Apple holding, Microsoft dipping: new devices, anyone?

Although it has been a quiet month for Apple, plenty seems to be going on at (and around) Apple.

Apple announced its profits for the last quarter, for one thing, showing a decline in Mac sales but still, strangely, profits that were higher than Wall Street's expectations. And they still rose more than 15 per cent overall.

Apple sold 2.22 million Macintosh computers in the last quarter, representing a three per cent unit decline on the year-ago quarter. Macs are still well perceived - Apple's overall customer satisfaction rating was 14 points above its closest competitor (at 80 per cent) in the latest Forrester research. But potential Mac buyers may be holding their breaths for new iMacs.

If there's any growth in PC sales at all, these days, it's in cheap netbooks. Apple's refusal (so far) to build a netbook may be having consequences for Mac sales.

An interesting rumour says Apple may build some more affordable Macs as "an interim solution" to combat the proliferation of budget netbooks. I don't know what to make of this idea, frankly, until I hear more.

Tongues are wagging as Apple has been employing graphics chip experts like former ATI CTO Bob Drebin. Then the most recent ATI CTO (Raja Koduri) joined Apple. IBM's Mark Papermaster started work at for the Cupertino company recently (he's an ASIC engineer) and Reuters mentions Valley reports of other engineers getting hired to build multi-function chips, although we may not see results of new Apple chip development for a year.

But Apple's last profits were still good because of the strong demand for iPhones and iPods. In particular the iPod touch really seems to be doing well. An iPod touch is a lot like an iPhone, of course. It has the same large screen but is slimmer and doesn't have a phone or a camera.

But in wireless zones, with an iPod touch you can email, surf the net and (if your earbuds have a built-in microphone) you can even talk to people on Skype, and all without having to maintain cell phone plans.

And of course, you have access to all those thousands of Apps in the iTunes App Store, which makes a touch so much more than a music player. Above all, the touch is a fascinating little games platform.

Of Apple's last profits announcement, analyst Yair Reiner of Oppenheimer said on Reuters:  "I think that what these results show is that Apple and this brand are relatively resilient."

Yes, well, Apple's revenue rose 8.7 per cent to US$8.16 billion (currently over 14 billion in NZ dollars). The average Wall Street forecast for Apple was for US$7.96 billion. This gives Apple a tidy US29 billion in the bank, by the way. Don't you wish you owned that bank?

Meanwhile, Microsoft's sales in the first three months of 2009 fell 6 per cent from the previous year, reported the BBC. This was Microsoft's first quarterly drop in 23 years as a public company.

It still shows many tech companies are sharing that aforesaid resilience, especially compared to other giant US firms in this recession. The world's largest software maker's profit may have dropped by 32 per cent but hey, it's still profit.(Need I mention Chrysler, GM..?)

But since Apple's profit announcements, the BlackBerry has knocked the iPhone off its smartphone perch in the US, partly perhaps because potential iPhone buyers may now be holding off until June, when new models are expected (note that this is only rumoured, not announced).

NPD Group Inc, a US market research outfit, said that the top selling United States smartphone in the last quarter was the BlackBerry Curve. Apple's iPhone 3G was second, but another two BlackBerrys took third and fourth (the Storm, then Pearl). The T-Mobile G came in fifth.

Unlike most markets, the smartphone sector is still volatile and still growing. Smartphones represented 17 per cent of handset sales volume in the first quarter of 2008, but in the first quarter of 2009 the figure was 23 per cent. People are migrating towards handhelds with web capabilities - this according to the site 9to5 Mac.

Like Macs though, iPhones are loved by customers, according to J D Power and Associates' data. The Apple game-changer scores higher in customer satisfaction.

Of course, Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco - which sold out in record time - is widely tipped to be the launch platform for new Mac hardware and software, particularly in the professional sphere. Since Apple scripts this whole event, if you ask me that means anything goes on the release front.

Out of interest, you might like to read a Computerworld story about Preston Gralla, a long time PC expert who had to give up his device of choice and use a Mac for two weeks. (It was reprinted on Macworld, a sister magazine.)

As always, it's interesting times where Apple is concerned.

- Mark Webster mac.nz

 

PHOTO: Is the Apple notebook family big enough already?