jragosta and dr.Zoidberg:
It's a pleasure to read your two comments. However, scottkle does bring up an interesting point.
scottkle said:
I never agreed until now. If there was a "cheap" Mac. One that could get PC users excited. One that is at THEIR price point.
Scott, there are two problems with this argument:
- It assumes the average PC user wants to switch platforms.
- It ignores the fact that the system purchase is only the start of the cost, regardless of price point. The potential switcher also will have to buy new versions of his/her software, and quite possibly replacement hardware, too.
One that makes it seem like they are getting a deal, Apple would increase that marketshare 2x. It's only a matter of mindset in the PC world. No one hates Apple. They just don't see why they should spend so much money on something they can get for so much less.
Now you're getting hot... You see, the problem is that people in the PC world have been practically
given hardware for so long that when they actually have to
pay for it, they don't know how to react. Even if the end users don't think of it as such, companies in the PC world have practically been prostituting themselves just to get their hardware noticed.
Also, a lot of people try to compare (pardon the unintended pun) apples and oranges. On the one hand, they can buy lots of parts and build their own system fairly cheaply, and on the other they're looking at a whole, brand-named system.
Typically, there are two reactions amongst the PC user world. One is just the perception that Macs cost more than PCs. Again, they find ways of getting a "cheap cost" on the PC side and
deliberately compare it to a whole, manufactured system. The other is from those who don't mind building their own systems and -- naturally -- cough up a fur ball over the fact that you cannot do that with a Mac. You can dismiss them as being "tinkerers", but they exist nonetheless.
I have been using Macs since 1983. I guess that when you haven't been, you don't understand what all the fuss is about. My friend asked me why he'd pay $2,799 for a 17-inch laptop with 1.5 ghz as the speed. When I explained to him what else was in those specs, it all went past him like a train. Didn't get it at all. It was 1.5. That's all he was able to take from it. I believe all the years of hearing the megahertz myth has really brainwashed him and 92 percent of the PC market. That's what they believe.
Ding ding ding! Got it in one, Scott.
The switcher campaign on the surface was a great idea. But, what Apple should do, in addition to coming up with this "cheap" Mac, is educate the masses en masse. In some way that could get through to people like my PC buddies.
The Switcher campaign was actually one of Apple's more successful efforts, both in confirmable numbers and in anecdotal stories of changing people's attitudes. It's amazing how many people I have spoken with who connected at least on some level with those ads. Even hard-core PC techs, albeit not of the switcher variety, got a good laugh at how on-target those commercials were in their criticisms of Microsoft's OSs, past and present.
However, there is something to be said for the ignorant masses out there (some might refer to them as young
and old skulls full of mush) who truly believe that "cheaper is better". I have already given a long dissertation on this elsewhere, so I won't repeat what I've said before, but the essence is that there are people you'll never convince because you're not offering them anything they have the knowledge, understanding, comprehension or intelligence to want at the price point you're offering it at, regardless of any other justification for purhcase. The only thing you can do is forget them and move on. If, however, that group comprises the whole of a given market, then you're basically screwed. Apple is, fundamentally, banking on the computer-using market not being entirely comprised of idiots like that. So far, they are being proven correct in that assertion.
A brief example I could use is this: Paramount has decided that they want to show the origins of the Star Trek mythos by going back to the beginning of things -- hence
Enterprise. So, we now have a show who's events take place starting 10 years before the founding of the Federation (show starts 2151, Federation founded 2161), and approximately 100 years before Kirk and Co.
It's a world where people are
afraid of transporters because it is a
new technology and the thought of having your body broken up into sub-elementary particles and reassembled is
scarry because that kind of transport is not
yet commonplace. People take shuttles everywhere. Ships dock to exchange personnel. Tons of alien planets and races are question marks or out-and-out unknowns. Enterprise "polarizes it's hull plating" instead of raising shields -- because they don't
have shields -- because they haven't been invented and/or discovered by Starfleet yet. "Photonic" torpedos are just coming into use, and only the inventiveness of Lt. Reed has increased the power of their "phase cannons" to a useful level.
In other words, this is a "where we came from" type show.
Now, there are a lot of viewers out there who are dissatisfied with the show because it is "primitive". Comments I've heard are "Why are they all so stupid?", etc. The point is a large section of the (potential) viewing audience lacks the mentality or capacity to "get it". I respect Paramount for staying the course with this show instead of just giving up, but the truth is that unless they can generate enough of a viewing audience, this kind of public mentality will kill the show in time.
It's a bit like having a show featuring, say, the British Navy of the 1700s and 1800s and having viewers complain that they aren't using GPS systems on the ships.
Of course, the difference here is that Paramount only has
investment costs involved with the show, and if it goes south, too bad, but ultimately no big deal. Apple has their
entire business tied up in the Mac platform.
Besides, as I've said above, there is a lot of truth to be had from the fact that Apple's development costs are higher than other PC manufacturers', and in any event, it isn't like this stuff is free for the PC companies, either. Good PCs (and I use that term loosely) are expensive, too. Consider Sony's VAIO line of highly multimedia-oriented PCs, or Alienware's systems. They're not cheap, and they're not ever going to be cheap.
To an extent, maybe Apple is wise to occupy "niche player" status because it means that the masses of dead-heads who are a part of the WinTel world are idiots that Apple doesn't have to take care of.
