Apple Demands Microsoft Pull Laptop Hunter Ads

[rcread]

I think that the one thing everyone has to realize is that Macs ARE overpriced.

I think the one thing that you have to realize is that the ideal price for a product is that which will yield the maximum profit, not the lowest price. Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders (i.e. me) to price its products to get the highest return. If that means they are more expensive than the competition, then so be it. They are making profits from the Mac. I'm betting that Apple's finance department has their supply/demand curves in order and that the current pricing plan for Macs is close to what it should be. This is capitalism at its best.

 

[APPLENEWBIE]

As someone who has worked in large organizations with large legal departments, I find it hard to believe that MS got a call from the Apple legal department about the ads. Big corporation legal departments don't screw around. Everything is documented. I doubt the call happened, at least as described.

 

[Eidorian]

I think the one thing that you have to realize is that the ideal price for a product is that which will yield the maximum profit, not the lowest price. Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders (i.e. me) to price its products to get the highest return. If that means they are more expensive than the competition, then so be it. They are making profits from the Mac. I'm betting that Apple's finance department has their supply/demand curves in order and that the current pricing plan for Macs is close to what it should be. This is capitalism at its best.

Quite true but there's plenty of lower end hardware left to make less expensive Macs and maintain their margins.

Atom, Celeron Dual-Core, and Pentium Dual-Core can cover the majority of tasks for users and drop the prices on hardware.

 

[thunderclap]

You're always free to buy your own memory. Installation instructions are on Apple's Support website.

Donny7 also mentioned this and it's something I was aware of. That's why I gave the rest of the spec of what I'm building. For the same price I'm getting a CPU two generations newer 2GB more of RAM, etc. I hope no one takes my comments as anti-Mac. I still love Mac and OS X, I just want something with more power than they offer.

 

[iPie]

As someone who has worked in large organizations with large legal departments, I find it hard to believe that MS got a call from the Apple legal department about the ads. Big corporation legal departments don't screw around. Everything is documented. I doubt the call happened, at least as described.

Probably one of the fanboys on this site (who cannot believe that advertising is not the same as well researched documentaries) impersonated an Apple employee and called Microsoft to demand the withdrawal of these LIES!

OMG - a firm is bending the truth, omitting information - to sell more products!

Stop the presses!

 

[Victor Odin]

I think the one thing that you have to realize is that the ideal price for a product is that which will yield the maximum profit, not the lowest price. Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders (i.e. me) to price its products to get the highest return. If that means they are more expensive than the competition, then so be it. They are making profits from the Mac. I'm betting that Apple's finance department has their supply/demand curves in order and that the current pricing plan for Macs is close to what it should be. This is capitalism at its best.

Apple is a stock owner's wet dream.

Of course, it's hard to make insane profits without getting over on the consumer ... and therefore your notes about Apple stock ownership actually perfectly illustrate the "hardware superiority" fallacy from the consumer point of view.

When the consumer pays more to get less, the company prospers.

This is exactly why Apple investors have done so well.

Had Apple put anywhere near as much resources into the hardware as people thought they did, the stock price would be in the toilet.

Until the Kool Aid wears off (and I think it will at this rate), Apple might be able to eek a bit more out before all is said and done.

 

[zephead]

I've always thought these ads made no sense, especially when you consider "Gianpaolo". He's looking for a computer with portability, battery life, and power. So he takes one look at the Macs, goes "pfft", and buys a 17" HP which probably weighs 8-9 pounds and has 2 hours of battery life. Seriously?

And I know the car analogies have been beaten to death, but this would be like him being out to buy a car and saying he wants one that's compact, has good gas mileage, and has power. So he takes one look at a Honda Civic, goes "pfft", and drives off the lot with a GMC Yukon. How does that make sense?! Ladies and gentlemen, this does not make sense.

 

[VenusianSky]

As someone who has worked in large organizations with large legal departments, I find it hard to believe that MS got a call from the Apple legal department about the ads. Big corporation legal departments don't screw around. Everything is documented. I doubt the call happened, at least as described.

Yeah, it wouldn't make much sense for such a liberal and free-thinking company as Apple to tell a competitor to stop protesting... I mean, advertising competitive business.

 

[iPie]

I think the one thing that you have to realize is that the ideal price for a product is that which will yield the maximum profit, not the lowest price. Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders (i.e. me) to price its products to get the highest return. If that means they are more expensive than the competition, then so be it. They are making profits from the Mac. I'm betting that Apple's finance department has their supply/demand curves in order and that the current pricing plan for Macs is close to what it should be. This is capitalism at its best.

Actually, I think that capitalism at its best would be selling superior products for higher prices WITHOUT having to deceive your customers.

I don't think either Microsoft or Apple are good posterboys for "Capitalism at its best"

 

[VaDor]

As someone who has worked in large organizations with large legal departments, I find it hard to believe that MS got a call from the Apple legal department about the ads. Big corporation legal departments don't screw around. Everything is documented. I doubt the call happened, at least as described.

I agree! I seriously doubt that Apple did a phone call to Microsoft to stop the hunter ads... it's so stupid that I think this is an attack to Apple to create confusion and misleading on the Apple brand!

 

[thunderclap]

Something that Microsoft fails to mention here and it's under-estimated by a lot of people is that besides the cost of the PC, there is also a yearly cost for Antivirus software, Firewall, Anti-Spyware....plus maintenance with Vista, downtime because of virus...etc.

This, I would say, is partially true. But if you're smart about what you open and what sites you visit it is less likely you'll contract a virus or spyware. People getting these things is usually because they did something stupid like opening an EXE file e-mailed to you by a stranger. That's not Microsoft's fault, it's the user.

 

[VenusianSky]

Actually, I think that capitalism at its best would be selling superior products for higher prices WITHOUT having to deceive your

Actually, that would be good old fashion small business. Small business are much more focused on quality and customer satisfaction. There usually is a premium you have to pay for that quality, and it is usually worth it.

 

[APPLENEWBIE]

Yeah, it wouldn't make much sense for such a liberal and free-thinking company as Apple to tell a competitor to stop protesting... I mean, advertising competitive business.

Maybe I was unclear. I am sure that apple is ticked off at the MS ads. But, I think more likely that over cocktails, a guy who knew a guy said what a guy he knew heard...

And Apple is not a liberal and free thinking company. Nope. it is a (hopefully) benevolent dictatorship.

One more thing... (more or less) all is fair in love, war and advertising. It's in the bible. Go ahead, look.

 

[coleridge78]

Probably one of the fanboys on this site (who cannot believe that advertising is not the same as well researched documentaries) impersonated an Apple employee and called Microsoft to demand the withdrawal of these LIES!

OMG - a firm is bending the truth, omitting information - to sell more products!

Stop the presses!

Once more: there's nothing "bending" or "omitting" about flatly stating "a computer with this spec costs this much" when, in fact, it does not.

It's wrong. Period. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. A false claim. Not bending. Not omitting. It's a positive objective assertion which is simply wrong.

 

[Silverado]

Maybe they simply asked them to reflect the new prices in their ads, which makes complete sense. It's a far cry from asking them to stop the ad campaign all together if they only asked them to be accurate about the current prices.

 

[Eidorian]

Actually, that would be good old fashion small business. Small business are much more focused on quality and customer satisfaction. There usually is a premium you have to pay for that quality, and it is usually worth it.

Can you elaborate?

I keep hearing about the quality factor but I don't see it.

 

[iPie]

Can you elaborate?

I keep hearing about the quality factor but I don't see it.

Maybe you need to stop shopping at Target and Walmart!

 

[Eidorian]

Maybe you need to stop shopping at Target and Walmart!

I don't understand what you mean.

 

[pubwvj]

So what.

So what. I don't buy a computer to use as a paperweight. I buy it to use to get my work done. Microsoft fails to deliver. Apple's MacOS and hardware are the right tool. Microsoft computers could be free (and they are - used) but I still wouldn't waste the time of day on them. I've got real work to do. Macs make it happen.

 

[BTW]

With a market share of 90% I would suppose not much less than 90% of the people out there favor Microsoft's ads. Those that are willing to pay a bit more for Apple will still go for Apple - namely me.

People may not think much of it but not having to deal with Virus scanners and having a system that is as fast as it was the day I bought it makes it worth every penny extra that I may have paid. The extended warrant was well worth it too.

 

[carmenodie]

Here is the real analysis:

Apple controls their intellectual property and the pc vendors don't.They don't have anything, except Sony and their screens and magigates. Apple has software engineers, mechanical engineers material engineers etc. Apple is really a research institution! Check me on that!
Ok, MS makes the OS to run the pc and in turn the pc vendors just have to crank out cheap boxes. So cheap in fact that they are disposable. And therein lies the paradigm that generates all the cash for MS.
Sell lots of pcs so MS to get that royalty money!
And no one has pointed out that MS not the pc vendors like Dell and HP are running these commercials and it is because MS controls them! Hello!
Who controls the box?!!
Apple controls its **** and has so since day 1!
If MS starts to face stiff competition from emerging OS providers for the pc, how the hell are they going to defend against them? Especially in the EU?
Look at every pc in Best Buy for instance. They all have MS's launch button on the keyboard. Dictated by the Microsoft's licensing agreement. The pc can't do **** to MS's OS. Nothing!
And of course we all know that MS has a failure system built into their OS so they can de-support the pc. Oracle a few years ago was threatening to do the same thing to those using its software. Why, because they needed to sell new software, duh? And if their users didn't comply, they wouldn't get technical assistance if something happened to the software.Wink wink!
Apple has so many powerful facets under one roof its mind boggling. Yet take a gander at the pc folks and all you see is distribution and marketing. Period. They are sitting ducks!

 

[ShiftyPig]

"For under a thousand dollars they only have one model..."
—Lauren
"For under two grand this is the best Apple [computer]; it only has 2 Gigabytes of RAM"
—Sheila
"For a thousand dollars..." "We can't get a Mac."
—Matt and Olivia
"This mac—is two thousand dollars—and that is before adding anything"
—Lauren and Sue

Right, and if you would have actually read my post with any care you would have picked up on the term I used: specific prices. There is no mention of "this laptop costs $1299." And even if the ads did carry such language, there is nothing false about that advertising: the exact model shown in the ad does cost $1299. When Apple released new, cheaper laptops, they carry new model numbers and are therefore not the laptop shown in the ad.

Everyone getting fake attorney in here is hilarious. MS didn't screw up by including price discussion; the fanboys are screwing up by not being able to parse the language used in a well-written ad. Save the indignation for situations where it is warranted.

 

[VenusianSky]

Can you elaborate?

I keep hearing about the quality factor but I don't see it.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to a specific market. I just meant in general. And by small, I mean <100 employees small. For example, I am into synthesizers and music machines. I find that synthesizers built and sold by a "mom-and-pop" shop tend to have much more focus to detail and quality than say a huge mass production company. The single sale by a smaller company is much more important than a single sale by a large company. This may not always be true, but the small companies that don't offer quality tend to fold up quickly. And my point about the higher premium... The small business products tends to cost a little more because there is much more manual labor involved than a factory-base company. As long as that extra labor means quality, it is well worth it. And we can also discuss support between the two. Small business tend to offer far superior support over large business. If they don't...out-of-business.

 

[phpmaven]

Hi. I'm a Mac, I can dish it out, but not take it.

LOL! That's exactly what I was thinking. I love Macs, I have 2 of them, but the Apple ads have been spreading FUD and misinformation for years about PCs. MS has finally decided to fight back and everybody is whining about how unfair their ads are.

 

[*LTD*]

It makes no difference what phonecall Kevin Turner got. Right, I'll believe what comes out of the mouth of someone who works at Mircorsoft.

Apple is doing brilliantly in this economy, Mac sales included.

All the complaints about Apple's prices and the doom-and-gloom future for the Mac as a result, somehow doesn't quite represent reality. All the whining is restricted to these forums, and then only to a segment of the membership around here and other places like AI and MacNN, etc.

The reality is, Macbooks and Macbook Pros are flying off shelves, remain #1 in customer satisfaction, and the glowing reviews just keep rolling in.

Apple's prices are justified. Why? PEOPLE ARE BUYING. If there was a problem, Mac sales would tank, and tank BIG, especially in this economy. In fact, quite the opposite is happening, dspite all of MS' lame ads and the constant whining on these forums. Apple still have the lowest contraction in computer sales in the entire industry.

The same people keep complaining about Apple's prices year after year, yet year after year Apple sets new records. Do these people live in some sort of alternate reality?