<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<title></title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<div id="secondary_ads" class="no_big_gaps_secondary_ads">
<div id="author_avatar"> <img class="article_author_image large"
src="cid:part1.07030302.08030605@nauticom.net">
<h4>Zach Bass</h4>
<span slug="zach-bass" class="add_to_your_watchlist_link"
id="add_to_your_watchlist_link"></span></div>
<div class="item banner160x600"><br>
<script>_GA_googleAdEngine.createDOMIframe('google_ads_div_Electronics_160x600' ,'Electronics_160x600');</script>
</div>
<script>source = getURLParam('source');
if (source == 'yahoo'){
$('yahoo_finance_link').style.display = 'inline';
if ($('yahoo_sector_feed') != null){
$('yahoo_sector_feed').style.display = 'inline';
}
}
</script><a id="cake_link" style="display: none;"
href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/114341-is-there-an-apple-community-anymore?source=yahoo#"
onclick="history.go(-1);return false;"><img
class="back_to_yahoo_finance"
src="cid:part2.03010905.06030402@nauticom.net" alt="back to cake"></a>
<script>
source = getURLParam('source');
if (source == 'cake'){
$('cake_link').style.display = 'inline';
}
</script> </div>
<p>I have lived just
south of Boston all my life. Every year I would wait in great
anticipation for the Macworld Expo to come to the Bayside Expo in the
summer. Some years it was so big, that it spilled over to the World
Trade Center. When Apple (<a href="http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/aapl"
title="More opinion and analysis of AAPL">AAPL</a>)
decided to discontinue the Boston Expo, I was saddened because I felt a
part of the Mac community was now dead. And my fear was that as the
community became marginalized, that Apple would lose market share,
which it did by the way.</p>
<p>Back in the early days of Mac, mid 80s
to early 90s, there was a definite community. In fact I participated in
that community in a material way. I belonged to, and was an active
member in, the Boston Mac Users Group (<a
href="http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/bmug"
title="More opinion and analysis of BMUG">BMUG</a>),
and I ran the MacMentors Bulletin Board Service, or BBS. For those too
young to remember, BBSs were the precursor to the Internet. It was a
dial-up service that was interconnected with tens or even hundreds of
other like services. My BBS had four 2400 baud modems attached and over
2,000 users from all over the world. It was truly a community, with a
self nurturing culture. I was also a speaker at several Macworld
conferences and some of the New York City based conferences, and
consulted in the field of electronic publishing.</p>
<p>The Boston
Macworld Expo was a critical part of maintaining that community culture
because it gave us Macophiles a chance to meet face to face, and to
share the unique experience that was Mac, the computer for the rest of
us. Back then Apple was barely a $1 billion dollar company and losing
ground under the uninspiring leadership of Scully, Amelio and then
Spindler. Apple needed the community to hold itself together and
survive.</p>
<p>And how ironic was it that Steve Jobs was ousted from
Apple because the board of directors didn’t believe he had the ability
to run a billion dollar enterprise. So, they tried their hand with
corporate veterans, like Pepsi man John Scully. What does a guy hocking
soda know about personal computers?</p>
<p>Anyway, Steve comes back and
re-injects his vision, takes Apple back to its roots by recognizing the
customers that got it to that point, and then proceeded to expand that
customer base. But that’s when the community started to fade. Apple was
outgrowing the need for a community, and also outgrowing the need for
regional expos, because it was interfering with the natural product
cycles and marketing plans that were bringing the company back to life.
Apple, under the leadership of Steve Jobs, was growing up, and turning
into an efficient machine that embraced the purist forms of capitalism.
The faithful were still there, and always will be, but Apple expanded
its base by delivering products that people wanted, and by knowing who
those people were.</p>
<p>The vision that launched the Mac initially
was a closed system, it was simple and elegant, and made computing fun
and easy. Apple accomplished this through total control over every
aspect of the design and delivery of the product. When Steve left, this
vision waned. When he returned, so did the vision. Jobs recognized that
in order to rekindle its success, Apple needed to control not only the
supply chain, design and marketing, but also the sales and support end
too. So, that’s why it opened the Apple Stores. The mom and pop shops
and the big box retailers weren’t cutting it. They were unable to
deliver the level of support and the total experience that was encased
in the Steve Jobs vision.</p>
<p>The most recent implementation of this
vision was shedding the shackles of Macworld. Apple no longer needed
Macworld, in fact it was becoming a ball and chain to their future
plans. And while some Mac fanatics feel that Apple has dissed them, and
snubbed their noses at what was left of the Mac community, what these
fanatics failed to realize is that the Mac community died many years
ago. The new pseudo community is a bit more sterile. But the brick and
mortar Apple Stores, the Apple online store, and the iTunes and App
stores, provides a much more efficient and useful experience for the
customers, and that’s the bottom line.</p>
<p>Apple can no longer be
bound by the timing of Macworld. Early January simply doesn't work for
it. This became amplified as Apple started to switch major product
announcements to the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), and other
ad-hoc venues. Apple’s VP Phil Schiller expounded on this point to
David Pogue after his Macworld keynote, explaining that having to come
up with another dazzling show every January—a huge production, starring
knock-’em-dead new products every year—was unsustainable. Speaking to
Apple product cycles: the holiday season (Novemberish), the educational
buying season (late summer), the iPod product cycle (October), the
iLife development cycle (usually March), the iPhone cycle (June).
January doesn’t fit ANY of them.</p>
So it’s clear, the community
aspect of Macworld is no longer needed or wanted by Apple. And there
are far better, and more efficient ways for Apple to move product.
Maintaining a community isn’t one of them. The Apple community is dead,
long live the Apple community.
</body>
</html>