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Apple has the public's eye, which is why they're getting picked on, just like Nike was a few years ago. The fact that Apple enjoys such fat margins makes them

Apple has the public's eye, which is why they're getting picked on, just like Nike was a few years ago. The fact that Apple enjoys such fat margins makes them look, at least to some people, that bit more egregious than their competitors. I don't know if the Pulitzer was deserved or not, but I feel it was a tech story worth covering.

astrodust 13y ago
Worth covering, sure, but don't get all frantic about it. How many times does Apple have to strong-arm their suppliers into doubling wages (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/28/apples-foxconn-to-double-wages-again/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/28/apples-fo...) before people are happy? I haven't heard of any other company doing this. Apple uses the same factories, the same suppliers, and the same logistics as everyone else. Why do they have such high margins, then? Could it be they know how to run a business better? Remember Apple focuses on creating a handful of products and manufacturing the hell out of them. HP, by contrast, has over two thousand different printer models. Why do you need so many models? How can you build up enough volume on any of those to cut manufacturing margins? Sony's PS3, by contrast, is basically a single unit, so they can slash margins tremendously. The only variations are accessories and an easily replaced hard drive. Apple comes as close to that model as they possibly can. There's actually an unusually large diversity of notebooks now with the Retina machines being introduced, but that's still a fraction of what Dell or HP has in their line-up. Samsung's starting to "get it" and they're promoting their flagship phone instead of any of the hundreds of others they have.