To: +Adam Nash (21264 )
From: +Murrey Walker
Friday, Dec 18 1998 8:47AM ET
Reply # of 21293
Doreen puts it well in her response to your message.
My company has seven Macs ranging downward from a G3 333 to a prehistoric SE 30. 9600/350, Power
Computing Power Tower and so on. I can assure you that with the volume of work that goes through my shop,
having the latest and greatest for our graphics platforms just makes good economic sense.
There used to be a concentrated effort – either through Apple or third party add ons, to give the power user a
continuous upgrade path. While Apple still rolls out new power hardware, I think you have to agree that the
speed of new product offerings is not what it used to be.
I think this is gross exaggeration, personally. True, this current crop of G3s (debuting in January) should have debuted in September, but Apple is still revving the high end at as fast a pace as anyone. I do not think the PC world is delivering better absolute performance.
Not only are software developers shifting emphasis to Wintel, I would ask you a question. How many Mac only
publications exist today and, how many titles were there 18 months ago.
This is a deceptive statistic because correlation does not imply causality, Statistics 101. I used to subscribe to 4 Mac only publications, now I subscribe to none. Why? Because I read everything on the web. Maybe the Mac market, being higher-than-average online, has been over-hurt by the current move to the Internet. How many Mac only websites are there now supported by advertising?
Also, ads drive magazines, and it is very likely that vendors began realizing that magazine ads were not the best bang for the buck with the Mac market.
I am not saying these are the answers, I'm just saying that you've oversimplified the problem.
I'm still a dedicated Mac user, but only to the extent that Apple is willing to give me what I need. My concern is
that Jobs has ramped up the “consumer/personal use” sector to the detriment of the power user – and, he risks
losing share to the Wintel side as there is a lot of evidence that those machines continue to deliver higher and
higher speed to those who want it.
I doubt it. I'll put my G3/300 PowerBook up against any high end laptop on the market. I'd also put up a 333Mhz G3 with a high end video and disk card against any high end PC.
I do think you have noticed that the "Pro" PowerMac line has lagged PowerBooks and Consumer, but that is really just a small 6-month problem, necessitated by Apple's lack of presence in the consumer market. I do not expect it to continue.
Yosemite should satisfy the high end crowd, if they can ever be satisfied ;-) I think that the G4 plans correspond well with Intel's Katmai plans, so there should be no lag there.
Apple is still not firing on all cylinders, we will have to wait for Yosemite and then P1 before they are hitting all 4 corners of their markets well. That is also, by the way, why this company is a good investment at this point - they are doing well even though they don't have a full product line.
- Adam |
