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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Monday, April 26, 2004Oh, yeah, he also sells computers [for now]New York Times (free registration required): "In just two and a half years, Mr. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has managed to take a well-designed hand-held gadget, add software connecting it to Macintoshes and Windows-based personal computers and convince the recording industry that he has found an elegant solution for ending its nightmare of digital piracy. In doing so, he has shifted the emphasis of Apple from what made it famous - hip, even lovable computers - to what he hopes will keep it relevant and profitable in the future: products for a digital way of life ... Apple is acting less like a computer company and more like brand-brandishing, multinational companies such as Nike and Virgin. The iPod's success is also the clearest indication that Mr. Jobs, if he is to successfully revamp Apple, will ultimately win not by taking on PC rivals directly, but by changing the rules of the game."That last bit is a cute way of saying, "if he is to successfully revamp Apple, will ultimately win not by taking on PC rivals at all, but by quitting the PC market and joining a more disfunctional market for portable devices where the competitors are a lot less ruthless." The problem, of course, is that the same competitors who kicked Apple's behind in the PC market are slowing lumbering into iPod territory now as well. Anyway. There's more for you people that believe Apple isn't ignoring its Mac line. "Despite iPod's success, skeptics say Mr. Jobs's digital music venture will not be enough to offset a flagging performance in the PC business. 'The success of the iPod doesn't seem to have significantly changed Apple's market share,' said T. Michael Nevens ... And Mr. Nevens said that there was 'no support for the theory' that the new digital appliances would bolster computer sales. Mr. Jobs, however, does not appear to be banking on that happening. Instead, he is betting on his ability to rapidly replicate the iPod's success by creating a string of digital consumer product categories." Naturally, Jobs didn't "create" the iPod's "product category," which had been around for years before Apple released its admittedly superior styled device, but let's not quibble with the facts, eh? The iPod has been a huge success, no doubt about it (and the iPod Mini debacle notwithstanding). But that business is still only a small portion of the company's flagging Mac market, shrinking though it may be. It reminds me of the mid-1980's, when Apple ignored the dying Apple II system despite the fact that it was then generating all of the company's revenues. [ Posted at 8:25 AM | Permalink ]
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