According to this Wall Street Journal article, Apple’s new marketing strategy to attract Windows users is to create killer applications for the Macintosh platform — if people want the application, they’ll have to buy the hardware,
Since founder Steve Jobs returned to the personal-computer maker in 1997, the Cupertino, Calif., company has risen from the near-dead on the strength of sleekly designed machines and other whiz-bang hardware. But over the past few months, as computer sales have cooled and Apple prepares to report its first quarterly loss in three years, the company has decided to try to remake its image into a purveyor of “killer apps,” or groundbreaking software programs that computer users can’t live without.
The corporate refocus comes with an concession from Apple’s management that Apple can no longer fight the Wintel giant — the powerful combination of the Windows operating system and Intel Corp.’s microprocesser — on the hardware front alone, say people who have met with Mr. Jobs and other top executives recently. The Apple officials believe that new Apple applications will give Wintel users a reason to supplement their existing Windows-based systems with Apple hardware, these people say.
This has to be some disinformation campaign from Apple to hide their real plans. I find it hard to believe that even Steve Jobs would sit in his office and think that a Mac-only application is going to attract consumers who have already rejected the Macintosh for whatever reason.
The WSJ quotes computer consultant Jason Wells, of Wit SoundView Group Inc., as saying, “consumers will pay more for an application that is easy to use.” Actually, no — at least not in Apple’s case. For years Apple has maintained that its operating system’s ease of use is light years ahead of Windows. Whether you agree or disagree with that claim, the bottom line is that it has not caused Wintel users to buy Macs. Given that, how would they ever convince a sizeable segment of non-Mac users that a desktop application (or even suite of applications) is so much better and easier to use that they should buy a Mac? Maybe low-end Macintoshes if they fell to the sort of prices we’re seeing with Wintel hardware, but not the high priced profit-heavy G4s that Apple needs to sell.
iMovie certainly hasn’t persuaded Wintel users. Rumors are that Apple might have an iMusic application in the wings designed to make ripping and managing MP3s and other audio related features as easy as iMovie makes video editing. Again, I find it hard to believe Apple would actually use such a weak strategy.
After all, even if lots of Windows users suddenly said, “What I really need is simple video editing software such as iMovie,” there are already many software packages that do this and certainly more on their way. Best Buy has about a dozen different MP3 software packages alone.
The solution for Apple’s problems are not more closed, exclusive solutions that require consumers to buy expensive Apple hardware, but rather opening up the software and porting it to run on Wintel hardware.