Apple's Mac Moment

Should they go for Window's jugular?

Lost in the appreciation for Apple’s iPod/iPhone/iPad success has been the Macintosh. It’s market share and run rate have stayed pretty steady through the remarkable run of portable devices.

Is that about to change? If so, this fall would be the perfect time.

Apple has slowly been making the prices of its Macs more reasonable, more in line with (premium) WinTel machines. So much so that the now comparable price and breakthrough on the weight for MacBook Pros finally got this Windows user of the past quarter century to pick up an MBP a few months ago.

This week, Apple introduced a new low-end iMac for a surprisingly reasonable price.

Should this back to school/holiday season be the time at Apple finally starts to have at least some of its Mac line compete on price with Windows machines?

Yes, and here’s why:

Windows has never been more vulnerable.

Nearly 2 years into Windows 8, and it still isn't close to 20% share, despite the expiration of XP support and two significant updates to the UI. Windows is in a weak position: Poorly managing the transition to tablets with a hybrid product that is failing to catch fire in a big way. Threshold is around the corner, and MSFT may well pull it off, but that’s largely out of view of the great mass of consumer and small business buyers for whom price is likely the biggest barrier to Mac adoption.

Apple Can Afford To:

Apple can afford to give up some gross margin to go for market share. It could have a massive, reinvigorating impact on the rest of the ecosystem. If $150b in cash doesn’t buy you some margin flexibility from the investor community, I don’t know what will. And they might not even have to worry about that.

It will give the iPhone/iPad line critical support

The commentary about the death of the PC aside, there are still a quarter billion PCs sold every year. They are still an integral part of the world's digital lifestyle. It seems odd that the half billion people paying a premium for an iPhone haven'’ become interested in seeing that experience on their desktop.

Yosemite’s unification of the Apple UX across iOS and OSX this fall is a further argument in favor of this being the moment. It's the third leg of the stool, ably supported by the (late to the party) Continuity.

A compellingly priced lineup of Macs released (not just announced) in time for back to school/back to business buying season might, paired with a large-screened iPhone (which I predict will blow the doors out) might be an incredibly persuasive argument for laggard consumers as well as business customers to move the rest of their business to Apple stack.