April 23rd, 2009
Notice to Tim Cook: Apple Has A Netbook. It's Just Not Competitive.
“He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.”
Deuteronomy 32:10
Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. You know Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is a friend of yours. You don’t get the same sense, at this point, from Tim.
He says Apple is not interested in the netbook business “as it exists today.” The hardware is junky and the software poor. A netbook is “not something that we would put the Mac brand on quite frankly.”
Sorry, Tim. But you’ve already done it. You have a netbook, today. It’s called the MacBook Air. And it has a hard time measuring up to Windows-based netbooks, on price, or Mac OS-based laptops, based on performance.
You can avoid the facts, if you want. But the class “A” netbook on the PC side is the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. The class “A” netbook on your side is the base version of the Air. Kid yourself not. When consumers are comparing portable computers that let them move about with little weight, decent-sized keyboards and screens and access to Web, these are the machines (and Windows and Linux equivalents) that let them do so.
The MacBook Air may win style points. But it’s not that different from the Asus EE. And, in the one thing that really matters for every day users of basic portable machines, the Asus machine wins hands down. Battery life is 9.5 hours to 4.5 hours. Even if both companies’ claims are cut in half, that’s 4.75 hours to 2.25. Which would you rather rely on, throughout a day, Mr. Cook?
Particularly since the MacBook Air has a completely enclosed battery. Even you are not going to take out the screwdriver and whip in a replacement, when the darn thing does down over Detroit on the flight to New York.
Oh, the Esus also costs less than a quarter of what you’re asking for folks in this recession (can we say “depression”?) can afford to spend? And you want people to believe that an iPod Touch is a viable alternative to the Eee PC? Is that a 99-cent cannabis program you’ve downloaded?
Let’s be real, here. Apple can be a victim of its own success, again. Just like when Gil Amelio tried to take over from John Sculley – before Steve Jobs returned.
You’re leaving Apple exposed. Disdain for the competition is a prescription for a relapse into rocky, near-irrelevance that accompanied the last non-Jobs era.
Show what you can do. Don’t just knock the competition. Or, Apple will find itself again struggling to protect its high margins, from ‘low-end’ competition.’
And you will have abetted it.
Get over the acerbic analysis. Get on with a market-redefining product for accessing the Internet.
That uses both hands. Or voice alone. But not the slow tap-tap-tap of the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Tom Steinert-Threlkeld is editor-in-chief of Securities Industry News, as well as a long-time media, technology and business journalist. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 04/23/09
