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| Tuesday, April 17, 2007 |
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Media and Analysts Comments on Leopard Delay
04:11 PM, April 15th 2007 by Alex Radulescu
Apple’s decision to delay its Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard because of iPhone may be considered the biggest tech news of the last week. In a brief statement Apple acknowledged that even if iPhone has already passed several tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned, there is still a lot of work to do. That’s why Apple needs to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from Mac OS X team. As a consequence, Apple won’t be able to ship its Mac OS X Leopard on June as intended and decided to delay the launch until October this year.
Even in the software and hardware world delaying a product is not such an unusual thing, Apple’s announcement has ignited a lot of comments from media and analysts, especially because this is the second product which was delayed by Apple this year.
Apple TV is was scheduled to be launched in February, as Steve Jobs announced at MacWorld 2007, was delayed until Marc without any explanation from Apple.
With its statement, Apple recognized that iPhone is the most important product for the company. Apple called the delay a "tradeoff". "Finishing (iPhone) on time has not come without a price," the company said.
Apple’s statement was received generally with positive reactions by media and analysts. Peter Cohen from MacWorld noted that the delay gives more time to Apple to present a fully-featured OS and may be a relief also for those involved in software development. “At least some of the people I’ve spoken to, including those involved in Mac OS X application development, are relieved at the delay. It gives them more time to make sure that their code is up to snuff. It also gives Apple more time to resolve any remaining issues, and get developers working on supporting the new features in Leopard. Lest we forget, Apple on Thursday also indicated that it plans to present a complete feature-set to developers who attend WWDC.” wrote Peter Cohen
BusinessWeek considers that a four-month delay is “minor” especially compared with the delays which plagued Windows Vista. “Apple also delayed the launch of Apple TV, which hit store shelves at the end of March. But Leopard's four-month delay is minor compared with the many delays that beset Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista. The system was first due in 2005, but didn't hit store shelves until early 2007.” notes BusinessWeek.
CNET is also making some a parallel between Leopard and Vista. They are quoting Samir Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis, which said that Apple may consider “might consider offering a coupon for an upgrade to Leopard along with purchases of Macs in August and September--similar to what Windows PC companies did when confronted with Vista's delay past the 2006 holiday shopping season”.
Harry McCracken, Editor in Chief of PC World, expressed a similar opinion. “What rational computer user, after all, would prefer to buy and use a product when even its own developer doesn't think it's ready for prime time? I've often expressed that sentiment when Microsoft's Windows ship dates have slip-slided away, so it's only consistent to cut Apple the same slack. I'm a little startled by the company's announcement that it's delaying Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" until October to wrap up work on the iPhone. But I'm okay with the decision--and even though I'm looking forward to getting Leopard for my MacBook, I'll happily bide my time until Apple thinks the OS is fully baked.” said McCracken on his blog.
Eric Zeman from Information Week believes that the reason behind Apple’s decision may be the lack of experience in building mobile phones. “It's interesting to me that whatever team Apple assembled to tackle the iPhone wasn't able to get the job done. It obviously underestimated the difficulty in developing and engineering the product. I would tack some of that up to inexperience. Apple has never made a phone before. They may seem like commoditized technology to some, but cell phones are more sophisticated than many believe.” said Zeman.
The analysts are considering also that Apple’s decision may be seen as positive news. American Technology Research senior analyst Shaw Wu, quoted by MacNN, sees the Leopard delay as a near-term setback. "While Apple cited a shift in resources to iPhone and more time for developers to beta test as reasons for the delay, our analysis indicates that if not for the 'secret' features, the core Leopard operating system would likely have shipped on time," the analyst said. "We believe the extra time Apple is allocating is for developers to test secret features that will likely be revealed at its WWDC 2007 conference starting on June 11, 2007."
Senior analyst Gene Munster of research firm Piper Jaffray also backups up the same conclusion. "The delay will shift an estimated $0.08 earnings-per-share or 2.6 percent (of calendar year 2007) from the June 2007 and September 2007 quarters into the December 2007 and March 2008 quarters ($0.04 from/to each quarter)," said Munster. "Apple reaffirmed the on-time arrival of the iPhone in June as part of the announcement, which we see as a positive that outweighs the delay of Leopard."
Many analysts are confident the iPhone will be a hit. "Although the push-out of Leopard is not ideal, we view iPhone as the delivery of the next leg to the Apple growth story," Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey wrote in an Apr. 13 research note.
"We continue to view the iPhone as a significant opportunity for Apple and while initial unit shipment volumes may be small (we estimate 250,000 in fiscal 3Q07) – we believe units could reach 2.7 million by fiscal 4Q08," Ben Reitzes, an analyst at UBS wrote.
http://www.playfuls.com/news_06984_Media_and_Analysts_Comments_on_Leopard_Delay.html |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:29 AM |
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