This Brand needs an Enema?
Timelessblur said:
to me this raise some major red flags. It just seem to much of an increase for one year time spand. doing double digitigs % increase is high but doing triple jsut seems like something questionble is up.
While likening Apple to Enron is hardly an apt comparison, there are a few things to be watchful for. First, you can't have infinitely sustainable growth. No one can begrudge Apple for having a hot product that people want, and it's great that people lap those products up as fast as they can pump them out.. The stock is going up based on the expectation that it will go up more -- apple will continue pumping out industry leading products that people will gobble up. What about market saturation? Just how many iPods can someone own?
I am concerned that the increased market expectations will force more of a cultural revolution at Apple -- how will they manage their Down-Mid-Upmarket/Server customer base in balanced way and still be known as Apple? They'll have to do some strong brand engineering so that people can be comfortable with an Apple that makes 99 dollar MP3 players as well as Storage Area Networks. Does it make sense that the Apple Store shows Storage Area Networks beside 99 dollar MP3 players? They need to evolve the, and god I love this term, 'brand experience', so that they can grow these different areas of their business appropriately. I think their image is a jumble now, with 'Servers, Displays, Portables, Education, Technology, Digital Life, Services', etc... all being a jumble on their Hardware page (go check it out! It's all over the map! It's like Minimalist done Jackson Pollock). They do so much, and are trying to get it across in a minimalistic-communicative pretense -- risky (i.e. let's get into the head space of a 'new customer' -- that hasn't been inducted into all the Apple Lore -- it's a mess).
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My thoughts on Apple's Strategy, and what I think they could do in the future (besides hiring me as a strategist):
Apple's strategy clearly tries to get people to upgrade whatever technology they sell if not every year, at least every two years. They've built fashion into their products, so to be 'hip', you have to buy the latest sexy container. Average (non affluent) people have always been put off the fact that Apple fashion technology is pretty expensive. I see the 'downmarket' move as really adopting the Target philosophy, and making fashion affordable, so everyone can have fun being cool. It's a great strategy, and I love it.
However, there are still lots of people who don't shop at Target, and want somewhat more exclusive 'Fashion Technology'. The 'Power Mac' line Apple sells should, in my opinion, *STAY EXPENSIVE* become radically better than 'high end PC's'. I couldn't imagine G5 laptops or G5 mini's until there was a carbon fiber water cooled dual CPU dual core G6 type monster, with a giant FPGA array or some such insanity. I'd buy one of those. Heck, I definately need two more 30" monitors.
I see apple starting to drop hints at the server / grid computing strategy, and while XSAN is great (and a must for any large production environment), I think that the Mini, and how they presented the big Virginia Tech super computing grid right before it is a subtle hint of what they're thinking of. I'd love to not have to buy a '1U server'. I'd love to buy a 'Mac Module' and just add its horse-power to my grid. You see evidence of this in Logic as well. One way Apple may be able to get around the single-server CPU barrier, without the high cost of entry of building a Super Computer, is to essentially build grid clustering into Macs in general, and make the entire suite use the Grid seamlessly (for rendering, compiling, etc...). Little MacModules with infiniband connectors would be ideal. Want to run more plugins in Logic 7, get some Mac Modules. Want to render that DVD faster? again, Mac Modules. Taking what they've learned with their Super Computer experiences and bringing those down-market and plug-and-play (I imagine "Infinitely Expandable") is a great way to sell. Each CPU could be something like a G5 in a slightly slimmer form factor than the Mac Mini, without a hard drive/CDROM (i.e. network boot from a master server). Gosh, I'd buy 20, maybe more if the fans were quiet!
- Paul Sop
www.paulsop.com
