Like many Mac users, I’ve dismissed talk of Apple’s miniscule share of the personal computer market by (a) pointing out that many of those PCs are just glorified 3270s/VT100s/Wang word processors/cash registers, and (b) invoking the “BMW argument”: what market share does BMW have – and does that stop them from being a really important, cool, desirable brand? So now Apple goes and releases a couple of down-market products, and various people are asking, understandably, “is Apple blowing its BMW model?”. Frank Steele has a nice response: “Perhaps BMW could create (or purchase) a second brand that sold cars that were not quite so expensive. Maybe comparable in price to other cars, but maybe a little smaller, and fun. […] But what could BMW possibly call such a company?”
(Via Oren.)