March 19, 2009 by Simon King
Apple’s price cuts stand in stark contrast to their public statements on the subject of netbooks. The company recently reacted angrily to suggestions that they were developing an Apple netbook. Rather ironically, for a company so skilled at manipulating the media through controlled leaks, they hit out at the culture of rumour mongering on the various Apple-following blogs and stated that Apple have no idea how to make a computer below $500 dollars “That’s not a piece of junk.”
The implication here from Apple is clear, netbooks are junk and Apple is above making one. That attitude however, is not going to save them from competing. It’s not really the netbooks themselves that are causing the trouble for Apple – there’s clearly a big difference between a netbook and a Macbook – the issue is the newly cut-price PCs that can’t help but take market share away from Apple. To a certain extent they can rely on brand loyalty to save them, there are plenty of people out there who are always going to buy Apple products. However, it’s hard to see many ‘floating consumers’ paying several hundred pounds more just for the Apple cool-factor.
So what can apple do to mitigate the situation. Well, for me, they have two choices, either get into a price war they can’t possibly win with PC manufacturers or boost their sales by building a great netbook and stealing some of that market. Looks like they might have to learn how to build a sub-500 dollar computer.
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