What is Digg?90 Comments
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+82"Dells biggest problem is they turned "corporate" and became complacent about their position in the market"
I think Dell's biggest problem was initiating the price war bloodbath. Where's the profit in a $399 computer that you have to provide tech support and warranty coverage for? Not to mention give Microsoft its cut? You end up outsourcing your customer support to India just to keep from losing money on every machine you sell, and we all know how the customers felt about that move.
And once someone equates your brand with $399 computers, how can you convince consumers to buy your premium stuff, where the only real profit margins are? You can't. Going after market share for market share's sake alone is a fool's paradise. Diggers deride Apple for their low market share percentage, but they've refused to join in the price wars and stuck with the premium product model, and their quarterly profits show it (that and the iPod, of course). And their customer service remains a large step above its PC-building competitors. Why? Because good customer service is built into the pricing.
Dell has seriously diluted its brand by going after the bottom-feeders. I don't know if that's something you can ever really recover from. - kelly, on 10/12/2007, -20/+85On November 10, 1997, (10 years ago to the day) Apple's then-interim CEO Steve Jobs, in response to Dell's harsh advice spoke in front of an image of Michael Dell's bulls-eye covered face and stated, "We're coming after you, you're in our sights." He wasn't kidding.
Dell is a dime-a-dozen PC box assembler. They offer nothing unique or innovative and their price advantage evaporated some time ago. If the company disappeared this afternoon, nobody outside of Dell employees and shareholders would care. - Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41actually i think dell's biggest problem is they're not making enough money.
- avatarpalin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+39
@7of7
I doubt whether you have actually ever used or owned a Mac.. Why is it no matter where you are in the world you will come across 'that guy'. You know the one, they hang out at BBQ's and the like. Whenever someone mentions the word Mac (even if its someone's name that has just arrived) they instantly rant on "Oh Mac's are crap! They are the worst machines around!" You ask them why, and you know what!!? For the life of them they can't give you a valid reason, they will say the usual Mac's are crap for games and I will try and correct them "Don't you mean OS X, because my iMac runs games really well using windows!"
and so on and so fourth.. I really wish that people like 7of7 would bring a valid argument to the discussion instead of throw away comments like yours. I have used Mac's since the lamp mac (which I think they should still make) and I actually think they are great! No fanboy crap here, I rely on my machine to do my work and home life and well it just keeps working. That shouldn't be such an amazing thing but there you are.
Mp3 player market monopoly, well thats another argument. But lets not forget, apple poured $300+ Million Bucks into the mp3 player research before any other company even considered it. And they sold a billion songs online when the record companies thought it was a joke. - TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+287of7, you will soon earn your place in the digg troll hall of fame
- DJCult, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29Wow, some guy said something? I'd better listen to THAT guy!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+30the fit and finish, the attention to detail, the elegant industrial design apparent in every aspect of every apple product speak for themselves.
- meatmcguffin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23"How can you say their laptops are going good?"
Apple are selling more computers than in any period in recent memory and the last sales figures showed laptops made up 61% of Apple sales. Their laptops *are* doing good.
"Well from the business aspect, I am going to say of 10 laptops sold, 1 is an apple."
While your at it, can you pull the figures for home and student sales out of your ass as well? - brlittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18"Dell is a dime-a-dozen PC box assembler. They offer nothing unique or innovative and their price advantage evaporated some time ago. "
And that business model is, in the words of a recent pundit comment, "eminently copyable." Imagine Michael Dell's surprise to learn that the Chinese are exceptionally good at bolting together off-the-rack parts to create a product that's good enough for most people, and underselling the snot out of Dell.
Live by the sword... - gregfadein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18TenebrousX said, "actually, there were lots of hard drive based MP3 players before the iPod, but the iPod was just better (along with the advertising, of course)"
Right, but they all used 2.5" laptop drives and were the size of a Discman. The iPod was the first to put that much space in your pocket. - etnu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20Nobody cares about Dell because they have no competitive advantage. They're one of hundreds of PC manufacturers -- all shipping the same basic boxes, all running Windows. It's a market where they only thing that matters is price. Windows is a commodity, and since most people aren't running high end games, photoshop, or 3d studio, the cheap boxes win.
Apple was smart and build a product that was unique. No, it isn't meant for "everyone". It has a very clear market and a loyal following that guarantees huge revenues. It's clearly working for them. - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I'd love to see the evidence that Apple are moving away from PC's, towers maybe, at a stretch of the imagination, but their laptops are going strong. A good part of their success may have been the iPod, that gave them visibility, but the computers still have to stand on their own legs.
- kazumaSHELL, on 10/12/2007, -12/+27You are a horrible retard:
"Good. If your browser doesn't follow the de facto standard then it shouldn't try to masquerade behind false standards. " - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17What is with all the people clamoring about releasing OSX lately? What benefit would they get out of releasing OS?
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@ewagnerjr2000
You seem to enjoy making wild unsupported claims based on hunches, gut feelings and what you "Want" to be true.
You should go into politics. It's one of the few fields where that kind of thinking is consistently rewarded.
I read the last Apple Annual Report and reviewed some of the graphs that are out for the previous two years. Apple's desktop and laptop sales have been steadily increasing. They're hardly "Moving away" from the computer market. The addition of products such as the iPhone are what's called "Diversifying." They're adding products, but not reducing the effort or resources they spend on their computers.
I also see a few people continuing the beat the "Release OS X for non Mac computers" drum. While this has the potential to be good for the rest of us, Apple has no reason to do this. Let me explain why:
First, Apple is a hardware company. OS X and the rich software suites developed for it exist largely to drive hardware sales. The Clone Era was a financial disaster that Apple would be foolish to repeat.
Second, a good deal of Apple's superior stability is derived from not relying on drivers written by any random Joe Schmo who may or may not know what they're doing. A lot of the Windows problems of yore were driver issues. Microsoft's "Driver Signing" program is an attempt to stem the tide on this, but the fact remains that there's a lot of flaky kit out there that ends up running Windows.
Third, I know a guy who used the online directions to hack OS X to run on his Dell Laptop. He has since concluded that OS X is an unstable piece of crap. Why does he think this, when my Mac Mini runs just fine with nary a hiccup? Simple, his Dell doesn't have reliable drivers. He knows the hardware runs Windows fairly well, so he blames the problems he's seeing on OS X. If Apple were to resurrect the "Age of the Clones" they would have to deal with the fact that bad drivers on the part of one of these vendors would result in the Mac OS being blamed, just like Windows took a lot of flack it didn't deserve. (Mind you, I'm not saying Windows is perfect. Not ALL Windows problems are driver related. 5% of Windows problems could be because of bad hardware / drivers, or it could be 95%, I don;t have the research to claim a real percentage) - bobartig, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16When Michael Dell said that, Steve wrote him an email saying, ''CEOs are supposed to have class. I can see that isn't an opinion you hold.''
Last year, when Apple's profits and stock price were at all-time highs, Steve sent a company-wide email revealing that Apple's market capitalization was now greater than Dell's. - cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -16/+29What goes around comes around. Every major player and CEO in the industry has had to face some of their past statements over the years, even Jobs. Steve is riding the wave at the moment, but he has to be careful to learn from the mistakes of others as well as not making mistakes of his own over the next few years.
Dell is more than "a dime-a-dozen PC box assembler", they were a pioneering company in the practice of made to order and direct distribution of PCs and peripherals, some things even Apple had to re-learn over the years. Dells biggest problem is they turned "corporate" and became complacent about their position in the market after the HP/Compaq merger and financial problems at Gateway (their biggest competitors at the time). Looking down on Dell, even with the problems they may be having right now, is playing the same bet that Michael Dell played (and lost) ten years ago. - DJCult, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@Wil, yes, but 100 Percent of browsers are used in an operating system.
- Ndiggnation, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I've worked with Macs for a long time, and those words weren't exactly inaccurate at the time. As much as you may love Apple, and I do too...Macs were horribly overpriced, sub-par machines back then. They also put the choke hold in third party clones around that time. Apple has had fantastic success since rehiring Jobs, which if memory servers me right, was around that time. The former CEO nearly ran them into the ground. Give Michael Dell a break, that was then, this is now. Things change.
- etnu, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19"10 years ago to the day" would imply November 10th, 2007. You know, 9 months from now?
- TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"But lets not forget, apple poured $300+ Million Bucks into the mp3 player research before any other company even considered it"
actually, there were lots of hard drive based MP3 players before the iPod, but the iPod was just better (along with the advertising, of course) - DJCult, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@ewagnerjr I don't think that's entirely true. I'm sure there are a lot of Apple shareholders that bought stock because they enjoy and believe in the product.
- noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10What the *****? OSX requires more disk space than Vista?
From the windows marketplace: "HardDisk Required 20GB hard drive with at least 15GB of available space"
http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?view=info&itemid=3268640#productSpecs
From Apple.com: "Requirements: ... 3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools)"
http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/
If you want to talk bad about something go for it but don't flat out lie just to sound cool. I don't know much about DirectX or OpenGL but I'm pretty tempted to assume that's ***** too. - meatmcguffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10" Instead of a company saying this is what you will use. I want to play any game, or any type of OS."
You can do this already but *only* by buying an Intel Apple machine. Given the profits are a lot higher on hardware than software, why would Apple want to change this? - noreturn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I don't think that's what he meant, I could be wrong. But just so you know, a Dell XPS M1210 specced to match my MacBook ends up being about the same price (actually a little bit more, but hey, we'll let let that slide.) You assume that the Mac is more expensive, when really it's not.
- wilhoitm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Dell has almost turned into Ford Motor Company, it is sad.
- greatblackowl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9actually, 1 in 10 is pretty good, considering all the other companies they're competing against (HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, etc.)
- ewagnerjr2000, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13I think vista could use alot of work. I am using it now. For someone who has a computer science degree, and used about every OS under the sun. I think vista is way too bloated, lets go from 4 gigs of space to 20 gigs of space. I would run OSX on here if apple released it, its a BSD based operating system and I know its stable. I think we also need to move away from directx and back to OpenGL. This would allow games to run natively on other OS's.
- DJCult, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Hm. Ten might have a point there.
- cleggy1969, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9You are what you sell. Dell has spent years selling computers that have notoriously thin margins. That's great for the consumer, but the reality is there not much loyalty in that market. Apple on the other hand, markets what cutting edge product they have and only dabbles in the thinner margins("If you like the ipod you'll love product X").
- GregR, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@ kelly
You could at least acknowledge that you are taking your quote from somewhere else!
See that last line at http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12588/ - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Ok this is DIGG. Who the hell here only uses a web browser? Seriously? No one? Ok that's what I thought. So other apps matter.
- jamend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"They offer nothing unique or innovative and their price advantage evaporated some time ago."
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Dell's PC sales may be slumping now but they've had a huge influence on the LCD market by driving the costs of high-end displays down. Dell also has a lot of exlusive deals with distributers and manufacturers (ex. Nvidia) so they get their high-end parts before anyone else when supplies are limited. - eddyc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Apple is so hot right now
- KaneElson, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Yeah of course ... because most of the world doesn't still run windows......
- chroko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The problem limiting desktop sales is the hole in their desktop lineup. Say that I want a new Mac desktop to replace my aging PC:
At the low end is the Mac Mini - which has a nice CPU, but that's about it. The graphics card sucks and it's not very expandable.
In the middle is the iMac - but an integrated screen is a huge no.
At the high end is the Mac Pro - which has a nice everything but makes your wallet bleed.
There's nothing in the middle for enthusiasts that want a nice desktop machine that enables them to use their existing monitor - but with some expandability and without the sticker shock. They need (and I want) a half-sized Mac Pro! - ewagnerjr2000, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I can tell you who cares about Dell. Large number of business and government agencies.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i think most people are starting to see the 399 dell they got with xp and 256 megs of ram just isnt cutting it. I cant count how many times people get these and 4 months later bring them to me, and request things like a "dvd burner" 512megs of ram, or better, graphics card, bigger HD. By the time they are done upgrading the 399 dell, they could of had a high end pc built for them.
- MindlessSoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ noahhoward
+1 digg. Way to tell it how it is.
I installed OS X on my 4GB iPod mini to boot from (this is stupid, don't do it. It's slow and is stressful on the hard drive).
I didn't install printer drivers, extra languages, or developer tools and got it down to around ~2.5GB.
Right now DirectX10 is more capable than OpenGL in many ways. That may change now that Apple has taken a seat on the OpenGL Board, but I doubt it; Apple probably couldn't care less about gaming. - Szandor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"I can't wait until we can have a world without Apple."
Not going to happen in your lifetime, skippy. - angusware, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I have nothing against any PC computer, I just have something against the OS they run. This is why I don't understand why microsoft don't want Apple users using Vista, they don't make computers so surely them getting another whole bunch of people would be a good thing?
- Zatko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dude, no way. What does the dude from London say about Dells? Or what about the Wii? Please let me know!!!
- MindlessSoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@ stealthgear
"Apple provides absolutely no decent backup solution for this machine. Firewire does not cut it. Usb 2.0 is a joke."
...is there some backup protocol for the PC I'm missing? IEEE-MAGIC-PC-ONLY?
There is only firewire, USB 1.0/2.0, DVDs and maybe Ethernet as viable options for backup.
In fact, on a mac you also have Firewire 800. I think that would mean the mac has the BEST and FASTEST backup solution... - cyrix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Dell is a dime-a-dozen PC box assembler. They offer nothing unique or innovative and their price advantage evaporated some time ago. If the company disappeared this afternoon, nobody outside of Dell employees and shareholders would care."
Granted for my personal use I don't find their computers all that appealing...actually who am I kidding, I don't find them appealing at all...
However they have their fingers in many a IT department. Our university runs on Dell servers, workstations (for our administration, faculty, etc...,) and desktops (for library and lab use.) We would happen to care greatly if they just up and vanished. The problem is that large IT departments rely on companies like this quite a bit. Sure, we COULD go ahead and build all of our own boxes and hand them out to our people but in the grand scheme of things that's just not a plausible idea. - Szandor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Congratulations, Samsong. You are now officially the biggest dumbass on this digg.
- meatmcguffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"So, buying a new computer is a serious investment, much more so than buying a (relatively) inexpensive piece of software."
For the most part i agree with you but buying an OS is only inexpensive if you decide to not buy any software to run on it. My switch came only after a very long deliberation about how much money i would be throwing away by not using windows anymore and as it turned out the advantages far, far outweighed what i had to stop using.
I guess people would be a lot more partial to OS X if they could run it on a PC but there's a serious risk here : What if you installed OS X on a PC but still used windows as your main OS? You could see it as a novelty to dual boot and not put in the time and energy into discovering what it's all about in the exact same way the far majority of bootcamp users treat XP.
Buying a mac, however, forces you into experimenting. Instead of going back to windows apps, you look for replacements and learn the secrets of the OS. What expose is, how to use spotlight comments, what's the best rss reader etc. Which you wouldn't do unless you took the system seriously. In other words, by releasing OS X could people just see it the way bootcamp users see Windows; a fun diversion every now and then but not used enough to become the main OS so why should they switch? - vr1000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wonder what the notebook/desktop ratio is for Dell. They do some notebook assembly in house and I bet that costs them a lot more than the Asian sub-contractors who build most of the world's notebook PCs.
Plus let's not forget that although HP had a f'ed board they have been out executing Dell bigtime. They have excellent pricing with top notch support and can offer the customer pretty much any notebook, desktop, work station, server, software solution under the sun. - sysoprock, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3In the past two years I've seen so many stories reference this quote from Michael Dell, I think in the future business students will have to learn to recite it from memory in order to earn their diploma.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You know layzie you're putting words in Quix' mouth and getting worked up over nothing.
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