With the latest release from apple called Leopard I thought http://www.technewsworld.com that Apple was going to take significant share from Microsoft because Vista hasn’t been doing very well. Leopard, which was a comparatively less risky point release (Vista was a full release) would be seen as vastly more stable and desirable. In addition with most stuff off the desktop and on the web the bar for moving to the MacOS has never been lower.

Now that Leopard has the nickname Leoptard http://www.lowerelement.com things clearly aren't turning out the way I thought. And the name is starting to spread:

http://www.pcmag.com

http://blogs.zdnet.com

http://www.theinquirer.net

http://runawayjim.org

It's even hit Fake Steve Jobs:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com



Full Release vs. Point Release

Let’s start by pointing out the big advantage that Apple had against Microsoft. Because Microsoft has to address a massive amount of hardware and software, and because the Windows NT code base which Windows XP was based on was largely pre-Internet, the product is both incredibly complex and mostly new. That makes for a full release and full releases are always painful, recall that the first release of OSX cost Apple nearly 50% if its installed base and that was the only full release that product has had and you’ll also recall how painful these things can be. Also recall that OSX was an end-run product after they failed to bring out their own OS (OSX is based on BSD UNIX).

Vista, on the other hand, is all Microsoft with all if its warts and count the number of other companies which have brought out major releases of operating systems this decade (two: Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3) and you’ll get a sense that this is not something folks even want to do often.

Leopard was a point release like Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, and Windows ME (and with the name Leaptard being widely used now I’m thinking the connection to Windows ME, and not Vista, may be the strongest).

Apple’s New Problem

Apple’s consistent advantage has been that their customers have historically been more of a cult and very tolerant of behavior that would likely sink other companies. The most pronounced was Apple’s move to Intel, which was planned from day one of Steve Jobs’ return but denied vehemently until it was announced. Most companies simply wouldn’t survive that kind of behavior and that is only one example of where Apple has not been particularly honest.

But, as Apple’s success with the iPod took them into the CE market at large, it also diluted their cult like base and now a lot of regular consumers are using Macs and clearly don’t get that when Apple screws up they should give the company a pass.

Apple suddenly has PR problems very similar to what Microsoft has traditionally enjoyed and the typical practice of stonewalling them isn’t working very well.

Apple PR Sucks

While Apple marketing is so good it is legendary Apple PR is nearly as legendary for being bad, no not bad, horrible, no not horrible, well I don’t think there is a word that encompasses it. Google is gaining a similar reputation, by the way, and I was on a TV show the other day where much of the off camera discussion was on whether Google or Apple had the worst PR in the Tech industry.

Coincidently last night at a dinner with a bunch of Russian journalists Apple PR came up again and one of the PR folks at the table, who work for another firm, was talking about how she was recruited by the company but turned down the interview because she didn’t want damage her career by working for Apple.

What you learn is as long as your company is a market darling you don’t need good PR, but when things go south, that is when PR earns its money and neither Google nor Apple are well represented when problems emerge. (This is like saying that if you are really healthy your doctor can be incompetent and it doesn’t matter, but if you get sick, the incompetent doctor will likely kill you).

In this instance the typical practice of pointing Mac loyalists or captured Mac sites at folks pointing out Leopard problems isn’t working because so many people are breaking.

Is Apple Rotten at the Core?

I love that paragraph heading but so many people have left Apple over the last few years I’m starting to wonder if the company that brought us the iPod, iPhone and iMac fully capable of keeping up the pace it has set. They have through their success focused most every tech and CE Company on their market share and made almost every Apple employee (except PR) into a hiring target. The result is they have been bleeding a lot of people. If you look at the iMac it is basically just a spin on an older monitor design and the PowerBook and MacBook really haven’t changed that much over the last several years. Same with the PowerMac and while the Mac Mini was my personal favorite PC last year, PCs typically cycle at least annually and it really didn’t .

The iPhone, given the hype, is selling well below the astronomical expectations set for it (granted those were way out of line) and the iPod Touch missed on capacity which is partially why the 80 GB Zune is selling out and there are lots of iPod Touch’s unsold (Costco, for instance, is kind of scary in terms of unsold iPhone inventory).

Given Apple does an excellent job of marketing what they do have and concealing problems I wonder if, underneath the shiny red skin, Apple is rotting from the inside out.

Wrapping Up

Apple remains a dramatic example of the good and bad of powerful marketing. On the good side great marketing designed into great products can produce massive sales growth, on the bad side, marketing can conceal major problems until they become so massive that they are company killers and leave little in the way of time for corrective action. This last is because marketing is about perceptions and if you focus too much on how things look rather than how things are your company will likely fail.

The other lesson here is companies go up and down and great PR and AR (analyst relations) can substantially protect against a fast moving downward trend. A lot of companies do not staff these positions well nor do they support the people in them enough. Apple is trending to be a really powerful example of why under resourcing PR and AR is a really bad idea.

In the end I think Apple is going to have to start stepping up to treating its customers well and can no longer depend on the Cult of the Mac to bail them out when they don’t. In short, Apple the playing field is rapidly being leveled around Apple and the firm will have to step up or be leveled itself as a result.