Posted on 01/26/2005 5:22:19 PM PST by Vermonter
Limbaugh could sell new Mac
This week, Apple Computer is launching a campaign to sell a new product, the $499 Mac Mini, that portends to transform the world in a way the original Mac didn’t. But Republicans will be needed for the campaign to succeed.
To put this in context, you need to read Revolution in the Valley, Andy Hertzfeld’s new book about the making of the original Mac in the 1980s. Hertzfeld points out that the initial target price for the first Mac was $500. But by the time it was launched in 1984, the price had ballooned to $2,495.
Many of the Mac’s creators felt betrayed. All initial design goals had centered on Everyman, but instead of a computer that changed the world, the Mac became a niche machine mainly for artisans and limousine liberals who could afford one. The rest of us bought commodity PCs. Fewer than one in 20 computers sold or used today to cruise the Internet is a Mac.
The Mac Mini could rectify this. But will it? Will a low price tag and terrific design alone entice a mass market to buy this new product? I’m not so sure. Apple’s image may still be an impediment to Mac sales.
To research this column, I read lots of discussion boards all across the Internet, and it’s evident that politics still play a role in computer purchases. Just as there are red states and blue states, there are also Mac Democrats and PC Republicans. These battles were especially nasty after Apple went public with its politics and added Al Gore to its board of directors.
Apple’s leader, Steve Jobs, seems to have sensed last year that his company was getting too “political.” He backed off some of his campaigning for John Kerry and cryptically signaled to The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg in an interview that he understands the problem.
“People have said that I shouldn’t get involved politically because probably half our customers are Republicans — maybe a little less ... [but] I do point out that there are more Democrats than Mac users so I’m going to just stay away from all that political stuff because that was just a personal thing,” Jobs said.
There are, in fact, devoted Republican Macintosh users, but that is not the perception. So Apple desperately needs to introduce a replacement image to achieve the original Mac’s vision. There would be no better way to do this than to add a Republican or two to Apple’s board of directors. Mac users such as Karl Rove or Arnold Schwarzenegger adviser Mike Murphy would be possibilities, but Rush Limbaugh is the most obvious choice. Rush is an ardent Mac evangelist and knows a thing or two about marketing. Even if Limbaugh is not put on Apple’s board, the company should market through his daily radio program, paying Rush to tout his favorite computer the same way he builds mattress sales for Select Comfort.
Hertzfeld’s book says the team that created the original Mac had a spirit of “urgency, ambition, passion for excellence, artistic pride, and irreverent humor.” That sounds just like Rush Limbaugh to me. I know that if Rush had been a board member in 1984, he’d have had the guts to back the famous Big Brother Super Bowl ad that Apple’s then-timorous board abandoned.
Apple marketers also need to understand that restoration of their brand’s image in conservative and Republican circles can resonate with various factions of the party. I have already read favorable gun-owner comments about the Mac Mini on the discussion boards of Ted Nugent’s populist United Sportsmen of America website. James Dobson and his Focus on the Family might be intrigued by a computer that is affordable for young families and not subject to porno pop-up ads. And business Republicans will be impressed by the seamless integration of the Mac’s OS X operating system with corporate networks.
The Republican Party is a big tent. Apple should come on in.
What Apple could do is get Rush Limbaugh to sell the new Mac to conservatives. Then, to forestall a liberal boycott, Apple could get Al Franken to sell the new Mac to liberals... for however long his radio program lasts. ;)
There are (three) major opertating systems out there, OSx, Linux and Windoze. What are you talking about ?
Conservatives are intelligent, they generally know the value of a dollar, and they expect a high rate of return for their investment, thus they are natural Mac owners. :-)
Since 1997. Any USB peripheral will work on a Mac.
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George, you really should stop believing all that Microsoft marketing crap.
Macs have also been compatible with PC monitors since the days of VGA.
The G4 Cube was designed as a sort of premium-priced business computer. It failed because that market segment isn't terribly big. The Mini is designed as the opposite - a very low-cost computer.
It came with office??? Typically Macs ship with AppleWorks. Office can run several hundred dollars depending on if you buy the Windows emulator or use a student discount.
For quite a while now. Mac will support any USB mouse or keyboard (or printer for that matter).
It has a few slight advantages, the reviewing tools are a bit nicer, but overall there aren't any major differences except that the Entourage mail client is lousy for working with an MS Exchange-based mail system when compared with Outlook.
I was looking at the new iMacs, but they only have FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394) and no FireWire 800. So I'll wait until it has both...
My wife has one of those too. It's a little slow running OSX, but she doesn't realize it ;-}
red
And that's the real strength of the Mac IMHO. Straight out of the box I plugged my Sony Mini-DV dvr into the Mac via firewire and the Mac instantly recognized it, started iMovie, and let me easily import the movie I had taped.
I had the same success for my Fuji camera, which was instantly recognized by the Mac.
In the PC world I had to install custom software and drivers for both, work out the bugs (especially with the Fuji), and then use two programs that couldn't talk to one another.
With iLife I can easily create a DVD of my home movies using a professional quality theme, insert a slide show into the title screen using my still photos, and even add a complete slide show as a menu option from within the DVD. I've never seen a suite of PC apps that gave you as much as iLife, and iLife is free with all Macs.
I have the G5 17" iMac, it's awesome but I would have bought a Mini if it were available. The G5 is nice, but a G4 would have been fine for my needs.
Anyone have one of those beds? How are they?
They sold more Macs in Q404 than any previous quarter in four years. Their sales are gradually moving upward as the iPod introduces people to Apple. The Mac Mini is meant to capitalize on the success of the iPod.
Yeah... BUT...
A lot of that FSF/GNU Software (GPL'd stuff) could be ported by smart programmers with OS X knowledge. They've got nearly everything written for free already, other things are under development.
Some people really need to get a life.
EBAY!!
Keep in mind the Mac Mini is a consumer device, most folks don't upgrade their PCs, they pass them along.
I think that's what I have, the DV special edition. A transparent casing, so you can see all the computer guts inside. It's a dinosaur by today's standards but it's running as good as the day I bought it 5+ years ago so...
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