The thing about Apple

Back in the System 6 era, Apple Macs were niche products; well made, often expensive and largely found in academic circles. I always felt the problem was that Apple had a clearly superior product, but were just plain rubbish at marketing themselves. Wow, times sure change!

My first Apple was back in the days of System 6 and a the Mac Plus, a combination that comprehensively beat the pants off the Windows offering of the day. Apple hardware was better build and more reliable that the generic PC equivalent and the software was more polished and usable. But that Apple was never any good at mass marketing, and the resulting niche market lead to lower volumes with higher costs.

Apple have always had a knack for well executed, innovative design. Their hardware and operating system software has always been inseparable, making their developers jobs a little easier and leading to more complete products; a deliberate move.

In addition, the Apple of today is a more efficient and focused corporate entity with effective marketing at its core. Look at the way they’ve trained people like Pavlov and his dogs; the website goes down and the Web is full of rumour about fabulous new devices.

But I guess this must come at a price and that is the old business models, where products were released when they were ready. Microsoft has long been marked as an example of the worst excesses of technology corporations, but is Apple much different any longer? I personally don’t think so, and not just because my bad MacBook Pro experience.

To be fair, the bigger your market share the greater the probability the people will talk about your failures. Yet we’re all hungry for the next big thing. No wonder technology companies now frequently practice early prototyping, fixing the problems in after-sales. It’s a tricky tightrope between reputation and lost market share.

In short, the mass marketing Apple has joined Microsoft in the big time and is bound by the same rules. Why should we expect a different result?