None of these examples have anything to do with selling Linux software in developing economies.
Of course. Poorer markets produce lower returns. Not much of a mystery there.
But if you read the Joel link I included, you'll see the long-term benefits of such deployments. Entire nations around the world are entering the Internet Age with Linux as their main computing environment. And as you note, those economies are growing. The combination suggests a long-term tipping point that bodes well for Linux worldwide.
Quote:
I work on Linux workstations not infrequently, and the user experience completely sucks compared to Windows (OK, it's more stable, but that's all). Compared to Mac OS X it's not even in the game. Anyone who claims the Linux desktop is ready for prime time is allowing their reason to be clouded by their ideological bias.
I do like OS X myself, but IMNSHO Windows is perhaps the ugliest pig of an operating system I can imagine.
I'll admit I'm a bit of an Ubuntu fanboy, and while I've enjoyed SUSE and Debian I can understand why Ubuntu is the current desktop leader. It's far from perfect (no OS is), but they've produced a truly strong consumer experience. You may not like it and that's fine, but others do.
That quote from 1996 (MS has won) still holds true today: Apple is growing at 35% from a 3.3% market share while the market as a whole is growing at 20% (Source: IDC). If Apple continues at that rate they will reach a 10% market share by 2020 and 50% by 2030. So unless we are talking about a far away possible future, Microsoft still holds the market.
This is still very good news for Apple investors - it just doesn't change the market share significantly.
The 35% figure is for a single month while the quarter is estimated at somewhere between 19% and 23% - say 21% as the average of the two extremes. So Apple's Mac growth is in line with the overall PC market, or to put it another way, at present the Mac's growth is 'flat'.
That may of course change. However, based on what we know and what IDC and co. anticipate/report, the Mac share is holding steady. As you point out, the platform continues to outperform in terms of revenues and profits though, which is obviously good news for the company and its shareholders.
But I can see a time 10 years from now when platforms have a fairly even three-way split between MS, Apple, and Linux. Microsoft goes down, Apple quintuples, and Linux fills in the gap in between.
The problem with Linux is, no one's figured out a way to seriously monetize it.
And, if Apple gets anywhere close to quintupling its share -- which I think is highly unlikely -- it'll be the first $1T mkt-cap company in the world.
I think the iPad is an entirely NEW market. The Netbook is a 90% productivity and 10 % leisure device. It barely runs Windows, it has lousy keyboard/mouse and a crappy display with an underpowered 1 GHz processor. For movie watching, music and gaming - well, it's pathetic. If you fly or commute, you can watch a movie or play a game on it - but it's only last resort.
I think you're a little out of touch with the current state of netbooks. We have one as a test machine and the following may (or may not) be of interest.
The CPU is an Intel Atom 280 running at 1.67 GHz. RAM is DDR2, 800MHz, 2 GB. HDD is a 5400 rpm 250GB Seagate. Graphics (the weak link) are Intel GMA 950 series. Screen is a 10" number, at 1280x600. Machine comes standard with Bluetooth, Wifi and Ethernet, plus decent audio. The touchpad is Synaptics and has multitouch. Keyboard is 90% the size of a notebook class device.
Software on this netbook is Windows 7 Home Premium, and currently has installed Adobe CS3 Design suite, MS Office and various utilities for audio editing and DVD authoring etc.
It happily runs HD movies without skipping/stuttering, runs Flash and any codec I've thrown its way.
It cost NZ$495 +GST or one third of what the iPad will retail for when it's released here.
I freely admit that netbooks are not for everyone, but for content creation, they seem more than adequate. I will also admit though, that you won't want to be doing any heavy lifting in Photoshop. But I can run with my Wacom attached and it's entirely suitable for average sized (A4) files for print. And the graphics, as underpowered as they are, can drive a 24" monitor in true color at 1920x1200.
Well, yes, but you also have to consider that he was still out of Apple when he said it. I think Apple's present course shows both a tendency to do more than milk the Mac for all it's worth, as well as moving on to the next big thing.
At the risk of preaching Steve Jobs did milk the Mac for all he could before moving on to the next great thing. The milking phase was OS8 and OS9. The next great thing was OSX which was actually NextStep and really a complete break from the Mac legacy. The Macs you buy today are actually NextStep machines that are marketed as Macs. They seem to be Macs to most because Apple managed the transition so well in most cases. One case that did not go so well was Adobe which was very reluctant to devote the engineering time to port their software to the new platform.
The subsequent iPhone/iPad/iPod touch trio are also an even newer great new thing based on the NextStep platform re-engineered with multitouch as the UI instead of the keyboard and mouse.
Jobs did follow his own advice and the current success of the "Mac" was the first next great thing enabled by milking the legacy OS8 and OS9 Macs.
I think you're a little out of touch with the current state of netbooks. We have one as a test machine and the following may (or may not) be of interest.
The CPU is an Intel Atom 280 running at 1.67 GHz. RAM is DDR2, 800MHz, 2 GB. HDD is a 5400 rpm 250GB Seagate. Graphics (the weak link) are Intel GMA 950 series. Screen is a 10" number, at 1280x600. Machine comes standard with Bluetooth, Wifi and Ethernet, plus decent audio. The touchpad is Synaptics and has multitouch. Keyboard is 90% the size of a notebook class device.
Software on this netbook is Windows 7 Home Premium, and currently has installed Adobe CS3 Design suite, MS Office and various utilities for audio editing and DVD authoring etc.
It happily runs HD movies without skipping/stuttering, runs Flash and any codec I've thrown its way.
It cost NZ$495 +GST or one third of what the iPad will retail for when it's released here.
I freely admit that netbooks are not for everyone, but for content creation, they seem more than adequate. I will also admit though, that you won't want to be doing any heavy lifting in Photoshop. But I can run with my Wacom attached and it's entirely suitable for average sized (A4) files for print. And the graphics, as underpowered as they are, can drive a 24" monitor in true color at 1920x1200.
Not too shabby, especially considering the price.
Pretty much; I've had my netbook since November 2008, and use it when I want to travel light (less than half the weight of my laptop), and it still allows me to do some rough and dirty edits to my dSLR's RAW files in Picasa, and then upload or e-mail them to family.
I simply couldn't do that with an iPad, not without shooting in JPEG (eww) and also shelling out for another $29 dongle. Even then, I'd still be limited by storage, and I would need someway of uploading the pics (I'm sure there are probably apps for that).
That quote from 1996 (MS has won) still holds true today: Apple is growing at 35% from a 3.3% market share while the market as a whole is growing at 20% (Source: IDC). If Apple continues at that rate they will reach a 10% market share by 2020 and 50% by 2030. So unless we are talking about a far away possible future, Microsoft still holds the market.
This is still very good news for Apple investors - it just doesn't change the market share significantly.
Everything you've said is only true if one excepts a critically flawed assumption... that apple has any intention of going head to head with with windows in some kind of os slugfest to the death.
Now steve himself admitted that apple lost that kind of war way back in 97. remember the "beyond the box" speech from the same year ?
no the apple strategy is clear define new markets, and take the dominant positions those markets as quickly as possible. (9 million plus ipad sales in the first year) All the while isolating windows on the desktop making the traditional pc approach less less compelling over time.H ow loud can you say IOS
in short if you cant compete in a market with too big a headstart, find a way to make it redundant
I doubt that Linux will have that sort of market share in 10 years, unless it is largely made up of installations in markets that can't afford anything else, which means no one will really be making any money from it, the software that runs on it, or the hardware it runs on. (Which would also mean that market share would become an even more meaningless statistic) But, the Linux desktop user experience sucks, even in comparison to Windows. It's still a great server platform, but as a workstation it's pretty lousy.
To this day, Desktop Linux is unfit for use by the Average User.
Desktop Linux is a failed experiment. It seems to do alright in phones, however.
At the risk of preaching Steve Jobs did milk the Mac for all he could before moving on to the next great thing. The milking phase was OS8 and OS9. The next great thing was OSX which was actually NextStep and really a complete break from the Mac legacy. The Macs you buy today are actually NextStep machines that are marketed as Macs. They seem to be Macs to most because Apple managed the transition so well in most cases. One case that did not go so well was Adobe which was very reluctant to devote the engineering time to port their software to the new
This seems to be quite nonsensical reasoning to me, gross oversimplification at best. These sorts of complete breaks are utterly necessary in the development of technology. The Mac is no more a Nextstep machine than Windows is DOS.
OS X (I think they will drop the "Mac") = for pros: open installation (even compile-your-own), publicised specs, Unix prompt, full keyboard, mouse for more accurate pointing.
I think this is what Steve was referring to by traditional computers becoming the "trucks" of the computing world. But I think the assumption underlying this is that there is currently a large group of people who have casual computer needs only, but are being forced (before the iPad) to buy a Pro machine.
I am not sure this is entirely valid. Computers are needed for so much these days, and some businesses are even starting a "bring your own computer" model where people use their own laptop at work instead of being allocated a Dell box. I think the "average" person almost needs a fully fledged laptop.
The "act of faith" that there are millions who want these simple computers has the same vibe as the attempts for years and years to "converge" the computer with the TV. I know they're unrelated issues, they just have the same feel.
So while the rate of growth has slowed, the netbook segment is still growing y/y.
I wonder if Apple?s comparatively paltry iPad sales may be more profitable than all netbook sales combined, but that doesn?t matter much unless you are a shareholder or you are looking at longterm trends, which we are.
While I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that netbook sales are growing it does look they have slowed considerably since the iPad announcement in January. If you recall, CES was filled with many tablets, some we running Windows 7, but others were getting smart and thinking about a mobile OS designed for the device.
While Apple has a significant lead here, history will likely repeat itself with Apple taking more profit than anyone else but unit sales from all tablets playing copycat will exceed Apple?s sales. That isn?t the case with the iPod, but it is with other areas of their consumer HW legs.
The question I pose to you: Can we expect the netbook sales to continue to have some growth each YoY quarter or will tablets become the de facto device for low intensity, high consumption computing on the go?
IThe question I pose to you: Can we expect the netbook sales to continue to have some growth each YoY quarter or will tablets become the de facto device for low intensity, high consumption computing on the go?
I realise that the question wasn't addressed to me, but it is a good question. To answer it, we'd need to dust off our crystal ball though as there are a few different dynamics happening here. But I offer this, for what it's worth.
As Apple has defined its tablet entry, it's clearly earmarked primarily as a device for consumption. Without precision input and mass storage, it's deliberately limited in what it can create. I understand why SJ would make it so, not least being that he doesn't want it cannibalizing MacBook sales.
On the other hand, netbooks have not stood still, with better screens, graphics and CPUs all contributing to a better creation experience while delivering an already good consumption one. For an example of how things are morphing, Asus has developed a netbook which functions as a standalone touchscreen tablet when needed. Since it hasn't been released yet, nobody can confirm how it will be priced, but my WAG is that it will be priced below the iPad.
There's also a very large emerging nation market out there which seems to be a potential driver for netbook sales, although as yet that potential hasn't really been realized.
In summary, I don't think netbooks can be counted out, with even the 'big' PC manufacturers now bringing them to market. But my crystal ball is dusty.
Comments
I'd be keen to see how Windows Net/Notebook sales are doing outside of the emerging markets.
I haven't been able to turn up segmented data, but the overall outlook for netbooks looks good this year:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...8&postcount=29
None of these examples have anything to do with selling Linux software in developing economies.
Of course. Poorer markets produce lower returns. Not much of a mystery there.
But if you read the Joel link I included, you'll see the long-term benefits of such deployments. Entire nations around the world are entering the Internet Age with Linux as their main computing environment. And as you note, those economies are growing. The combination suggests a long-term tipping point that bodes well for Linux worldwide.
I work on Linux workstations not infrequently, and the user experience completely sucks compared to Windows (OK, it's more stable, but that's all). Compared to Mac OS X it's not even in the game. Anyone who claims the Linux desktop is ready for prime time is allowing their reason to be clouded by their ideological bias.
I do like OS X myself, but IMNSHO Windows is perhaps the ugliest pig of an operating system I can imagine.
I'll admit I'm a bit of an Ubuntu fanboy, and while I've enjoyed SUSE and Debian I can understand why Ubuntu is the current desktop leader. It's far from perfect (no OS is), but they've produced a truly strong consumer experience. You may not like it and that's fine, but others do.
That quote from 1996 (MS has won) still holds true today: Apple is growing at 35% from a 3.3% market share while the market as a whole is growing at 20% (Source: IDC). If Apple continues at that rate they will reach a 10% market share by 2020 and 50% by 2030. So unless we are talking about a far away possible future, Microsoft still holds the market.
This is still very good news for Apple investors - it just doesn't change the market share significantly.
The 35% figure is for a single month while the quarter is estimated at somewhere between 19% and 23% - say 21% as the average of the two extremes. So Apple's Mac growth is in line with the overall PC market, or to put it another way, at present the Mac's growth is 'flat'.
That may of course change. However, based on what we know and what IDC and co. anticipate/report, the Mac share is holding steady. As you point out, the platform continues to outperform in terms of revenues and profits though, which is obviously good news for the company and its shareholders.
I haven't been able to turn up segmented data, but the overall outlook for netbooks looks good this year:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...8&postcount=29
And 58 million is no small amount - I'm sure Apple would be happy with iPad sales figures at that level but hasn't that flattened?..
But I can see a time 10 years from now when platforms have a fairly even three-way split between MS, Apple, and Linux. Microsoft goes down, Apple quintuples, and Linux fills in the gap in between.
The problem with Linux is, no one's figured out a way to seriously monetize it.
And, if Apple gets anywhere close to quintupling its share -- which I think is highly unlikely -- it'll be the first $1T mkt-cap company in the world.
I think the iPad is an entirely NEW market. The Netbook is a 90% productivity and 10 % leisure device. It barely runs Windows, it has lousy keyboard/mouse and a crappy display with an underpowered 1 GHz processor. For movie watching, music and gaming - well, it's pathetic. If you fly or commute, you can watch a movie or play a game on it - but it's only last resort.
I think you're a little out of touch with the current state of netbooks. We have one as a test machine and the following may (or may not) be of interest.
The CPU is an Intel Atom 280 running at 1.67 GHz. RAM is DDR2, 800MHz, 2 GB. HDD is a 5400 rpm 250GB Seagate. Graphics (the weak link) are Intel GMA 950 series. Screen is a 10" number, at 1280x600. Machine comes standard with Bluetooth, Wifi and Ethernet, plus decent audio. The touchpad is Synaptics and has multitouch. Keyboard is 90% the size of a notebook class device.
Software on this netbook is Windows 7 Home Premium, and currently has installed Adobe CS3 Design suite, MS Office and various utilities for audio editing and DVD authoring etc.
It happily runs HD movies without skipping/stuttering, runs Flash and any codec I've thrown its way.
It cost NZ$495 +GST or one third of what the iPad will retail for when it's released here.
I freely admit that netbooks are not for everyone, but for content creation, they seem more than adequate. I will also admit though, that you won't want to be doing any heavy lifting in Photoshop. But I can run with my Wacom attached and it's entirely suitable for average sized (A4) files for print. And the graphics, as underpowered as they are, can drive a 24" monitor in true color at 1920x1200.
Not too shabby, especially considering the price.
Well, yes, but you also have to consider that he was still out of Apple when he said it. I think Apple's present course shows both a tendency to do more than milk the Mac for all it's worth, as well as moving on to the next big thing.
At the risk of preaching Steve Jobs did milk the Mac for all he could before moving on to the next great thing. The milking phase was OS8 and OS9. The next great thing was OSX which was actually NextStep and really a complete break from the Mac legacy. The Macs you buy today are actually NextStep machines that are marketed as Macs. They seem to be Macs to most because Apple managed the transition so well in most cases. One case that did not go so well was Adobe which was very reluctant to devote the engineering time to port their software to the new platform.
The subsequent iPhone/iPad/iPod touch trio are also an even newer great new thing based on the NextStep platform re-engineered with multitouch as the UI instead of the keyboard and mouse.
Jobs did follow his own advice and the current success of the "Mac" was the first next great thing enabled by milking the legacy OS8 and OS9 Macs.
I think you're a little out of touch with the current state of netbooks. We have one as a test machine and the following may (or may not) be of interest.
The CPU is an Intel Atom 280 running at 1.67 GHz. RAM is DDR2, 800MHz, 2 GB. HDD is a 5400 rpm 250GB Seagate. Graphics (the weak link) are Intel GMA 950 series. Screen is a 10" number, at 1280x600. Machine comes standard with Bluetooth, Wifi and Ethernet, plus decent audio. The touchpad is Synaptics and has multitouch. Keyboard is 90% the size of a notebook class device.
Software on this netbook is Windows 7 Home Premium, and currently has installed Adobe CS3 Design suite, MS Office and various utilities for audio editing and DVD authoring etc.
It happily runs HD movies without skipping/stuttering, runs Flash and any codec I've thrown its way.
It cost NZ$495 +GST or one third of what the iPad will retail for when it's released here.
I freely admit that netbooks are not for everyone, but for content creation, they seem more than adequate. I will also admit though, that you won't want to be doing any heavy lifting in Photoshop. But I can run with my Wacom attached and it's entirely suitable for average sized (A4) files for print. And the graphics, as underpowered as they are, can drive a 24" monitor in true color at 1920x1200.
Not too shabby, especially considering the price.
Pretty much; I've had my netbook since November 2008, and use it when I want to travel light (less than half the weight of my laptop), and it still allows me to do some rough and dirty edits to my dSLR's RAW files in Picasa, and then upload or e-mail them to family.
I simply couldn't do that with an iPad, not without shooting in JPEG (eww) and also shelling out for another $29 dongle. Even then, I'd still be limited by storage, and I would need someway of uploading the pics (I'm sure there are probably apps for that).
That quote from 1996 (MS has won) still holds true today: Apple is growing at 35% from a 3.3% market share while the market as a whole is growing at 20% (Source: IDC). If Apple continues at that rate they will reach a 10% market share by 2020 and 50% by 2030. So unless we are talking about a far away possible future, Microsoft still holds the market.
This is still very good news for Apple investors - it just doesn't change the market share significantly.
Everything you've said is only true if one excepts a critically flawed assumption... that apple has any intention of going head to head with with windows in some kind of os slugfest to the death.
Now steve himself admitted that apple lost that kind of war way back in 97. remember the "beyond the box" speech from the same year ?
no the apple strategy is clear define new markets, and take the dominant positions those markets as quickly as possible. (9 million plus ipad sales in the first year) All the while isolating windows on the desktop making the traditional pc approach less less compelling over time.H
in short if you cant compete in a market with too big a headstart, find a way to make it redundant
I doubt that Linux will have that sort of market share in 10 years, unless it is largely made up of installations in markets that can't afford anything else, which means no one will really be making any money from it, the software that runs on it, or the hardware it runs on. (Which would also mean that market share would become an even more meaningless statistic) But, the Linux desktop user experience sucks, even in comparison to Windows. It's still a great server platform, but as a workstation it's pretty lousy.
To this day, Desktop Linux is unfit for use by the Average User.
Desktop Linux is a failed experiment. It seems to do alright in phones, however.
At the risk of preaching Steve Jobs did milk the Mac for all he could before moving on to the next great thing. The milking phase was OS8 and OS9. The next great thing was OSX which was actually NextStep and really a complete break from the Mac legacy. The Macs you buy today are actually NextStep machines that are marketed as Macs. They seem to be Macs to most because Apple managed the transition so well in most cases. One case that did not go so well was Adobe which was very reluctant to devote the engineering time to port their software to the new
This seems to be quite nonsensical reasoning to me, gross oversimplification at best. These sorts of complete breaks are utterly necessary in the development of technology. The Mac is no more a Nextstep machine than Windows is DOS.
The Mac is no more a Nextstep machine than Windows is DOS.
NSView
iOS = for casual users: Managed apps, smallish apps, touch screen, tech specs hidden.
OS X (I think they will drop the "Mac") = for pros: open installation (even compile-your-own), publicised specs, Unix prompt, full keyboard, mouse for more accurate pointing.
I think this is what Steve was referring to by traditional computers becoming the "trucks" of the computing world. But I think the assumption underlying this is that there is currently a large group of people who have casual computer needs only, but are being forced (before the iPad) to buy a Pro machine.
I am not sure this is entirely valid. Computers are needed for so much these days, and some businesses are even starting a "bring your own computer" model where people use their own laptop at work instead of being allocated a Dell box. I think the "average" person almost needs a fully fledged laptop.
The "act of faith" that there are millions who want these simple computers has the same vibe as the attempts for years and years to "converge" the computer with the TV. I know they're unrelated issues, they just have the same feel.
And 58 million is no small amount - I'm sure Apple would be happy with iPad sales figures at that level but hasn't that flattened?..
The title of the article you linked to says:
"Is the iPad killing netbook sales? Probably not"
So while the rate of growth has slowed, the netbook segment is still growing y/y.
NSView
Was there a point to this, or were you just trying to set a record for short replies?
The title of the article you linked to says:
"Is the iPad killing netbook sales? Probably not"
So while the rate of growth has slowed, the netbook segment is still growing y/y.
I wonder if Apple?s comparatively paltry iPad sales may be more profitable than all netbook sales combined, but that doesn?t matter much unless you are a shareholder or you are looking at longterm trends, which we are.
While I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that netbook sales are growing it does look they have slowed considerably since the iPad announcement in January. If you recall, CES was filled with many tablets, some we running Windows 7, but others were getting smart and thinking about a mobile OS designed for the device.
While Apple has a significant lead here, history will likely repeat itself with Apple taking more profit than anyone else but unit sales from all tablets playing copycat will exceed Apple?s sales. That isn?t the case with the iPod, but it is with other areas of their consumer HW legs.
The question I pose to you: Can we expect the netbook sales to continue to have some growth each YoY quarter or will tablets become the de facto device for low intensity, high consumption computing on the go?
IThe question I pose to you: Can we expect the netbook sales to continue to have some growth each YoY quarter or will tablets become the de facto device for low intensity, high consumption computing on the go?
I realise that the question wasn't addressed to me, but it is a good question. To answer it, we'd need to dust off our crystal ball though as there are a few different dynamics happening here. But I offer this, for what it's worth.
As Apple has defined its tablet entry, it's clearly earmarked primarily as a device for consumption. Without precision input and mass storage, it's deliberately limited in what it can create. I understand why SJ would make it so, not least being that he doesn't want it cannibalizing MacBook sales.
On the other hand, netbooks have not stood still, with better screens, graphics and CPUs all contributing to a better creation experience while delivering an already good consumption one. For an example of how things are morphing, Asus has developed a netbook which functions as a standalone touchscreen tablet when needed. Since it hasn't been released yet, nobody can confirm how it will be priced, but my WAG is that it will be priced below the iPad.
There's also a very large emerging nation market out there which seems to be a potential driver for netbook sales, although as yet that potential hasn't really been realized.
In summary, I don't think netbooks can be counted out, with even the 'big' PC manufacturers now bringing them to market. But my crystal ball is dusty.