By not coughing up a low-cost MacBook, as some had expected, Apple has ceded a potentially huge market to PC makers. But is this just all part of Apple's marketing genius?
$999 is as low as Apple will go.
(Credit: Apple)The announcement Tuesday of the $999 white polycarbonate MacBook was pretty ho-hum as product refreshes go (same price, same color as before) but the implication was important: Apple is surrendering a large, emerging laptop market to Microsoft and its coterie of PC makers.
Not that it's necessarily a bad strategy. Market researcher Gartner said recently that Apple's shipments in the U.S. grew year-over-year by 6.8 percent to total 1.57 million during the third quarter, putting it right behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Acer. Comparatively, overall PC shipments in the U.S. grew by 3.5 percent from a year earlier.
But among those unimpressive overall PC numbers (HP's third-quarter shipments grew only 2.7 percent), was an impressive statistic for Acer: buoyed by Netbooks, Acer's shipments grew by 61.4 percent year-over-year, and it blew past Dell to become the No. 2 PC maker worldwide based on this growth.
Granted, Netbooks are a relatively low-profit segment (i.e., profit on a $400 Netbook is going to be a lot less than that on a $999 laptop). Nevertheless, they're a hot market. Intel CEO Paul Otellini has stated numerous times that Intel was able to create a market that grew faster than either the iPhone or Nintendo Wii. Case in point: Windows 7-based Acer Netbooks are now big on the Home Shopping Network--which claims to have sold more than 5,000 in one segment on Saturday.
And that's not the only market Apple is punting on. A new category of inexpensive, thin laptops has emerged with the roll-out of Windows 7 on Thursday. Like Netbooks, these laptops are light (typically 4 pounds) and don't include an optical drive. But they are relatively powerful and full featured. The 15.6-inch Acer Aspire Timeline, for example, with a 320GB hard disk drive and dual-core Intel processor is fairly well-endowed at only $500.
Apple is not receiving a lot kudos in the mainstream business press ... Read more
Dell, Acer, Intel, and others together are, in effect, creating a muddle of light laptop categories as part of a not-so-well-orchestrated marketing strategy, according to an analyst. This is expected to become particularly acute when a deluge of new Windows 7 laptops hit the market this week.
Acer 11.6-inch ultrathin looks like a Netbook but it's not.
(Credit: Acer)Acer offered a graphic example of this recently when it introduced a small, inexpensive Windows 7 notebook--the Aspire Timeline AS1810T--that, from all outward appearances, looks like a Netbook. But it isn't--at least as defined by Intel. It's a new category of laptop called an ultrathin.
"There's a lot of confusion that Intel has created and they haven't really segmented the market that well," according to Bob O'Donnell, an IDC Research vice president.
And it gets more complicated. The inexpensive ultrathin is, in turn, competing now with the expensive luxury laptops, like the Dell Adamo, according to O'Donnell. "Ironically, what's actually happening we think is that the (ultrathin) is actually killing the high-end ultraportable," O'Donnell said.
Here's the problem: any given Windows 7 laptop with an 11.6- or 12-inch screen could be a Netbook, an ultrathin, or a high-end ultraportable, each with distinctly different price-performance characteristics not readily apparent to consumers.
"There's too many overlapping products," according to O'Donnell. Intel tried to prevent this from happening by declaring that any laptop with a screen larger than 10 inches diagonally is not a Netbook. That policy is fine in theory but does not carry over to the real world of head-butting competition among PC makers where even the subtlest production differentiation can mean a leg up on the competition.
Intel says look at performance and price. "Which offers the best performance overall? That's important," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. "Pricing is a factor too. While some ultrathin laptops including 11.6 and higher are very affordable, none are in the $249 to $399 range that typically defines a Netbook," Calder said.
Some consumers might say it's not a big deal. But ... Read more
The Apple MacBook Air has remained almost unchanged for a year and a half--a testament to the staying power of its design. So, how will Apple respond to the wave of inexpensive, ultra-thin lookalikes hitting the market over the next six months?
The Air is still a stunning design but its novelty and high price will come under assault as lookalikes flood the market
(Credit: Apple)The Air was a sensation when it debuted in January of 2008. Not that it sold by the boatloads, but the stunning form factor set off an industrial-design frenzy. Ergo, the Dell Adamo and the raft of "ultra-thin" laptops in the hopper as a result of Intel's push to get its "ULV" (ultra-low-voltage) chips in as many glamorous but affordable designs as possible.
The just-announced ultra-thin Acer Aspire Timeline is the writing on the wall. No, it's not the equivalent of a MacBook Air or Dell Adamo but it's close enough to give prospective buyers even more reason to balk at the $1,800-plus price tags attached to those two gorgeous designs.
And other designs are already out there like the 0.78 inch-thick MSI X340 X-Slim, which is, more or less, a photocopy of the Air. And even Lenovo is tempting fate with the 3.5-pound 13.3-inch IdeaPad U350, which will start at $649 and make the $1,900 ThinkPad X301--and the Air--look very expensive.
So, what does an Acer Aspire Timeline get you for $899? Let's take a quick look:
- Intel Core 2 Duo processor SU9400 (1.40GHz, 10 watts)
- 13.3-inch LED-backlit TFT LCD
- Mobile Intel GS45 Express chipset
- 4GB of DDR3 memory
- 6-cell lithium ion battery
- 500GB SATA hard drive
- 3.5 pounds
- Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Many of those specifications are a stone's throw away from the Air (and Adamo)--or match it.
So, what will Apple's MBA encore be? Thinner? Lighter? Faster? 3G capable? Dare I say, cheaper? Or a new industrial design that will send all the ultra-thin wannabes back to the drawing board? I'm waiting.
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