John Joyce
Forum Replies Created
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A factor I don’t see mentioned often is the longevity of the iMac under constant serious loads.
I burned through a couple of earlier generation iMacs, and I suspect the reason was heat. I looked at a current iMac recently, and it still seems to me poorly ventilated. I could feel the hot air coming out when it was doing nothing.
On the other hand, it takes a quite a bit of work to make my late 2013 Macbook pro (with the video card) heat up seriously. The fact it has two fans was one reason I bought it.
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The stock price has no impact on their failing business
The stock price rise could be technical (e.g. the sellers have moved on), but 20 per cent is a lot. Someone could think that there is still a lot of value in Avid.Or someone could know something. Sorry, have to retract that: in the famous words of John Dean, Richard Nixon’s Counsel, “that would be wrong”.
an entirely new and better managed business plan
Don’t mean to be rude, but like what? Go to the market for more money? Make a courageous move, like lowering prices? Sack the CEO and pray that someone – anyone – can do better? -
They are very useful replies. Thanks guys.
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Looks to me like the end of Tim Cook’s honeymoon with the business media.
He can expect a lot of questions from now on.
Some scribblers may even have sufficiently poor manners to allude to the introduction of IBM’s PC in 1981, and IBM’s record loss, the largest in American corporate history at the time), in 1992.
Good luck with the secrecy strategy, Tim.
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With respect, I have a little problem with Bill’s put-down. Narrow credentialism is a plague of our age, just IMHO of course.
“So Monsieur Fermat, what would you know about mathematics? Where’s your Ph.D? Exactly. You’re just an ****ing lawyer.”
How far up the greasy corporate pole might Steve Jobs, sans MBA, have got? Indeed, how far even he had had one?
I modestly suggest that Aindreas has made a contribution worthy of consideration.
My interest is in how Apple has junked some conventional rules of marketing and strategy. HIgh-end products exist largely to motivate the aspirational segment. The girl who buys a Hermes scarf is very likely to aware of the Kelly bag, and to hope that someone some day will give her one. It has been said that the only reason BMW produces the 3-series is to make buyers want a 5-series. Do Canon and Nikon make their money from their top-of-the-line cameras? No, but buyers of compacts know that these are the brands on the big boys’ cameras. And consider mavens, usually thought important. Where are the mavens going to come from for FCPX?
In terms of strategy, it is conventionally thought important to have a place at the top table of an industry, or at least not throw it away. I don’t know of course, but it would surprise me if Steve had not worked the phones, and called in more than a few favors when Avid attempted to cease Mac development. Do you think Apple is in as good a position to do that now, if Avid and Adobe pull the plug on Macs? Who expects howls of protest from Hollywood producers next time?
A problem Apple faces is its size. It is hard to make decent returns on huge capital. But do you think there is a sustainable competitive advantage in, ah, gadgets? Samsung seems to have an idea on how to deal with it:
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apple. is. draining. the. entire. mac professional. pool
And not just the video pool, as some have been noticing for a while:
https://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=58869.0
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Apple of course does not own the mortgage on disruption.
If Apple does not have a very big rabbit still in the hat, we could be at one of Andy Grove’s strategic inflection points. Consider, for example, the impact of a decision by Avid to cease Mac development. Remember, they tried it before; and reversed the decision only after an outcry of protest, led by movers and shakers in Hollywood.
Do you think the same would happen now, if Avid dropped the Mac?
A sweaty decision for Avid, and it may be tantamount to betting the company. But if they got away with it, their development costs would diminish significantly. Adobe (and everyone else) would watch the unfolding events excitedly.
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Call me naive if you like, but one reason for optimism in all this could be the absence so far of legal moves against Apple, especially in jurisdictions outside the United States. The EU could be an interesting one. You can have the tightest EULA in the universe, but it still has to comply with statute law.
Typically trade practices law prohibits not just deceptive but misleading conduct. It is difficult to imagine that major corporations and institutions who would incur significant costs in retooling post-FCP7 would not yet have engaged Sue, Grabbit and Runne to cast their yellowed eye over the representations made about FCPX both before its release and since.
Could it be that Apple is providing more comforting information to large, irritated and litigious clients than to the common herd?
In the kingdom of the blind, one theory may be as good as another.
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HP leaving the workstation market?
I don’t wish to lower the tone, but my worry is that Adobe will leave the Mac market.
It has happened before, twice in my personal experience. And I was burned twice.
First, Premiere would not run (as I remember on OS X), and Apple to its credit provided a free copy of FCE. Second, Adobe discontinued the Mac version of FrameMaker, which was a great pity since it ran very nicely on a Mac, used AppleScript and so on.
Now in both cases I can understand that Adobe could no longer make a dollar out of the Mac versions. My fear is that switchers and declining sales of serious Macs will undermine the economic case for continuing Mac versions of serious software, especially Adobe’s.
A nasty spiral could quickly get underway. Who needs a Mac Pro, or what will replace it? Universities running Mathematica? High-end still photographers? And then only through tradition. Old habits could die very easily, unless I suppose you develop iPhone apps.
I hope there is something profoundly wrong with my argument.