
Apple may have finally gotten too big for its unusual corporate structure - mji
http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/27/13706776/apple-functional-divisional
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jrnichols
"If GE can build jet engines, tidal energy farms, freight rail data systems,
mining equipment, and medical devices, how is it that the world’s most
valuable company can’t find the time to make a full line of personal computers
and PC peripherals alongside its market-leading smartphones and tablets? "

The answer is simple. It's because they don't want to, and they don't have to.
Yet another Vox media article that illustrates how poorly they understand
Apple.

One of the first things that Steve Jobs did was scale back the number of
product that Apple was shipping. There were probably 200 different SKUs for
the Performa series alone. It was insane!

Instead of asking "Why is Apple discontinuing the Airport series?" maybe we
should ask "Why would they keep making them?" The market for SOHO wifi stuff
is crowded. Same with the market for monitors. When Apple makes something like
that, people cry "what about the third party market? Apple is trying to
monopolize things!" yet when Apple says "We're not going to make these things,
y'all keep making them" then it's "omg what's wrong with Apple?"

~~~
hga
_" [...] how is it that the world’s most valuable company can’t find the time
to make a full line of personal computers and PC peripherals alongside its
market-leading smartphones and tablets?"

The answer is simple. It's because they don't want to, and they don't have
to._

Errr, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these personal computers the only
platform one can, and from a minute with Google, contractually the only
platform one is _allowed_ to develop software for their iOS systems?

Elsewhere in another current discussion, it was mentioned, _in the context of
declining iOS quality_ , that software is a third class citizen at Apple
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13050844)).
Which I'll add it typical of hardware companies.

 _The upshot is that even though regularly updating desktop Macs should not be
that difficult, objectively speaking, it tends not to happen in part because
it’s not anyone’s job to make it happen. The functional organization values
collaboration on top corporate priorities above all else, and that means
basically everything comes ahead of desktop Macs....

But it does raise the question of whether persisting with functional
organization is really compatible with the company’s growth aspirations._

Or I say existence, since their fancy hardware requires really serious
software, and a healthy 3rd party ecosystem, and we've seen over the decades a
number of companies go out of business because they essentially lost their
ability to write software that works.

That Apple's functional structure, at least according to this article, means
there's no people high enough in the corporate structure to make sure of this,
well....

------
alaskamiller
Apple prior to iPhone was very indeed very different.

To demonstrate value in their hardware they kept cobbling together the OS,
bought/integrated professional software, and offered a small halo of hardware
like printers and monitors to extend utility.

Then Steve came back and readjusted the playbook.

They settled on the OS, created consumer software, bought iTunes, polished up
the pro software, then played with the iPod to double down on the halo, then a
push into retail.

The headcount was around 15k FTE/5k contractors, I believe that's about how
much Steve was capable of managing at the time without tilting. Steve was
Castro of his little island. Ask him to manage an empire would be different,
he's not IBM.

The pre-iPhone strategies and mentalities worked until it didn't. Post-iPhone
headcount doubled or tripled all across the board. With pipelines ranging from
partners in China and Indonesia to remotes in Sacramento to Texas to Ireland
and mini outposts all around the world. This is the type of game that Tim Cook
setup and likes to play in. A complicated contracted-out, partnered-up
Rudeberg machine that makes it so Apple is forever an ephemeral freshness
deliverer.

In that sense, it does deserve the question.

In a world where the largest cab companies doesn't own any cars, the largest
hospitality company doesn't own any hotels, the largest seller doesn't own any
inventory...

And the largest company doesn't own any factories, instead relying on the tens
of thousands of engineers and designers hogging up Cupertino to come up with
the specs, designs, and followthrough, why can't they deliver?

The culture has changed.

The employees priority have changed. From being focused overworked underpaid
underdogs trying to resist the dominators, they are now overworked overvalued
underpaid distracted dominators. Worried about how better to upgrade their
luxury sport cars for racing instead of fixing bugs.

The management is also top heavy and aging. The first and second gen
approaching my grandma's age that are gonna be lifers, only looking to retire
when they get their 30 year letter. They leave little room for the subsequent
generations to climb up the ladder. This lock up is gonna play out
interestingly in the next five years.

Apple is changing.

------
jsjohnst
I'm really getting tired of shoddy "journalists" parroting sound bites which
simply aren't true.

> but it maxes out at a relatively low level of RAM

16gb isn't "relatively low". Sure, we all want more, but for a mainstream
"pro" grade laptop, its inline with the industry standard max. It's also the
most memory they can put in the laptop, due to Intel limitations, without
significant battery life issues (which they already kinda have using the
LPDDDR3 anyway). DDR4 is the only way to get more than 16gb RAM on a Skylake
processor and it uses more power. As the TDP was already fairly tight on this
machine, that just wasn't possible and still remain within design constraints.
Yes, we all (myself included) feel their need to make everything paper thin is
an annoyance, but there are other factors at play too (like FAA limits on
lithium battery size and the ability to charge over USB-C in a reasonable
amount of time).

> doesn’t offer many ports

I'm tired of this trite point. It has as more expand ability in ports than
most other laptops on the market. Yes, you need dongles _for now_ , but just
like the death of ADB/PS2/serial:parallel ports, floppy disks, and cdroms, you
have to live a short painful period while the rest of the industry catches up.
Trust me, within a year at most, you won't be longing for the old ports. And
finally for once Apple uses something completely industry standard and non-
proprietary and you still all damn them for it!

> and isn’t equipped with truly top-of-the-line internal chips

The Skylake processor is literally the newest processor chip Apple could use
in a quad core machine. Kaby Lake won't have a mobile quad core till 2017.
Furthermore, with the problems Intel had with the Skylake when it was first
released, I'm glad Apple didn't delay the update for the potential of a
processor that may have issues and/or be delayed. There's similar issues on
updates to the Xeon processors so I am not the least bit surprised they held
off on the Mac Pro. With it being already being long in the update cycle,
what's another couple months delay so you can then have the latest and
greatest rather than the PR backlash for releasing and then less than a
quarter later having a significantly better processor released? Also, show me
a laptop line with the same market share that uses a better graphics card,
better SSD performance wise, a better screen. Yes, there are numerous examples
better in one aspect or another, but none with the market share and/or without
other significant trade offs.

The real story is that Intel is _REALLY_ dropping the ball on delivering what
vocal customers demand. The blame for virtually everything people whine about
on the new MBP is _solely_ their fault. I'm fairly certain Apple is expending
every resources they can to break away from Intel, but sadly that can't come
soon enough!

~~~
paulddraper
I agree 16gb is not low.

But remember, when you buy apple, you have to buy all the memory you want for
the next 5 years now, since it can't be upgraded.

~~~
jsjohnst
Agree, which is why I'm so pissed at Intel.

