Huh?

Pj

> If dominating a niche was as good as dominating the market,
> then why is Apple running tons of commercials in
> national/international TV?

Because they don’t yet completely dominate their niche, and are looking to expand?

Trying to dominate a niche where your strengths are is a great business strategy, but that doesn’t mean that Apple hasn’t got room to grow even within their particular niche. There are millions of consumers with Windows PCs in their homes whom Apple could sell to – and are selling to, increasingly.

But it’s a bad business decision to pour all of your resources into every single market out there. Given limited resources, it’s best to market to those people who are most likely to buy your product. While Apple does and will continue to sell some of their products to the ‘enterprise’ market, they’re much better positioned to find growth in the consumer market due to their strengths (industrial design, UI design, mindshare due to the iPod, etc).

> For a company as famous and fabled as Apple is, is has to be
> painful not being able to reach a decent world wide market
> share.

While, I’m sure it’s plenty painful to be worth ‘only’ 72 billion dollars and not be worth a trillion or two, I’m not really sure what you’d recommend that they do. Give up?

> I’m sure when Stevo & co. is thinking about a new product
> he’s not thinking about Apple’s niche. He’s thinking big, he
> wants it all, else what’s the drive?

I think he is thinking big, hence the removal of “Computer” from the company name. Moving into a new area doesn’t mean giving up on the old one, though.

Let’s face it: Apple doesn’t want to become the next IBM. That’s a tired, played-out market, at least in their mind. Apple wants to become the next Sony, and the Mac is an instrumental part of that (both because it’s an excellent “media hub” and because Mac-related profits help drive their R&D). They want to sell a ton of cool gadgets with a nice high-margin Mac to go along with it.

> Ask Josh if he is putting so much effort just so that
> Dreamhost dominates the garage-script-coder niche? Don’t
> think so. If anything…

Trust me, Josh does dream big.

But, he’s not dumb. From the very start he/we have picked our battles and chosen whom we would market ourselves to. And, yes, there are certain markets we’ve more or less left to the other guys on purpose and are unlikely to chase after (Windows hosting, anyone?) – which is fine, as there’s plenty of room for us to grow in the markets we have chosen.

You can’t be something for everyone and still be especially good – or even decent – at all of those things. You have to pick and choose.

As it is now, we happen to be well liked by garage coders, webloggers, media types, teenagers, artists and all sorts of other people. There are so many of those people that we could continue at our current rate of growth for years without running out of them. Truth be told, we think the “regular person” web publishing market will be huge as the tools get easier to use, and we’re going to be there for that.

- Jeff @ DreamHost

If dominating a niche was as good as dominating the market, then why is Apple running tons of commercials in national/international TV? They already have complete supremacy in their niche, they are already making more money than God (or thereabouts), so why? Simple, businesses must expand or eventually perish (or stagnate).

I bet that other than new iPod models/normal uprgrade cycles for their Mac line their ROI cannot be as good as many think. For a company as famous and fabled as Apple is, is has to be painful not being able to reach a decent world wide market share.

I’m sure when Stevo & co. is thinking about a new product he’s not thinking about Apple’s niche. He’s thinking big, he wants it all, else what’s the drive?

Ask Josh if he is putting so much effort just so that Dreamhost dominates the garage-script-coder niche? Don’t think so. If anything he wants Dreamhost to be taken a bit more seriously by those customers who are not really interested in a good deal in as much as they’re interested in reliability and dependability. He wants DH to expand, grow and reach critical mass. Niche can take you for a ride, critical mass will take you all the way.

@Sandon….cool kids run Gentoo (installed from stage 1) :p

> Nope. Just the coolest ones. ;)

Geh! The coolest ones are the ones actually running linux like me with XGL/AIGLX. Desktop Linux FTW!

- Sandon @ DreamHost

Nope. Just the coolest ones. ;)

(there are a few hold-outs here – Josh included!)

- Jeff @ DreamHost

No teleportation!

And I guess my thoughts on the iPhone are… it’d be better if it was at least available unlocked and on sprint/verizon.

It’d be better if it were cheaper.

It’d be better if it had gps built-in.

It’d be better if it could be crumpled up and hidden in your backside.

(So yeah, I don’t plan on getting one.. I’ve moved on past “smart phones”. I just have a teeny laptop with EVDO and long battery life in my bag.. it’s a great FULL computer! I use an old nokia brick that’s indestructible with great battery life.. it’s a great phone! I have a Canon SD600 for taking pictures.. it’s a great camera! And I have a Nintendo DS Lite for playing games.. it’s a great game-player!)

Which by the way its name infringes on Cisco’s trademark….it’s gonna be fun to watch and fun for the lawyers involved too. :)