What would you change if you were in charge at Apple?

Originally posted by dferigmu
Here's what I would do. All these changes make perfect sense and I don't understand why Apple doesn't make them:

1. Slightly redesign eMac into a new affordable iMac

2. Introduce new mini Powermac G5 tower as a prosumer model with prices ranging from $799-$1299

3. Introduce 17" cinema display and budget 17" and 19" flat-screen CRT monitors

4. Lower Powermac prices by at least $200-300 on every model and make 512 MB RAM and ATI Radeon 9600 XT standard

5. Introduce new iPods with removable batteries and a 60 GB model

6. Make a phone/PDA combo compatible with OS X

Any other ideas?

Oh, and lower Powerbook prices until the Powerbook G5 comes out.

i'd make sure i had a business plan, executives, and staff in place so that if anything happened to me, my company would continue to grow in the manner of my vision.

Originally posted by dferigmu

1. Slightly redesign eMac into a new affordable iMac

By slightly redesign, do you mean make it flat screen (e.g. the current iMac with a price cut) or just rename it 'iMac'?

2. Introduce new mini Powermac G5 tower as a prosumer model with prices ranging from $799-$1299


Wouldn't this canibalise PowerMac G5 sales, and as they would make far less margin on the $799 model it would hammer profits?

3. Introduce 17" cinema display and budget 17" and 19" flat-screen CRT monitors


I'm not sure they could compete on price with existing 17" screen makers, without cheapening the quality brand. But then I can't understand why anyone buys Apples insanely priced displays.

4. Lower Powermac prices by at least $200-300 on every model and make 512 MB RAM and ATI Radeon 9600 XT standard


So they destroy the margin on the product, potentially pushing them from profitability into loss?

5. Introduce new iPods with removable batteries and a 60 GB model.


Removable batterys could easily reduce the clean and simple form factor - Apple are unlikely to chance such an insanely sucessful product.

6. Make a phone/PDA combo compatible with OS X


Phone design and distribution is a multi-billion dollar, well established industry with tiny margins and established players, an industry in which Apple has no expertise. How would they make any money at this?

I'd quietly recruit 20-30 programmers to spend the next 2-3 years developing the hell out of OpenOffice for OS X (not unlike the Safari effort).

I would make naked time a company policy.

Originally posted by Not Unlike Myself
I would make naked time a company policy.

I'm glad you don't work at my company. I'd puke my spleen out :p

1. Regaining marketshare in edu would be my #1 goal. I would create a true edu Mac that was headless and very inexpensive.

2. I would aquire a networking company like Asante to create Apple branded networking products. Apple Intracore.

3. I would introduce a smallbiz Xserve which is $2000 including 10 client OSX Server.

4. I would introduce a 2U Xserve with 4 PCI Express slots.

5. I would create Apple Office with WP,Keynote, iCal 2.0,Cellblock(spreadsheet) and groupware.

6. I would deliver a full Quicktime implementation on Linux.

7 I would aquire the assets of Tivo.

8 I would aquire a 3D company(Luxology or Maxon)

9 I would beef up the Apple training and certification areas and make it more affordable.

10 I would ensure that I never shipped anything purposely crappy to hit price point.

11 I would make OSX very strong in cryptology.

12. I would make Quicktime the best scaling multimedia framework available from Set Top Boxes to computing servers.

13. I would serialize the OS and iLife and look to double my quarterly software licensing.

14. I would aquire a gaming company and focus on nifty Mac only games. Each new computer would come with a game from Apple.

15. I would deliver a smartphone.

I would just make sensible hard-hitting adverts. The rest would sort itself out.

it's really amusing how 90% of you apple fan boys have no clue as to what apple's role in the marketplace is.
you want to turn Apple into Gateway.:lol:

Originally posted by dferigmu
Stop comparing apples to oranges. It is a known fact that unless you are a gamer, people want to spend as little as possible on their computers and they go for the best deals.

yes and those people have many makes and models to choose from.
and if you can't see the obvious comparison (which jobs coined, not me)
then you're clueless.

Maybe I'd acquire Freescale, and made their first priority to be making kick-ass chips for Apple.

I'd be running polls on the site of every product where people easily could tell their opinion on the product, so that the common opinion would be widely known both to people, and Apple. This to ensure that products are meeting consumer expectations.

Also, I'd made sure that any Mac sold is usable and not bottlenecked in any way (i.e. made 512MB RAM standard, even if it'd rise prices).

Stop comparing apples to oranges. It is a known fact that unless you are a gamer, people want to spend as little as possible on their computers and they go for the best deals.

Then how does that explain $3000 Dell computers? If everyone wants the cheapest computer then why do PCs exist over $2000 when so much power is supposed to be available at $999?

Step 1 Find out who is running the hardware division and fire them.

Why? Apple hardware isn't cheap but the design is respectable. Just because they don't deliver trash means that someone should get fired.

Step 2 Remove the 4 tier structure that has ran off all its marketshare

It's been gone for a while now. Where does the iPod fit? Or Airport? With multiple iBook and Powerbook models the Quadrant strategy is really no more.

Step3 get the consumer products(pods emac)& software out into consumer stores meaning walmart,sears,Best buy and lots of others. you cant sell to the consumer if you arent in any stores.

Apple Retail. 100+ store and growing. Apple keeps all the profits.

The problem with threads like this is this. None of you are I are MBAs. You think of things from a consumer perspective and that is dangerous because many consumers are a fickle lot.

You don't need an MBA degree to know that reducing the price must be followed by a marked increase in sales. In dferigmu plans he's cutting the price of Powermacs and Powerbook but hasn't giving any information on how many increased sales will result. If you drop $300 from a Powermac then you will need to sell roughly at least %50 more units. Thus 180k units today would require 270k units at $300 cheaper. Now ask yourself are 90 thousand additional buyers going to purchase Powermacs based on the cost savings. Those are hard things to predict. Apple is best to remain conservative.

I'd make sure products are available in quanity no more than a week later than their announcement.

Originally posted by Aurora
no G4 laptop can stand close to the new pc laptops. their performance will trash G4.

Oddly, Apple PowerBook sales just spiked upward. People don't judge laptops the way they judge desktops, and if you're looking at the whole package, I defy you to find a notebook that can go toe-to-toe with a PowerBook.

why else would the best OS in the world own a paltry 3% market.

Because most people don't even consider Macs an option. PC means Windows, and Windows means PC. Contrary to your argment, the machines in Apple's lineup that have succeeded most in convincing people otherwise have been the notebooks, and specifically the iBook — the slowest, least configurable, least expandable machine in the entire lineup.

Your sense of what people look for in a computer is completely alien to the consumer market.

Originally posted by Aurora
you may be right on anger management but as far as Apple goes this has held true for years.Apple has the best software and the worst hardware. whats changed? they now have the worst hardware but it now has style.:lol:

worst hardware ? Take some pills ! :D . Yes my dual G5 is really the worst hardware, undoubtely, and so is my powerbook 17 inch. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Originally posted by Powerdoc
worst hardware ? Take some pills ! :D . Yes my dual G5 is really the worst hardware

I'm unfortunate enough to be stuck with a dual G5 too. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of support group for unlucky sods like us?

Originally posted by Tuttle
I'm unfortunate enough to be stuck with a dual G5 too. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of support group for unlucky sods like us?

Good idea. I am going to change my sig :D

Call me absolutely fricken nuts, but I would start selling everybody's hardware...Dell, IBM, anyone really, I would place their products right inside my store and sell them...If someone wanted a cheap solution, I would provide it with the crappy PC, but I would have my own CONTROLLED environment with Apple products next to the PCs, and the customers could browse around. By controlled, I don't mean altered, I just mean that all my keys from the keyboard would not be missing from PC zealots, etc. So, whatever the customer would want we could provide, get some profit from places outside of Cupertino and use that to invest into my own products. This would help other companies see Apple in a more positive light, and not so elitist. Plus the pressure of selling all of our inventory and playing that game would be gone.

I would make key software buyouts; Macromedia, Adobe, etc. and make them hella better on the Mac, as they should be.

In a perfect world this would work, because I would be giving the consumer what they want in cheap with the PCs we would sell, and I would still be getting paid, and I could still make our computers the elite and not compromise due to price...

But, I do love the way the company is moving as of recent times, and I see it doing things on a good timeline, though it may not be fast enough for me! I am continually impressed with what they can do with what others call hindered hardware, hell we have real-time effects on our crappy G5s, the PC can't touch it even with its Terahertz processors...So, it answers my needs and the needs of others more than adequately already...I am patient and content with current offerings thanks to the terrific software, which is what really matters anyway.

Apple doesn't need to buy Adobe or Macromedia. They handle the Web and Print publishing areas just fine.

Where Apple is getting just demolished is in lack of business apps. I should be able to create a Apple Small Business Pack for less than 10 grand.

Xserve lite- $2000 OSX Server 10.4 10 client
Apple Office- $1495 10 client WP,Spreadsheet,Keynote,,DB
Apple Assembly- $499 10 client Groupware app.
Apple Remote D- $299 10 client for easy management
bMacs- $4000 5pk of headless Macs with 17" LCD.

Apple needs to address where they are weak. Licensing software and getting on the business desktop. I think they should make a concerted effort to small biz and work their way up.

1. I'd invite Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as chairmen.
2. Release an anniversary Mac every year. It'll be more expensive each year.
3. Buy the naming rights for the Arizona Cardinals stadium.
4. Give everyone that would stop by free iBooks...

no wait, this is not okay. Let me start over.

1. Headless mac that connects to HDTVs and records like Tivo
2. More DLDs, like a miniTablet which acts like a remote display, not a TabletPC
3. iPhone
4. HD based digital camera

I'd a actually do what my customers obviously wanted and would buy. No more Flower Power kind of announcements!

Originally posted by Placebo
I'd a actually do what my customers obviously wanted and would buy. No more Flower Power kind of announcements! agreed, in addition, I would keep my word, and ship things when we say we will, if we even project a delay, I would give the latest possible date for shipping, thus any time ahead is greavy, customers are happy to recive the units two days before ship date, not pissed when they are a month behind.

Originally posted by PBG4 Dude
So, you are actually happy that it takes TWO G5 processors at 2GHz to equal ONE Intel processor at 3GHz? Did you forget that Aurora was comparing the dual processor G5 to a single processor P4 and you think he/she's wacked?

Oh yea, since you didn't account for the fact that 2.0GHz PowerMacs are DUAL, your formula should read that each Gigahertz of G5 (4GHz G5 ~= 3GHz P4) is roughly .75GHz of P4 power.

So I guess the PPC 2.5 is not the fastest computer right? :p

The Dual G5's are actually much faster than the single pentium when it comes to multitasking which is how most users compute. It's a simple equation. Simply count the execution units and registers of two G5s verus the Pentium 4. The G5s will get faster as more software threads and supports SMP.

So a 7Ghz processor "is" faster than two 3.5Ghz processors when running one or two apps but the more you add the less efficient it timeslices because everything is still fighting for the limited execution units. When you start to add CPU or cores you have more execution units to run simultaneously so speed increases when running multiple apps.

This bears itself out when hopping on a fast PC and running a bunch of apps simultaneously versus hopping on a fast Dual G5. Apple has more mature SMP desktop apps so many people are suprised at how much the "Lowly 2Ghz" chips can run.

No I didn't account for using "Duals" because the statement that a Dual 2Ghz is "only equivalent to a Pentium4 3.0Ghz is patently false

http://www.barefeats.com/image05/cin04.gif

How do you explain a Dual G5 2.0Ghz

Scoring 522 in Cinebench versus a P4 3Ghz scoring 347

Apple has routinely benched the Powermacs against the dual Xeons and the Powermacs win in many cases. So when you have someone like Aurora, who is more known for providing theatrics rather than useful information , states that a Dual 2Ghz is "only" the equivalent of a single P4 3Ghz system you have to consider the source. He failed to provide any links to support his statement, I have. He loses.

So I guess the PPC 2.5 is not the fastest computer right?

Sure you could guess but you might be wrong :p

and where does apple make money there, bMacs- $4000 5pk of headless Macs with 17" LCD.? can such a thing cost sub $750(the per unit price) to build?

Software licensing. Apple makes more money on the iPod now than their software per qtr. That shouldn't happen. Apple needs to double their software licensing to around around $400 million a qtr average. Software licensing is far more sustainable especially to a platfrom like Apple where they control the hardware and the software.