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Blah, F#cking Blah, Blah, Blah....
I hate that schmuck...

My predictions:

Q4: Apple announces Dual Core Power Macs at Apple expo Paris - causing sales of Macs to showw positive growth over Q3.

Q1: Apple updates eMac and iMac (in October) - gives holiday shoppers a refreshed batch of consumer systems to drool over and buy. Higher sales than Q4.

Status of PowerBook: limbo (meaning unknown if Apple will update PowerBooks before Jan (my expectations for Intel-PowerBooks) - this will have an unknown effect of unit sales for Apple; iBook will compensate for some sales.

Net effect: Overall unit sales up in both quarters; PowerBooks sales down (though we don't know how much). Oh, and Enderle will be wrong - big surprise there.

MDN -
Hilarious take. I'm selling my stock in Lexus.

does anyone track his predictions with any accuracy? is he batting 70%? 50%? 5%? if his prognostications can clearly be shown to be way off the mark, then he can be exposed as a fraud, or conversely recognized as a pundit. just because he says things people don't like to hear doesn't necessarily make him wrong. only his percentage of correct analysis will define him. and if he's soooo wrong, we can all chip in a buy him a crystal ball and a 900 number.

MDN please stop reporting what this guy says. He's an idiot and he probably gets more page hits from the stories you post here.

It just proves that any idiot with two fingers and a keyboard can be a so-called 'expert'.

BTW, if anyone wants to see how doomed Apple is, go to a retail store. After it takes 15 minutes to pay for something because they are so frickin busy, then come back and report the bad news.

This guy is simply a Mac hater and probably gets a piece of Microsofts profits. He makes no sense at all and knows nothing about what Apple does. And it looks like he will never get a clue in my opinion.

Rob Enderle of "The Enderle Group." Same as Fred of "Fred's Bank."

Hello, I'm Rog of "The Rog Group," pleased to meet ya. Wanna buy an uninformed quote to back up whatever stupid premise and ideology you're pushing in your latest crappy article? I'm your man!

You don't need a "survey of buying intent" to know that sales of the models of Apple computers expected to first make the jump to Intel processors will drop significantly just before the new models are introduced. It's simple common sense.

What really worried analysts was if there would be an immediate drop in sales; which didn't happen. Everyone (except for trolls with agendas) heaved a sigh of relief and knew that the transition was going to be relatively smooth.

Enderle was caught in a lie; and is trying his best to cover up his mess.

We can all expect the coming months, which are sure to be turbulent, to be filled with Enderle's attempts to get hits by saying all sorts of nonsense. Be prepared to have every negative amplified beyond reason and all positives ignored.

His article is loaded with very few relevant facts and an awful lot of apparent wishful thinking on his part. As MDN says, we shall wait and see, but if Enderle is wrong (as he usually is), I highly doubt we'll see any kind of acknowledgement of that fact coming from him...

I hereby resolve to only refer to Enderle as the Fudmeister from now on.

Please don't give any traffic to the Fudmeister's site - that is what he is trolling for.

If I had the free time, I would consider starting a site called fudmeister.com - I would post previous articles and the truth to refute them. I would not provide any links to his site though.

Good old Rob. He is a marketing expert and he is right when he says that Apple will sell didly squat to Enterprise in the fourth quarter. That's what he said. What he fails to mention is that Apple sells didly squat to enterprise every quarter.

Apple's big target is consumers and they are increasing those sales BIG TIME every quarter.

Just Rob's way of pumping FUD into the market for Apple gear and being right in his predictions at the same time.

I still don't understand the big anticipated jump to mactel. I do very fine, thank you, with my PPC and programs designed by Apple and other Mac vendors. I don't play video games on my Mac.

I just work and do so quite smoothly. If I needed a new computer now I'd jump at a new dual PPC Mac. The problem with getting a new dual PPC is my old G4 400 works great! One of these days I'll even upgrade to Tiger.

Panther still kicks butt!

"it's off to Dell.com for them"
or Dell.ca in Canada

MikeR -G4 400??!??....gawd that is old...you are no longer an Apple customer, but an operator of an old antique relic.

P.S. Panther sucks compared to Tiger.

Just traded in my cavalier for my 4500 box truck without radio or AC.... I LOVE IT!, the drive train rocks!

btw, I have now warranty, and all the tires are flat.

Hey now, dont knock the G4 400...

thats what my main machine is..

Powermac G4 400Mhz
512MB ram
80GB HDD
16x DVD+/-R/RW
Gigabit ethernet
10.4.2

Still rockin

Paris: PVR functionality in iMacs & PowerMacs, along with video-capable AirPort Express

Slightly after: New Powerbooks with dual-core G4s, video iPod

October/November: Dual-core G5 towers (single and dual proc)

It's actually a good omen to see Enderle shit on Apple, considering that this is someone who's warned about Apple's imminent demise for ages. The day that Enderle starts saying something upbeat about Apple, is the day we should really be worried.

RE: Enderle:

I agree -- "FUDmeister"

although instead of "Fear, uncertainty and doubt", I've always liked "Effed-Up Disinformation"

I think Steve Jack is really Enderle and just uses this site to pump up hits on his other site to make it look good to his clients.

I have a G4 400 that runs great today. But thats the difference between Apple and PCs. No way you could be running a PC that old to such effectiveness today.

I have a feeling my dual 2ghz G5 is gonna be running well and in use for like 8 years.

I'm with Hammer. Just quit reporting what he says.
EARTH TO MDN: We don't care what he has to say about the Mac anymore than anyone cares what Barbara Walters has to say about the space program.
Sales in the enterprise market do open up significant revenue possibilities for Apple, it's up to them to decide to go for it or not.
Does Apple *want* its market share to grow?
Don't forget they could have peppered the nation with sustained and compelling G5 ads but didn't, or they could have spent big ad dollars showing why OSX is better but they have not done that either.
They're selling Macs by the million, their customer service is rated 20 points over next rival Dell and their hardware reliability is top of the heap. Their OS is pure joy and their 'boxes' are beautiful.
Mr Enderle doesn't get it and I don't care.

"the study I'm now using did accurately predict that last quarter would be very strong"

The study he is using *now*? So ... what study was he using *before*? Let me guess ... he was using a study predicting Everything Bad For Apple(TM), and now that it's been contradicted he is now using a study that predicts Everything Bad For Apple Minus The Last Quarter(TM).

When the next quarter isn't so bad, I guess he'll have to switch studies again, won't he?

By the way, I see no indication that he was talking about anything but the financial fourth quarter ... what makes you think he was talking about the Christmas season? The financial 4th may be happening right now, but the results are in the future so it is customary to speak about it as though it hasn't happened yet.

And oh yeah. One last thing. "A stable platform that will be deployable over a long period of time"? WTF does that mean? Can anyone tell me in plain English what that means? I seriously doubt it. This is a complete BS phrase that means whatever the speaker wants it to mean, much like "maximising shareholder value".

Enderle is a complete hipacrit!! look at this quote from one of his articles put out today about Blu-Ray

The Blu-ray folks circulated a survey last month, concluding that Blu-ray would win because consumers would prefer it. It was flawed, as most surveys are, by not taking into account the world as it likely will exist at that time. Surveys, in general, are a poor predictor of future behavior (if surveys were accurate predictors, the Ford Edsel, according to the most massive research of its time, should have been a resounding success).

It's amazing the number of pundits that comment on Apple's irrelevancy in the tech market, yet they keep writing about it. If Apple truly has only 3% of marketshare, then I can expect dimbulbs like Enderle and Thurrott to write about Apple only 3% of the time. And we know they write about Apple a lot more often than that. Maybe we should consider the percentage of Apple articles they write as the gauge for true Mac market share.

It doesn't matter what any of these monkies think. Rob Enderle's not on the Apple Board, so screw him. Market share, dominance over Microsoft, etc. don't matter-- what matters is that Apple consistently shows a profit with a solid and loyal consumer base. 99% of the businesses on the planet wish they were Apple. 'Nuff said.

Note to G Spank: I hear ya, man! My home Mac is a G4 400 too, and it's running Tiger and heavy-duty graphics apps like a champ! Most Dells are doorstops after just six months of being bitchslapped by adware.

"Until the company can address the need for a multi-year roadmap that businesses can refer to, get a stable platform that will be deployable over a long period of time, and designate multiple hardware vendors clients can bid against one another to ensure the lowest price (as well as to avoid getting nailed by internal audit), enterprises simply won't buy Apple broadly."

Crap.

First, roadmaps are not used for "broad" purchases. I've never seen a company--large or small--worry about the fact the Dell doesn't have a "roadmap." Roadmaps are also notoriously unreliable--look at IBM's PowerPC roadmap--or Intel's, for that matter. According to Intel, 4GHz machines should be cheap and plentiful by now.

Apple has also designated multiple places to buy Macintoshes. I can buy Macs directly from Apple or through various distributors. I can't speak for business on this, I'll admit, but way back when I worked for the US Government and the only tricky part about buying Macintoshes was the "sole source justification." Namely, that I need a Macintosh and not a "computer." This was quite easily circumvented by doing the battle once to get Mac software and then tying all subsequent purchases to the previous purchase and justification. We survived an audit just fine. Now I doubt businesses are worse about purchasing than the US Government...

About the only point he makes that I can agree with is the "stable platform." Windows XP has been around for--what--five years? Apple has done how many releases in that time? That's tricky for a large corporation. Nobody wants to spend the time upgrading thousands of Macs. Heck, companies took a couple of years to roll out Windows XP. In the Mac world, by the time you validated the Operating System and everything and rolled it out to all your users, Apple would have released yet-another operating system.

So that's about the only complaint which has any validity with businesses.

No one has mentioned the outrageous remark he made near the end of his last paragraph. He stated that Apple refused to sell their OS to IBM when IBM was gearing up for their first desktop PCs so they went with Gates. It was the CPM operating system IBM wanted I believe. The story goes they send their negotiators off to the firm's President who lived on the beach near Santa Cruz. He was off surfing and they left without seeing him. Typical FUD contribution asparaging Apple's business abilities by refusing a fictitious offer from IBM.

There are few 'experts' that I have come to respect. Enderle is not one of them. Overall his reporting is pretty good. But he never fails to interject a completely bogus statement for either platform. This one is just as bogus.

I disagree with MDN on their take as well.

"Enderle's right: Apple probably won't be offering multi-year roadmaps and offering Macs through multiple vendors."

What raod map does HP, CPQ, GTW or Dell provide corporate America today, that goes beyond, "We are going to install the latest version of Windows (we're contractually bound to do it), and the latest Intel processor in the boxes we assemble for the next five years". THAT is not a road map.

The issue of a "proper" road map is a non-sensical distraction.

This issue is, and always will be, how much will it cost me to do business over the next several years?

When corporate America is confident that Apple will be around for the next 20 years or so, then they will consider the platform. A meaningful, growing market share is the only thing that will make them consider the platform. Until then, they will stick to Wintels, not because they are cheaper or better, but because there is an expectation that support by the OEM will be around for the next 20 years.

Am I off my rocker? You be the judge, and tell me what happened to the legitimacy of distributed computing power (PCs) when IBM got into the game. Prior to that corporate America hardly even considered them. None of the manufacturers of personal computers (at that time) had a history that suggested they would be around 10 years down the road, and if you look around they were right. Who is still manufacturing PCs, that was doing so in 1985? Where is Packard Bell, ATT, Olivetti, Singer, Atari, Commodore, Compaq, Osborne and a dozen others?

Which is all very nice, apart from one or two salient facts.

Apple doesn't have a presence in Corporate America or Corporate Europe or, indeed, Corporate Anywhere.

It's current levels of success are being maintained through the following…

iPod users - who don't know about two-year roadmaps
Students - who don't care about two-year roadmaps
SoHo/Domestic users - who wouldn't know what to do with a two-year roadmap if one cam up and bit them on the ass, whilst wearing a large DayGlo orange jacket with "I'm a two-year roadmap" printed on the back in 12" DayGlo green type.
Small Business Users - who know what a two-year roadmap is, because they remember when Microsoft was promising Stillborn two years ago. So their confidence in "forward-looking statements" is probably a little damaged.

So, according to The Fabulous Rob (or is that The Fatuous Rob?), Apple is suddenly going to start losing out on sales from people who haven't been buying its equipment for the best part of the last decade anyway which, in turn, is going to lead to a massive drop in year-on-year performance in the fourth quarter: [B]I have news for him[/B] - the damage has already been done, it was done when BP left the Macintosh behind, it was done when Cable & Wireless went the same way, Apple doesn't have a corporate constituency at this time so it can't be damaged by them not purchasing machines that they already haven't purchased.

Seriously, some people shouldn't be allowed to contribute to the Web until they take a logic test…

And amen to what Gregg said as well…

Gregg Thurman, thank you. MDN's take about Apple's missing the opportunity of takin' to the M$ man has completely backpeddled from the force of numerous readers' logic.

I said the lack of ENTERPRISE presence would keep Apple from attcking.

And MCCFR, you made that so clear!

And Enderle really wasn't that far off with his quote, now, was he?

===========

As a side note, I feel caught between just reading what MDN gleans from article to avoid enriching the other website's counter, and being consciencous and reading the article in full to find out what MDN pulled out of context.

Damned if I do. Damned if don't.

I also have a G4 400MHz. It's still a great computer.

I love this stuff! Today MY Apple stock is up 2.5%

Magic Word is "lower", NOT today anyway.

Ignore the idiots. All the negative chatter pays them too much homage.

you're all such a bunch of braggarts ...

G4-400, you say?

I still run a G3-400, with Tiger ...

dang whippersnappers !!

"Enderle then goes on to explain a comment from a previous article, "One other thing: Several folks questioned my comment that Apple demand was dropping like a rock and referred to past sales performance to refute this. Demand is measured by surveys of buying intent and I rely on surveys done for the financial firms who follow Apple. Unfortunately I don't have the rights to share the results"

Uhm, Rob, you can at least report what company is producing the survey you are using, like is it Gartner? Or, is he saying he doesn't pay Gartner for its report, but he was reading it in someone else's office that does pay for it, so he can't disclose it, because Gartner would be after him for using their results without paying.

Of course it raises another question, isn't the Enderle Group like the Gartner Group? Isn't his crack team of analysts supposed to generate their own surveys, and not just spout off things that aren't of his own production? Oh, right, maybe that's why he can't say who generated the survey, seeing as they are in theory, his competition.

He said "To explain why Apple won't be cracking the enterprise market anytime soon". Now I am an Apple fan too but I believe we should call a spade a spade. The enterprise market is a HUGE one and with OsX and the Intel switch, Apple has a very good shot at the said market, IF they wanted to make a go for it. And about that reference to Lexus, Lexus is a bad example being a part of Toyota which makes a whole broad range of vehicles. I think a better example is Porsche and it would go like this ..
"It doesn't matter what Porsche does to the product. Until the company can address the need for a SUV ...."
Oops! wait a minute .. thats exactly what they did with the Cayenne.

My blue & white G3 tower (updated to 450 G4) spends all day and night as a BitTorrent machine, and does a great job!

I use my G5 for everything else.

Here's the real deal. I'm not attaching any moral declaration to it; I'm just stating it.

Microsoft is driven by Bill Gates. Bill Gates is driven by an all-consuming need to be 'number one.' His definition of 'number one' is simple: makes the most money, is present in the largest numbers. His company perfectly reflects this vision.

Apple is driven by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is driven by an all-consuming need to be 'the best.' His definition of 'the best' is simple: products are used and valued by the sorts of people Steve Jobs considers sophisticated and intelligent. His company perfectly reflects this vision.

Bill Gates would slap the Microsoft logo right on a turd (there are those who argue he has already done this numerous times), if he thought it would cement a monopoly, drive sales, or appeal to enterprise.

For all of Jobs' flaws (which are profound and numerous) he makes exactly what the f**k he wants to, (and nothing he doesn't want to) with little or no regard for whether or not anyone, particularly, agrees with him.

Who's right?
It's all in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

G4 400? Well, my Mac SE is still... nevermind.

These analysts are beginning are beginning to remind me of the cliche of the nutball walking around town with a sign reading "Repent! The end is near!" If he keeps walking around long enough, he's eventually guaranteed to be right.

Apple has just opened its 4th store in my area (Portland, OR). I visited one of them last saturday. I sat on a bench outside waiting for my wife while a *stream* of people walked out carrying new computers. I was there maybe 20 minutes and saw 15 machines going out the door. One guy was buying three powerbooks. Obviously this is annecdotal, but it seems every time I go to any Mac store, the place is full, the employees are busy selling Macs and iPods. Then, there's the fact that they just opened the 4th store in my area. As a developer, I'm smiling when I see all these potential software customers carrying Macs around.

I go to the coffee shop last sunday and there's maybe 10 mac laptops in the place - and their WiFi was down that day. People were working on art projects, grading papers, etc while enjoying coffee. There were more Mac laptops than PC laptops. Again, this is only annecdotal and I was downtown at kind of a bohemian hang out.

So, if this guy is right and the sales are down due to pent up demand for Intel based Macintosh systems, won' t that mean that when these systems are introduced in Janruary that Apple will be selling a lot of computers? Personally, I can't afford to upgrade my powerbook every year. I can either buy a pro system every second year or a consumer system every year. I choose to do the later. So, I'm using a 867 G4 Titanium PowerBook at home right now. I decided to wait until a G5 PowerBook came out because the newer portables just didn't seem to be amazingly better (I type this from work on a 17" Aluminum PowerBook). So, when the new intel PowerBooks come out, I'll be first in line for the upgrade.

Plus, it is possible that Apple will ship these before X-mas. True, I'm expecting them in Janruary, but you never know. Apple is pretty good at keeping secrets and if there is truely a lot of pent up demand for intel based Macintoshes, releasing in October instead of Janruary would clearly help everyone have a nicer X-Mas.

To Mattjumbo: Yes, you have an almost right take on things. However, remember that Jobs took over Apple during a time of extreme crisis. It was like taking over someone else's position in a chess game where your side is already way behind.

John Sculley and company really screwed up at Apple and just coasted for years on the innovation that Jobs and the original Mac team pulled off. The problem at Apple wasn't that Jobs had too much power in the early days - its that they didn't put him in absolute charge and let him do what he wanted. I'm sure a lot of people have daydreams about what the world would be like now if Apple's board had sided with Jobs in 1985 instead of Scullley.

For those who don't know: Jobs was in charge during the garage days, and then when they got real financial backing and became a real company, a fellow called Mike Scott was put in charge. Jobs didn't have very much power at Apple until Scott was fired and ultimately replaced with John Sculley. That move was a clever one for Jobs to try to get more power in the company to actually do things. So, what did he do? He went off in a corner and created the Mac and the first laser printer. Then, he made a gambit to get control of all of the company's resources since he basically had proven that he could manage his small R&D;team (the Mac team) to outproduce the rest of R&D;and he could also see that the rest of the company was moving in the wrong direction.

So, yes, Steve demands things be "the best" and we all love him for that. It's his work from the garage days that helped Apple become a real company and his work with the early Mac team that gave Apple a second great platform (i.e. the Mac and the laser printer - the first one being the Apple II). And its he who has finally put Apple right and fixed it.

Yet, its both very difficult and it takes a very long time to recover when you start out severely handicapped. Apple's marketshare was at an all time low, their technology was outdated, and their customers were abandoning the platform in droves. To have turned that around takes a lot of hard work and an ability to guess correctly over and over. I'm constantly amazed at how well Apple is run today vs. under Sculley/Spindler/Amelio.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I am sure Jobs would like to win in terms of making the most money and having highest marketshare in the personal computer industry. I'm sure he would love to be beating Bill Gates. And if he had been given control of Apple from the beginning, he would have probably been able to do just that. (I am speculating, but I believe it.)

If I had listened to the pundits, I would not have made lots of money on Apple stock over the last 8 years.

So much for the financial experts and their minions in the press.

For some reason, Apple seems to be thinking different again. Apple worked with Oracle for a whole year to get XServe certified for Oracle's RLCS program for use with Oracle 10g. Their first RLCS customer was Oracle themselves, who were so impressed with the product that they bought it for their own internal use, choosing it over other vendors, such as HP and EMC/Dell.

No, this doesn't mean that Apple currently rules the enterprise. It does mean they are seriously interested, have their foot in the door, and have a letter of recommendation from a terrific source. Given time, experience, and some product evolution, that could grow into something considerably more.

The proof is in the pudding:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/12/06.7.shtml

MDN, have a bit more faith in Apple. You guys are reading too many negative articles written by silly people.

mac Developer: if you are one--you haven't been one for very long.

I first started writing Mac software back in 1985. And your version of history is way, way, way, way off. I recommend a good dose of "The Macintosh Way" by Guy Kawasaki.

First, some of Apple's biggest technical innovations came after Jobs left. 32-bit color, modular Macs (not the all-in-one design), dual-display support (it took Windows 10 years to catch up with that one), SCSI, slots for add-in cards, and the PowerBook were all developed under Sculley. System 7 (pretty advanced for 1991), QuickTime, Newton, and the beginnings of PowerPC all happened under Sculley. Heck, Apple's market-share zenith was under Sculley.

Jobs was supposedly against the LaserWriter (wanted a Daisy wheel) as well as being against using the Sony 3.5" disk drive (he originally wanted an Apple-designed 5.25" drive).

Frankly, Jobs had to go so that other ideas could be born. It was a good thing when he left and it was a good thing when he came back. But keep in mind that Apple has made a few missteps since he came back. Remember the iMac DV--when everybody wanted to burn CDs? How about the PowerMac G4 Cube?

What's different now is that Jobs is quicker to admit when he's wrong.

Peter via iPodDailyNews.com,

"What's different now is that Jobs is quicker to admit when he's wrong."

You mean Steve Jobs has matured as a business man! I agree.

iMac G3 400Mhz is a fine little Tiger.