Dennis, for the last time, I remind you that you overlook, completely and obviously, the core issue of *how* Apple will ever be a SUCCESSFUL service-oriented company, successfully interacting at the user level, given their past "screw the consumer" tendencies. The huge list of product failures, and more importantly *HOW THEY HANDLED THEM*, tells us much of the Apple past, and we can't predict the future, can we ? When they sell direct, they will be solely responsible for making the customer happy...and contrary to your statements, they HAVE always been buffered by their channel in terms of having to "win" buyer satisfaction. In my view, they will fail at this direct sale initiative in the long term, UNLESS AND UNTIL they spend as much time revamping their core attitudes and corporate character as they have revising their sales channels. If WIN'98 is as improved and "Mac-like" as I keep hearing...stand by for news...Apple has not won the OS battle yet.
BTW - so you don't post me back 3 months from now and show me a $5 improved stock as proof of Apple's success - I do not define "holding the line" at 4-5% marketshare to be a success. If they do not take the marketshare to 8-10%, the software developing world will leave them no matter what you, I, nor Apple does, and you can turn the lights out when you so desire.
A great OS and a technologically-superior processor *may not* equal or exceed an inferior consumer-oriented corporate ethic, poor service attitude, with a diminishing marketshare OS. You choose with your dollars when you buy the stock. I choose not to. <--- This is my greatest concern if I have to attempt to reduce it to a simple formula.
I will concede I was dead wrong when Apple raises their marketshare to 8% or more, in the face of the next WIN release, and only after they are a pure direct model and have to rely on their own resources and corporate ethic as Dell does. Call me (write me) if that ever happens.
While I have no way of knowing how much "buying experience" you've had with the company called Apple, I've had 300days/yr, x 9+ years, of doing this. I believe I can make an informed opinion about Apple's dealings with, and attitude towards, the buyer much better than you can...which almost always meant "let the dealer or reseller deal with it" over the years.
Final few thoughts and I'm out of here - it's been interesting to be the devil's advocate in this thread these past 2 weeks or so. In the other threads I follow, I either silently monitor them, posting intermittent questions only (evaluating the stock mostly), or am PRO "x" stock when I finally make my investment and post avidly "defending my stock choice", much as you do here Dennis. Never been one to short a stock, much less to own one that I consider risky when I'm head-deep in the industry such as I am here, so that leaves out putting money at risk with Apple stock as an option for me.
I posted to this thread only from the perspective of an on-the-street reseller...and if a few points made it to the prospective or current stock holder, fine. If I failed to get my points across or defend them successfully, so be it.
As far as long-term viability for my company, since we deal primarly in used and refurb product, and never touch international gray-market product, we will be around as long as we want to be around. Apple cannot control the secondary market, no matter the legal ruses they create. Check out this link for more research - news.com
Also, read the last two sentences of this link - they speak magnitudes re: Apple's hypocracy towards the gray-market issue. zdnet.com
Add a dose of pro-consumer, ethically-solid, consistent sales behavior and integrity, and we could be selling coffee beans and be successful, there are so many buffoons out there otherwise.
See you guys - I'm out of here. Not much else to say.
c-man
P.S. To try to answer one or two of your directed questions, Dennis...I'll give you 15 min more of my life against my better instinct...
RESPONSE #1 - nothing wrong with Apple's black list. I know personally a VAR who feels like he was the original advocate for this to Apple...he suggested such as this about 2 years ago in the specific format it was released as....as did hundreds of authorized resellers over the years I'm sure in various forms. I applaud this effort, having been sick watching FL and LA-based resellers do incredible (questionably illegal) stuff bringing inventory back to the US from South American, Asian, and Mexican distribution, and resale it in the US as gray-market. Let me ask you a question - why did it take Apple since 1984 and the mac's release, some 14 years, to make such minimal attempts to deal with this issue ? You think they cared one bit about the "negative customer buying experience" until now. NOPE. They simply needed, desperately at that, marketshare and sales volume. PERIOD. IRREFUTABLE. Apple allowed their international distribution system to be the personal whore of a minority of profiteers for years. Been watching MacWeek graymarketers now since MacWeek, MacUser, and MacWorld started...wondering why Apple never stopped it cold. Geez' the Searchlight program could better be called "back of MacWeek advertisers" program. Nothing sensational about that. Over these many years Apple made feeble attempts to reign this in, mostly for PR reasons only, and occasionaly de-authorized some high-vis reseller and made sure the news made it to MacWeek front page...I finally concluded Apple's "wink & nod" attitude was HERE TO STAY AS LONG AS IT SERVED THEIR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES. Only now, when such an attitude doesn't *fit* the direct sale model, do they attempt to reel it in under the guise of "protecting the poor consumer from a bad buying experience". THE HYPOCRACY GALLS ME and once again tells us something of the Apple corporate ethic. If you do not agree or understand that - you are truly ignorant in the underlying operations methods of Apple and lose instant credibility with me. Do you not now understand why I believe Apple's corporate ethic is abysmal ? They could and did care little about the "buying experience" for their entire existence, if it risked sales volume. Now, since Apple wants the sales volume all to themselves, the graymarket is "bad" ? Arguably it alone kept them in business when they went for the 10%+ marketshare of Sculley days and when they truy had to do battle with the clone hordes and were desparate for marketshare. But - times do change - and I'm changing accordingly.
RRESPONSE #2 -
> Apple is ultimately responsible for the manufacture, sales and
> service of their product -- not the VARS! If Apple was not selective > and demanding of VARS in the past, shame on Apple. <-- Apple is only LEGALLY responsible as a manufacturer...and perhaps philosophically responsible as the corporate "mother" behind the product design and release...the real, street-level, make-the-customer-happy responsibility falls solely on the reseller or dealer...just as in most other industries with a formal "middleman" (auto industry notably - when was the last time *you* contacted GM direct, versus dealt with their dealerships to resolve issues ?). Or - put another way - why do I have to, and do, deal with "this doesn't work, that doesn't work" complaints, week after week, if I could defer to Apple direct and off-load the interaction ? Because I see, and accept, the responsibility as the person who made the direct sale...not Apple. In the direct model, that relationship goes away, and you get to deal with a forevermore-busy toll-free number. Good luck.
LAST RESPONSE -
You copied/pasted back to me these two quotes I made...but I note you never responded to either. I miss your point, Dennis. Why not deal with them and refute them ? I look forward to your specific response to these, which should complete our joint line dance in this thread. It's been fun.
<is it too difficult to believe that *possibly* the VARs and resellers
helped to keep the company afloat all these years more than you'll ever know or give credit for ?>
<I challenge you to support your point that resellers of yesteryear
adversely contributed to the condition of Apple corporate during that
period and put Apple in its threatened state today.> |
