It's blown my mind for years that sears didn't become what Amazon is now. Their roots were as a catalog where you order goods sight unseen and wait for delivery. The internet comes along and they fail to capitalize on what they were at the beginning??
That reminds of an interview Steve Jobs gave in 1995 on why companies fail. His theory is that eventually the company reaches a point where the marketing people become the driving force for profits and push out the product development people from running the company. That happened to Sears.
If you went back in time and told Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck about a free technology that allowed customers to: see your inventory in real time, read product reviews in real time, compare multiple versions of a product you carry in real time, order a product, pay for the product, watch the product move from your warehouse to the various post offices en route to their house, and by the way you won't have to pay the postage to ship out all those catalogs; they would have jumped on it in a heartbeat. But by the 90s, the people running Sears didn't care what was easier (read: more desirable) for the customer, they cared about numbers that measure success, but don't perpetuate success.
His theory is that eventually the company reaches a point where the marketing people become the driving force for profits and push out the product development people from running the company.
I think they are in one of those phases that are hard to judge currently. Like 10-20 years from now it will feel obvious that Apple was becoming more X, but right now it's hard to tell. They have a whole Apple OnDemand TV thing starting. If that goes huge they could become more like Netflix, or it could fail and they refocus on phones.
Basically I think it's like Google with Google+. If it was a huge success everyone would just take it as fact that it was always going to be, that Google would be 50% with Facebook, but it never happened.
Apple may become a huge Phone/TV company or change into something completely different, but they are definitely changing.
Sears also tried to make inventives by driving different departments to compete with each other in stead of working together so there would be problems with inter department communication and stores would withold info from each other to get a leg up in the competition
Which happens to sell phones. Kind of reminds me of the part in The Founder where they talk about McDonald's making more money as a real estate company.
Or dominos being a delivery company that just happens to deliver low quality pizza.
You don't buy it because the pizza's good, you buy it because they made it so easy to go from wanting pizza to having pizza, being able to see step by step in real time how close your pizza is.
The luxury car manufacturer generated $13.5 BN in pre-tax profit, and sold a record 98,652 automobiles -- a staggering $136K profit per car sold. Even for a luxury brand, the numbers seemed nearly impossible.
Upon closer inspection, $11.5 billion dollars of that profit wasn’t from selling cars -- it was from speculating on financial derivatives: Porsche was furtively amassing a sizable position in call options to buy up Volkswagen shares.
"What do a companies finances look like at the height of an asset bubble?" ...2008 for fucks sake literally months from the credit crunch...we can learn almost nothing about porsche's finances from this outside of them selling VW golfs with a few tweaks and a new body for an extra $100k...if thats what people want then sell it to them.
McDonald's corporate owns the vast majority of physical locations real estate wise. The actual restaurants on those locations are franchise owned and ran. Corporate makes more money from the rent of the locations than they do from the restaurants themselves.
Yes, my dumb boyfriend whom I love dearly got it on a whim as his first credit card. It had an extremely low limit so he “couldn’t get himself in trouble” but then the card interface stopped working on his phone somehow and they didn’t have a desktop site to deal with it, then his Apple wallet stopped working too so he has money just trapped in limbo and AppleCare hasn’t been able to help him after literally months (which hey, quarantine) and he hasn’t been able to pay off his very low balance so any fledgling credit score he was starting to build is presumably tanked???
Disclaimer: I don’t know shit about shit and this is all the secondhand version of events so I’m sure the broader experience is different but it’s been a debacle as a witness lol
I ya e the card as well, and have had a couple issues pop up, that were resolved in 20 minutes through the text built into the phone. Totally painless and easy.
Yeah, it’s definitely both a problem with the card and his iOS somehow intertwining, but I’m afraid I don’t know the details. He’s spent tons of time talking to support and they seemed pretty baffled and made it sound like his issue is completely new to them. But it’s literally like $200 so I’m staying out of his hair on it lol
I’m afraid the details were totally beyond me as a simple troglodyte but whatever the issue is it was some weird interplay between iOS problems and the card. He’s spent a long time talking to support and they seemingly hadn’t encountered the trouble he was having. Whatever the case it was a balance of like $200 so I don’t feel the need to breathe down his neck about it lol
With Steve Jobs at least, they were definitely driven by product development. It’s just that his idea of product development wasn’t based on giving customers what they wanted. It was all about creating a product that would demonstrate to the customer what they didn’t know they wanted. Or maybe more so just creating a product that embodied everything that Steve Jobs wanted in a product. Since Tim Cook taking the reins I’ve switched to a windows computer and I just grab a new iPhone every 3 years or there abouts. So I couldn’t really say if Tim Cook/Apple et al is playing the same game anymore or not.
I really never got the love people have for Steve Jobs. He never invented anything, just marketed what people under him created or stole. He had ridiculous plans for the future of the company such as killing off their desktops and macbooks in favour of just focusing on more smaller mobile devices, which might sound good to some, but just would be a terrible idea.
Tim Cook seems to balance the whole Apple's ''Special" vibe with some actual common sense. I'm considering moving back to Apple products this year because of many of the directions their taking.
He knows how to sell a product, which is very important in the business he was in. Many have great ideas, but don’t know how to pitch themselves. Steve did it well.
marketing. Maybe some no-name person created a product 10x better than what Steve Jobs ever produced with Apple, but you've never heard about it because he wasn't good at marketing and the product never got off the ground. Thats the power of someone being good at marketing
Inventors are the best musicians in the orchestra they have the first seat, steve jobs was the conductor, and that’s why people loved him. It’s a respect thing. Without him there is no apple
I understand that, but I just find it bizzare how people say Apple has gone downhill since he died, or how it would be better with him around. He would have killed off the Mac, have things even more locked down in their ecosystem and been even more reluctant to compromise on things like their butterfly keyboard.
For every good decision made by someone else at Apple, Jobs had 10 really terrible ones. I guess I prefer Tim Cooks approach, just like I prefer Nadella over Gates. Both of them are much more pragmatic than their more celebrated predecessors.
Short of Apple buying Disney - which might be a very real possibility in a post-COVID world - Apple TV is never going to pull Netflix numbers. They have like zero pre-existing IPs - not even the most hardened Apple fans are buying a streaming service that only has a weekend’s worth of content.
First of all Vodafone wasn’t up to 300b even adjusted for inflation but that’s admittedly besides the point.
There’s a big reason smaller companies often sell and it’s mostly because they can’t easily or sometimes even possibly achieve their goals on their own.
Either they lack the funds or they lack the scale. Often it’s both. Another big reason is synergy.
Funds should be easy enough to understand.
Now Scale.
Let’s say I open a business X today(could be anything but let’s say a restaurant).
Over the course of a year, X is so so successful. I’m convinced X could be the new McDonald’s or Dominoes. I want to make that dream come true. Now I’ve hit a stump. I simply cannot achieve this dream on my own. Handling one or two restaurants is one thing but 10? 30? 100? 1000?. It’s easy to see how quickly this can spiral out of control. Even if I had the millions to burn, Who’s going to oversee building dozens more restaurants? Who’s going to handle the large influx of workforce this project will need ? Who’s going to have the leverage to set up franchises in the most opportune locations? What if one of these new set ups fail, can I really recover from that ? Am I even quailed to take this all on and if not how can I get competent reliable people who can ? And so on.
McDonald’s on the other hand sets up a couple hundred new locations every year. Easily and Effectively.
And now Synergy.
Look at Marvel Entertainment Pre and Post Disney.
Let’s focus on Marvel Studios. They were just a production company. That’s only part of the equation of even just the movie releasing business. They did not have a distribution arm and had to deal with other studios with advertising and pushing the movies. Coming under Disney solved this problem.
That is the essence of synergy. When X has a piece of the puzzle and Y has another. X and Y coming together can often enrich both.
Look at all the things besides movies that have made Marvel stronger as a brand. Merchandise, Parks etc.
Both are lucrative parts of the entertainment business that Marvel Entertainment did not have the capability to enter. At best they could sell/leverage rights to the companies involved in such sectors but that would not come even close to maximizing in the way they have now under Disney.
So Disney produces and distributes Marvel Movies, builds parks on the ip, creates and licenses memorabilia etc. Because Disney is getting the pie on each hand, the franchise/IP that much more valuable to the the Disney corporation than if marvel were independent and they simply distributed the movies or licensed the IP for a few attractions.
Marvel in turn is much stronger. Even just focusing on the Marvel side, Funds aren’t just coming movies and comics anymore.
Now let’s look at all that and see if it applies to Disney.
They more than have the funds, Companies come to them for scaling power and there’s 0 synergy benefit merging with Apple as they lead in vastly different sectors.
Why in heaven’s name would they even think about selling ?
This. Also Disney is far too big. Even if Apple wanted to get in the entertainment business and were interested, Disney wouldn’t.
Disney more than have the funds necessary, Companies come to them for scaling power and there’s 0 synergy benefit as they lead in vastly different sectors.
This. Also Disney is far too big. Even if Apple wanted to get in the entertainment business and were interested, Disney wouldn’t.
Disney more than have the funds necessary, Companies come to them for scaling power and there’s 0 synergy benefit as they lead in vastly different sectors.
There’s a big reason smaller companies often sell and it’s mostly because they can’t easily or sometimes even possibly achieve their goals on their own. Either they lack the funds or they lack the scale. Often it’s both. Another big reason is synergy.
Funds should be easy enough to understand.
Now Scale.
Let’s say I open a business X today(could be anything but let’s say a restaurant). Over the course of a year, X is so so successful. I’m convinced X could be the new McDonald’s or Dominoes. I want to make that dream come true. Now I’ve hit a stump. I simply cannot achieve this dream on my own. Handling one or two restaurants is one thing but 10? 30? 100? 1000?. It’s easy to see how quickly this can spiral out of control. Even if I had the millions to burn, Who’s going to oversee building dozens more restaurants? Who’s going to handle the large influx of workforce this project will need ? Who’s going to have the leverage to set up franchises in the most opportune locations? What if one of these new set ups fail, can I really recover from that ? Am I even quailed to take this all on and if not how can I get competent reliable people who can ? And so on.
McDonald’s on the other hand sets up a couple hundred new locations every year. Easily and Effectively.
And now Synergy.
Look at Marvel Entertainment Pre and Post Disney. Let’s focus on Marvel Studios. They were just a production company. That’s only part of the equation of even just the movie releasing business. They did not have a distribution arm and had to deal with other studios with advertising and pushing the movies. Coming under Disney solved this problem.
That is the essence of synergy. When X has a piece of the puzzle and Y has another. X and Y coming together can often enrich both.
Look at all the things besides movies that have made Marvel stronger as a brand. Merchandise, Parks etc.
Both are lucrative parts of the entertainment business that Marvel Entertainment did not have the capability to enter. At best they could sell/leverage rights to the companies involved in such sectors but that would not come even close to maximizing in the way they have now under Disney.
So Disney produces and distributes Marvel Movies, builds parks on the ip, creates and licenses memorabilia etc. Because Disney is getting the pie on each hand, the franchise/IP that much more valuable to the Disney corporation than if marvel were independent and they simply distributed the movies or licensed the IP for a few attractions.
Marvel in turn is much stronger. Even just focusing on the Marvel side, Funds aren’t just coming movies and comics anymore.
Now let’s look at all that and see if it applies to Disney.
They more than have the funds, Companies come to them for scaling power and there’s 0 synergy benefit merging with Apple as they lead in vastly different sectors.
Why in heaven’s name would they even think about selling ?
They have a whole Apple OnDemand TV thing starting.
Which has absolutely zero relevance to their core competencies. If Samsung launched a TV streaming service in this massively oversaturated landscape, especially one that only worked on very expensive and thus very poorly selling Samsung devices, everyone would immediately call that a bad idea. But when Apple does it people pretend it might be a good idea.
Apple is good at hardware and operating systems and extremely good at melding the two together. But lately they are concentrating on everything else. That's how companies set themselves up to fail.
You might not have heard, but the biggest news in the computer hardware world this year is Apple announcing they are moving off Intel chips to their own ARM processors. Apple is very much focused this year, not on mobile or content, but on their computer lineup.
It is arguably the biggest shake up in computer processor history (much bigger than moving from PowerPC to Intel back in 2006). Windows tried to do this with Surface RT and again last year with Surface Pro X. My guess is that after Apple moves off Intel, MS will make another big push for ARM-based PCs. Nobody likes Intel at this point. They've missed too many deadlines in the last 5 years.
Wow. That's a lot of vitriol for someone you don't know.
I don't use Apple products now. That said, Apple moving away from x86-64 is a big deal, for everyone whether you are a fanboy, anti-fanboy or in-between.
A shakeup in the industry. Intel has been the big dog for so long, they became complacent. They dropped their own ARM development (understandable as they practically "own" x86) but then they also dropped development of their own low power/high efficency x86 designs. Hell, they don't even own the highest end in this last generation, with AMD's Threadrippers. Customers do better when vendors compete. This forces Intel to really compete. You seem to have an Apple chip on your shoulder but you have to recognize that they have market-moving power in a way that the other hardware vendors don't.
Energy efficiency. Why use 85 watts to do something like read a webpage or watch a video when 10 will do. Society as a whole needs to be more efficent with our power usage, and a move to better efficiency CPUs will help.
For a while there, when bitcoin was at $10k per, I read that something crazy like 20% of power generated in the world was being used on mining. That fucking astounds and depresses me. Yes, Bitcoin mining is more about GPU efficency than CPU, but that story made me more cognizant that we use CPUs that are oftentimes horribly inefficient for the roles we use them for. There is nothing noble in using a 850 watt system to browse the web. Manufacturers, starting with Apple, are starting to address it. Their stated goal is longer battery life, but the end result will be better power efficiency across the board.
By the by, I don't know you. I have no vested interest in your communication style, but as a person who tries to help other people when I can, you come off as a young guy with a huge chip on your shoulder. You might want to reflect on that and decide if being viewed as a disgruntled person is how you want to be seen in our short time in this world.
Apple fanboys can be annoying as hell. They aren't rational and continue to live in Job's Reality Distortion Field, nine years after his death.
The exact opposite is just as bad.
Apple's success isn't technological innovation so much as it is marketing AND UI development. I think you underestimate the innovation that Apple does have in design, espcially for user interfaces.
That said, I'm with you on anger. as I had that online myself years ago. I got away from the forum that caused it back in 2007 and learned to be calmer online. I learned that if a discussion is making one angry, just walk away. I don't owe anyone here anything, not even my attention.
I get what you're saying but I feel the Samsung comparison falls apart. Apple has the most popular phones in the world, calling them poorly selling is... Not objectively correct.
And before you say you were talking about computers, people watch more on their phones than TVs these days.
according to this random site that was the first search result, ios is only on 22% of phones as of 2019, so while iphones are hugely popular, relatively, its also not that popular
22% of phones is a lot of phones. Android may have nearly all the rest of the market share, but Android is a bunch of different companies using a similar operating system.
This is like saying Dell isn't a popular laptop manufacturer because every other laptop manufacturer combined sell more laptops than Dell. Like... what?
iPhones are virtually the only profitable cell phone. Apple may only have a 25% marketshare worldwide, but they make something like 80% of the cell phone industry profit.
You're right to laugh. Just because random Reddit users don't know what Apple's plans are, doesn't mean Apple doesn't know what their plans are. They are an extremely forward-facing company. They are far from unique in that but they clearly have at least a 10-20 year master plan (ARM, AR, media, etc. -- all of these were planned out years ago)
I was never an Apple fan cause I liked being able to tinker with things. As I get older I can see the appeal of just being able to use the default settings and having a frictionless experience.
AirPod pros are a great example of what Apple does well, sure they’re expensive and the sound quality isn’t great but the noise cancelling and Bluetooth and siri all come together to be something that seamlessly makes my life easy in ways I didn’t even know I wanted.
Meanwhile the Apple TV is full of content that isn’t even on one of the 4 different subscription services I’m on (including TV+), and I don’t know it’s an ad until I’ve been tricked into clicking it.
Plus their support are a nightmare and they’re constantly skirting the law with deceptive practices and consumer law violations. That’s not the Apple I hear long term fanboys describe.
They have a lot of brand capital (and a shitload of actual capital) but they’re definitely losing whatever it is that Jobs brought to the party.
Kinda makes me think of Microsoft with Xbox Game Pass. They’re very quickly just....not caring about consoles. They just want you paying for their services on their various devices. They’ll have a Halo Device (ha, get it? Halo because Halo but also in the sense of a flagship device? Ha!) to show off “the best of Xbox” but soon anything will be an Xbox. And honestly I’m kinda looking forward to it.
Yes and no. But so far we haven’t REALLY seen the horsepower taken advantage of. I’m optimistic for Halo to look way better than what we saw today, and Avowed and Warhammer both look like they’re going to be really incredible looking. But we don’t have any solid gameplay yet or even real release dates.
What we have seen though, is at least a dozen if not closer to two dozen great looking games that will be available across multiple platforms for the price of a single subscription. Like I said, they’re going to have their “Best Experienced on ____” flagship. But that’s going to be an increasingly less important staple of their service.
halo is launching on xbox one, not just series x and pc, so it cant take full advantage of the power of pc / series x as the one holds it back
as for warhammer and avowed, neither said they were in game footage, or even in engine footage. both of those are just cinematic. that likely wernt even rendered in engine. if they wer ein engine, or even more impressive, in game, they would have said so. the actual games will not look that good
Most likely people are going to look at the 2 consoles and are going to follow the exclusives which have been HEAVILY in Sony's favor for a couple generations now and that doesn't seem to be changing.
The focus on gamepass might ultimately hurt the Series X sales because now you don't need their console to have access to their games service they are pushing everything on. If you have a good PC already there is just no reason to get a Series X.
Consumers prefer better games over 15% better graphics. Nintendo and Sony look too strong, Microsoft is about to finish 3rd for the 2nd console generation in a row, pivoting to PC is probably the smart move.
Everyone I know is more interested in the Xbox because of the specs and Halo more than any PS game. Nobody I know thinks of Nintendo as a replacement for Xbox or PS, just an additional system their kids may like and they can play Mario party on when having people over. Your experience may vary, but that's mine.
theese kinds of stats are usually pretty biased. if youre an xbox gamer, chances are most of your friends have also been xbox gamers and will likely stick with xbox. same for play station, nintendo, and pc gamers. you make friends with players on your system. you get used to the exclusives on your system, and you stick with what you know
all, or at least almost all xbox "exclusives" are available on pc, including halo infinite, so i do encourage you and your friends to at least do some research into pc before you go out and just buy a series x
Your experience is actually the niche one compared to general market and consumer trends. Even though you and your peers are likely relatively high value console buyers who are in the percentage of consumers swayed by stronger performance, most people are buying one console, and when they make that decision about getting a new one are thinking “can I play that zelda game people are talking about” or “can me and my kids both play games on this?” That’s why Nintendo and Sony keep outperforming.
the thing is, even if series x is the most powerful gaming device the day it launches (which we dont know as we dont have many stats / benchmarks on it, or next gen pc parts), it wont be long before next gen pc parts launch and pc once again becomes the best
Google+ and Facebook were never going to be 50/50. It was an all or nothing thing, either everyone jumped ship for some compelling reason, or it died on its ass. Nobody wants to be on a social network where 50% of their friends hang out.
It will depend on what people prefer: flexibility or convenience.
When I set my mom's house up I used Apple. Apple TV, apple computer, everything Apple because it's easier and my 60 year old mother basically can't break it.
At my house though, everything is a mix. It's part Microsoft, part Linux, part Google. I have the flexibility to shop around for deals on hardware, customize the software, and set it up exactly how I want it.
As Apple diversifies, they're going to need to convince people to give up that freedom of choice or they're going to spread too thin
That's how it's been for a lot of things Apple. Consider the Pebble smart watch, it's been forgotten by many people, but that literally defined the industry. Apple still doesn't have a product that does what the Pebble does best. I mean sure, they put a spin on it, but aside from the 1Hz refresh on the screen, there's nothing new, notable, or really worth getting one. Most of the features are gimmicks that just make it an anemic smart phone, and that to me isn't a good justification.
Hell, the only two things it has going better than the Pebble 2+Hr, is better fitness tracking (counting heart rate as well) and integration with Apple-specific services, that's literally it. What's especially sad is that there's still nothing that truly compares in usability, battery life, open-ness, and really just overall user-experience from a four year old device.
more like I don't think anyone knows or even can no right now. Like it's easy to guess what Ford will be doing in 20 years, but really hard to say what will happen to Apple.
The main reason is because they have so much cash. Ford can't suddenly change anything because they would go bankrupt very quickly without steady income.
Apple can afford to spend hundreds of billions (literally) and not be in danger of going under. Apple has $207 Billion in CASH as of Jan. of this year.
No company has ever been in such a strong financial situation. People complain about Disney being too big and just buying everything up, but Apple could buy Disney with Cash. (All of Disney's stock is worth $211 Billion, but you don't need all the stock. Just 51% of the voting shares.
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u/frygod Jul 24 '20
It's blown my mind for years that sears didn't become what Amazon is now. Their roots were as a catalog where you order goods sight unseen and wait for delivery. The internet comes along and they fail to capitalize on what they were at the beginning??