Ass

I love it when people dig up stories like this. John Siracusa looked back to 2001 to find this Business Week commentary, "Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work" written by some dipshit named Cliff Edwards:

Referring to Apple's new retail arm:

"Problem is, the numbers don't add up. Given the decision to set up shop in high-rent districts in Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and Jobs's hometown of Palo Alto, Calif., the leases for Apple's stores could cost $1.2 million a year each, says David A. Goldstein, president of researcher Channel Marketing Corp. Since PC retailing gross margins are normally 10% or less, Apple would have to sell $12 million a year per store to pay for the space. Gateway does about $8 million annually at each of its Country Stores. Then there's the cost of construction, hiring experienced staff. "

Then he gives a great quote by David A. Goldstein, who works for one of those remarkably useless corporate research groups:

"I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake."

For the record, Apple sold about $900 million per quarter last year.

There are (at least) two takeaways from this:

• Business journalists are mostly useless
• Business research groups are entirely useless