[Macola]

Like the other thread "give us corporate Mac"...

I've built both PCs that I own and would never consider buying an off-the-shelf PC. I know you can buy logic boards, power supplies and cases to build a Mac off eBay and various other places (in fact, I'm working on one now) but what I'd really like is for Apple to sell brand new components.

They could still have a decent margin so that the total cost would be slightly less than buying an equivalent Mac outright. This would appeal to some Mac owners and possibly also PC geeks who build their own and are curious about the Mac.

Of course, this will probably never happen so long as Steve is around, but what do you think? Let the discussion begin

[Lateralus]

No.

[djohnson]

Hmm... I build PC's for people and companies, but there is something about getting a Mac that just means quality. They are the only computer I would buy off the shelf.

[Macola]

Originally posted by djohnson:
Hmm... I build PC's for people and companies, but there is something about getting a Mac that just means quality. They are the only computer I would buy off the shelf.

That's the point exactly. I would rate the quality of the PCs I build to be better than a Dell box of the same price, for example. A Mac built from Apple components is a genuine Mac, with the added bonus of the exact configuration you want. Plus you can save a few bucks.

[djohnson]

I doubt you could save a few bucks, more then likely they would charge a premium. Plus there would be more invetory to take care of. All in all, a bad idea.

Oh and if you couldnt build a better pc for cheaper then Dell, something must be wrong with you.

[DBvader]

Like the others have said, I'm not sure how you would keep up Apple (or any solid manufacturer) quality on DIY computers. Though Apple is doing reasonably well financially, If they want to boost their computer marketshare, I think they are going to need something more drastic than DIY machines. Reasonably Priced, G5 iMacs would be a great start.

[djohnson]

Originally posted by DBvader:
Reasonably Priced, G5 iMacs would be a great start.

Off topic, but coming soon!

[mac freak]

I'd love it. But it doesn't make great business sense for Apple, and frankly I'm willing to pay a premium to keep my favorite computer company afloat.

[DeathToWindows]

Originally posted by mac freak:
I'd love it. But it doesn't make great business sense for Apple, and frankly I'm willing to pay a premium to keep my favorite computer company afloat.

might be cool, if apple sold teh motherboards and chips and left EVERYTHING else up to the end-user

i.e. buy a DP2.0 board+chip from apple, then add a 107D, Radeon9800 and a 300GB SATA... and 2GB RAM... drool.

question is, who'd do teh case?

[Lateralus]

The*

[Zoom]

You guys have all seen the CoreCrib (or "iBox"), right? Here's the story of a guy who had the idea and followed through, but ran into the Apple Legal Brick Wall. Here are a couple of SlashDot stories, too (1 and 2).

[Macola]

Originally posted by Zoom:
You guys have all seen the CoreCrib (or "iBox"), right? Here's the story of a guy who had the idea and followed through, but ran into the Apple Legal Brick Wall. Here are a couple of SlashDot stories, too (1 and 2).

Yeah, that's exactly why Apple should sell the components themselves. The huge interest in the CoreCrib project proved that there's a market out there. This would probably attract more switchers than the present campaign.

[bwana]

Apple do sell parts for the powermacs. I have bought them in past. price is exhorbitant though. Like quicksilver case $945 motherboard $645 etc. Go to any apple retailer and they will sell you the parts.

[Zoom]

I don't see how Apple could gain by doing this. If they price it such that you could build your own system cheaper, they'd lose money for people who didn't buy an Apple-made box; if they priced it higher, no one would do it because you can BTO most options right through the Apple Store, and again they lose money (for supporting this DYI stuff). I suppose they wouldn't have to provide a warrantee to the DYI people, which might save them some overhead. But I'll bet the overhead to inventory all these piece parts and handle the DYI orders would eat up whatever money they made by not assembling the parts into complete systems.

This is the same reason they don't want anyone else doing this, either. Apple enjoys a healthy margin on the pro desktop machines (and that's what we're talking about here since the eMac, iMac and 'books aren't really DYI items), and letting people build them from parts would do nothing but hurt their bottom line.

I just see zero upside to Apple.

PCs are built from 99% commodity parts and there are multiple available manufacturers for every single part. This forces the prices down on the piece parts as well as the assembled systems. Frankly, I'd hate to be a computer manufacturer in that market. How can you possibly establish any sort of differentiating feature that will allow you to crank up your margins? Once Dell does something, HP can just copy it the next day. You have to make it up in volume, or extended warrantee scams, or support contracts, rust-proffing, or something else that the user isn't paying attention to - just like a Chevy dealer.

Apple controls the core pieces of the Mac that make it a Mac. This gives them a complete Mac monopoly. Why on earth would they ever give that up?

I'm playing Devil's Advocate here. I'd love to be able to assemble my own custom Mac for cheaper than I could buy a fixed configuration from Apple, at a purely personal level. However, this would be bad for Apple, which might jeopardize my ability to have a Mac in the future. Catch 22.

Still, I wish Apple could be a little less brutal on the margins. Yes, it's an excellent product and that costs more money to make that product than the dime-a-dozen peecees, but it's really hard to shell out so much more for a Mac than an "equivalent" PC. Honestly, what's really wrong with the PC is the operating system. I'm perfectly happy with most PC hardware. Sure, the physical design isn't as elegant, but functionally is fine.

[Graymalkin]

Catering to the DIY crowd would be one of the dumbest things Apple has ever done. There might be a market for a DIY Mac but it is not a large one nor is a market looking for a real Macintosh. The DIY market does not make a lot of money on its own, retailers who do cater to the DIYers only make their money selling periphrials they sell at MSRP. Items that sell at market price have to remain competitive and as such make razor thin margins.

There's also the small problem of DIY cloners. If you can build a Mac in your garage for personal use you can build one to sell. If anyone can make Mac clones and sell them without having to spend the money Apple does on R&D then Apple loses out. While people bitch and moan about the Mac clone market it didn't do a whole lot to expand Apple's market, it just cut into their own sales.

There's also a big difference between market share and installed base that I wish people could get through their heads. Market share is the percentage of sales a company makes out of the entire market for a given period of time. Installed base is the actual number of systems in use at whatever point in time. While Apple's market share isn't the highest ever it doesn't mean Mac users are flocking to the Windows PC world. It simply means Apple's growth rate is about 12% while the PC market (of which they're a part) is 15%. They aren't growing as much as the market average but are actually growing quite a bit.

With their installed base, the truly important statistic, Apple is doing pretty well. As of 2003 Apple estimates they've got 9.3 million MacOS X users. I assume they're basing that on unit sales since OSX came standard on Macs and unit sales of retail copies of OSX. The true number of OSX users might be even higher as a lot of people only buy a single copy to use on multiple Macs and a number of people do pirate the OS. That means a Mac developer has a potential market of over nine million people. Even if your particular product only appeals to a fraction of the Mac market you're still looking at an audience of tens or even hundreds of thousands. Most software companies are not the size of Oracle, Adobe, or Microsoft and can get by pretty well with selling relatively inexpensive software to a few thousand people.