as far as I remember... But maybe that has changed also?

yslow 13y ago

Why are Microsoft's profits from Windows excluded from the numbers while profits from OS X are included? Why isn't MS considered part of the PC industry?

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
Because... Reasons... The headline doesn't look as clickbait-y otherwise most likely. Or because Microsoft doesn't make "PCs"(well not really) and Mac does. But MS does make devices/phones/Xbox (which is a PC in console's clothing). Edit: I'm glad that they at least lump it in with PCs now though... It used to be that people would get angry if you called their Apple Computer a PC. But now that they are just Intel PCs running OSX it seems hard to debate.
- aestra 13y ago
  >It used to be that people would get angry if you called their Apple Computer a PC People still get angry if you call their Apple branded personal computer a PC and will argue with you forever about why it isn't one. It makes as much sense as saying the iPhone isn't a phone and the iPad isn't a tablet.
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    I notice that this is changing (albeit very slowly) and people generally give up the argument when you point out to them that any Intel based PC can run OSX (and any mac can natively run windows) because Apple PCs are just Intel computers with different shells.
  - MaysonL 13y ago
    It does amuse me when people refuse to lump iPads in with PC's (which points up the fact that Apple is by far the leading PC vendor).
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      Well in a sense they are not. The difference was made up by Apple many years ago (before the John Hodgeman commercials even) that Apple Computers were not PCs. The point made sense to the extent that they used their own architecture and chips (not just Intel computers running a different OS). But in the classic sense yes iPads are Personal Computers. They just are not PCs in the 'I bought an IBM' (when you purchased a Gateway/Dell/Compaq) and you really mean an x86 sense.

tux05 13y ago

So profit w low market share, thats just doomed to lose marketshare and profit, nice formula :D specially w/o including MS. On the other hand Free OSX? who cares, their file system is just horrid. Better start praying for another iPod idea Apple, or you will become Sega so fast not even Sonic ll be able to catch you.