失業當自強 ~ 大哥是對的 Follow the Leader
沒想到,我詹某何德何能,竟然有新讀者阿!感謝你的捧場,還留了言....
當下不囉唆,馬上把這禮拜的奉上...(我也拖了很久其實...)
以下:
Apple
Follow the leader
Jun 12th 2008 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
蘋果
大哥是對的
2008年六月十二日 舊金山 經濟學人雜誌
Apple ditches its unusual business model to boost handset sales
蘋果打造非典型商業模式以刺激手機銷售
ALMOST a year after launching what he thinks is the phone to change all phones, Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, took to the stage again this week to introduce its second version, the iPhone 3G. In the past year Mr Jobs, who had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, has visibly aged. Looking emaciated, he farmed out large parts of his speech, which is usually a big marketing and media event, to other presenters. But he still held the crowd in thrall as ever.
就在一年前,他發表了那支會改變手機世界的手機,蘋果總裁Steve Jobs這禮拜再度上台介紹了二代機種:iPhone 3G。 在2004年動過一次胰腺瘤手術的Jobs先生,過去幾年來明顯衰老許多。憔悴的他,把一般較為大型的行銷與記者會交給其他主持人;但他仍然讓觀眾聽得如癡如醉。
The new iPhone mostly addresses the shortcomings of the old one. It has GPS satellite-positioning technology that will allow a new and exciting category of services, such as location tracking, that depend upon the phone knowing where it is. It works with fast third-generation (3G) mobile networks, not just slower 2G ones. And it panders to corporate customers with features such as better integration with their systems and “remote wiping” of data if a handset goes missing.
新款iPhone 主要改善上一代的缺點:具備GPS衛星定位技術,使得如位置追蹤這類嶄新服務變得可行;淘汰2G網路,採用第三代行動網路(3G);同時迎合企業用戶需求提供高系統整合功能,以及手機遺失時的遠端清除資料功能。
Perhaps above all, it is a lot cheaper, starting at $199, just below what the industry sees as the pain threshold for the mass market. What Mr Jobs did not say was that the reduction comes largely from a change in Apple's relations with mobile operators, such as AT&T in America. Operators will subsidise the new handsets to make this low price possible, but will also increase monthly usage fees—and will no longer pass a share of those fees to Apple.
最重要的是價格相當便宜,最低只要美金199元,還低於業界進入這龐大市場的心酸門檻價。Jobs先生沒有提到的,是這樣的低價主要來自於蘋果與電信業者關係的改變,像是美國AT&T公司。業者對新手機給予補貼才有低價的可能,但卻同時增加月租費,而這部份是不再與蘋果共享的。
This brings Apple in line with the business model used by other handset-makers, such as Nokia and Samsung. Getting operators to agree to Apple's novel revenue-sharing scheme seems to have hindered sales. Evidently Mr Jobs hopes to gain more from faster handset sales than he will lose by giving up his share of usage fees. By cutting the iPhone's price and increasing the number of countries where it is legally available from six to 70, Mr Jobs hopes to reach his goal of selling 10m iPhones by the end of the year. (So far, 6m have been sold.)
如此一來,讓蘋果與其他手機廠的商業模式變得一樣了,就像Nokia或Samsung。讓電信業者使用蘋果特殊的收益分攤方案似乎妨礙了銷售額。不消說,Jobs先生希望透過快速銷售取得利潤,而非因屈就於分攤租費而失去商機。藉由減價,同時將合法銷售國家由六國增加到七十,Jobs先生希望達到在年底達到1000萬支銷售額的目標(目前已經達到600萬)。
Competitors quickly tried to douse another conflagration of iPhone hype. “I see this as a catch-up release for Apple,” says Andrew Lees, head of mobile businesses at Microsoft, an arch-rival which provides software to many handset-makers. “We outsell them by two to one.” He points out, legitimately, that many phones using Microsoft Mobile software have long had both GPS and 3G, and have always tied into corporate computer systems.
一些競爭者當然想要儘快撲滅這場iPhone熱帶來的大火。提供軟體給許多手機廠商的微軟行動部門主管Andrew Lees以勁敵的身份表示「我認為這次蘋果的發表根本只是要追上市場。我們的銷售數字比是2:1」。同時他也表示許多使用微軟行動通訊軟體的手機早就有GPS與3G了,也一直與企業電腦系統整合完善。
Finland's Nokia sells the most “smartphones”, capturing 45% of the world market in the first three months of this year, and Canada's Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the famous BlackBerry, is second, with 13%. Even in America, where Nokia is weak, RIM leads, with 42%, followed by Apple with 20%.
芬蘭出身的Nokia賣得是最「人性化」的手機,在今年第一季全球市場佔了45%;而來自加拿大的Research In motion (RIM),同時也是眾所皆知的黑莓機製造商,則以13%列居第二。即使是在美國這個讓Nokia吃鱉的國家,RIM也以42%的銷售勝過蘋果的20%。
But Apple's impact on the industry has been greater than its market share suggests. The iPhone has set new standards in design and ease of use. A telling statistic from Mr Jobs is that 98% of users browse the web on their iPhones, 94% use it for e-mail, and 80% use ten or more features—including, of course, the built-in iPod music-player. As Mr Jobs joked, many users of other smartphones, with their clunky menus, cannot even find ten features.
然而蘋果對產業界所造成的影響遠大過市場的預測。iPhone建立了一套設計感與便利性的新標準。用Jobs先生的生動數據來看:98%的人使用iPhone上網,94%的人收發email,80%的人使用10種以上的功能,當然也包括了內建的iPod音樂播放。Jobs先生也開玩笑的表示,許多使用人性化手機的人,根本無法在眼花撩亂的選單裡找到十種功能。
This points to the ultimate role of the iPhone for Mr Jobs, Apple and the industry. There were personal computers before 1984, but it took the Macintosh, which Apple launched that year, to popularise the icon-based graphical interface that others copied, kicking off the PC era. There were digital music-players before 2001, but Apple's iPod made them both ubiquitous and user-friendly. In the same way, says Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, an analyst who has followed Apple throughout its history, the iPhone, with its elegant touch-screen interface, seems likely to be the gadget that sets the direction that others will follow in the era of mobility.
如此一來便凸顯了iPhone在Jobs先生、蘋果、以及整個產業界所代表的終極意義。早在1984年以前就有個人電腦了,但卻是蘋果在這一年以麥金塔電腦的圖形化介面造成風潮,大腳跨入PC世代。數位音樂播放器在2001年以前就出現了,但靠著蘋果的iPod才得以普及並且便於使用。Creative Strategies的Tim Bajarin是一位跟隨蘋果歷史腳步的分析師,根據他的說法,iPhone它那優雅的觸控式螢幕介面,很有可能會是這個行動通訊世代中,樹立新典範的玩意兒。
To bring that about, Apple is now turning the iPhone into a hand-held computer and allowing other firms to write software to run on it. Other handset-makers are doing the same, but the iPhone's operating system and programming tools, on display this week, are better than theirs. There is no doubt that Mr Jobs is trying to lead a third revolution in consumer technology in his lifetime.
為了達到這樣的目的,蘋果把iPhone變成了手提電腦,同時允許其他公司自行開發軟體並在上面執行。其他手機製造商當然也有樣學樣,但在上週展示的結果,iPhone的操作系統與程式工具都比它們的好多了。很明顯的,Jobs先生正在引爆他這輩子第三次的消費電子科技革命。
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當下不囉唆,馬上把這禮拜的奉上...(我也拖了很久其實...)
以下:
Apple
Follow the leader
Jun 12th 2008 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
蘋果
大哥是對的
2008年六月十二日 舊金山 經濟學人雜誌
Apple ditches its unusual business model to boost handset sales
蘋果打造非典型商業模式以刺激手機銷售
ALMOST a year after launching what he thinks is the phone to change all phones, Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, took to the stage again this week to introduce its second version, the iPhone 3G. In the past year Mr Jobs, who had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, has visibly aged. Looking emaciated, he farmed out large parts of his speech, which is usually a big marketing and media event, to other presenters. But he still held the crowd in thrall as ever.
就在一年前,他發表了那支會改變手機世界的手機,蘋果總裁Steve Jobs這禮拜再度上台介紹了二代機種:iPhone 3G。 在2004年動過一次胰腺瘤手術的Jobs先生,過去幾年來明顯衰老許多。憔悴的他,把一般較為大型的行銷與記者會交給其他主持人;但他仍然讓觀眾聽得如癡如醉。
The new iPhone mostly addresses the shortcomings of the old one. It has GPS satellite-positioning technology that will allow a new and exciting category of services, such as location tracking, that depend upon the phone knowing where it is. It works with fast third-generation (3G) mobile networks, not just slower 2G ones. And it panders to corporate customers with features such as better integration with their systems and “remote wiping” of data if a handset goes missing.
新款iPhone 主要改善上一代的缺點:具備GPS衛星定位技術,使得如位置追蹤這類嶄新服務變得可行;淘汰2G網路,採用第三代行動網路(3G);同時迎合企業用戶需求提供高系統整合功能,以及手機遺失時的遠端清除資料功能。
Perhaps above all, it is a lot cheaper, starting at $199, just below what the industry sees as the pain threshold for the mass market. What Mr Jobs did not say was that the reduction comes largely from a change in Apple's relations with mobile operators, such as AT&T in America. Operators will subsidise the new handsets to make this low price possible, but will also increase monthly usage fees—and will no longer pass a share of those fees to Apple.
最重要的是價格相當便宜,最低只要美金199元,還低於業界進入這龐大市場的心酸門檻價。Jobs先生沒有提到的,是這樣的低價主要來自於蘋果與電信業者關係的改變,像是美國AT&T公司。業者對新手機給予補貼才有低價的可能,但卻同時增加月租費,而這部份是不再與蘋果共享的。
This brings Apple in line with the business model used by other handset-makers, such as Nokia and Samsung. Getting operators to agree to Apple's novel revenue-sharing scheme seems to have hindered sales. Evidently Mr Jobs hopes to gain more from faster handset sales than he will lose by giving up his share of usage fees. By cutting the iPhone's price and increasing the number of countries where it is legally available from six to 70, Mr Jobs hopes to reach his goal of selling 10m iPhones by the end of the year. (So far, 6m have been sold.)
如此一來,讓蘋果與其他手機廠的商業模式變得一樣了,就像Nokia或Samsung。讓電信業者使用蘋果特殊的收益分攤方案似乎妨礙了銷售額。不消說,Jobs先生希望透過快速銷售取得利潤,而非因屈就於分攤租費而失去商機。藉由減價,同時將合法銷售國家由六國增加到七十,Jobs先生希望達到在年底達到1000萬支銷售額的目標(目前已經達到600萬)。
Competitors quickly tried to douse another conflagration of iPhone hype. “I see this as a catch-up release for Apple,” says Andrew Lees, head of mobile businesses at Microsoft, an arch-rival which provides software to many handset-makers. “We outsell them by two to one.” He points out, legitimately, that many phones using Microsoft Mobile software have long had both GPS and 3G, and have always tied into corporate computer systems.
一些競爭者當然想要儘快撲滅這場iPhone熱帶來的大火。提供軟體給許多手機廠商的微軟行動部門主管Andrew Lees以勁敵的身份表示「我認為這次蘋果的發表根本只是要追上市場。我們的銷售數字比是2:1」。同時他也表示許多使用微軟行動通訊軟體的手機早就有GPS與3G了,也一直與企業電腦系統整合完善。
Finland's Nokia sells the most “smartphones”, capturing 45% of the world market in the first three months of this year, and Canada's Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the famous BlackBerry, is second, with 13%. Even in America, where Nokia is weak, RIM leads, with 42%, followed by Apple with 20%.
芬蘭出身的Nokia賣得是最「人性化」的手機,在今年第一季全球市場佔了45%;而來自加拿大的Research In motion (RIM),同時也是眾所皆知的黑莓機製造商,則以13%列居第二。即使是在美國這個讓Nokia吃鱉的國家,RIM也以42%的銷售勝過蘋果的20%。
But Apple's impact on the industry has been greater than its market share suggests. The iPhone has set new standards in design and ease of use. A telling statistic from Mr Jobs is that 98% of users browse the web on their iPhones, 94% use it for e-mail, and 80% use ten or more features—including, of course, the built-in iPod music-player. As Mr Jobs joked, many users of other smartphones, with their clunky menus, cannot even find ten features.
然而蘋果對產業界所造成的影響遠大過市場的預測。iPhone建立了一套設計感與便利性的新標準。用Jobs先生的生動數據來看:98%的人使用iPhone上網,94%的人收發email,80%的人使用10種以上的功能,當然也包括了內建的iPod音樂播放。Jobs先生也開玩笑的表示,許多使用人性化手機的人,根本無法在眼花撩亂的選單裡找到十種功能。
This points to the ultimate role of the iPhone for Mr Jobs, Apple and the industry. There were personal computers before 1984, but it took the Macintosh, which Apple launched that year, to popularise the icon-based graphical interface that others copied, kicking off the PC era. There were digital music-players before 2001, but Apple's iPod made them both ubiquitous and user-friendly. In the same way, says Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, an analyst who has followed Apple throughout its history, the iPhone, with its elegant touch-screen interface, seems likely to be the gadget that sets the direction that others will follow in the era of mobility.
如此一來便凸顯了iPhone在Jobs先生、蘋果、以及整個產業界所代表的終極意義。早在1984年以前就有個人電腦了,但卻是蘋果在這一年以麥金塔電腦的圖形化介面造成風潮,大腳跨入PC世代。數位音樂播放器在2001年以前就出現了,但靠著蘋果的iPod才得以普及並且便於使用。Creative Strategies的Tim Bajarin是一位跟隨蘋果歷史腳步的分析師,根據他的說法,iPhone它那優雅的觸控式螢幕介面,很有可能會是這個行動通訊世代中,樹立新典範的玩意兒。
To bring that about, Apple is now turning the iPhone into a hand-held computer and allowing other firms to write software to run on it. Other handset-makers are doing the same, but the iPhone's operating system and programming tools, on display this week, are better than theirs. There is no doubt that Mr Jobs is trying to lead a third revolution in consumer technology in his lifetime.
為了達到這樣的目的,蘋果把iPhone變成了手提電腦,同時允許其他公司自行開發軟體並在上面執行。其他手機製造商當然也有樣學樣,但在上週展示的結果,iPhone的操作系統與程式工具都比它們的好多了。很明顯的,Jobs先生正在引爆他這輩子第三次的消費電子科技革命。
**************************
$$Copyright: 原文所有權為 Economists所有,嚴禁使用於商業用途$$
##Copyleft: 中文所有權為本網站所有,歡迎告知後取用##