Re: Working Over the weekend... NOW: Back to Mac Pro speculation

[Walter Soyka] "Are they interested in traditional marketing concepts like "target markets?""

Sure but what they target may be very broad.
Even iPhones are targeted differently than Androids.
One might say iPhones focus on those who want Ease of Use. Android phones focuses on Freedom, big screens, features such as 4G. They target differently even if to an otherwise similar demographic. Apple's added some price targeting with free 3GS and $99 4 phones.
Certainly if one watches the TV commercials, the targeting seems pretty clear as well.


[Walter Soyka] "Does business unit profitability matter if the unit doesn't fit in the long-term strategy? Conversely, wouldn't an unprofitable business unit be sustained if it were of high strategic value?"

The short answer is "it depends" and there's a lot to "depends." A good example of that is what HP just went through with the back and forth on Computers (including workstations).

Basically that's why I've been bringing up Business Model as a term lately.
That's also why I'm trying to differentiate between people who claim Apple has become a "consumer" company whereas I believe they are becoming a "commodity" company. Some may see that as one and the same but I don't. I think Apple doesn't either. I think they're moving towards high volume sales and I think they believe they can even hit the "Pro" market with that (not that I know that will succeed). I think that's what they will TRY to do with FCPX and whatever replaces the MacPro. Again I don't mean to conflate Attempt with Succeed. I do think that's what they're targeting.