The political Mac once again, more sales for Apple?

David Brooks, a conservative columnist, had an article, Questions for Dr. Retail, in Friday's NY Times. In it he says this.

Listen, the essential competition in many consumer sectors is between commodity providers and experience providers, the companies that just deliver product and the companies that deliver a sensation, too. There’s Safeway, and then there is Whole Foods. There’s the PC, and then there’s the Mac. There are Holiday Inns, and there are W Hotels.

He goes on to say the following.

Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the less-educated, less-pretentious consumer....She’s got good programs at good prices.

Barack Obama is an experience provider. He attracts the educated consumer....They want an uplifting experience so they can persuade themselves that they’re not engaging in a grubby self-interested transaction. They fall for all that zero-carbon footprint, locally grown, community-enhancing Third Place hype....

Obama offers to defeat cynicism with hope.

So how does this relate to us as Macintosh users and especially to those of us who use both platforms?  Brooks goes on to admit that people sometimes cross shop.  It is a little bit of a challenge to look through Brooks' foggy conservative glasses, but he brings out an interesting point on experience providers.

I do think people stay with Macs because of the user experience that they provide.

A little over a  year ago, I wrote a post, The liberal Mac and the conservative PC.

I boiled down platform choice to this.

I think a lot of platform choice boils down to how you relate to technology.  I think most PC users got their PCs for very specific reasons....

I think the people drawn to the Mac chose it more for what it might do, than for what they knew it would do.

I mentioned a third reason that sometimes comes to play.  People buy computers or any item because it makes them feel cool or part of a cool group.

I got slapped with this again very recently by a colleague who is a dyed in the wool PC user with an iPod.  He started gushing about wanting a new MacBook Air.  It dawned on me that here was a fairly young person still in the mode of catching trends. 

To a certain extent these might well be the new Apple customer.  They go into an Apple Store feel the vibes and want to be part of the company that is selling those vibes.  This is classic consumer marketing and Apple seems to be leaning more and more towards its.

I started using Mac in 1984 and because I worked for the company for those twenty years until 2004, I never questioned my Mac use.  On a day to day basis I saw the Mac bring enhanced productivity to people who were using it.  That ranged from students on college campuses to NASA Scientists and some of the brightest people you could imagine meeting including many high level executives.

Even in the dark days of Apple when we were shipping systems that had problems, I still saw the Mac as a major positive influence in the computing world.

The Mac let people live their computer dreams.  I know I achieved stuff with a Mac that I would have never guessed was possible.

I am far from a political expert, but if we are seeing a real surge in young people who seem to be buying into political dreams, it is not too far fetched to think this could lead to great year on campus for Apple if they could crank up that creaky higher education marketing machine and tie the Mac in as the ultimate computer dream machine for students.

In a certain respect the Mac is already that product.  It you want it to be a PC it can be a PC.  It can also be a Mac and provide students with some of the best creative tools around.

I have looked and looked and have yet to find web tools in the PC world as slick as RapidWeaver and ShutterBug.  Both have retail prices that look like student pricing.  With a Mac you also get a machine with standard applications like iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD.  For a small amount more you can get Keynote and Pages.

Pages is not something that I use a lot, and it could use some serious upgrades, but it is still is a tool that offers a lot of creativity for not a lot of money.  I still love the presentations that you can do with Keynote.  I maintain they are head and shoulders above what you can do with PowerPoint.

In a world of PC people, the Mac offers a students a way to have another dimension.  They are probably going to know how to do most common tasks on a PC just like everyone else, so why not learn another computer language and give yourself a little more credibility and versatility.

While the Mac's market share is growing, I believe this is a time when Apple is at great risk.  The stock is battered, there has been some negative publicity, iPod growth is slowing, and there are questions about the iPhone.  Plenty of people in the technology press not only believe it is always possible for Apple to take aim at its own foot once again, but a fair number would be happy to see that happen.

As much as I would like to see Apple pay attention to my needs which are a reasonably powered, low priced expandable desktop at under $1,000, perhaps it makes more business sense to seize on these younger buyers.  The last time the Mac had double digit market share it was driven by phenomenal success on college campuses.  That was followed by new hires so loyal to their Macs that they carried them and the enhanced productivity that they brought in the back doors of corporations.

If you go after these kids with aggressively priced laptops, iMacs, the iPod Touch, and the iPhone, it could lead to some serious market gains if Apple continues to focus on enhancing OS X and making it work well in the enterprise where those kids might someday work.

If you get enough people buying into the dream of what a Mac might be able to do instead of just buying a machine to do forms like I bought my Vista laptop, then it will be easy for Apple to weather the drop in sales on iPods and the potential of other products catching the iPhone.

We also cannot see any slips on Apple's core software products.  While the potential of Apple backing down from the video market might scare some, I doubt it would have a major impact on students.

To make this jump to higher student sales, it will take a serious refresh of Apple's laptop line with great products at aggressive higher education prices.  I personally don't think the MacBook in its current state can sustain the kind of wind in the sails success that Apple could see on college campuses.

Apple has about 2.5 months to really get its education line-up in place.  Acceptance letters for college students arrive at mid-April at the latest.  Many of the letters come with computer recommendations.

If we see the right products from Apple in the next few months, it could be a turbo-charged sales environment for Apple over the next few months.

It would be interesting to see a technology company ride the coattails of a political movement.

Comments

[John Muir]

As noted here:

http://daringfireball.net/2008/01/aapl_q1_2008

The iPod is still raking in a lot more cash, and it seems very likely that the iPod touch is responsible. The touch is of course an iPhone by any other name, as it were, which in turn is Apple's all important handheld platform I expect much will come from in the future…

As for the Mac vs. PC, it looks like Apple are in pretty sweet shape. Vista's replacement is years away, and shows no sign of being any better; besides Tiger was holding its own against ensconced XP and then some. Apple's hardware rivals are squeezed more than ever as everything they can do is now so commoditised. And simply put: Apple seem to be playing with future trends much more clearly in mind than any of their competitors are able to.

I won't rule Windows out yet of course! But it feels like Linux is where OS X's competition will come from in time. The Microsoft bootlace – tying together every OEM's shoes – won't be in play by then. But I'm still minded that Apple's greatest strength is that they do both sides of the equation: hardware and software. I anticipate ongoing success.

"While the potential of Apple backing down from the video market might scare some"

I don't think Apple's not showing up at NAB is an indication of anything other than Apple hating to do booths.

[JonJ]

I think there is a widespread assumption (even after all these years) that people only use Macs in order to look cool.

I've been using Macs and only Macs since 1985, not because of the presumed cool factor, but because they have always met my needs, with a minimum of trouble, and I've never seen any reason to use any other brand of computer.

I don't see the iPhone or the iPod touch as meeting my needs, but the iPod classic certainly does (very high capacity), so I haven't bought either of the first two, however cool they may be. I think there are probably a lot of other Apple customers like me.

[ocracokewaves]

My only iPod is the original one that I won for being "Sales manager of the Year" for the business division.

It is low capacity and meets my needs.

I have also passed on the other two platforms.

I wonder if part of the unaccounted for iPhones can be explained by people buying them because they are cool and not using the phone?

[Brett]

While you mention Keynote and Pages, the latest iWorks now also includes the Numbers spreadsheet. This may provide all the number-crunching capability that many people will need, and it is especially good at presenting the results attractively.