Wall Street Analysts Believe iMac Sales are Strong
News.com reports that Wall Street analysts are seeing evidence of strong demand for Apple's new iMac line of computers. The article quotes Don Young of UBS Warburg as saying, "There is an overwhelming amount of demand for the new iMacs, despite the higher price points." Another analyst speculated that Apple may sell 1.3 million new iMacs in 2002.
Nowhere in this article is any mention of the value customers may be putting on bundled digital content management software called iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and iTunes. The first three applications provide fairly sophisticated editing capabilities to novice digital content producers. Of equal importance, the applications provide organizational help for digital content, filling a major gap in the arsenals of most home computer users. These application definitely eliminate some of the difficulty that regular folks have in choosing digital content management and manipulation software. (iTunes also plays an important role, but, it does not have the same editing capabilities as the other three applications.)
These applications are free to purchasers of the new iMacs, and a tremendous incentive to give the platform a try, even as the second machine in a household where a Windows PC already exists. It's hard for us to understand why the article talks only about boxes moved, and not about the reasons consumers are choosing these machines over other, cheaper alternatives.