Quote:
Originally posted by BDA_ABAT
So, why did the company nearly go bankrupt (and need to be bailed out by Microsoft)? Poor marketing decisions. |
Ah.... no.
Apple never "nearly went bankrupt," and they never had to be "bailed out by Microsoft." Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple stock about six years ago
as a show of good faith and of their interest in the platform. They had just signed a deal with Apple in which Microsoft agreed to write a new, updated version of Microsoft Office for the Macintosh, in exchange for which Apple agreed to include Internet Explorer as the default web browser on the Mac.
Apple had no
financial need for the $150 million in stock purchases; they actually had over $2 BILLION in cash reserves at the time -- far more than most companies triple or quadruple their size have.
Apple
did have a need for a real professional office suite on the Mac platform, and nobody else at the time (Wordperfect, etc) was in a position to make one. So they made sure the one company that could do so, did.
The primary reason why Apple never dominated the personal computer market has NOTHING to do with "marketing failures." It's because Microsoft had a
four year head start, when their MS-DOS was licenced by IBM for the IBM PC in 1980. Apple didn't introduce the (greatly superior, both hardware- and software-wise) Macintosh until 1984. In those four years, the vast majority of businesses that had adopted "personal" computers had gone with IBM.
Companies are quite wary (and were back then too) of switching from one vendor to another. It means buying all new hardware, all new software, etc. The fact that the Macintosh made such incredible inroads, at one point holding almost 10% of the American market, is pretty amazing.
The early-mid 1990s were when Apple's market share started going the other direction, from around 8-10% to about 3-5%. But anyone who thinks Apple was ever in 'financial trouble' due to having "only" 4% of the market needs a good lesson in business. 4% of the market is about what BMW has of the car market; you don't hear people crying that BMW is near bankruptcy, or in danger of dying out. There were several quarters in the late 1990s, after the first iMac was introduced, that Apple sold more personal computers than any other personal computer maker in the world. Even now, they're consistently in the top 5. It's stupid and ridiculous to say that Apple's gonna 'die' because they 'only' have 4% of the market, when no other single computer maker (Dell, Gateway, IBM, etc) does any better.
In other words, you don't compare Apple (4%) to everybody else combined (96%). It gives a misleading picture of the situation.
Apple doesn't sell PCs, folks. They sell "luxury" computers, much as BMW sells "luxury" cars. 4% of the personal computer market is well more than enough to keep them afloat and profitable for the forseeable future.