Wednesday, January 12, 2005,5:30 AM
I've Got 'News' For The New York Times
Sometimes you read something in your favorite newspaper and you react by asking, "Where have you been?" This morning, I open up my New York Times to the front page news that Apple Computer is introducing a home computer that will sell for $499.

Changing Course, Apple Offers Low-Priced Mac for the Home

By JOHN MARKOFF and SAUL HANSELL

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 11 - Apple Computer introduced its first low-priced Macintosh on Tuesday, signaling its bet that most consumers now see computers as simply another appliance in the modern house.

While computers have long been sold as machines that can turn a home into an office, most Americans now use them in their bedrooms and kitchens as e-mail terminals; as hubs for playing music, storing and editing photos; and as stations for navigating the Web.

The new Mac Mini, priced as low as $499 without a keyboard, monitor or mouse, is aimed squarely at the needs of this new digital household.

The new Apple strategy, which moves the company deeply into the consumer electronics market, positions the new Macintosh as an entertainment and communication device. It also promises to intensify Apple's battle with Microsoft in the personal computer market dominated by machines using Windows software. (link)
Say it ain't so. My gosh. How can they do that and still make money? Lordy, lordy.

As usual, the people at the Times are way behind the curve. They may try to argue that Apple is providing legitimacy to the home computer niche by offering a low-end, and inconveniently small, machine to consumers for under $500. But to try to suggest that Apple is leading the industry in marketing inexpensive desktops is embarrassingly wrong. Apple, once again, is simply trying to play catch-up.

Dell, Compaq, and Gateway have been selling - online, direct from the manufacturer, computers with mouse and keyboard AND often free shipping for $399 or less for two years now.

HELLO-O-O-O.

Here is what is available to John and Saul and the other cloistered souls at the Times today.
  • Dell will sell you a Dimension 2400 or Dimension 3000 desktop, keyboard and mouse with free shipping and free financing for $449 after $50 rebate. And if you buy online, they will throw in a free flat-panel monitor! And they will double the memory capacity for free if you purchase today! And they will provide a free upgrade to Windows Media Center Edition 2005!
  • Compaq offers both the SR1000Z and its SR1010V desktops with mouse and keyboard and free shipping and free upgrade to a dual format 16X DVD-writer and free memory upgrade to 1GB at $359.99 after rebate today.
  • Gateway is marketing its 3200SE for $349.99 today. And it comes with a mouse and keyboard.

All these computers, because they run on a Microsoft operating system, come with gobs of IBM compatible software. And lots of "memory."

My point is this: Both Apple and the New York Times have been behind the curve for years. In the case of Apple, while every other manufacturer realized back in the 80's that their programming language needed to be standardized, Apple maintained - for too many years - their own operating system that was incompatible with all the other brands - and software offerings - on the market. The only reason they didn't go the way of Commodore and Amiga was because their machines and operating system were - and are - firstrate.

And in the case of the New York Times, well, they are challenged in so many ways ... $499 indeed. And this was front page news.


 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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