Is Apple the new Microsoft? Definately not.

Read this: Is Apple the new Microsoft?

Firstly, this guy sounds like he has no idea. At the end of the article, he says “…is Apple a monopolist, copycat and bully? Yes, and deservedly so”. Throughout, it seems like sour grapes. Maybe not?

My favourite part is his mention of the iPhone’s price reduction (those that know me, know that pricing strategies is my favourite marketing topic). I actually had this conversation with my mate Dale about this move to reduce the price. Those that remember pre-iPhone may recall a short workforce that required Apple to pull people of the Leopard project to work on the soon-to-be-released iPhone. At inception, if Apple released the iPhone at too low a price, it would have driven too high a demand that they would not have been able to meet. By pricing at the high-end of what the market is willing to pay, they’ve also achieved a high % of return-on-investment. If the cost to build an iPhone is, indeed $245.83, well I am sure a great deal of the profit margin will be going towards innovating other fantastic products.

Fonezone buy NextByte

So, I just read that Fonezone (FZ) have bought Apple retailer, NextByte (NB). Good for FZ: very strategic move and good for NB maybe this will alter their customer-service processes. I don’t really know much about FZ other than, that they are sort of a “Crazy John’s” sort of phone reseller. NB I know well. I have had many dealers with NB and I have noticed some trends in their customer-service. I shan’t hold that against them through fear of defamation. Overall, I think this is an interesting merger: two solid brands that will inter-connect very well. I predict we’ll be seeing co-branded stores in the not-to-distant future which will certainly assist Apple with their strategy of converting Windows users to the Mac OSX platform. I am sure FZ stores generate massive foot-traffic volumes and this will assist in the Apple products actually being seen. Currently, Apple-awareness is quite specialist so it’ll be interesting to see what this move does to that.

By the way, got the logo image from MacTalk.com.au just so you know I ain’t plagerising.