Apple Returns to the US
For the first time in years, Apple will manufacture computers in the United States, the chief executive of Apple, Timothy D. Cook, said in interviews with NBC and Bloomberg Businessweek.“Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States,” he said in an interview to be broadcast Thursday on “Rock Center With Brian Williams” on NBC.
Apple, the biggest company in the world by market value, moved most of its manufacturing to Asia in the late 1990s. As an icon of American technology success and innovation, the California-based company has been criticized in recent years for outsourcing jobs abroad.
“I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job,” Mr. Cook said in the Businessweek interview. “But I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs.”
The company plans to spend $100 million on the American manufacturing in 2013, according to the interviews, a small fraction of its overall factory investments and an even tinier portion of its available cash.
What do you guys think about this; PR stunt? Will it help sales of the Mac/Macbook, or only hurt earnings from inevitably rising operating costs? Remember, Macs only account for about 10% of their revenue, and they already cost an arm and a leg. It's obvious why Cook chose this product to be manufactured here in the US.
$100 million? Lol.
Why would anyone base their purchasing decisions on where a product is manufactured is what I don't understand. As long as the quality is top notch and the overall product is as well, I don't care if they're using newborns from Vietnam if it keeps prices down.
Before anyone throws out the argument that it will be higher quality if it's manufactured in the US rather than China, show me some tangible figures to support that nonsense.
1) People base purchasing decisions on place of manufacture all the time (see cars). I never understood it, but I guess it makes you patriotic.
2) I think the quality of the product will suffer since we aren't as skilled as the Chinese in manufacturing.
I like to buy local if the quality is the same as non-local products... might as well. Granted I did grow up around Detroit so there's a lot of the "Buy American!" stuff going on and MI's economy is in the shitter, so I guess I'd rather spend money in MI than send it to CA.
I think one of the biggest things with this is the increase in secrecy of product launches moving forward. Apple used to be known for their product launches, but now that is tarnished. If you think back to the iMac launch, it was a complete surprise and that's because it's only beginning to ship right around now, which indicates the issue of secrecy with the supply chain.
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