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The Macintosh line of personal computers will soon be 32 years old. It has a venerable past… but what kind of future does it have in a declining market?
On the surface the Mac appears to be thriving. If ‘Macintosh Inc.’ were an independent company, its $22.8B in revenue for Apple’s 2016 accounting year (which ended in September) would rank 123rd on the Fortune 500 list, not far below the likes of Time Warner, Halliburton, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon
But there’s more to the Mac’s future than its current good numbers. After enjoying a good time in the sun, the Mac is on the same downward slope as the rest of the PC market.
[...] Instead of racing to the bottom as the market plummets, Apple appears to be taking the “high road”, in a sense: They’re taking refuge at the high end of the market by introducing new, more expensive MacBook Pros, with a visible differentiating feature, the Touch Bar. This is known, inelegantly, as milking a declining business, although you shouldn’t expect Apple to put it that way.
Apple’s recognition that the PC market is declining also explains why the company has been slow in updating its laptops and desktops. The iPhone, with $136B in revenue for 2016, is a much higher priority and gets more development resources. In a war, the top general puts more and better troops on the most important battle.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 29 2016, @04:39PM
In a war, the top general puts more and better troops on the most important battle.
Sun Tzu might say "Which is the most important battle? Is it the one needing the employment of troops? Spies? Whispers? Poison?"
Apple used to find the 'other most important battle' and fight it: music player, phone, etc.
The new Apple is fighting the 'old most important battle', while failing at finding the 'other most important battle'.
Maybe instead of throwing the best and brightest at the old battle, it needs to really find the new battle and fight it correctly.
They need Sun Tzu Jobs.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---