Be afraid, PC bigots

PC lovers accuse Apple of being a monopolistic threat, while on the other hand accuse Apple of being an insignificant player.

I get this strange vibe from the more vociferous of PC-loving Mac-bashers out there and, while I found it hard to believe such people could, or would, exist before I started writing Mac Planet, I've had to accept they do.

And while it may be that there are only four or five of these people in the world, they all seem to comment on every post I write. Which is not to say they aren't welcome to comment - they are.

However, that vibe: on one hand these PC lovers accuse Apple of being a monopolistic threat, while on the other hand they accuse Apple of being an insignificant player.

Now, it doesn't take much application of logic to realise how counter to each other and utterly untenable these opposite arguments are. A monopoly means "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service."

That's what it says in the Apple Dictionary in my Applications folder, anyway. What does it says on Windows machines? Anything different?

Within the bounds of reason, this is a charge more commonly laid at the door of another US software company I might mention, which is partly why, perhaps, Apple holds between six and ten per cent of PC use in different countries when once it was more like 12.

But the fact underlying both these contrary positions is the same: fear of Apple.

So I've been wondering about that fear. Part of that fear is the ignorance that's common, unfortunately, to our human condition - we seem to fear more what we least know about, whereas logic would dictate we ought to fear things we know more about.

Whatever, some of these commenters, despite protestations to the opposite, are patently ignorant of that which they so enthusiastically denigrate.

Part of their fear comes from the annoyance, I suspect, that some of them would like Apple equipment but can't, or won't, afford it. So they have made such a virtue out of the necessity of having to become Windows experts to run these more troublesome (by oh, so many accounts) machines they feel they must work all the harder to defend their cheap - sorry, 'more affordable' - fortresses.

All the same, it dawned on that maybe these Windows acolytes have a point. Apple is actually very powerful. Apple has about US$30 billion in the bank. That's around $46 billion NZ dollars or 18.25 billion British Pounds.

That's a fair old bit, you might say.

What could Apple do with this money? For one thing, let's imagine that Apple chose to address, even for one month, the charge that Macs are 'too' expensive.

Apple sells around 2.5 million Macs per quarter. I reckon Apple could sell that many Macs in a month if it dropped the price 20 per cent across the board. Maybe a lot more. That would mean a white MacBook would sell for NZ$1599 instead of $1999 (US $799 vs $999/UK749 vs 599).

A 15-inch MacBook Pro 2.66GHz would sell for $3199 instead of a dollar under $4000. In Britain, that's 1199 instead of 1499 pound, and in the United States, $1599 instead of $1999.

A 2.66GHz 24-inch iMac would sell for NZ$2079.20 instead of $2599. In the United Kingdom, that's currently 949 quid - a 20 per cent discount makes it 759.20. In the US, the list price is USD$1199 - with discount, US$959.20.

Fancy a Mac Pro Tower? I know I do ... 20 per cent off nets it for NZ$5839 for eight cores (2x QuadCore Nehalems running 2.26GHz each). In Britain that would be 1199 pounds instead of 2499, and in the US for $2639 vs the current $3299.

Would you be tempted? Many existing Mac users would go into an absolute buying frenzy, but I wonder how many PC users would switch in such conditions.

It wouldn't even cost Apple very much out of that small-country sized nest egg.

Let's see, if Apple sold even 2.5 million discounted Macs in a month, and that was about 1.5 million laptops, that would cost Apple about US$900 million, and another million iMacs at an average of US$240 discount per unit would lose another US$239,800,000, and half-a-million Mac Pros costing Apple an average of US$660 each adds up to another loss of US$330,000,000.

Altogether, such a campaign would cost Apple $1,469,800,000.

That's nothin' when you have US$30 billion in the bank and the last quarter, after several recessionary months, still saw the Californian company gain a profit rise of 15 per cent.

Apple instead appears to be focussed on its vision and on its research and development. Despite the potential power of billions of dollars in the bank, Apple chooses to keep its prices where they are, as if the recession hadn't happened.

Perhaps you PC bigots should be thankful.

- Mark Webster mac.nz