During his quarterly financial results call, Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company will make a key "product transition" that cuts back on its profit margins to help shut out rivals.
Oppenheimer is deliberately short on details, not wanting to pre-announce the product or allude to its nature, but explains that cost will be a driving factor.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company often introduces products to the market with new technology at a high price, according to the executive, but often seeks to drive the price lower over time. It never wants to create a profit margin so wide that it creates an "umbrella" for rivals that lets them safely undercut Apple's pricing and steal sales.
The new, unnamed product will continue to have "technologies and features that others can't match," according to the CFO.
While notions of what this transition entails are likely to become clearer soon, several product categories are just now reaching the ends of their typical cycles, with updated MacBooks, the Mac mini, and new iPods all due for refreshes or replacements in the near future. Apple is also still believed to be developing its multi-touch tablet but has slipped out little extra information beyond leaks near the start of 2008.
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This should be fun.
This should be fun.
Yup
Here's my take:
Tablet : unlikely, as that would be a totally new product, not a transition.
Mac Mini becomes the xMac: I wish, but I don't think so. Oppenheimer said Apple "often introduces products to the market with new technology at a high price, but often seeks to drive the price lower over time". The Mac Mini is hardly new.
MacBook plastic -> aluminium transition: very likely.
Radical MacBook Air price drop: highly probable.
Radical MacBook Air price drop: highly probable.
The first thing that popped into my mind was the iPod Touch. But does Apple sell enough iPod Touches to account for much of a drop in gross profits? I like your idea: a price reduction in the MBA.
Best to worst case scanerio
-----------------------------------------
1. merger of macbooks
two models - all alu, new cpus, discrete graphics card, ....
$1099, $1299
2. price drop in MBA
3. touch screen on all the iPods except iPod shuffle
4. Merger of macbook and macbook pro
no new products ....
and one more thing
sep is just a month away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's the secret features of Tiger released at last!
No, no, it's the G5 Powerbook!
No, no, it's the...
So mysterious - a "new product" that will shut out rivals. The only products Apple sells that can shut out rivals are iPods, and there already are no real rivals, and not likely to be any in the future. The iPod Touch is of course due for a price reduction.
The Apple TV? I don't see how anything regarding the Apple TV could shut out rivals, since the market is so small and fragmented right now, and Apple doesn't have enough content.
Maybe it's a big push with notebooks, which are due soon anyway. Big price drops, is that it? Could be a good idea, back to school season (slightly late), but with the gains in market share already this year, maybe it would start a flood of new buying (but it wouldn't "shut out rivals").
Better call Chief Inspector Foyle...
Addendum: As pointed out above, the Macbook Air - that could shut out rivals in that category (adding some needed features along with a good size price reduction).