Quote:
Originally Posted by forsooth
Mercedes is expensive auto. average new cost more than 50 times cost of new Apple phone (30K, 40K, 50K, 60K to 600 USD)
will be maintained. will have average life at least 10 years
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We bought this phone, new, about a week ago:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/360575496932...84.m1497.l2649
It's not a smart phone, but has a number of personal digital assistant features features such as calendar, notepad, and simple games. When you consider the free minutes included, the price was maybe one percent that of an Apple phone. And it runs on the same AT&T network as the first few iPhone models. I don't know the profits for this model in particular, but LG is profitable. Probably they will remain profitable five to ten years from now when I'll expect to get all of today's smartphone features from LG, or a similar maker, for about the same price.
If Apple wants to compete with that, they'll have to layoff a lot of designers and programmers. Much better to keep their high-end cachet. Even people who can't afford their products will benefit when the high-end features get passed down to the international mass market five or, at most, ten years later.
I still think there are good analogies with Mercedes Benz. Benz started out with a 100 percent market share as the inventor of the automobile. Their company culture was to make the best car they could, so eventually other brands undercut them. They are still
big, although not the biggest. That's fine. I can't afford a Mercedes, but benefit when Mercedes comes out with new features which, years later, I enjoy in a bottom-of-the-line Ford or Toyota. The alternative is never getting those features because the high-end company laid off the employees who would have first engineered them.