Apple Investing Too Much in Music
So as you have allundoubtedly heard. Apple is creating a separate division for the iPod to be headed by Jon Rubenstein. In addition to this, theyrecently announceda slowed pace in regards to Mac OS X development.
Personally I think these trends are a dark foreboding.
The iPod is great. I love mine. But should Apple dedicate a fellow who was the head of the Mac division to working on a device that is a significant, but still small percentage of their sales? In a time when Apples hardware development is flagging, and G5s have seen no major revisions in almost a year, Apple announces that it will be dedicating even more resources to a low margin MP3 player.
Now, I’ll grant you, the iPod is raising Apple’s profile in the industry, and they want to remain the market leader in the personal digital music space. They should. But do they need to dedicate a star player like Rubenstein to the project? Wouldn’t he better serve the company improving the stagnating line of desktop Macs that badly need improvements? It seems like Apple’s love affair with music is making them loose focus of their core business which is selling Macs.
In addition to this, slowing down the pace of Mac OS X development seems like a move in the wrong direction. While Microsoft takes it’s time developing longhorn, Apple should be working over time to spread the gap between them and focusing heavily on enterprise level development.
In general, there is a big sucking sound coming from the computer industry. Intel and Microsoft are not going to have any new major product for at least a year. This gives Apple a chance to come in and seize market share. Apple innovated it’s way through the down economy and they need to innovate their way through the current technology dead zone. If they could bring in some heavy hitting hardware and some impressive OS improvements, they could come out of this dead zone with a lot of new customers. Instead they seem fiercely focused on entrenching themselves in music.
Apple, get back to being a computer company. Update iCal, Addressbook, and Mail to make them more enterprise compatible. Get Xgrid into the hands of everyone in a seamless way before it becomes commonplace. Don’t let the G5 slip into the nasty stagnant hell that the G4 got mired in. There’s still lots of room for improvement in Macs.
Posted by Joe Mullins at May 20, 2004 03:31 PM |TrackBack
