Google Inc (GOOG) Copies Apple Inc (AAPL) in More Ways Than One

The fatal flaw
It’s also not as if Apple is seeing explosive sales of its 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros. The company just aggressively slashed pricing on those models by $200 to $300, which hints that it wasn’t selling as well as the company would have liked. Tim Cook also implied that laptop units were down roughly 6% in the fourth quarter, and OS X is a very mature operating system at this point.

If Google had priced the Chromebook Pixel at $600 to $800, enough to undercut even Microsoft’s Surface Pro, then the search giant might have had a winner on its hands. Price is easily the Chromebook Pixel’s fatal flaw.

Let’s try this hardware margin thing we’ve heard so much about
The pricing shows another, perhaps more important, way that Google is copying Apple — pursuing hardware gross margin. While Big G has historically sold its hardware at cost, most notably with Nexus devices, Chromebook Pixel is a distinct departure from that strategy.

There’s no way that this laptop costs $1,300 to build, which means Google is trying to profit up front. On the bright side, possible hardware margins could help pay for those rumored retail stores.

The article Google Copies Apple in More Ways Than One originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, owns shares of Apple and Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ). The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.