Gene - Re: "I think iMac could impact the segment-0 market. Cheap, easy to use by the PC illiterates, and tailored to the net. Will the WinTel faction need to react?"
Looks like all the reviews don't agree with your analysis, Gene.
Read carefully below.
Paul
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The iMac Revisited
Now that the iMac is shipping, it's time for a closer
look.
When the iMac was announced, I wrote a column about
it here. I said, in part, "A year ago, the iMac probably
would have rocked the world and jump-started Apple's
sales. It would have reaffirmed the beliefs of the Mac
Faithful and won new converts from the Wintel camp.
But in light of today's market, the iMac comes with a
couple of big
Gotchas!"
We discussed those gotchas here -- they were mostly
design and pricing issues -- and we compared
features and costs with similarly equipped non-Mac
systems.
Based on the original specs, my conclusion was that
the iMac would be reasonably competitive, but that that
wasn't going to be enough. "Even a charitable reading
of the iMac specs shows it to be a merely competitive
box, roughly on par with similarly priced PCs," I wrote.
"It's not a technology leader. It's not a price leader. The
only thing the iMac has that no PC has is undeniable
Mac style."
Some Mac proponents thought I was being too harsh,
and said (in essence), "Wait until August!" Well, the
iMac has arrived, so let's take another look.
The shipping version actually is very close to the
original specs, except that Apple wisely included a
56K modem instead of the originally announced 33K
model. This is a Good Thing: a 33-Kbps modem would
have been the kiss of death.
The iMac has stiff competition: The Acer Entra, for
example, sells for a whopping $500 less; however, it
lacks a few of the iMac's features, such as built-in
infrared or Ethernet connections. Few will miss the
infrared capability, but I'll concede that Ethernet is
important in, say, dormitory settings (and the iMac is
mainly a home/student machine). For a fair
comparison, you'd have to add an Ethernet card
to the Entra. This would raise its price by $25 to $100,
depending on whether you wanted a generic or
brand-name card.
Also, in the interest of fairness, I have to admit the
Entra's video is anemic, and you'd want to upgrade to
a good card. Today, you can get an ATI Rage Pro with
8 MB -- better than the iMac's video -- for $89.
In the same vein, for a fair comparison you'd also have
to add a floppy drive to the iMac, raising its price by
$150. This keeps the more-or-less $500 price
differential intact and in the Entra's favor.
Home offices and students need more than the base
machine, of course. You can get an Entra bundled with
a
scanner and a color printer for $1,100. Add in the
necessary Ethernet and video upgrade, and you have
a far more complete system for the same price as a
base iMac with no floppy, no scanner, and no printer.
Don't like Acer? For the same price as an iMac, you
can get a Compaq Presario that comes with more
RAM, a floppy, and a Zip drive. It does lack infrared
and Ethernet capabilities, but again, you can add
Ethernet to the Compaq for less than what it costs to
add a floppy to the iMac.
There are plenty of other examples, but you get the
idea.
The home/student market is very price-sensitive, but
the iMac isn't even close to being a price leader: It's
blown away by the aggressive clone boxes, and is
merely price competitive with other top-tier
brand-name systems. Plus, the Wintel boxes have
more applications available -- not a trivial issue.
I can't see the iMac doing much of anything to woo
users away from Wintel boxes, though it may sell well
to people already in the Mac camp. As such, it may
help Apple survive and maybe even make a little
money -- but there's no way the iMac is going to make
significant inroads in terms of market share. Apple
users will remain on the outer fringes of mainstream
computing.
It's too bad, but I have to stick by my initial assessment:
I don't think the iMac will make much of a difference in
the long run. |
