October 26, 2009Apple’s ‘missing’ netbooks: Smart or stupid?
Some say the lack of Mac netbooks has closed off a key new market for Apple — but others suggest its eyes are on a slate device, not low-margin netbooks
By Gregg Keizer | Computerworld| Print | Apple sold a record number of Macs , nearly two-thirds of them notebooks, without a bottom-end price-point model. Mac sales during July, August and September were up 17 percent over the same period a year before.—>“Sure, Apple missed the bus as far as taking an appreciable share of that market,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “They missed that bus from Day One.” But that’s just the point, Gottheil continued. Apple only “missed the bus” if it’s just another computer maker. But it’s clearly not that. “They were never going to come close to matching the price of Windows netbooks,” Gottheil argued. “For them to be successful, they don’t need to seriously erode the share sold by other vendors. So to say that they ‘missed the bus’ on netbooks, that’s just silly.”
Instead, Apple could introduce a device — call it a netbook, call it a tablet, it doesn’t matter, said Gottheil — and sell only a small number compared to the quantities delivered by the likes of ASUS or Acer, and still rake in lots of cash. It’s not a zero-sum game, said Gottheil: Sales of Windows netbooks don’t necessarily prevent Apple from selling something priced less than the current lowest-priced MacBook.
Like a tablet, for instance.
“Clearly, those who purchase Windows machines have expressed a certain price sensitivity compared to those who buy Macs,” Gottheil said. “But although Apple has stated that they think that phones are price sensitive, they overestimated that price sensitivity by understocking the $200 iPhone, and overstocking the $100 model. I think they have evidence that the notebook market isn’t quite as price-sensitive as some think,” he added, pointing to Apple’s recent refresh of its entry-level MacBook notebook , which it kept at $999.
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I’m going to have to go with smart on this one. I don’t think Apple had any incentive to go up against the netbook makers in this price range. While the category has become a little less price sensitive I don’t think Apple would have been able to come in with a product in the appropriate price range that it would feel provided the right build and runtime performance that their market position necessitates.
The ability to make your own hackintosh out of a Dell, HP, or other netbook kept them out of the market as well. This way they are sort of in the market but any negative aspects can be blamed on the “substandard” hardware provided by others, while still giving people the ability to experience the Mac ecosystem.
