Over at the CNET site, blogger Matt Asay posted an article on February 23, 2009, entitled “The Mac slides, but not as badly as the PC market“. It’s taken me some time to digest that article, not because I think it’s filled with deeply insightful observations of the open source world, but because it seems like it comes from some strange alternate reality.
Let’s start with the statements at the core of the post. Asay takes exception to a statement by CIO.com’s Shane O’Neill suggesting that the recently-announced 6% Mac sales drop is evidence Apple’s customers are “dumping it in droves”. Asay says that this is “a bold statement to make on one month’s worth of data” and I agree with him. Even as an Apple critic, I don’t see enough evidence in one month’s sales figures to claim that Apple is experiencing any kind of significant customer loss.
However, Asay goes on to explain that Apple’s rivals are “hurting worse”. This is probably true, and it’s fairly easily explained. First, Apple’s customers are extremely loyal. While they might delay a Mac purchase, they’re not likely to go buy a Dell or HP instead. When times get tough, Apple should see fewer sales, but little customer attrition. A PC manufacturer like HP, on the other hand, can suffer two hits. Not only will HP’s customers scale back their purchases or delay them, but some will look into PCs from other manufacturers to see if they can get the machines they need more cheaply from another manufacturer. Generally speaking, there isn’t the same loyalty we see with Mac users.
Second, apart from the fact that Apple customers tend to be loyal to it, there’s the fact that Apple simply isn’t an enterprise player. Companies with tens of thousands of desktop and laptop computers tend to be Windows users, and tend to buy their machines from companies like HP, Dell, and Lenovo. When times get tough, these big accounts may decide not to buy new PCs this year. All it takes is a few large corporations to scale back (even if no one else does), and suddenly HP sees a sales decline of tens of thousands of machines. Worse, if customers decide that Dell is offering a better deal than HP, some of them will place their orders with Dell instead. Thus, HP takes a second hit. Thus, it’s not surprising to see HP taking a 13% hit in its sales while Apple takes only a 6% hit.
Asay tells us that the reason he personally switched to the Mac from the PC was “quality” and that with the Mac “the quality is and was worth the price”. This is an area where I think Apple has managed to fool a lot of people, and I don’t entirely blame them. Imagine that you went out and selected the highest-quality, best-performing components available to assemble a PC. You then found the cheapest, flimsiest PC case and put those components into it. Then, you assembled a PC from the lowest-priced components you could find and slapped them into a sturdy, sleek, designer case. If you showed those two PCs to most people, they’re probably going to tell you they think the second PC is the “better quality” one.
The reality is that Apple uses the same components used by other personal computer manufacturers when it builds Macs. That’s why they’re able to run Windows, too. (I know they customize some of them, but it’s not like they’re designing their own hard drives.) Not only that, but Apple contracts out the manufacturing of its computers to companies in Asia. Those companies aren’t dedicated to Apple. They also build PCs for HP, Dell, etc., on the same assembly lines in some cases, with the same staff. If you think that management at those assembly plants coach their employees to “do a really good job today because you’re building a Mac instead of a Dell” then you live in a dream world. Underneath the shiny designer cases, very little distinguishes today’s Macs from the computers built for HP, Dell, or other big names. If anything in the Mac build is of “higher quality” it pretty much has to be the case. I often wonder if that isn’t why Apple goes to so much trouble to design cases that look different from everyone else’s… to prop up that idea of “higher quality”. While I do agree that there are higher-quality and lower-quality computer brands (based on my experience), I find the big names like HP, Dell, and Apple to all be of roughly equal quality in real-world use.
After his “Macs are high quality machines” rant, Asay then launches into a Mac sales pitch, claiming that “customers looking to buy a machine are going to increasingly look to the Mac, even in these hard times, because the Mac delivers value that exceeds its price tag.” He’s making a number of assumptions here. First, he assumes that what he perceives as the value of a Mac is something that universally extends to all personal computer customers. As we’ve discussed time and again here, that’s simply not the case. “Value” is very subjective. Second, he assumes that the migration from Windows to the Mac is trivial and a zero-cost exercise. While that may be true in some cases, it’s definitely not true in all. That migration cost effectively raises the Mac’s price tag relative to a PC. Finally, he assumes that both corporate and private personal computer purchasers will be willing to part with more money in difficult economic times than they were in relatively better times in the past. It’s more likely that they’ll seek out the lowest-cost alternative that meets their needs, with quality at best a secondary concern.
Mac fans (and I include myself here from the days when I was one) don’t realize that the vast majority of personal computer users don’t take the same kind of pride in their computers, or care about them the way Mac users do. To most personal computer users, their computer is a tool that helps them do something, even if that something is just to play video games. They could care less what it looks like, whether it’s carved from a single block of aluminum, what kind of “community” endorses it, or whose logo is on the outside. It means no more to them than a screwdriver or a hammer. When you view a computer in this context, it strips away most of the perceived “value” of the Mac, making it no more attractive than a $100 hammer. In a tough economic climate, I can’t imagine people choosing a $100 hammer when a $10 one will pound in the same nails… especially when they’re facing the possibility of a layoff or budget cut.
Steve Jobs isn’t the nicest guy in the world. I think we all know that. He snubbed fan “Violet Blue” who only wanted a picture. He is sometimes described as “a risk-taking, short-tempered tyrant“. He banned the sale (in Apple stores) of all books by the publisher of one that critcized him. Once, he described an employee’s work as a “really lovely cake” with dog excrement for frosting. There are plenty more examples if you look for them.
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