destaccado

The article you linked is referring the their MP3 players...it's also full of ****:
"Jobs's entire company is focused on that task. That means while rival computer makers increasingly rely on so-called outsourced design manufacturers (ODMs), for key design decisions, Jobs keeps most of those tasks in-house. Sure, he relies on ODMs to manufacture his products, but the big decisions on Apple products are made in Silicon Valley."

For one, ODM means Original Design Manufacturer...
Two, Apple doesn't exlusively order their machines to spec- Dell and Sony have similiar agreements with Quanta...

Please let me know what hardware apple designs in their machines? They use standard ATI and Nvidia graphics cards, Intel processors, standard RAM, hard drives, etc all rolled into a product built by Asus- a high-quality boutique ODM who is also building Sony's Playstation 3.....the extent of Apple's "design" on the Macbook is "we'll take them in black and white with a special BIOS please"......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origina...n_Manufacturer

Anyways, sounds like most of the arguments for Apple are that it's better for financial transaction and surfing the internet. If that's all your going to do why not build yourself a $300 suse/red hat/etc linux box that has an even more obscure OS then Mac OSX and you'll be able to do all your financial transactions even more securely......At least until the data leaves your machine and travels through the interweb dominated by Windows based Servers....

I guess my main point is that Apple is a great marketing company that has done extremely well to create the impression that they are "different" then the competition. They are the same damn thing using a hopped-up easy-to-use version of Unix. For many people they are a good buy, but they are absolutely not the Porsche of computers.....

W211

And the same applies to your statements. You make it sound like Apple being nothing but a marketing company selling Asus products.

Anyway, whatever I guess, I'm just a Porsche fan expressing my OPINION that I'm very happy with my Macs. I understand you sell (or sold) Asus for a living so I don't want to get too personal.

destaccado

In regards to computer hardware they are mainly a marketing company...In regards to their other lines of products: mp3, software, etc they are alot more involved. (The margins in computer hardware are razor thin compared to IPODs which are half profit and software which is even higher)...

And of course you're happy with your Macs- they're made by Asus ...

OCBen

Apple Computer Ceases To Exist

Excerpted from a story in today's LA Times

By Michelle Quinn, Times Staff Writer
January 10, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO — In a sign of its growing clout as an entertainment player, Apple Computer Inc. dropped "computer" from its name Tuesday and unveiled two devices that promise further upheaval in the rapidly changing media industry. .....
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...home-headlines

It's now Apple Inc., and show's they want to shift their focus away from computers and toward entertainment products.