I'm new to this group and have been reading through comments from last couple of weeks. No doubt there is alot of strong feelings on both sides with regard to Apple. Not surprised. I am Mac-only user and have been since day one. Was in Apple/Mac industry for 12 years until 1995, including 5 years at Apple in the 80's and another 7 years with various Mac peripherals suppliers, all of which was in product marketing. So I am die hard fan, but have come to realization long ago that Apple lost the war way back in late 80's when they were too slow to go to expandable Mac and make meaningful push into mainstream business PC market. Apple has never had more than 5% of business market, and that is where the battle is won or lost. No matter how well they did in education, publishing or multimedia, unless they could have gotten on business users desks in Fortune 2000 companies, they were never going to have a chance in being long term major player. Now with Wintel juggernaut, all is pretty much lost. Doesn't matter how great the O/S is, users will continue to go with the standard that has been in place for the past 10 years. Unless Apple includes a strategy that makes their machines transparently capable in Wintel environment, Apple will never be more than a niche player in the future. They will continue to survive from their loyal installed base, but that will be whittled down graduately over time. More Windows machines will find their way into education and publishing, taking market share away in Apple's strongest markets.
I think the NEXT purchase was a last gasp effort and reflects a troubled development program within Apple. I also think $400M for NEXT is a huge ripoff, considering how little NEXT had accomplished in all this time. I also don't think Jobs will do anything but create more conflict and distress within Apple. Jobs hasn't succeeded with anything since his early efforts with the Mac. He was shortsighted then (Mac the appliance with no memory, no hard disk, and no expandably). NEXT has been a total disaster, and Pixar was already doing great stuff before he invested. I wouldn't bet on Amelio accomplishing much more than stopping the bleeding, which apparently he is good at. At best that would get the stock back in the high 20's, But there is no way they can grow any marketshare in the foreseeable future, short of merging with a Sun or Japanese company. I wish them luck though. |
