How would Sculley know?

Sculley worked a Pepsi. A commodity product in a two horse race. It was a mistake to hire him into Apple in the first instance; and that has been proven.

Just because he is a past failed CEO of Apple, why does anyone show the slightest interest in his opinions? He has demonstrated he has no idea how to run Apple - he made too many mistakes.

Why would his recommendations be any better now?

This article is a waste of pixels.

Sculley

"…who is perhaps best known for a 1985 coup in which he ousted Apple cofounder Steve Jobs…"

Er, no: actually, he survived Jobs' attempt at a coup, then relegated him to a corner by his underperformance, and finally let him get out to build NeXT and drive it to the ground while Apple went through a stage of splendor before its decline.

Sculley the Bully

He should go back to Pepsi. Look at how well CokaCola did under his reign. What he knows about business strategy where Apple is concerned is why Jobs was returned to the fold.

Apple uses the same hard drives, video cards, memory RAM, used by PC, but...

It's for Apple to decide, but;

"there's no way Apple will be able to gain a foothold in the developing world as long as its products are priced like luxury items"

This true NOT only for developing world, but also for the rest of the world market. Apple uses the same hard drives, video cards, memory RAM, internet adapters and many more components used by PC, but Apple's price is much higher, sometimes 50% higher than the same part for PC. This is bad for business for long run, immoral and cannot last for much longer. People will eventually come to their sense and "vote with their wallets".

Another option.

If Apple really did want to get into the lower end of the market, there is no reason why they couldn't do so under another brand name, maybe another fruit, sub-licensing the iPhone trademark and selling the cheap phone without damaging their premium brand.

Companies do it all the time.

emerging markets

Obviously there is a lot of growth potential for Apple to sell iPads to africa, Brazil, Vietnam, etc, but that misses the point of how Apple has defined emerging markets since they introduced the iPod. Apple doesn't see emerging markets as Laos, Tajikistan, Bolivia, etc, Apple defines emerging markets by the type of device. MP3 players were an emerging market, smartphones were an emerging market, tablets were an emerging market. Why sell cheap low margin goods to poor countries, when you can wait for them to develop to be rich enough to buy your high margin goods? The risk with this strategy, though, is that very few companies can consistently create and/or dominate emerging markets.

Must be a slow news day if the senile ramblings of drooling has-been failed CEOs are occupying column space.

What?

"The big shift as we go from $500 smartphones to even as low – for some companies – as $100 for a smartphone, you've got to dramatically rethink the supply chain and how you can build these products and do it profitably," Sculley said"

How can you get any cheaper than using the slave labor at Foxconn? According to MSN Money, the Iphone 5 costs Apple between $207 and $238 to make. They sell the Iphone 5 with 16GB for $649 making a cool $442 profit off of each unit. Or, in other words, they make about 200 percent profit. I can give them a suggestion if they want to sell their Iproducts cheaper, but something tells me they won't listen

ref:

http://money.msn.com/technology-investment/post.aspx?post=c2739b74-68c7-4480-aa9d-7d66322e7e5a

Here is what Apple will do: Credit Plans...

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Apple-pioneers-installment-plans-in-China-4200804.php

Apple will NOT likely lower prices, since to them that would devalue the upscaleness or premium branding. factors they see around their existence. More likely, Apple will make even MORE money, from earning interest income. And, since it will be offshore, probably it will pay lower taxes if it can find a way to Statesside "administer" the financing and administrative overrhead" while keeping the money in some offshore account. My assumptions in this para, though.

Anyway, from the article...

"Apple pioneers installment plans in China"

""Apple has introduced installment payment plans for buyers of iPhones and MacBook laptops in China as it struggles to compete with low-cost devices in the world's largest computer and mobile-phone market.

Payments on purchases costing from $48 to $4,800 made via the company's Chinese website can be spread over as long as two years, according to the site. The plan, which requires a China Merchants Bank Co. credit card, has fees ranging from zero to 8.5 percent.

Apple is trying to make its products more affordable in China after being surpassed by local suppliers such as ZTE Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd. in the smartphone market. The iPhone 5, released in China last month, is priced at $850 on Apple's local site, equal to about six weeks' pay for the average urban worker.

"There is an enormous mid-range consumer market that they are not tapping into," said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a Beijing market research firm. "They're trying to figure out how to make products more accessible to that market segment. This is a good step in that direction."

More at the URL