Stephen;
> 1) Keep the high end, value added hardware market for itself.
Weren't they previously having problems in the past in supplying these high-end
hardware? That's probably why they lost share to Power computing.<
APPL has reportedly been ramping up production and they no longer *need* cloners to meet demand of desk/laptop models. One of the unreported reason why AAPL thinks they can play hard ball.
> 2) Cede the foreign and low end markets to cloners.
Oh I guess it's allright to give low-margin products to your vendor and have them
happily support your every effort.<
Asia is the fastest growing MacOS market. Umax has tremendous presence there. It also has the low cost manufacturing base by which to go after the low end market. Umax currently sells very nice clones for under $1000. Ditto MOT.
> 3) Maintain niches in education, graphics/content-creation/internet.
Isn't Macromedia and Adobe now shifting their focus away from Mac products and
towards Win95/Win NT products?<
Wintel still can't match PPC processing speed or MacOS sophistication. Adobe and Macromedia will port and sell to whoever will buy. Rhapsody offers too potent an OS for them to let an upstart developer steal their lunch -- particularly when they can market the same app to the Pentium base.
>Also isn't Apple's hold in the education market
not threatened severely by both clones and wintel machines?? I remember seeing an
article where students hated using their old under-powered Mac's and hoping their
schools could change to wintel machines.<
Newpapers can repeat whatever anecdote they choose. I'd hate using an Apple II also. So?
>4) Use Rhapsody to (initially) drive server sales until it ships broadly in 8/98.
I like this idea, but Win NT 5.0 will come out shortly. Networking has always been the
Achilles Heels of Apple. That's why their not popular in the corporate sector.<
As part of the Big Deal, AAPL gets use of MSFT networking code allowing Macs to coexist on an NT network.
Web Objects still running the Dell website despite NT best efforts to supplant it. The world's most extensive Intranet site is being developed with WO for the US Post Office. Corporate attitudes are due for an adjustment.
> 5) Use Rhapsody to expand user base into Pentium hardware.
How will this affect the user base in the Mac OS side??<
It should drive software development and provide more and better choices. As PPC will still be the preferred hardware platform, I can't see current user base switching.
>6) Position Newton technology as a low-mid priced, cross-platform laptop killer.
For the price of a current pentium, you can get a low-cost laptop with more capabilities.
They still have to drive the price down for the Newton to become more successful. I do
see practical uses in the scientific community, namely data gathering, modeling etc. I
also see it's use in inventory control in the business world.<
Don't forget education. The Fairfax school district in Maryland is spending 17 million to equip *every* student with an Emate 300.
> 7) Position Claris Filemaker, Works, HomePage products as cross-platform solutions.
They had no choice but to do this.<
Success is about making virtues out of necessities.
>8) Continue MacOS (Allegro) are the premium home user platform
How can it be premium, when currently you can't offer protected memory or
pre-emptive multitasking. To my best knowledge, I don't thing these features will be
offered in Allegro. Correct me if I'm wrong.<
Check out MacOS rumors on Allegro features. Even without the buzzwords OS8/Allegro is/will be a far better system -- plug and play, ease of use -- for the home user that W'95. Nothing's on the horizon for MSFT to challenge that.
macosrumors.com:80/
soup
(Ease up, brother Stephen, this sh_t shovelin's hard work.) |
