[macgfx]

The eMac will be EOLed in Feb '05. The eMac's video (Radeon 9200) does not support Core Video, rather than replace the aging eMac line Apple will offer the Low-End iMac, the one with PATA and GF4MX, as the new low-end system. I'd think it would have Much more appeal to the "Target Market". Price point is a bit high, but I'd say they could lower the price to $999 by '05.

All this should leave room in the Mac line, and Market, for a G5 Cube.

I can dream can't I?

You'll have to wait till Feb '05 to prove me wrong.


You read it hear first folks!!!

[the_glassman]

Not going to happen, apple would just shoot itself in the foot that way. They need the eMac because it's cheap and works well for educators because it's rugged, did I mention it's cheap?
I would like to see it get upgraded a little sooner then the once a year upgrade they have been offering, some people have been running their eMacs at 1.3-1.5 GHz for a while now, so it would be nice to see an upgraded graphics card to 64 mb and a G4 at 1.5-1.6 GHz.

[macgfx]

Originally posted by the_glassman:
Not going to happen, apple would just shoot itself in the foot that way. They need the eMac because it's cheap and works well for educators because it's rugged, did I mention it's cheap?
I would like to see it get upgraded a little sooner then the once a year upgrade they have been offering, some people have been running their eMacs at 1.3-1.5 GHz for a while now, so it would be nice to see an upgraded graphics card to 64 mb and a G4 at 1.5-1.6 GHz.

One of the major complaints from educators of the emac and the imac before that was that the CRT's failed and it costed too much to replace them. Just about every school that bought mass eMac/iMac has a small room full of Mac's with dead CRT's. In making the LCD's of the ED-iMac costumer replaceable Apple has addressed this.

I agree, the ED-iMac would have to be cheaper to appeal to the same market as the eMac. With mass production and 6 months to help pay off R&D, plus the drop in price of components, Apple may well be able to drop the price to $899 for bulk orders. I'd still look for it to come in @ $999 with a price drop in late '05.

The G4 is very dated, in the last 18 months it's gained only 80mhz. The G4 costs Apple more than the G5, the memory controller for that hacked DDR is High cost too. Why should Apple put the R&D cost to redesigning the eMac when they could just drop it.

I agree that there are other flaws in this logic and there are a lot of ifs, but even if we see one more speed bumped eMac it will be EOLed in '05.

[Simon]

Nope, not happening.

The eMac is cheap and as long as it has a G4 it won't steal (higher-margin) iMac sales.

Apple will keep it around until the rev B iMac G5 arrives at least.

This however does not mean they shouldn't produce an iMac mini the size of a cigar box with the iMac's board and a DVI out, but no display. Price this right between eMac and iMac and it'll fly off the shelves.

[chrisutley]

They could call it the "Going out of business thanks to razor thin margins Mac"

Originally posted by Simon:
This however does not mean they shouldn't produce an iMac mini the size of a cigar box with the iMac's board and a DVI out, but no display. Price this right between eMac and iMac and it'll fly off the shelves.

[Simon]

Originally posted by chrisutley:
They could call it the "Going out of business thanks to razor thin margins Mac"

Or they could call it the "10% market share here we come Mac"

[mitchell_pgh]

That's unfortunate... I'm sure they have something up their sleeve... LCD screens and little kids DON'T mix.

[storer]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
LCD screens and little kids DON'T mix.

Exactly, but some people just dont believe that.

[iREZ]

I think the eMac is going to be one step behind of the Powerbooks, like it has been going in the last two bumps. I wouldn't be surprised if they bump it to a 1.5GHz Nvidia Go 5200 with 64MB next time around.

[macgfx]

KeyBoards and little kids don't mix.

Untrained folks who replace LCD's in iMac's don't get blown across the room.

Apple is testing the waters and grabbing the top end of the low-end with the ED-iMac now. Remember the eMac was ED-Only for awhile. If sails are good and they can cut costs a bit. By-By eMac.

Don't forget the cost of the parts for each. 17" CRT's are not getting any cheaper. LCD's are. G4's same thing. Apple will do what ever makes them more $$$, my tea leaves point to EOL.

About a year back I had a discussion with another Mac Tech about a mid sized school system that had over 150 dead iMac screens. It was time for the School to upgrade and they ended up going Dell rather than Apple because Apple did not offer a consumer level Mac without a display. We're talking over 3000 units bulk all in one order. Can you feel that!!!

They had some other factors too that made them go Dell, but the 150 dead CRT's was at the top of the list. It was not that they had failed, it was that the cost of replacing them was too High with the Labor it was more than a New iMac.

They may have been swayed by the LCD iMac. They were willing to go as high as $1000 per unit and ended up @399 per unit.

[Graymalkin]

The eMac isn't going anywhere for a while yet. It's components may change around a bit but the design is fairly well proven. I've talked to people who've had eMacs at their schools and they love them.

• They're rugged and heavy so they're not easy to cart off or break. When/if the keyboards or mice die they just order a cheapo USB keyboard/mouse to replace it.
• There's a fair amount of power in them so they can be used for a typing class one hour and as graphic design systems the next.
• Simple. To. Manage. Using ARD it is ridiculously easy to manage even a very large number of Macs in a lab or even in on an entire campus.
• There's very little cabling to deal with which is especially nice when there's only a single electrical outlet available and a power strip is not viable.
• Less cables means not only more flexibility but also fewer things to go wrong with students hanging all over the things day in and day out.

Ergo I do not see the eMac's form factor or concept being phased out any time soon. While LCDs look really cool they're not ideal in situations where a bunch of mongrel children are using them. I've seen several instances of pencil and pens being stuck into LCDs or rips in the protective plastic from the corners of Mead folders rubbing across them. People also love to press their fingers into LCDs because they make funny colors and are then surprised when a fingertip-shaped mass of pixels stop working.

The education market is a very tough one to please. They want things for free (or as close to it as possible) but abuse what they buy and never bother with maintenance contracts. A room full of eMacs with dead screens is a room full of computers no one bothered to buy support services for. The educational market is also ruled by the whims of whoever volunteers to run the various computer departments at their schools. If a die-hard Windows fanatic is in charge of the computer-buying dollars there's no way the school will end up with Macs the next year.

[macgfx]

Ok one more time.......

The LCD screen of the iMac is user replaceable, just like the keyboard.

The G4 is a dead end, MOTO/FreeScale has not gotten more than 80mhz to market in 18 months. While Apple may speed bump to 1.5ghz, where will the eMac go after that?

It's fair to say that we may not see a G5 eMac until the PowerBook has a G5. However Apple can of-void this by EOLing the eMac and offering the ED-iMac. It just does not make sense to spend R&D $'s to make the eMac compete over the coming year/s when they already have a better product.

I'll concede to the point that the eMac is a far more rugged Mac. However, it has been a very long time sense I attended School, but not so long that common sense has rusted over. High risk groups, K-3, were not left unsupervised in front of high $ tech. I.e. unruly behavior is not anymore allowed now. Sure some child may be able to poke at the LCD without being seen, but if the teacher looks at each unit before and after use of that class the damage will be pinned to the unruly child. After a few parents pay for LCD's I'd say this trouble would go away.

The school system some of you envision is that teacher and staff are unable or unwilling to stop children from breaking LCD screens. It's just not so. LCD's are not that easy to break, you have to be trying to break them. If you are trying to break something you can even CRT's. Far more will fail than be broken.

Schools don't make buying choices on a whim like home users do. Survive contracts and warranty are considered in the budget. Labor costs are also a consideration. I'll also concede that schools systems that are x86/windows are not going to switch to Mac's because of an LCD eMac, but school systems that are Mac now will look to be Mac again. When they look, Apple pays much more attention to millions of $ sales, i.e. they sell it to them, unlike when one person goes to the Apple store and they show it to you. The sales men/women are far better than retail sales folks.

All this still leads me to eMac EOLed in '05.

If you are going to reply please post a counter point other than the CRT is better than the LCD as I feel I've shredded this myth. Also don't forget that the iMac has a base that can be
screwed to the table top. It's also bigger view 17" so it can be put further back from the edge where pass-by damage may accrue. At the thickness it would not be as far back on the table as the eMac. Yet another selling point is you could get more in the same space as the eMac.

[Lancer409]

Originally posted by Simon:
Nope, not happening.

The eMac is cheap and as long as it has a G4 it won't steal (higher-margin) iMac sales.

Apple will keep it around until the rev B iMac G5 arrives at least.

This however does not mean they shouldn't produce an iMac mini the size of a cigar box with the iMac's board and a DVI out, but no display. Price this right between eMac and iMac and it'll fly off the shelves.

that might eat imac sales too... alot of people want the imac without monitors ... but end up getting the imac because the powermac is too pricey and the emac still has a monitor ...

[Simon]

Originally posted by Lancer409:
that might eat imac sales too... alot of people want the imac without monitors ... but end up getting the imac because the powermac is too pricey and the emac still has a monitor ...

Absolutely. The iMac would definitely lose sales to the iMac mini.

That's exactly why they should do it. Making an iMac G5 mini after the iMac G5 involves almost no additional R&D and needs no special campaigning. And since it's got a G5 Apple can sell it with a higher margin than they get with eMacs. I believe it's a way to enhance iMac profit rather than lose sales to eMacs, iBooks or even Dell. By introducing such a model they get return on invested iMac R&D instead of losing it to competitors.

Plus, it caters for the first time since the 7200 to the 'office' market where groups could have one Xserve as a file server and a dozen 'thin' (and cheap of course) clients running of it. This setup done with PowerMacs is overkill and expensive, done with iMacs it's just expensive - apart from the fact that IT people would never do it, because they don't want expensive TFT AIOs on the desk of some underpaid secretary...

[macgfx]

Not to get off topic but...........................

In just about every thread Apples market share is brought up. It is said to be less than 3%. Now I know how these % are calculated. Someone? polls sale of NEW computers for the quarter. If 10000 non Apples are sold and only 150 Apples they say Apples market share is ONLY 1.5% of the market.

If we look we start to see the flaws in this system.

First: Apple is the only maker of Mac's so in order to compare sales you need to compare Apple to Dell or Gateway etc. To compare Apple to all other hardware makers combined is foolish.

Next: If Apple sells 50,000 units in the first 1/4 and 75,000 units in the 2nd 1/4 and the PC makers sell 3,000,000 units in Q1 and 8,000,000 in Q2. Apple has lost market share in Q2. This is just damn foolish. Apple gained 35% market sales they lost nothing.

Last: Apple is the only Co. in their market we should only be comparing Apples to Apples, so to speak. Sure it's useful to compare Apple to other PC Co.'s, but as long as Apple is making $$$ the only worry for stock holders is will Apple sell more $ in the next 1/4 and what will the margins be.

The real question is: Is Apple losing users or gaining users?

Can anyone link to hard #'s that Apple has lost users?

I'd like to know how many users Apple has lost or Gained sense 2000.

[Simon]

Originally posted by macgfx:
If 1000 non Apples are sold and only 150 Apples they say Apples market share is ONLY 1.5% of the market.

Um, no. Then they'd actually claim Apple has a market share of about 13%.

The problem is, Apple is selling maybe about a 1 million Macs per quarter while the PC world is selling 33 million. Then the smart press 'knows' that they only have a market share of 3%. What they forget about this is:

� PCs are replaced more often. The installed base doesn't change just because a couple more PCs are sold.

� PCs are often sold 'hidden' where nobody ever deals with them (like my lab's oscilloscopes running NT) or where you don't really have contact with the architecture or OS (cash registers running IBM x86 boards)

� PCs do not all run Windows. Not every PC sale is a sale Apple lost to Windows.

This doesn't mean we're not a minority. Of course the Mac world is a niche. It's about as much a niche as any other architecture living next to Windows. The important thing is that the makers of good Mac software still think it's worth the effort. As long as they aren't fooled into believing we aren't an interesting sales market we should be safe. Mac users pirate less and spend more money on software. As long as Apple can expand their user base at a rate roughly comparable to that of the PC user world we should reamin fine.

But still, if PC desktops and notebooks show growing sales year after year, Apple's sales increases are just enough...

[klinux]

How many times does this have to be covered?

Market share is exactly that - how many units of computers shipped/sold per time period. By that mark, Apple's market share has undisputably decreased and there are a myriad of industry data to back that up.

People here like to argue install base - how many people is running what OS. Here there is plenty of room for debate. Nevertheless, that does not make money.

Instead, the industry wants to, and justifiably so, use the market share data because that is what defines what has been sold to whom which one can then translate into dollars and cents.

So while you can proudly proclaim here that your Pismo or G3 iMac is still humming along for 4-5 years, you think Steve likes to hear that? You don't think he wants you to replace your Mac every 2-3 years or get Macs into POS, labs, etc (provide that is profitable, of course) and increase market share?

[Simon]

Originally posted by klinux:
So while you can proudly proclaim here that your Pismo or G3 iMac is still humming along for 4-5 years, you think Steve likes to hear that? You don't think he wants you to replace your Mac every 2-3 years or get Macs into POS, labs, etc (provide that is profitable, of course) and increase market share?

Of course he doesn't like to hear it.

When did last PowerMac have a replaceable CPU in a ZIF socket? When did the last iMac offer an expansion slot?

Steve would rather sell many new Macs.

[macgfx]

Originally posted by klinux:
How many times does this have to be covered?

Market share is exactly that - how many units of computers shipped/sold per time period. By that mark, Apple's market share has undisputably decreased and there are a myriad of industry data to back that up.

People here like to argue install base - how many people is running what OS. Here there is plenty of room for debate. Nevertheless, that does not make money.

Instead, the industry wants to, and justifiably so, use the market share data because that is what defines what has been sold to whom which one can then translate into dollars and cents.

So while you can proudly proclaim here that your Pismo or G3 iMac is still humming along for 4-5 years, you think Steve likes to hear that? You don't think he wants you to replace your Mac every 2-3 years or get Macs into POS, labs, etc (provide that is profitable, of course) and increase market share?

Perhaps you'd like to explain Apple 52 week high. My point was Apples market share may have gone down, but they could be selling more units the hole time. i.e. losing share in a growing market where the % of growth masked the total units sold. Last time I checked Apple was the #1 seller of laptop computers.

I think The Steve understands his market. Sure he'd like to sell every Mac Apple could make, but he understands how to survive and make $$ in a Windows world. We've seen time and time over that Apple will not go after market share at the cost of profit. We all know how Mac's are viewed by the PC public.

I submit that Apple has been chipping away at the XP/NT mountain. It's just that the mountain grows faster than the stones Apple chips off.

The Dvorak logic used to calculate market share would have you believe that Apple is selling less NEW systems now than they were 5 years ago. Yet somehow Apple is MAKING money hand over fist.

Show me a 5 year graph that shows Apples Mac line sales going down and I'll stand corrected. Otherwise Stop posting that Apple is losing market share. It's just a stereotype propagated by our old friends over at MS.

To sum up:

Apple is gaining NEW users
Apple is selling more units than Apple did X number of years ago.
Apple is selling less units than All other PC makers, but Apple does not make PC's
Apple is making Money
Apple is making Money

[storer]

Thanks MacGfx, very educational...

[Lancer409]

i like how macgfx repeated the last line .. hehe

[storer]

Originally posted by Lancer409:
i like how macgfx repeated the last line .. hehe

lol, so do i!

[klinux]

Originally posted by macgfx:
Perhaps you'd like to explain Apple 52 week high. My point was Apples market share may have gone down, but they could be selling more units the hole time. i.e. losing share in a growing market where the % of growth masked the total units sold. Last time I checked Apple was the #1 seller of laptop computers.

I think The Steve understands his market. Sure he'd like to sell every Mac Apple could make, but he understands how to survive and make $$ in a Windows world. We've seen time and time over that Apple will not go after market share at the cost of profit. We all know how Mac's are viewed by the PC public.

I submit that Apple has been chipping away at the XP/NT mountain. It's just that the mountain grows faster than the stones Apple chips off.

The Dvorak logic used to calculate market share would have you believe that Apple is selling less NEW systems now than they were 5 years ago. Yet somehow Apple is MAKING money hand over fist.

Show me a 5 year graph that shows Apples Mac line sales going down and I'll stand corrected. Otherwise Stop posting that Apple is losing market share. It's just a stereotype propagated by our old friends over at MS.

To sum up:

Apple is gaining NEW users
Apple is selling more units than Apple did X number of years ago.
Apple is selling less units than All other PC makers, but Apple does not make PC's
Apple is making Money
Apple is making Money

Man, stop being such a defensive crying child.

Marketshare is how marketshare is defined. It is not a seat-of-the-pants, nefarious new idea cooked up by the Bill Gates and co. It is how the industry defines it for the last 30+ years in the computer industry. What's next, you do not like the way GPA, price-earnings ratio, consumer confidence index, EPA's mpg, Avogadro's number are calculated so you bring up some tangential fact before declaring your allegiance to Apple?

I have never said Apple is shipping less units or that Apple is losng money or that Apple is dying. Your paranaoia fueled all that. The fact that Apple is shipping x% more units in a time period while the rest of the industry is shipping x+y% more in the same time period IS the definition of losing marketshare. That is an indusputable fact. What conclusion or opinion one draws from that is arguable. Please separate the two.

Originally posted by macgfx:
Show me a 5 year graph that shows Apples Mac line sales going down and I'll stand corrected... Apple is selling more units than Apple did X number of years ago.

But since you are dying to see some numbers, here is one at the end of this post. But that is for iMac only. What if you added in everything?

If you bother to check Apple's SEC 10k filing like I did, you will find the CPU unit sales for the last five years: 3.45 million in 1999, 4.56 million in 2000, 3.09 million in 2001, 3.10 in 2002, and 3.01 in 2003. That's right. Apple sold less computers than it did five years ago in 1999 despite the increasing appetite for computers.

[storer]

Interesting diagram!