Transitioning From Guesswork To Analysis In Predicting Apple Product Transitions

There has been some discussion going on about the direction of Apple next new models. Speculation became rampant when the Apple CFO referred to some product transition coming up, which may squeeze profit margins.

People are trying to guess if it means a switch from Intel to AMD, some new chipset from Semi, the company that Apple acquired, some new video chipset, etc. I can see that they can be called 'trasitions' - but then, so is changing the way a power adaptor connects to the laptop. I do not see any of these as having significant enough impact to warrant the CFO warning of some lower profit margins.

My prediction is that Apple may decide to let Mac OS X run on non-Apple 'Windows/Wintel' machines (which would lower margins and be a product 'transition' at the same time).

To keep pace with, while not really price-matching the low quality fares of HP and Dell, they would also reduce their own hardware prices somewhat, but still command a premium for additional things like Semi related chips, perhaps GPS and a WWAN capability built in.

And, finally, perhaps it is time for the granddaddy of the old and defunct Apple Newton, bring in a TouchMac. A tablet style MacBook Pro with touchscreen, iPhone like functionality, and 3D display capability.

It would be cute to call them TouchBooks, but Panasonic may object based on their Toughbook trademarks. That would be tough to book as a trademark!

What do you think?

Stolen content from Bill Gates' new "visionary" book

Here is a stolen list of content points from (the so-called v:$:onary) Bill Gates' upcoming new book.....

- Internet will be huge one day
- People will be able to communicate easily using it one day
- Security will become important one day, maybe
- Online music will be a revolutionary new market one day
- Lots of cell phones will be used one day
- Lots of PDA and cameras will come in cell phones one day
- Open Source is a fad going away any day
- iPod is a temporary thing, (we will copy it any day)
- iTunes is a fad (our version is too buggy to release yet)
- Windows XXXP will only require 3 major patches before it runs
- Blue screen will be replaced by Red, to softly tell people they'e bloody fools to buy the new OS
- Longhorn is beginning to feel like one, Bill REALLY needs it to get out sooooooon!

:-)