Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
cringely.com
cringely.com
so, moot?
> Amazon is copying Apple’s playbook, page-by-page...
> What, after all, has Amazon (or Microsoft) actually invented here? Nothing. They’ve emulated Apple at a lower price point and to some extent disintermediated the mobile carriers.
Not according to Jeff Bezos, who spend a good portion of his presentation explaining how Amazon make money with their pricing strategy of the Kindles. The difference between iPad and Fire HD is not in price, but in their producers' business models.
The author clearly doesn't get it.
It's not clear what Amazon's business model is. Bezos claims he wants to make money on content and not lose too much on devices, but he's losing money on Prime too. It seems to me Amazon's model is to get as much market power as possible -- ideally a monopoly -- and then charge rents, but I don't see how any such monopoly would be sustainable (at least without the DOJ foolishly helping). The one area where Amazon (temporarily) held a near monopoly was ebooks and this is precisely what it did (it still tries, only more subtly).
He may have explained how they want to make money, but I don't recall Amazon or Jeff Bezos ever having stated the Kindle Fire has made them a profit. Indeed, Amazon have been very reluctant to even release hard sales figures for the Kindle Fire.
What makes them think that they can outdo Apple in the first category? Apple which clearly has a huge installed base, yet runs the iTunes store at break even.
And using tablets as a kiosk might add some value to Amazon, but is it really necessary? Are iPad/Nexus 7/Surface users going to magically find a better/cheaper online merchant?
It's not like Apple invented anything either. As with most things they do, the ipad's secret was not innovation but polish, taking existing technology and putting in the integration and software effort to make turn it into a great user experience. I'm not saying this isn't valuable, but it's fundamentally no more or less innovative than what Amazon's doing (making the same experience available at lower cost).
Of the three Microsoft is the truly innovative company. E.g. many of the ideas behind iOS' sandboxing mechanism originated at Microsoft Research.
Uhm, no one on the planet knew how to build an affordable pad that would be interesting outside niches. Microsoft tried for a long time, too.
Then comes the iPhone/iPad. The market, the world, is different.
I do smell a bit of spin in what you wrote... :-)
If you're talking about showing the world what's possible, those of us who had tablets years before the ipad could see that. The software was clunky, but if you were willing to spend time learning and work with it (which, yes, is a niche market) you could do everything you can today.
What apple did was undeniably a huge step forward. But I don't think it was qualitatively different from those who came before or after, and I think chalking up their success to "innovation" is missing the point.
If you consider that to be innovation, surely offering an equivalent product at a substantially lower price (as amazon is doing) involves just as much innovation.
"just as much innovation" is such a weird term, how do you actually measure innovation? At least this isn't another "Apple is successful b/c of their marketing" argument, which is bogus since their marketing budget was (until recently) absurdly low compared to other companies in the same industry.
Any pointers to the figures?
Apple's marketing seems unlike any other hardware manufacturer I can think of. But maybe that's just my perception. When you're watching a film and the camera makes a special pan around a laptop to show the Apple logo, it's hard not to think "This hardware company really puts a lot of effort into marketing. This is not your ordinary hardware company." I have seen Dell do this sort of product placement on occasion, but nobody seems to do it to the extent Apple does.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. To discount the amount of Apple marketing and its effects as "standard for the industry" or even below standard seems a little like willful blindness.
I'm not sure what the case is like today, I'm sure its gone up a bit but would be surprised if they surpass Microsoft yet. Apple doesn't pay for product placements; see http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-10/apple-the-ot... quote "The cast’s (Gossip Girl's) sudden conversion cost the Cupertino (Calif.)-based iPhone maker nothing. Apple has spent decades strengthening its subtle but powerful grip over Hollywood, and unlike many companies, says it never pays for its products to appear on television or in movies."
Apple doesn't SPEND much on marketing, but the marketing done is incredibly effective. Turns out, just having the best product makes the job much easier.
This is why Apple gets a bad rap in the forums. Who would say that that about their computer (except a Linux weenie)? The reality is these are cheap electronics in a hermetically sealed but stylish enclosure that use publicly available OS configured for dummies. So simple is the design they can be used by lower primates.
I like Apple hardware, it continues to look good after all these years, but comments "Turns out, having the best product..." make me like it a lot less. Apple is attracting some brainless users and will be catering to them more and more. This is not good.
Maybe this userbase explains the product placements. Hollywood wants to convey a sense that a character is not the type of person that would know anything about computers, hence she uses Apple products.
Touche.
And thanks for the links.
At all the computer science conferences I go to, Macs outnumber PCs; no I mean they actually dominate PCs! Now Apple has cultivated an image that the smartest people use Macs? Or maybe these people just use macs b/c they are the best coding machines out there, and they really don't care paying more that? Or maybe we CS PhDs are just sheeple and like shiny things just like less technical users?
Really?
But things are changing. First they started selling mp3 players. Then phones. Now Etch-A-Sketches. And now we have CS PhD's getting defensive about their choice to use Apple computers. New types of users. New focus.
Xcode makes for "the best coding machines"?
You mean that's better than a machine that comes with a compiler already installed and ready to go?
With no certificates? And No hoop-jumping?
How is it better?
If you know if a laptop that is better than a high-end macbook pro, please let me know. I mean, please...I'm not supposed to use Macs myself given who I work for...I am desperate for a decent work laptop without a fruit logo on it.
Sometimes MBPs are bought and Windows/Bootcamp is installed, sometimes they install Linux, sometimes OSX is perfectly OK because they are using Eclipse or some other cross platform IDE anyways. And their are those that actually do Mac/iOS development. Fun stuff.
It really depends on what you want to do with the computer. There's no shortage of forum debates on the merits of one computer over another without any mention of the intended use. That's pretty silly when you think about it.
Can't you cover up that logo with a sticker? (Taking a tip from the movie studios in the businessweek article.)
I don't think you are buying the MBP just for the specs though, are you? I mean, the enclosure, Cocoa graphics layer, all that ease-of-use must factors, right?
If you are saying MBP specs really are the best for a laptop in that price range, then you have made me curious.
My solution to the hoop-jumping for development would be to boot another OS, that already has a compiler installed, from USB. But I'm not even sure that would work. I'm not writing stuff in Java or ObjectiveC. I just want a working clang/gcc.
It used to be that buying a Mac was a hard decision. Not only were they more expensive (not a great value), but you also had to give up performance (especially in the PowerPC age) and app availability. Today, you no longer have to make those hard decisions, while the PC vendors have gone low end and have let their quality fall dramatically (which wasn't that great to begin with). That I say macs today are the "best" computers we can buy have something to do with Apple continuing to focus on quality, having value that compares to the PC vendors, and the PC vendors having sunk into a race to the bottom with each other, leaving Apple free to reign over the +$999 market.
So just show me a laptop that is "as good as" the the retina MacBook Pro that comes in at +$2000, a price I'm willing to pay (be it me or my employer, I'm worth it given how much time I spend using my computer). I honestly can't find anything that compares in the PC zone, and believe I've tried!
I would have to do some research to be of any use to you with respect to lappies over $2K. My focus is on ARM development boards and embedded systems. I am looking at the opposite end of the spectrum: low-power, highly portable, cheap computing. For the common man and woman. Alas, the forbidden fruit keeps popping up at this end of the stick too. Cupertino is no longer content to just sell high powered high-priced development machines. It's not the same company as when I bought my first Mac.
I can't wait to see the first low-power Apple ARM devices where they will attempt to sell a $20 computer, locked down like Fort Knox, for several hundred bucks. What new gimmicks will they use to maintain the reality distortion field? It should be most entertaining.
Clearly you are not of the Apple cult, just a guy looking for a high-end laptop. My apologies for mistaking you for a fanboy.
I didn't chalk anything up to anything.
I noted that you were smoking something strange -- probably found at a marketing department -- when you wrote that the iPhone/iPad was as innovative as the Amazon "sell the razor cheap, earn money on the blades" strategy...
Just because lots of people had been trying to create pads, but failed. (Because they were innovative?:-) )
You didn't touch that simple point.
Well, perhaps Amazon. But while Microsoft have emulated Apple in hardware a little, they certainly haven't with the OS. Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 have a very different, very fresh UI. They only use some of the same gestures, even.
Did Apple "accept" competition in the MP3 player market? There were mp3 players before the iPod. Apple came into the market and absolutely owned it. Portable music = iPod. That's the end of the story.
Specifically Amazon innovated in the book space, its in their roots and they have leveraged the crap out of it. Apple if you recall innovated in the music space. The similarities are stunning, take something people continually consume, is fashion driven, and reduce the friction of that consumption, golden. The 'chunkyness' (in terms of price per transaction) is bigger in books than in music but the mechanisms are similar. All we need now is NetFlix to introduce a dedicated 'video' device, then move up to phones and tablets.
So for me - and I expect for other parents if they can get the word out - Amazon is making a play for my Apple business.
Still amazes me that Apple didn't see the kids/children's market and provide a better solution than the restrictions - I mean they are ok, but the lack of separate profiles means I'm constantly tweaking them as I work on the iPad, then my son grabs it, etc.
And what pundits -didn't- predict a larger Kindle Fire? I thought that was a signed and sealed rumor straight from WSJ+Amazon themselves.
But to answer your second question, "Amazon next week will announce two 7-inch Kindle Fire models, one with new hardware and the other an updated version of the original, CNET has learned. That's counter to rumors it would launch a larger version." Oops. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57504515-94/kindle-fire-won...
Try to list all the reasons Microsoft should not buy Facebook.
Try to list all the reasons Facebook would resist acquisition by Microsoft.
Right, but Microsoft is trying to bring it up market with the Surface Pro and other small x86 tablets(many of which seem to come with a keyboard or a laptop style dock, sometimes optional). Eg. see http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/30/hp-envy-x2-laptop-tablet-...
As I posted in another comment a few days ago, They will be expensive, but far more capable and powerful(heavier and less battery life too). For example, they can run the full Visual Studio or Eclipse.
You can take a Surface Pro and a Kindle Fire with you, run Eclipse with the Android SDK loaded, connect the Kindle Fire to the Surface and take the program you just wrote on the Surface and run it on the Kindle! Or write your code while on a roadtrip or on the subway and debug it on your Android or Windows phone(don't know how Hackintosh it can get for running apps on the iPhone).
Can you do that with a Kindle, iPad or any other tablet on the market right now, which are used by most people as consumption devices?
Where Microsoft is competing with the Kindle, Android tablets and the iPad is with Windows RT, which is a different beast(and costs less than $100 for OEMs + they are rumored to get kickbacks on ecosystem sales). The only big advantage Microsoft has right now in this space is Office RT. Amazon's tablets are oriented even more towards content consumption(read Amazon's content) than the iPad. It all boils down to how much consumption vs. 'creation' the consumers want to do on their tablets, or if they want to get one device that does it all.
Less than $100 is still a pretty hefty tag in this market too; that's half the price of a Nexus 7! I think Microsoft are going to have to learn that this market isn't going to allow them the huge margins they've traditionally enjoyed on PCs.
This reminds me of the folks that discounted the iPad because it was not good as a smartphone for portability(oversized iPod Touch) and much less powerful than a laptop. Predictions based on personal anectodes in a billion plus device market are a dangerous thing.
I agree that the Surface Pro is trying to create a new market here(spaced between iPad style tablets and the laptops/MB Air/Ultrabooks which is an uphill task, but I do think there are a lot of people who want a no-compromises powerful portable tablet for on-the-go use.
Now Microsoft comes with Surface (Pro and non-Pro), sounds like they are going after niche high-end tablet markets (those who want Office + a keyboard), and higher-end tablet markets (though who want to run Visual Studio). Completely opposite direction that at best will be a successful ultra-book. I'm not seeing mass appeal, but a lot of that will come down to pricing.
> sounds like they are going after niche high-end tablet markets (those who want Office + a keyboard), , and higher-end tablet markets (though who want to run Visual Studio).Completely opposite direction that at best will be a successful ultra-book.
Niche in this market mean at least tens of millions of people. Not to say that the Surface Pro will succeed(pricing is important as you say) but the laptop/ultrabook market is still much bigger than the tablet, both the install base and sales.