If I’ve learned one thing from recent entries (here and here) it’s that Dells aren’t inherently cheaper than Macs. By the time you make the computers roughly equivalent they run about the same price. This is a very old argument, I remember people saying the same exact thing when I bought my first Mac Classic way back in 1990. The argument then was: by the time you bought a soundcard, a microphone, and.. Oh I don’t know, a bunch of other stuff Macs and PCs would cost about the same. People said: ‘Whoa Nelly, I don’t need a friggin microphone and I’m happy with that spunky beep! I’m gonna buy the cheap PC’ A few months later they’d be buying a soundcard etc. At that time (fanny packs were cool) the argument really swayed me. I figured I’d rather buy something once and be done. Plus I could buy Apple branded printers and peripherals so compatibility was one less worry.
Somewhere along the line I forgot that lesson and began truly believing that Dells were much cheaper than the equivalent Mac. I should’ve known better. I spent five of those years in various engineering jobs where, for one reason or another, I became chief computer buying guy (and troubleshooter, and fix it dude). Someone needed a new computer and yours truly would decide on the configuration, write the purchase order up, call Gateway (I always bought Gateways) and order the thing. A week later I’d run the Ethernet cable, install the computer on the network, walk the recipient through a few features, turn the speakers off and then tell new person that the volume control was the ‘ERASE C DRIVE COMMAND KNOB’. At night I’d go home, jump on whichever Mac I owned at the time and think ‘Macs are worth every extra penny.’ How was I so completely and utterly bamboozled? A good question.
I think what got me was the low initial prices. When I brought up Gateways website they’d have some ridiculously low priced model. I would mentally compare this number to the cheapest Mac. The Gateway was always much cheaper. By the time I’d add all the options I thought were needed (I probably over bought) I bet the price would have been about the same.
Side note: I always took the end user into account when I was buying computers, not the job position. If the accounting dude wanted a new computer he got a pretty good machine since he could actually use it for hours on end. If the Quality Assurance guy was the recipient he got a total POS. Why? He used a spreadsheet as word processor, thought that shortening the cable to the printer would save a measurable amount of time because the signal wouldn’t have as far to travel and once asked me to get him a thousand floppies to back up his hard drive. I explained we backed up to tape every night. ‘No good’ said he ‘My data is VERY important.’ Idiot. The point being that a Pentium III would be wasted on that guy, the duh factor was a huge bottleneck.
Wow, that was a horrible tangent. Back to the point. The stock answer when people, like myself, say the entry level price is too high for Macs is: headless eMac. Many folks say: Nuke the screen and charge $599. It seems appealing but a) that screen doesn’t cost two hundred bucks and b) Apple isn’t going to do it. There are a lot of reasons why the headless eMac doesn’t make financial sense for Apple but the most important one is that it wouldn’t cost that much less than the current eMac.
So is Apple completely hosed? Are they shut out of the low price splash page? Nope. Sure they’re going to have to give up some stuff, like ease of website navigation and scruples but isn’t that a small price to pay for a few extra coins in the coffers? Here’s what I propose: Instead of offering a complete computer solution out of the box they offer very stripped down versions so you can fully customize the things. Let’s look use an eMac as an example. Price it at, I dunno, $499. At this price you’d get an eMac with a 15 inch screen (a purposely ugly plastic insert would take up the empty space around the screen), 25x Cd ROM drive, no Ethernet, no airport capability, integrated video, no speakers, etc. Basically strip off anything appealing. Anyway once the low low price gets them in the door the customization process can begin. 17 inch screen only 50 bucks, Apple internal pro speakers only 25 bucks, usable keyboard only one extra Lincoln. By the time the average guy gets done building his machine he’s back to or over the price of the current eMac. Repeat process with entire consumer line.
Of course that scenario is about as likely as a headless eMac showing up. And even if it was adopted it probably wouldn’t work. Face it Apple has highly trained people thinking about this stuff, I doubt I’m going to come up with any fresh new ideas.
Unrelated stuff (man I’ve been on a Mac tear lately, I blame CompuDude) I’ve been giving the entire custom desk thing some thought and I think it would be friggin awesome if I could bolt an iMac arm and monitor to the desk. I could probably find a busted iMac but I haven’t been able to find any info on “recycling” the monitor part.
Not really a game but very diverting: Black Ribbon
TV pick: Star Trek 2: Wrath of Kahn. Okay, it wasn’t a great flick…. if Kahn had Tattoo it would have been better. Still it contains the classic line: KAAAAAAHNN
CKS/BL tridiot rating: 96.432541%
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