I wonder how Apple's shareholders took this news.

Mark

Any company that doesent seek to generate profit is a company that will not exist pretty soon.

They seem to be generating plenty of profit despite not being focused on money.

George W Bush wasn't focussed on oil-producing nations either...

Of course they dont want to make money. Thats why their products are so cheap

Perhaps you could look at it another way, yes they obviously want money. But, I think what they're getting at is that they could have branched into other sectors and markets and made even more money but they are happy with their sales model and it works. The thing with premium products is that they are more recession proof, people who can afford macs generally have more of a disposable income therefore sale have increased overall for Apple.

I think that's a bit of a myth. Rather than have disposable income, a lot of mac owners probably have a big loan or credit card to pay for it. Lets face it, once you have paid for a mac and bought software for it, you are pretty much obliged to stick with the mac unless you can sell your hellishly expensive copy of CS4...it's a clever way of locking people in and then dragging more money out of them. Good luck to them for that, but I think I'll be sticking to the hordes of freeware available for OSX. I really like my MBP - it's a great bit of kit, but I don't find OSX that much better than Ubuntu. Sure it's a bit more polished, but I'm just as productive on Ubuntu. Maybe I'm just not used to it yet..who knows.

This is not an Apple policy – you can argue the same for Windows in that respect. Once you have bought into any software package on a platform, migrating to another is hard/expensive as the software companies seem to want more money for the move. Adobe’s migration policy works in both directions, as do others. What’s the cost of moving from Office on a Mac to Office on Windows (or vice versa)?

Windows yes, but not Dell, Sony, HP etc. If you have invested a fortune in Dell kit, there isn't anything to stop you switching to Sony, Fujitsu or John-on-the-corner next time. No re-investment in software required.

If you are on a tight budget, you can stop buying a premium brand and buy a no-name machine for under 200 quid. Try getting a decent core 2 duo, 2GB RAM, 1TB HD and a 9600 graphics card equipped Apple for that sort of price.

As to the story itself, I think there is a big difference between being money driven and making good money. Apple concentrate on design and producing attractive kit that people are willing to shell out for. They could make much larger ranges of kit, fight in each market segment (see the above), where they could increase their profit, but would probably damage the brand by not being able to spend so much on making that design perfect.

If they can design a really nice, compact machine, like the MB Air, then sell it at the right price, that isn't money driven - the end price, yes, but the product is king. If they cut corners and brought out a cheap and cheerful netbook for a couple of hundred quid, it wouldn't be up to Apple's usual standards and they would have to shift an order of magnitude more than they do Airs... They aren't interested in every cent they could make, but every cent it makes sense to go after.

It is frustrating for potential customers sitting at the low end of the market or otherwise looking elsewhere for kit, because of concieved issues - the "I want an expandable C2D tower system for under 500 quid" crowd - but it means that Apple are focused on their products, whilst not chasing every possible purchase by diluting the brand.

Not at all, you can install Windows on pretty much anything, including a mac and even virtualise it in OSX with Parallels or VMWare, but you can't virtualise OSX and you have to keep buying their hardware.

Eh? You say you're locked you into Apple's ecosystem because you've spent a fortune on software that's useless on another OS, but in the same breath say there's "hordes of freeware available for OS X". Which is it?

This is where the confusion between hardware and OS come in. If I buy something that is not an Apple, I know that I’ll be getting a Windows box to be able to get the chance to use any of the software I use on a regular basis and be compatible with suppliers and clients. So if I get a Dell, Sony, HP etc., I am buying into the Windows ecosystem. I don’t get Dell OS, nor do I get Sony OS. I get Windows.

I don’t see it as a battle between various hardware set ups - for me it’s clearly the OS that is paramount. Regardless of whether I am locked into an OS and/or associated hardware, it’s the 3rd party software vendors who make jumping ship expensive, not the hardware builders (or even the system suppliers). If companies like Adobe said that when I buy Photoshop, I can install on a Mac OR on Windows using the same license, then I think we’d see a shift in attitudes, and more flexibility when it comes to people choosing to change their computers. As it stands, if you buy a Mac version of the CS Suite, Quark Xpress, or whatever expensive lump of software you use to make money with, it is just so much cheaper to stick with Macs than it would be to consider a Dell when it’s time to change hardware. The money you save on hardware will be eaten away by the crossgrades or new licenses for the new OS platform you have bought.

I don't need the Pro packages and can make do with the freeware that is available, but if I did need something like CS4, I would be stuck with one platform.

I agree with you, that it is the third party software makers that make it difficult...

But, for example, if you have standardised on "aluminium look" for all PCs in the workplace and your supplier suddenly switches to going back to beige, you can switch supplier for one that does keep the "general" coporate style.

If you have 50 aluminium iMacs and Apple decided tomorrow that the aluminium thing was a big mistake and that they were reverting to bondi blue bubble cases for the new iMacs, you couldn't switch to another supplier to give you an OS X machine that still fits your corporate image. If HP did that, you'd just tell them that they weren't preferred supplier any more and buy from Sony or Dell...

Likewise, if your supplier switches components on you and you aren't happy with the compatibility of parts of the new spec, you can go elsewhere, to a supplier that will provide what you need.

Yes, you are still in the Windows eco system, but you have choices.

Okay, Apple generally improve their kit, but if they make a blunder, you are stranded.

Yes; I can see how that would be a huge problem.

Third-party software pricing and licensing is the real problem. Whether it's on Windows or Mac - either way you're locked in. And "running Windows on a Mac" isn't really an elegant solution, although if you want to keep that argument it could be said that you can happily run OS X on a PC. (Yes, yes, I know a Mac is a PC, you know what I'm saying.)

Maybe the answer is to just use Linux!