day 62

behind apple's blunder 4: nothing but second best by Philip Machanick

Yesterday, we saw how Apple allowed its hardware to fall behind the market, especially in the eyes of potential purchasers. Could the loss have been avoided? Just when Apple should have been taking the market by storm, Apple made claims about parts shortages that hurt sales at the high end. There has been no credible explanation of their failure to move at the low end. Almost 2 years after the PowerMac was launched, the cheapest model had edged up from 60MHz to only 66MHz. This is crazy. The 603e, which could have been used to manufacture cheap, fast Macs for less than the cost of the 68040 models, was invisible outside the notebook models. The promising 5300LC, which had a good initial price and a wide range of multimedia features, was marketed feebly following its initial launch in the K-12 market. No real cut-price model has appeared. I am willing to bet that a 100MHz 603e model would have sold in huge volumes at the same time the 68040 models ended up filling warehouses. Did Apple fail to forecast the market? The answer tomorrow.

behind apple's blunder 1 2 3 Daily Dose Index