Apple Tries a New Tack: Lower Prices
Apple Computer Inc., throughout its nearly three decades of existence, has been associated with innovative but high-priced gadgets that attracted a passionate, if small, segment of the computer market. Now, in a big departure from that path, the company is trying low prices on a new line of products.
At the annual MacWorld conference in San Francisco yesterday, Apple introduced new versions of its Macintosh computer and its iPod portable music player aimed squarely at users put off by its traditionally high prices. The Mac mini, a stripped-down version of the Mac that starts at $500, is the least-expensive computer Apple ever has released, according to the company -- almost $300 less than the starting price for the cheapest computers it offers. The new $99 iPod Shuffle lists for nearly $150 less than the starting price on other iPod models.
Apple
Apple's $500 Mac.
The products, introduced in a more-than-two-hour speech by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, reflect an Apple emboldened by the runaway success of the iPod, the top-selling portable music player. The iPod now brings in more than a quarter of Apple's total revenue.
The Cupertino, Calif., company sold more than 4.5 million iPods during the holiday quarter, bringing the total number sold in the device's three-year history to more than 10 million. Many analysts believe the iPod may be producing a "halo effect" on Apple's core Mac business, in which customers are lured to stores for the iPod but end up also buying Apple computers. Apple reports its fourth-quarter earnings today, including the number of Macs sold, which will provide the first evidence of whether that hunch is correct.
With a low-priced computer, Apple believes it can convince even more users to switch to the Mac from personal computers based on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, by far the dominant part of the market. Apple, which has a measly 2% of the world-wide PC market, has waged a long campaign to get Windows users to switch to Macs, without much success.
But times are changing: Windows' vulnerability to computer viruses and other Internet-borne attacks is leading some consumers to reconsider Macs, which don't share those vulnerabilities. A lower price could be the extra push these consumers need. "We want to price this so people who are thinking of switching have no more excuses," Mr. Jobs said in his speech.
THE MOSSBERG SOLUTION
Read Walt Mossberg's exclusive review of the new iPod Shuffle.
Apple's Mac mini "eliminates the price-obstacle to switching," said Apple's Mac mini is "priced right into the sweet spot of Windows users," says Charlie Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Co., who personally holds Apple shares.
The low-price comes with some catches. The Mac mini comes without a monitor, keyboard or mouse -- some Apple enthusiasts call it a "headless Mac." But users who are switching can attach those and other peripherals from their old PCs to the Apple product. It includes a DVD player and CD recorder, but not a DVD recorder -- a capability that is standard on some other Macs. The Mac mini comes in a sleek square box, 2 inches high and weighing 2.9 pounds. Apple also will offer the Mac mini in a more powerful $599 version starting later this month.
Apple has even-more-dramatically simplified its new iPod Shuffle, a music player smaller than a pack of gum. The device lacks two of the most distinctive features of the iPod: a screen and a scroll wheel for navigating through song lists.
With the new iPod, Apple is competing from a position of far greater strength than it enjoys in the PC market. The iPod accounts for more than 60% of new sales in the digital-music-player market, even with the high prices on the product, and it was one of the top-selling products at electronics retailers during the holidays.
But Apple has lacked a small, low-end product that competes with other players that use "flash" memory, a storage technology that generally has smaller song capacity than those devices that use hard disks, such as Apple's high-end iPods.
In an interview, Mr. Jobs said he believes people won't miss the distinctive features of the iPod on the new device, especially if they are exercising. "This is a fantastic product to run with," Mr. Jobs said in an interview, adding that Apple wouldn't make a device with smaller song capacity than the iPod Shuffle.
The "iPod Shuffle" costs less than existing iPods but holds fewer songs.
Analysts said Apple's new Mac product has little hope of meaningfully denting Microsoft's position in the PC market, though even small additions of market share in PCs would be hugely lucrative for Apple. At MacWorld, Apple introduced a new suite of applications called iWorks that will compete with a similar package of products on the Mac from Microsoft called Office.
Even though Apple's application suite notably lacks a spreadsheet program comparable to Microsoft's Excel, some view Apple's new applications as an effort to hedge its bets in case Microsoft ever decides to stop developing software for the Mac.
Microsoft says it doesn't intend to stop writing programs for the Mac. "With the amount of investment" Microsoft is making in Mac software, said Scott Erickson , a manager in Microsoft's Macintosh business unit, "we have no plans on stopping it."
Mr. Jobs was briefly joined on stage during his presentation at the conference yesterday by Kunitake Ando, president of Sony Corp. -- an appearance that fueled speculation that the two companies might form an alliance in the digital music market. The two men emphasized a history of cooperation between the two companies to make their products, including computers and camcorders. Mr. Jobs later declined to say whether the companies might band together on technical standards.
苹果电脑推出低价版iPod和Mac
苹果电脑公司(Apple Computer Inc.)自成立近30年来，一直推出创新但价格高昂的电子产品，这些产品在电脑市场受到一部分人的热烈追捧。现在，苹果告别了这一发展路线，将尝试推出一系列低价的新产品。
周二旧金山举行的MacWorld年度会议上，苹果推出了新版Macintosh电脑和iPod便携式音乐播放器，其目标客户群是被其产品的高价格拒之门外的用户。据该公司称，Mac迷你机是现有Mac电脑的简化版，起价为500美元，这是该公司有史以来推出的价格最低的电脑，其售价比苹果目前出售的最便宜的电脑的起价还低了接近300美元。新的iPod Shuffle售价为99美元，比其它iPod机型的起步价低了近150美元。
苹果首席执行长乔伯斯(Steve Jobs)在两个多小时的演讲中推出了上述新产品，这反映出iPod的热销令该公司信心大增。iPod当前的销售额在苹果总收入中的比例超过了四分之一。
该公司在假期当季销售了超过450万个iPod，令该产品自诞生以来的3年总销量突破了1,000万个。许多分析师相信，iPod可能正对苹果核心的Mac业务产生“光圈效应”，那些到商店购买iPod的消费者结果可能还会购买苹果的电脑。苹果定于周三公布第四财政季度业绩。
现在拥有一款低价电脑的苹果相信，它能够说服更多使用微软(Microsoft Corp.)Windows电脑的用户转投Mac的怀抱，目前Windows电脑仍主宰了市场。苹果Mac电脑在全球个人电脑市场的占有率仅有2%，它一直竭力争取Windows用户，但是成效不大。
但是现在时机发生了改变：Windows易受到电脑病毒和其他网络病毒的攻击令一些消费者开始重新考虑Mac，后者没有Windows机器的这些缺陷。低价可能会额外推动这些消费者的需求。乔伯斯在演讲中表示，“我们希望这样的价格能够让那些考虑换电脑的人们找不到不换的借口。”
Needham & Co的分析师Charlie Wolf说，苹果的迷你Mac消除了换电脑的价格障碍。Wolf个人持有苹果股票。
一分钱一分货。迷你Mac没有显示器、键盘以及鼠标，一些苹果电脑迷将之成为“无头Mac”。但是换电脑的用户可以从旧电脑上拆卸这些外围设备，将其安装到苹果的这款电脑上。它有一个DVD播放器和CD刻录机，但没有DVD刻录机，而DVD刻录机是数款Mac的标准配置。迷你Mac外观为光滑的正方形，高2英寸，重2.9镑。苹果还将在本月晚些时候提供功能更强大的售价为599美元的迷你Mac。
苹果的新iPod Shuffle则进行了更大的简化，这个播放器比一盒口香糖的体积还要小。iPod Shuffle没有了iPod两个最具特色的功能：显示屏和浏览歌曲曲目的滚动轮。
借助于这一新款iPod，苹果获得的竞争强势将远胜于其在个人电脑市场的竞争力。尽管iPod价格高昂，但是它在数字音乐播放器市场的新机销售中所占的比例超过了60%，并且它是电器零售商在假期销售最好的产品之一。
但是苹果缺少一款小型的低端产品与其他使用闪存存储技术的播放器竞争，使用闪存技术的播放器的歌曲容量通常小于使用硬盘的播放器，苹果的iPod就是属于后者的高端产品。
在一次采访中，乔伯斯称他相信人们在使用新款iPod时不会怀念iPod的那些特色功能，尤其是当他们在锻炼的时候。他说，“这是适合在跑步时使用的一款绝佳产品。”他补充道，苹果不会制造比iPod Shuffle歌曲容量更小的设备。
分析师称，苹果的新Mac产品几乎不可能实质性地削弱微软在个人电脑市场上的地位，不过，个人电脑市场占有率微幅增长将会给苹果带来丰厚利润。在MacWorld上，苹果推出了一套名为iWorks的新软件，以与微软生产的在Mac上应用的Office软件竞争。
尽管苹果的软件套装明显缺少一个能与微软Excel相称的电子表格软件，一些人仍将苹果的新软件视为该公司的规避风险之举，为的是防止微软决定终止为Mac开发软件。
微软表示，它不打算停止为Mac编写软件。微软Macintosh业务部门经理Scott Erickson称，“微软投入巨资开发Mac软件，我们没有停止该业务的计划。”
在乔伯斯的演讲过程中，索尼(Sony Corp.)总裁安藤国威(Kunitake Ando)也上台做了简短的发言。两人共同亮相引发了外界对两家公司可能在数字音乐领域建立联盟的猜测。两人强调了两家公司合作生产电脑和便携式摄像机等产品的历史。乔伯斯后来拒绝透露两家公司是否可能在技术标准上进行合作。
