| | See the introduction of the product which turned Apple Computer around in 2001. Yes, I'm talking about iPod. People wouldn't believe that a music player can be this big of a hit at that time. That was when other hard drive based MP3 players were so expensive... and ugly (Look at Nomad Jukebox, or whatever it's called. MP3 player without CD but look like uglier and bulkier Discman... What were they thinking???) And people wouldn't think five years ago that Apple brand was going to be perfect for MP3 player landscape. It looked like Uncle Steve could foresee five years right then.
It seems to me from the first place that Apple was trying to get Mac users to get this iPod. However, it goes the other way around now. Based on the miraculous success of this music player, people think that it creates "halo effect" in Apple's product line. A bunch of people said that they want to convert from PC to Mac, after they've owned and experienced iPod.
More interestingly, Apple knows how great it is to lure people using "dumb little [Windows] box" to get on Apple products. The stock price rose from $20, when they opened iPod to Windows late 2003, to $90 when they did 2:1 stock split around mid 2005. And as you know, the stock is still climbing. It peaked at over $80 early this year before became stabilized at about $60-70 right now. I think this is exactly why they opened their Intel-based Mac to Windows. I wouldn't say that their current product line will be able to match the sales of other players like Dell. However, they should be able to significantly grow their 5% of personal computer market share with this. The recent survey shows that 20 out of 100 people would switch to Mac when it can run Windows, comparing to 7 people when I can't. I'm sure and can't wait to see many more innovations from this Cupertino-based company when it takes 10% more of PC market share. This will be exciting.
A side note here about Uncle Steve's product introduction: look at the last minute of the video I posted again. Who would think that he's got 1000 songs in his pocket from the start! That's really clever. I actually saw it first when he introduced iPod Nano. 1000 songs in this little jeans pocket. Listen to the audiences when he pull it out from this small pocket. He's a darn great presenter.
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| | Posted 6/25/2006 7:12 PM - 2 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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