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For 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

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Gartner: Apple should quit hardware business

Fresh off its success (ahem) of predicting again and again this year that Microsoft would delay Windows Vista yet again, Gartner sets its sights on a new foe. Apple?

Increasing component costs and pressure to cut its prices mean Apple's best bet for long-term success is to quit the hardware business and license the Mac to Dell, analyst firm Gartner claimed on Tuesday.

In a surprisingly ambitious report, called Apple Should License the Mac to Dell, Gartner says Apple should concentrate on what it does best--create software--and make use of Dell's production and distribution infrastructure.

Gartner claims that with the right partners, distribution channels and a more affordable price, computers running the Mac OS could eventually account for 20 percent of the total PC market.

Hmm.

I'm not sure what to think of this.

Clearly, doing this would destroy part of Apple's allure. They are the only PC company that does it all. And that integration creates unique and desirable hardware products. Dell just doesn't have that cachet. Heck, no PC maker has that cachet, except perhaps Lenovo with its ThinkPads (still the nicest notebooks in the world).

I think Apple's iconoclastic status is due in no small part to that fact that the company is responsible for both the software and the hardware. This is true of both the Mac and the iPod. In fact, Microsoft is arguably copying this model with its Xbox 360 and Zune product lines, so there must be something to it. And with companies like HP and Dell buying their way into the high-end PC gaming market, itself a niche market comparable to Apple's overall PC market share, there seems to be interest in doing exactly the opposite of what Gartner recommends.

I'm going to have to cast a Nay vote here. This is a stupid idea.

[ Posted at 3:53 PM | Permalink ]