Apple Cedes
Apple controlled the education market, then let it go…
There was a time growing up when the only time I ever came across an Apple computer was at school. This was the heyday of Windows. Basically everyone I knew had an IBM-compatible PC at home. Yet schools remained a stronghold for Apple. At the time, I found this odd, but it made perfect sense in hindsight. This was a brilliant strategy on Apple’s part.
For many of us, the first computer we ever used was at school. And as such, the first computer we ever used was an Apple computer. While we may not have been in the position of power when it came to a purchasing decision at the time, I often wonder if this early seeding of Apple didn’t play a role in me eventually making the jump from PC to Mac.¹
The proverbial, “get them hooked early”.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Apple becoming the most valuable company on the planet. They seemingly stopped caring about the schools. They’ll deny this, of course. But at the very least, they certainly stopped caring as much about the market. To see this, look no further than the inroads Google has been able to make with Chromebooks. And fittingly, even Microsoft has now broken in to the schools in a meaningful way. Hence the need for Apple to hold an education-focused event tomorrow.
Now, we can argue as to whether Apple lost the market versus Google winning it. But wasn’t this supposed to be one of the focal points of the iPad? Presumably, that’s what we’re going to hear about tomorrow. But will a price cut be enough, or is there a larger mentality problem here?
I ask this because I’m reminded of another market Apple has seemingly ceded over recent years: pro tools. Just to take one example, when I worked in Hollywood, it was without question an Apple town. Perhaps even more so than the school environments. If you were working in the movies, you were using a Mac.²
Then Apple decided to un-pro Final Cut Pro. It was only after an immense uproar that they rolled back many of the changes. But then they did something similar to the Mac Pro. The trash can version was decidedly less extensible, and as such, less pro. Apple is now in the process of rolling back those changes as well. But literally years have been lost.
On one hand, you understand what is likely going on. As mentioned, Apple is now the most valuable company in the world. The vast majority of that value is driven by one product, the iPhone, which only tangentially touches the segments listed above. Apple is a company of focus. They’re focusing.
On the other hand, it’s dumbfounding that Apple is ceding what are clearly markets of massive strategic value, even if not of direct value at Apple’s current scale. Said another way: sure, pro tools and the classroom may be a relatively small part of Apple’s overall business, but if they think they’re not linked to that overall business, they’re nuts.
Again, I go back to me and my friends using the Mac at school and growing comfortable with it. Fast forward a couple decades, and the lecture halls at colleges were awash in white light from the sea of glowing Apple logos.³ This hardly seems to be a coincidence.
Meanwhile, the pro products were nothing if not aspirational. Like the iPod, they created a halo effect over the whole brand. But because they didn’t turn into the business that the iPhone would become, the markets were ceded. When they should have been being re-seeded.
¹ At the very least, it was always in the back of my mind — the iPod likely pushed it forward.
² Likely a Power Mac/Mac Pro or PowerBook/MacBook Pro.
³ As an aside, I believe it was a huge mistake for Apple to get rid of the glowing Apple on the back of MacBook lids. I know there were technical reasons for doing so, but my god, if that wasn’t the best natural advertising… Apple turned classrooms into massive, glowing billboards. And then stopped doing that to save a fraction of an inch and a tiny bit of weight? (Don’t answer that.)
