[cek]

Shockingly short-sighted post. Apple does not make it's profits from feeds & speeds (e.g. Retina display). It makes its profits, and delights its customers through its vertical integration; its excellence at every point of the customer experience from design, to supply chain management, to manufacturing, to distribution, to marketing, to advertising, to retail, to sales, to post-sales, to support, to software, to services.

To assert that, from a business perspective, that the "puck" that Google (or Apple) worry about is ludicrous. These two companies do not even compete on the same rink. Their competition is asymmetric. Apple's profits come from 'high margins at retail, paid up front'. Google's profits come from 'the consumer is the product, the advertiser is the customer'.

It is fun to try to compare the micro-actions of these companies, but it is not business or strategy analysis.

[jsnell]

Except that in this particular case:

- Google is vertically integerated, at least to as high a degree as Apple is with Macs

- Google is trying to sell a physical product at high margins

- Google is heavily rumored to be setting up its own retail presence

Honestly, you'd think that at least when we're discussing a $1300 laptop, the lame "you're the product" cliche could be avoided.

[cooldeal]

>Google is trying to sell a physical product at high margins

Reference?

The Chromebook Pixel is still heavily geared towards Google's services, be it Docs or Storage. 1TB of Google Drive storage currently runs $600/yr if you get it by itself which comes to a $1800 subsidy for a $1300 laptop!

That either means their Drive storage is horribly overpriced, or that they're heavily subsidizing the Pixel.

[jsnell]

Somebody buying 1TB of Drive space presumably intends to use it, and Google won't make a huge margin on that. (Don't know their cost structure, and wouldn't reveal it if I knew). But most people getting "free" Drive space with a laptop is not going to use most it.

Additionally it's unlikely to amount to $1800 subsidy. Storage costs decrease exponentially, so the value of 1TB in 3 years is much lower than 1TB now.

[OGinparadise]

"Honestly, you'd think that at least when we're discussing a $1300 laptop, the lame "you're the product" cliche could be avoided."

You'd think so but especially not here, everything you do will be "seen" by Google. So, you'll be paying $1300+ for a browser and be tracked massively by Google to "serve you better ads." Yay!

[recoiledsnake]

You're expecting too much from someone who thinks the Windows OEMs don't make laptops with SSDs exclusively.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/pc/computing/toshiba-launch...

There, a laptop with only SSD in 2007, which is over 5 years ago. Who was skating where now?