Is a $500 Mac in Your Future?

Apple Computer is back and back in a big way. It seems that it took a near-death experience to make the company that invented the personal computer to reinvent itself.

While Apple is now experiencing profitable quarter after profitable quarter, computer pundits point to Apple's downsizing as the only possible way it could have regained its financial health so quickly.

While this may be true, we all know how bloated Apple had become. You name it, Apple once engineered and manufactured it: digital cameras, printers, handheld devices (the Newton), and on and on. While many companies gain success by diversifying, Apple chose products that had many competitors with much more focus. Over the years Apple slowly lost its focus as an innovator of computer software and hardware by shifting resources and energies to unprofitable products.

That's all changed now, as Apple's co-founder and self-appointed Macintosh "bad boy" Steve Jobs has refined the company's business plan. Jobs' plan is working and he seems to be having the time of his life; riding high at Apple and at Pixar.

However, tough questions remain for Apple. While the iMac finally gave Apple a viable (and popular) consumer product that people really want, is there any way it can continue its stellar success in a Windows dominated world?

Perhaps. One thing is certain about Steve Jobs, he pushes people to excel and to attempt the impossible. As I write, I can't help but think that Jobs' has Apple engineers working on the "next great thing" in personal computing. There have been some rumors that Apple will be revealing soon a revoluntary handheld communications device, along with its consumer portable computer. Are they one in the same? If Jobs is smart (which he is), he will quietly move Apple away from the operating system paradigm. Operating systems from Apple, Microsoft and others will one day soon be so outdated and impractical that they will be useless to consumers for their computing needs.

While Apple has made great strides to reduce the price of owning an entry-level Macintosh (the iMac), PCs still own basement computer pricing. Recently, I saw an eMachine, a PC that can be had for $499 with a 14-inch monitor! What does a consumer get for such an outrageously low price: a 333-megahertz chip, Windows 98, 32 megs of RAM, CD-ROM, 2.1-meg hard drive, 56K modem and floppy disk drive. For many computer users, this set-up is all they need.

When Apple will attack the sub-$1,000 market? In some ways Apple has with $700 and $800 close-outs of Revision B iMacs. While Apple contends it doesn't want to get into selling us "last year's technology," for many consumers last year's technology" is all they need or want to pay for.Is a $500 Mac in your future? If Apple intends to aggressively attack the consumer marketplace, it's just a matter of time.