Low End G4 Box?

[jefhatfield]

i have not thought much about how apple does in other countries or their availability and service

where i live, right in the region where macs are most popular, i couldn't imagine macs just dying out

apple has operated as a very small company in its past *the early years, and if it has to again, i am sure they can do that

where there is a loyal user base, however small, there will be a need for apple to go on

it's just that most of the rest of the computer industry is much more dedicated to profits over quality...apple has sacrified market share for simply making the best machine out there...for the sake of making the best machine and not for making money like dell and his common thrown together computers

i am sure apple can go after the money, but if they did, they would not be nearly as nice or innovative

true believers can make a cause/technology/platorm go far, even without tons of money coming in...think linux or free bsd

 

[ZeeOwl]

Re: Sounds bogus to me...

Originally posted by MacWhispers
This story purports that the Aple team stated that a $599 retail price would go well with a manufacturing cost in the $480 to $520 range. That's so laughably absurd, that it pretty well kills this whole story's veracity.

Apple works on a gross margin of about 50% against MSRP, meaning, if they are shooting for an MSRP of $599, then their hard production cost, retail packaged, would be at or under $300... not $500, as this silly story claims.

The exact wording used in the French article is «prix de revient», which I translated to "production cost". "Total cost" might have been a better choice of words. It does not mean "manufacturing cost", but the total cost to the reseller; most certainly including shipping, marketing, packaging, etc. Apologies if my translation wasn't clear enough.

 

[groovebuster]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i have not thought much about how apple does in other countries or their availability and service

where i live, right in the region where macs are most popular, i couldn't imagine macs just dying

Apple makes about 50% of their money with sales outside the US. They neglected those markets for quite a long time now. And if those markets go down the drain...

No computer company that is developing hard- and software can afford to be just a "local" player. If you want to be and stay(!) succesful, you have to be in business world-wide.

Originally posted by jefhatfield
apple has operated as a very small company in its past *the early years, and if it has to again, i am sure they can do that

The old days were totally different to the situation you have today. R&D burns a lot of money these days. Something a small company can't afford. It wouldn't take long and the difference between Mac OS X and the other OS' on the market would feel like the difference between MacOS 9 and MacOS X...

Originally posted by jefhatfield
where there is a loyal user base, however small, there will be a need for apple to go on

Amiga? Atari? BeOS? They don't have any relevance anymore...

Originally posted by jefhatfield
it's just that most of the rest of the computer industry is much more dedicated to profits over quality...apple has sacrified market share for simply making the best machine out there...for the sake of making the best machine and not for making money like dell and his common thrown together computers

Your idealism is nice, but far from reality... Apple didn't sacrifice market share, they just lost it because they were not able to develop a marketing strategy that worked for years. And in the last few years Apple is still struggeling to survive, still losing market share because of having weak hardware to offer.

Apple is in a struggle to survive! They don't have many options what to do. Did you ever think about where Apple would be today if MacOS X wouldn't have been released by now?

Apple is doing things at the moment because they have to, not because they feel like it...

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i am sure apple can go after the money, but if they did, they would not be nearly as nice or innovative

Last time I checked, I didn't get my PowerMac for free, as well as my PowerBook or MacOS 10.2... Actually they were quite expensive...

They already go after the money... otherwise we would all have Windows XP machines already.

Originally posted by jefhatfield
true believers can make a cause/technology/platorm go far, even without tons of money coming in...think linux or free bsd

That sounds almost relgious! But MacOS X is not OpenSource (which is a totally different story anyway) and will never be. If Apple goes bancrupt the sources of Apple software (including MacOS X) will be part of the legal estate and most likely will be sold to another company. And who knows what they gonna have in mind with it then...

groovebuster

 

[GulGnu]

"The exact wording used in the French article is «prix de revient», which I translated to "production cost". "Total cost" might have been a better choice of words. It does not mean "manufacturing cost", but the total cost to the reseller; most certainly including shipping, marketing, packaging, etc. Apologies if my translation wasn't clear enough."

Even then, I would say it's time for Apple to use some of that cash that's sitting in the bank to build marketshare when the 970-ies hit the market. Sales have been anemic in many segments for a rather long while, and if marketshare slips below an unknown critical level, Apple could be in big trouble, as software houses stop porting, IBM increase processor prices due to small production runs, etc. Marketshare should be the n 1 priority for Apple. This isn't just important for Apple's sake - it's important for the entire computing world. Leaving MS without major corporate competition would be a very, very bad thing...

/GulGnu

-Stabil som fan!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by groovebuster
I am not that sure about the loyality. If Apple's market share slips under 1% one day, it won't be senseful anymore even for big software houses to stick with Apple. If it doesn't make sense anymore economically to support a platform on the long run, they will halt any development for it. In first place the companies have to make profits and are responsible to the stock holders. If a department is losing money and reduces profits, they will get rid of it. Even Adobe is not a charity business, although they becamne that big thanks to Apple in the old days.

Here in Germany e.g. Apple's market share is under 2% meanwhile (Apple Germany is a joke regarding marketing efforts and the Apple prizes in Europe are astronomically high). A first impression what happens then is, that a lot of software isn't localized anymore and you have to use the english version of the soaftware. You have to imagine that... just the localization is too expensive. We are not even talking about real development of software. Not everbody is fluent in english... For those people it already renders pretty hard to stay loyal.

Also it is almost impossible to find an Apple dealer near you here in Germany. In the big cities you maybe find one or two, but as soon as you are on the country-side... forget it.

I know a lot of people meanhwile who were Apple users but switched to the dark side or people who are Windows users being in love with Macs but probably never will buy one because Apple hardware is too expensive or is not performant enough.

I still hope that Apple will gain some market share again with competetive hardware, no matter if it is a "cheap" low-end system or really performant high-end system. Since years Apple is promising to gain, but actually continuosly lost market share. It doesn't matter anymore whose fault it was, if they slip under a certain critical market share (and I believe it is around 2%, before that downhill pattern starts), they will be history very soon and even the few loyal Mac fanatics won't save the day anymore. Then it is "Game Over".

So let's see what's gonna happen this year on the hardware front. In my opinon this year is the year of truth for Apple. If they don't bring very competetive and performant hardware, they are dead! If they bring that hardware and they still don't gain market share, they are dead as well. And nobody really can predict how the market will develop... except for the case that no significantly better hardware will be released.

groovebuster

Nicely put.
But anyway, if Apple's marketshare comes under 1.5% i betcha, that we'll get OSX for Intel.

 

[groovebuster]

Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch
Nicely put.
But anyway, if Apple's marketshare comes under 1.5% i betcha, that we'll get OSX for Intel.

That wouldn't really help... With a market share of 1.5% you are not going to make enough money to pay your R&D department when you are just developing an OS and not selling hardware. Still you would have the problem that the software has to be ported to MacOS X, so the problem would be still the same for the software houses... not to foret that they would have two Mac platforms they would have to support then... that would be crazy.

groovebuster

 

[allpar]

imac useless to me - I need the $599 pizza!

Originally posted by robotrenegade
Seems like a waste of money to me on apples part. They already have two other low end G4's. iMac and eMac.

Then you know nothing of the needs of a huge number of users. We already own big, high-quality monitors. We don't want machines with built in monitors. We want realistically priced Macs. $600 is just about what I would spend now, knowing that the 970s are coming very soon.

 

[GregA]

Sell it with TIVO, and DVD drive, TV/RGB out, a snazzy bluetooth keyboard with trackpad, and of course a TV remote control.

Ahh dreams. Actually I'm not sure if that'd be worth it for the cost anyway. Hmmm?

 

[cubist]

I think that if this comes true, it'll just be an iMac with no screen... The purpose of which would be to flush a lot of inventory of completed iMac motherboards and G4 chips to clear out space for the 970 hardware. This will be a machine with a very short future. Nevertheless, it will be a good introductory machine for a lot of folks.

I'm surprised this is such a hot topic.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Re: Re: Sounds bogus to me...

Originally posted by andyduncan
A 50% margin would be phenominal. Apple generally leads the industry in margins, typically at around 20-25% IIRC.

This is correct. If this rumor turns out not to be true, it won't be because Apple's margins are 50%.

 

[mathiasr]

Originally posted by groovebuster
Apple makes about 50% of their money with sales outside the US. They neglected those markets for quite a long time now. And if those markets go down the drain...

I have some mixed feelings about this. Mac OS X is "world ready", do you remember when we had to wait for days or weeks to get a localized upgrade? The .app wrapper renders the localization process way easier. On the other hand Apple did not translate .mac services.

From the sales point of view, pricing, advertising... things do no not look good in Europe. The switch campaign did not reach our shores, prices do not reflect the Euro/Dollar exchange rate...

Jean-René Cazeneuve (head of Apple Europe) gave these figures last month:
The iPod has 21% of the market share in Europe (only 15 % in France)
Education: 16% of the market in France during the year 2002 (9 % in 2001).
Consumer: 5% of the market in France and in the U.K. (U.K. has a bigger volume of sales)
He admitted that the pro sales have stagnated (no figures, this could mean slumped), he said that by the end of the year many breaks that hinder sales will have disappeared, and that time was on Apples side.

 

[JasonElise1983]

I think it is a great idea for Apple to bring a lower end "powerMac" into the line up. If apple does bring in this supposed computer, it would also be smart of them to try to get more third companies to make Mac Specific hard- and software. NVidia,ATI, and Creative Labs would be a great start. These are all expandable items that PC are easily capable of that Macs aren't. Just a thought.

 

[Laurent]

Name problems...

They should have named the Xserve xServe... That would have been perfect:

iMac (Flat display)
eMac (Normal display)
sMac (Headless Single PPC 970 for Individual use)
xMac (Headless Multi PPC 970 for Professional use)
xServe (Headless Power4 for Server use)

I also think that, since IBM's CPU is so cheap, that Apple will litterally drop every Motorala-CPU off their current line. You can FORGET about another Cube! Altought I love mine, Apple won't sale this one for cheap. I think it's safe to think of it as a thin tower with a vertical slot loading Combo Drive...

 

[Mudbug]

Re: Name problems...

Originally posted by Laurent
vertical slot loading Combo Drive...

They probably won't do that - turning a drive on it's side slows it down a good bit - even a 16x burner on it's side will only get 6x burn speeds without problems on a good day...

 

[allpar]

A terrific idea...

...because a huge number of people do have extra periperals and want to upgrade from their G3s to something more modern, but don't have $1,600.

It's amazing to me that with Wintel machines down at $500-600 for a wicked fast model, we're still talking about $1,600 for a Mac without a monitor. I mean, that's going back to the Lisa days of pricing. No wonder they're having a hard time selling desktops - for a relatively small increase in performance, and the ability to NOT have a built in monitor, you pay another $600 or up?

Senseless.

I would gladly pay $600 for a headless iMac. I have a perfectly good monitor - several, in fact - a keyboard and mouse I like, too. What I don't have is speed. I don't need to be state of the art, just closer than a G3 upgraded to 400 MHz G4. And those with beige G3s would probably buy this thing in an instant - not a wallet-buster, but plenty more punch than the ol' 66 MHz-bus beige bomber (which I remember as crushing similarly priced PCs!).

Apple's just not competing in the real world right now except in laptops. And iwth the strength of Linux, they can't get away with that much longer. Seriously, I am considering Linux - the KDE desktop is nearly as good as X, the price is far better, and the software seems to be just about there. I can still run some Windows apps with WINE... I WANT to stay in the mac world, but no, can't drop $1,600 on a new machine and won't buy one with a built-in monitor.

 

[steveh]

Originally posted by job
ADC.

Apple. Desktop. Connection.

Actually, the ADC connector isn't exactly proprietary; it's a corner variant of the VESA digital video spec.

 

[job]

Originally posted by steveh
Actually, the ADC connector isn't exactly proprietary; it's a corner variant of the VESA digital video spec.

Meh.

It comes close enough to what tazo was asking with regards to a "proprietary" connection.

It's all good.

 

[anonmac]

kde close to os x?

on what planet? or are you andrew carlssin (the time traveler from the future- google it) and you have kde 60.40.02 dated 5/7/2056?

i use kde gnome etc. all the time because i have to. then i come home to a real gui -os x. there is no comparison. the only reason you think there is, is cause you are blinded by your own cheapness.

i can get a free word processor off versiontracker...yet i gladly pay for appleworks. why? because IT IS BETTER. THAT IS WHY A MAC COSTS MORE THAN GNU/LINUX WITH KDE. (if you were a real linux user you'd give rms his due and call it gnu/linux.) poseur.

 

[allpar]

Ever hear of "good enough"?

Works pretty darned well. Costs $1,100 less for the computer - plus $xxx for Appleworks, $500 for Photoshop, etc.

I'm rooting for Apple. I want a Mac. I just DO NOT HAVE THE $$$. Do you UNDERSTAND that some people aren't wealthy or have other needs and priorities?

And as for poseur - jerk.

 

[anonmac]

i understand perfectly...

you are not spending money on the apple, so you say 'what i have is just as good'...
i don't really care either way....but kde = os x?

no freekin way. that is way too lame to pass up.

sorry if i seem harsh. if you think mac fans are harsh, say something bad about linux.

sorry if i offended you; but you should really have a better defense prepared if you are going to say things like you did.

if you just said...i dont have the money, you'd have had no arg. from me...but you did not. you said kde is 'just as good' as os x. it is not. i argue your point. (and i still run photoshop 6 in classic with no repercussions. what you have will run- it does not cost extra. oooohhhhhh, wait, you want all the integration features that ID,PS,ILL, etc share under os x. well, for that you have to pay, or continue claiming kde is just as good. but if you do that, you had better be ready for a lot more abrasive responders than me. they will tear you anew one.)

NOTE: 'works pretty darn well' is a far sight from the original 'just as good' claim.

 

[allpar]

Where exactly was "just as good"? Was it "the KDE desktop is nearly as good as X, the price is far better, and the software seems to be just about there." ... ?

 

[vniow]

Wow, I've never seen a story be this popular and very one-sided at the same time:

 

[RIP]

UMAX

If UMAX was able to make a $500 Mac clone in the C500, which I owned and liked very much, then Apple can make a $500 G4 and make money with it.

I agree with everyone here, this is was the Doctor has ordered.

 

[Qball]

They could call it the "Big Mac." Does anyone have that name wrapped up yet?!?

 

[Rocketman]

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
While I haven't used a Mac with an seperate since my Performa, I do know of Apple's constant changing of the connections required to make the whole thing work. Toss in a PC CRT monitor and it becomes that much harder.

While I see using the old PC monitor as a great idea, I see compatability issues (correct me if I'm wrong, of course).

Agreed. I would also like to see a utility that lets you load PC print drivers and attach PC printers using parallel port and USB to this mac, even if an extra cost addon, BY APPLE.

Rocketman