By SN
Tuesday May 20, 2008
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Apple Watch – May 16, 2008:
Consider this: Apple’s retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1,000 or more.
Should I repeat those numbers? The share data is for first-quarter brick-and-mortar stores, as tabulated by the NPD Group. Apple’s market share is but one measure of success. Sales growth is way up, while Windows desktop PC sales are way down.
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“In notebooks they’re growing two times the market,” said Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis. “Windows notebooks are pretty much flat right now.”
For the first quarter, Windows notebooks had “zero percent” growth year over year, Stephen said. By comparison, Apple notebooks had “50 to 60 percent growth.”
On the desktop, “They’re up 45 percent,” he continued. “The [overall] market is down 20 percent. Windows desktops would be down 25 percent.” The figures are also for first quarter.
I spoke with Stephen earlier this afternoon. He remarked: “iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows.”
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>>Do you mean nobody bought those 140 million
>>licenses? How many illegal licenses are being
>>used?
New PC sales, where the OS was rammed down users’ throats. That’s how I got my copy of Vista (Feb ’07, and by the time I realized what a dog it was, it was impractical to reformat and upgrad to XP).
In any case, I’ve never met a real person who went to a store and purchased Vista. Are you implying that somebody really did?
Over at the company where I work we can now get Macs for regular corporate use. It’s got to be one of the biggest comm companies in the world, I was pretty shocked to see that all I need is my boss’s approval to get one…
Dude, I’m getting a MAC
apeguero said
I also bought my wife a MacBook in 2006 and she loves it. Only install I had to do was Leopard upgrade when it came out last year. No problems since and all she does is visit Myspace and other crappy websites like that. No problems at all.
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Yep, that’s just about all Macs are really good at anyway. LOL…
Why doesn’t MS just license OS/X?
And dump everything but XP?
And get on with their lives..And ours..
ps typed on an iPhone..
C0D3R said
How many of these purchases enable an Apple only household? Not many I would guess. In my experience these new Mac owners already have two or more PC’s/laptops running Windows. For them, Mac is a novelty.
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That’s EXACTLY why I bought one. I had money burning a hole in my pocket. I had 2 PC laptops and wanted a new one. So I figured why not a Mac. Out of curiosity and the possibility to have access to software not available on the PC.
I find it humorous that market share is a stat not listed, but year over year growth instead. Oh, the comment about 2/3rds of PCs over 1000 screams that mac owners pay too much.
Yet another article for the ever-obsessive mac owners to jump up and down about.
Those of us who actually use our computers will just point and laugh.
The only people buying macs are those who think the case is pretty and will look good on their desktop. Real users use PCs, not shiny toys like macs.
Hey JVP,
I don’t know about the graphics end of the world but I see Macs mainly in dweebie types of companies like Google, Sun, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Nothing at Oracle for some reason.
That’s odd that you think they’re not good for “serious” use – but then maybe I’m not serious enough. I also see big use in biomedical research, engineering, and comp sci of course (compiler weenies seem to love them). The only place I haven’t seen them (for serious computer guys 😉 ) is the financial services sector.
Oh and gaming. Yea, Windows still rules in gaming. My son uses Windows for Call of Duty but a Mac for World of Warcrack…
Yeah JPV. She does nothing else with it. I bought a MacBook Pro to do an onsite EDI/SAP job at a client and it worked better than my previous $3,200.00 Sager powerhouse laptop. So, I doubt anyone here can give a valid point to take away from the MacBooks and MacBook Pros capabilities. Of course I sold the MBP because I work from home now so I can do this with my Mac Pro via Bootcamp. Plus my client sent me an IBM laptop also to work with.
My wife does nothing more than surf the web. This is primarily why I got her a Mac. I got tired of all the spyware and crap that would be left on her laptop (my previous Sager) after a couple of months of usage by her. Also, a really nice thing is the Screen Share feature on Macs. I can take control of her MacBook instantly by just clicking on her MacBook while on Finder (Explorer for the Windows users in Rio Linda). No muss, no fuss. Just click on her computer name there, and that’s it. My ID and password are saved from the first time I log on. Home network is a piece of cake too. Maintenance all around is a piece of cake — whatever little of that there is as I do nearly none, other than manually run update checker every once in a while.
I’m only saying Macs are the obvious choice for people that want a good machine, backed by a great support service, that could also run Windows just fine. I’m sure there are other PCs out there that are better than the Mac Pros and they might even be cheaper. I’m saying I got tired of the instability of Windows and the subjectability to attacks, spyware, maintenance, you name it.
Now, had these new Macs been limited like the old G5 PowerMacs and PowerBooks were, then I would not have made the switch. Deep down I’m a Windows guy. Macs do have quite a bit of drawbacks. Finder can never match up to Explorer. Hell, something as simple as being able to select multiple pictures in Explorer, right-clicking and selecting rotate is nowhere to be seen in Macs (natively that is without the need for a third party hack or software which I haven’t found). That little trick is XP only as I don’t think Vista has it anymore. Little things like that and many more keep XP right up there. But since these new Macs can also run Windows and I happen to like OSX, the choice was simple for me.
apeguero:
EDI/SAP? Man I hope you’re well paid.
Anyway, I love reading all these arguments about Windows or Macs are joke computers and the only I use is a real computer for real work, etc.
Really when it comes down to it, if you aren’t productive on XP, Vista, OS X, Ubuntu, or whatever then you’re really not productive, period. I happen to like Macs and find them a terrific platform for Windows development. But then I should be worth my money on Vista or Linux.
It’s a crappy carpenter that blames his tools.
Enough to pay the bills, keep my family of 6 happy, buy toys for me as well and put some money aside 🙂
“Anyway, I love reading all these arguments about Windows or Macs are joke computers and the only I use is a real computer for real work, etc.”
the defacto tool here is english – which you lack tools in
Vista 32-bit can only use 3 gig of ram. It shows 4 gb in the system control panel but is only using 3. Another silly trick by Microsoft for the uninformed.
andy
Wow, I’ve never met anyone called Andy before. So I’m dyslexic a bit. Lighten up already.
Read closer. The data is for BRICK AND MORTAR stores. In other words, it’s telling us what we already know:
Most people buy their computers online.
Mac users, not so much. So when Mac’s market share grows a little bit, their comparative in store sales go through the roof.
And Mac-loving writers like to twist data to suit their vision of the market.
Nothing exciting. Moving on.
apeguero said
Finder can never match up to Explorer.
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Don’t like either of them. I use Total Commander in the PC for any sort of heavy file management chores.
The closest thing. I’ve found to it, on the Mac, is muCommander. Though sadly, it pales in comparison to Total Commander.
Which reminders me of another HUGELY annoying Mac quirk. On the PC, if you copy a folder, on top of another folder with the same name, the data in those folders are merged. On a mac, the destination data gets deleted. The only work around is using the Terminal, which is 10 times more annoying, finicky and difficult than DOS IMO.
I was trying to make an Applescript run a terminal command involving a folder that had spaces in the name. You need to use an escape character (forward slash) with names that have spaces. I couldn’t get it to work till I ws informed that if you want the terminal command to run in an Applescript, it needs DOUBLE escape characters.
Sigh…
The Terminal throws all those old Apple commercials, that childishly made fun of DOS, into a whole new HYPOCRITICAL light BTW.
@JPV
What about simply cut and paste in Finder? Doesn’t quite work like on Explorer. I mean, you can only copy and paste via menus in Finder. There’s no cut there. Now if other Mac Users here have an answer for me (no, I don’t consider using other programs to do this as an answer) then I’d appreciate it.
There are at least 10 annoying things lacking in Finder that are easily done in Explorer. OSX is not perfect which is why I still use Windows.
Yeah, I’m really a big fan of dual pane (aka orthodox) file managers. muCommander works ok for me, but it’s written in JAVA and a little sluggish . I have yet to find better dual pane file manager for the Mac. Forklift looks nice but only works on Leopard, I’m still on Tiger.
i still have an old machine running desqview. I use it to scan dollar bills
I somewhat agree with some of the posters about the validity of the original article’s data. They may be “seeing” those numbers, but they are probably also seeing the effect of the recession on the IT industry.
Or the economic slowdown, if you like.
In any case, I have no reason to change from xp-64 to either OS, so here I will stay, with my 8 gig of accessible ram. Perhaps I’ll load virtual pc again and use it for osx. Somewhat the reverse of what I did for NeXTstep, when I ran NeXTstep on top of NT. Now that was fun!!
I always love how the evangelists pop out of the woodwork whenever the hallowed great one is mentioned.
whoa, talk about a media spin!
They could also have said “Apple buyers willing to pay a premium” or “Apple products priced way above the average PC market”. I just LOVE statistics, especially so since most people are completely unable to read them and therefore ANY statement can be proven with ANY statistics.
Way to go, spin doctors!
pj
I think the problem with Vista is the default settings are not optimal. Couple that with all the bloatware that the OEM adds – you have a really bad experience.
I did my own clean install of Vista on a Sony VAIO TZ notebook. It has integrated 3G, DVD burner, gorgeous 11″ wide display and weighs in at about 2.4lbs. Vista rocks on it. I can get in and out of standby in 2 seconds and it immediately reconnects my wifi or 3G. Standard battery runs for a solid 6 hours of constant use. I would take this over a Macbook AIR any day.
If Microsoft were to invest in tuning the OS image with the OEM for each platform – there would be a much different opinion within the general public.
#48, Jim. If you can get OSX to install using virtual pc, please let us know!
Seriously, that would be a true boon to everyone like myself who would like to try the mac platform without shelling out thousands for the hardware.
I don’t believe it’s going to work, though. I’ve read somewhere that all Mac’s have a type of hardware dongle which prevents people from doing that exact thing. Otherwise, what is going to stop people from wiping their old pc’s and installing OSX?
Much as I like to trash MS this study is heavily skewed. Many high end PC’s are customer built (try that with a MAC). Since most highend PC’s are used in gaming, engineering, architecture, and design, they’re found in small offices with small networks, and therefore even more prone to OS piracy. I do believe MS brought this on themselves by badgering their customer base with unwanted technologies and crushing the competition with some of the unfairest business practices ever seen.
90% of statistics can be manipulated to say whatever you want 50% of the time. Macs are overpriced, why not go ahead and bump the “high-end” price up to $1500? Should still cover most Macs.
btw I’m no M$ fan boy, I know a few people who swear that Vista is the best thing since sliced bread and they make me want to puke.
Do the Mac fan boys really want Mac to gain a large market share? Mac would be even worse of a monopoly than M$. They make all of the hardware, software, peripherals, and I doubt you can even build your own like you can with a PC. Oh never mind, people just like it because its pretty.
Umm, I was just about to buy 24″ 2.8 mghz iMac on eBay, the price jumped up $200 in just 3 days.
Also, don’t forget that a lot of people may not buy a new pc or vista loaded laptop but they build their own, so pc (windows) hardware sales are quite high in number too. I like to build my own boxes and If I could build a box and put OS X on it, I would, because the hardware is cheap now. But I will not buy /build a pc and run windows again. Thats why I am willingly forced to pay a BIG premium on apple boxes. I hope they come down in price.
#53 – jlm:
you’ve got it just right. While Microsoft has always tried to create a monopoly (and succeeded), they’ve done so involving partners. Apple is truly a “we’ll be all and end all” company. This is why the rumors of Apple potentially buying Adobe scares me .
pj
As a graphic artist I can attest: Most windows based computers are good for web surfing and home applications. Designing in windows is like banging two rocks together. I have an old dual processor ( physically two processors ) G4 that can beat the pants of this one year old Dell Optiplex
Rolls Royce sells more than 66% of the cars that are priced over $100,000, so this means they are outperforming other car manufacturers?
Most of the interpretation that was given is misleading. It is easier to show a many-fold increase in “sales growth” when the number of units sold is actually lower than the competitor’s if the previous year’s sold units are much lower.
For example, Company Y sold 10 units last month while Company Z sold 1000 units. This month Company Y sold 20 units while Company Z sold 1200 units. Company Y has experienced 100% sales growth while Company Z has ‘only’ 20% sales growth even though it has actually sold more units than Y.
In some ways, the way the data was interpreted and presented is misleading. The focus on “sales growth” and not actual “sales” shows the bias.
For example, Company Y sold 10 units last month while Company Z sold 1000 units. This month Company Y sold 20 units while Company Z sold 1200 units. Company Y has experienced 100% sales growth while Company Z has ‘only’ 20% sales growth even though it has actually sold more units than Y.