Having
worked in the print and design industry for more than 20 years, Apple is a
company that I have followed very closely.
The early
development of computers saw Apple specialise in the desk top publishing market
– aiming specifically at quick-print companies like Direct2Print.
The Mac
competed head-on with PC’s driven by Microsoft software but manufactured by
many different suppliers and ended up the loser.
The Mac
could never compete with the economies of scale the PC offered the wider market
and had to include a substantial price premium to survive.
You had to
buy separate software – and usually also at a substantially higher cost than
software designed to operate on Windows.
It took the
return of Steve Jobs as CEO and some investment from; amongst others, Microsoft
owner Bill Gates, to help the business survive financially difficult times some
twenty years ago.
However, Apple
learnt from their early failures and in particular, the main reasons why
Microsoft so dominated the computer market.
And how the
tables have now turned.
Their recent
successes are reflected in their financial results, which are absolutely
staggering.
If Apple
were a country it would have a greater GDP than many countries – including Hong
Kong and Finland. It could afford to buy
480 of the top 500 companies in the United States for cash. In the last quarter, some 34,000 i-phones
were sold around the world every second!
At the same
time the market for desktop and laptop computers has collapsed and Microsoft is
desperately trying to catch up in the now predominant mobile and tablet market.
The
investment made by Apple into design and functionality is now really paying
off.
How it all began
Microsoft decided
(quite rightly) that the money to be made in the early days of desktop
computing was in the software rather than the hardware.
The Windows operating
system was pre-loaded on every new PC – usually with their “free” Office Suite bundle
of programmes.
Manufacturers
producing the hardware, like IBM and HP, were successful because of the
Microsoft software.
By putting
all their resources into an integrated suite of programmes, Microsoft became
the operating system for virtually all the computers produced around the world. And they made it difficult for any competing
software.
WordPerfect
was a better word processor programme than Microsoft Word – but because it was
pre-loaded it became dominant.
The same
happened to the more specialist spreadsheet software. Lotus 123 was crushed by the emergence of Microsoft
Excel.
Access
became the norm for databases and Publisher an ideal beginners programme for
inexperienced graphic designers. Similarly, PowerPoint revolutionised printed
presentations.
The secret
of the Microsoft success was the simplicity of the programmes and their
integration – everything worked well together and a new generation of computer
users became competent and conversant with their programmes.
Why we went the PC Route?
We had the
choice back in 1992 between Apple Mac’s or PC’s.
When Desk
top publishing replaced the traditional methods – such as our IBM “Golfball” machine, bromides and the very
expensive Letraset typesetting transfers used in pre-press print preparation –
the instant print market really took off.
Probably
more than 80% of companies in this sector preferred the Apple Mac
solution.
We were
cheapskates and decided upon the PC route.
The main
reason was the combined cost of the hardware and software.
Corel Draw was comparatively cheap (compared
to the alternatives created for a Mac like Quark Express) and more importantly,
came with some 2000 standard fonts and clip art.
With Quark, you
had to purchase fonts separately – and the additional costs made a big
difference to a small print and design business trying to service a large
number of very small customers.
If a client
is paying a few hundred pounds for a brochure the cost of purchasing a font is
comparatively small, but for a £20 design for a business card it is a
relatively high proportion of the cost.
We still use
Corel Draw to this day – but we are indebted to Adobe for creating the PDF.
The
nightmares we used to have trying to print from different programmes and
different versions of the same software are now a thing of the past.
We love
Microsoft PowerPoint because it helped to create the market for online document
printing. The heavy ink saturation
resulted in enormous printing costs and slow print speeds for people trying to
print their own slides on a small home or office printer.
As our
digital colour printers became more sophisticated, they could print out a
PowerPoint presentation in a few seconds – we would wire bind them together and
hey presto – some pretty impressive hand-outs.
Sadly,
Microsoft Publisher is an awful programme – despised by most print and copy
shops and avoided at all costs by any commercial printer.
Still we
never regretted the PC decision – although things may change in the future.
We were even
given a second-hand Mac as part of a bad debt settlement but still used the
PC’s and used the Mac just to open some customer files!
But things
change.
My first Apple
Two years
ago I bought an Apple i-pad and a slightly smaller Samsung Galaxy Tab at the
same time.
The i-pad
was easier to use, portable and had a superb screen resolution. The tab was very much second best – both in
design and aesthetics.
Today,
experts claim a major part of the success of Apple is that their products all
work well with each other.
So when the
time came to replace my home computer – we went with Apple again and purchased the
more expensive i-Mac.
Over the
years the PC’s I had at home slowed dramatically, picked up viruses, crashed on
numerous occasions and struggled with any memory-intensive programmes.
The i-Mac
looked good and came with the software pre-loaded included in the bundle cost.
For a
PC the software would now have been a lot extra. The Office bundle could be downloaded but
almost for the same cost as the computer!
Having never
used Apple’s equivalent to Microsoft - I
can’t comment on the various merits of their word processors, spreadsheets etc.
and still prefer to use my work PC’s for letters, reports or anything I need to
email.
I struggle
with i-tunes and some of the other programmes but for photographs and video
creation in my opinion it is far superior to the PC.
I-photo
makes the storage and editing of photographs so easy – compared to every other PC
programme I have used.
And i-movie
is a revelation. One session from the
Apple specialist at PC World and suddenly I realised how easy Apple had made
video creation.
I still have
no idea how to use all the keyboard or even the mouse – but their design and
aesthetics stand out.
My first
video for work is uploaded and embedded into our new website – www.direct2print.co and the video has been uploaded to YouTube.
Have a look
at the video -(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bo_hyWtEgg) it took just a few
hours to complete.
The question
now is where does Apple go from here? And
what can their competitors do to keep up?
They have
such a large cash mountain you can afford to gamble and even make a few
mistakes along the way.
And they are
even planning to generate more cash by creating bonds because their cost of
lending is so low and tax efficient.
The only
reason for hope is that everybody thought Microsoft would go on to dominate the
world.
Technology
moves quickly and even the biggest companies need to adapt.
The future
may not be Apple after all!
