Apple's Mysterious Comeback
We can see Apple's comeback in the near future, with the IBM 970 and new killer applications from Apple. But what about now? Market share is lower than it was a few years ago, when developers were abandoning the Mac. Now, at possibly the lowest point in history, people are paying attention to the Mac. Recently, Juno began offering their internet service, and have a Mac OS X version. Juno has never shown interest in the Mac before now. And what about Quick Books. It too is available again for the Mac, and possibly only OS X.
So what is happening? What is causing this renewed commitment to the Mac? I would have thought these companies and developers would wait for the Mac market share to increase before getting interested. Anyone got some insight into this phenomena?
So what is happening? What is causing this renewed commitment to the Mac? I would have thought these companies and developers would wait for the Mac market share to increase before getting interested. Anyone got some insight into this phenomena?
Comments
Its UNIX strength has brought a lot of developer interest, for one. Cocoa has brought us a lot of grassroots applications as well. AppleScript Studio.. it's all very synergistic.
Second, OS X, Apple's commitment to open source (however incomplete) and Apple's portable hardware have created a huge buzz. People who would never, ever have looked at a Mac are sporting iBooks and PowerBooks. The core development team for Perl works on TiBooks. This is huge, because geek cred translates very quickly into market cred, especially with Linux' star rising. People see the Macintosh going places. They see potential, where before they saw the same old same old. Even the unfinished and rapidly evolving nature of OS X has a certain appeal, just because it's new and exciting — and also because, although it's not all that polished for a Mac OS, it's better than the alternatives, and improving rapidly.
The iPod is, of course, a brilliant trojan horse. It will be the first introduction many people will have to Apple's design philosophy, and I think it might well be responsible for a number of switchers all by itself.
It will take some time before this all translates into more market share, but it will. The people who get asked to recommend platforms now love the Mac. The people who make huge purchasing and deployment positions are starting to warm up to the Mac. And, of course, Apple is offering a robust consumer line (OK, not in terms of raw performance...), but that won't really register until Apple builds momentum elsewhere.
The reinvigoration of the professional desktop line will help both by restoring Apple's cred in another area where they've been lacking for a while (performance), and also by giving them a nice big shot of cash from pent-up demand to spend on R&D, and on growing market share.
Really, under it all, there's an optimism about the Mac that was really missing in the mid to late '90s. Apple users will still pile on unfair critics, but the general tone of the Mac community isn't anywhere near as shrill or as defensive as it used to be. I think this change has had an overall positive effect on the general perception of the platform.
Apple's future looks good. Though the speed issue still need to tbe addressed. Hopefully the 970 solves this problem.
Most consumers still look at Macs and say, "Yeah, their design is cool, but I have a Windows machine, it's comfortable, it does what I need it to do. Since I don't know Macs that well anyway, I'm not fooling with it."
MANY businesses look at Macs and say, "We will NEVER use Macs. We have too much of an investment in PC hardware, and we pay a bunch of tech guys to take care of them, so who cares how stable Macs are. Besides, the bottom line still says that PCs are cheaper."
What does Apple do about all these lazy, cynical, apathetic computer users? How does Apple switch the LARGE number of people who never have and never will give a damn about Macs?
Apple to have a way to increase market share. XServe.
However, before they can really push it there are some issues that need to be resolved. I went for a demo of one of these units at my local reseller, and the two main things I feel need resolving are:-
Configuring the box... The underlying software such as bind for dns and sendmail for emails does not have good enough front end config programs. Check out sun cobalt range of RaQ servers, especcially the 550. They are TOTALLY manageable from a web interface.
Windows uthentication... While I was at the demo we could not get my windows XP laptop to login to the XServe - some difference of opinion as far as uthenticaion protocols I think. It needs to be able to act as a domain controller for the windows machines. Again, this IS possible with SAMBA, but there is no easy to config option as part of the GUI side of things.
Once they resolve these issues, then they are ready to REALLY push the fact that they make the hardware and software aspect of their sales pitch.
Simply put, no I.T. guy is going to say to their friends, "Oh, the XServes at work are great. Apple did such a great job that I recommend you buy an iMac as your next machine."
Do you see where I'm going with this? Apple has to find a way to get way more end users (consumer and pro) to buy products, AS WELL AS I.T. people buying XServes. Until then, a large number of developers will stay away from Macs, because most developers aren't impressed by server saturation. It's the end user that's important.
Originally posted by CosmoNut
MANY businesses look at Macs and say, "We will NEVER use Macs. We have too much of an investment in PC hardware, and we pay a bunch of tech guys to take care of them, so who cares how stable Macs are. Besides, the bottom line still says that PCs are cheaper."
Exactly. Until you get Macs into the business mainstream, it will always be a niche market player.
Not sure there ever will be a way to penetrate the corporate world because they're so anal in the way they think. The IT guys might recommend Macs, but it'll probably get killed once someone has to approve the budget!
Originally posted by Amorph
OS X greatly lowered the bar for developing Mac applications, at least for newcomers. The simple fact that the system doesn't freeze when you test code with a stray pointer (or the equivalent) is a godsend, and that's to say nothing of the beauty of Cocoa, and the tools Apple provides, and the ability to target Linux and UNIX and OS X with much the same codebase. . .
You may have hit the reason right there. In the past, management may have asked their development team what it would take to do a Mac version. If the team did not have proficient Mac programmers, they likely resisted and estimated high. In the case of OS X, many development teams may be enthusiastic about it, and eager to do a Mac OS X version. Thanks for that insight. The worker bees do have their ways to influence decision makers.
anyhow, i know there are some of us who just don't care what apple's market share is, so long as the company remains profitable and we get to keep using macs to do our work. does this opinion match anyone here? it's definitly how i feel.
mainstream can be dumb. the mainstream has an uncanny ability to ignore great products based on stupid preconceived notions and/or just ignorance. who cares about them?
Originally posted by progmac
as for the above post, i have never heard of a software development team estimating high on price or timeframe, even with unfamiliar software!
anyhow, i know there are some of us who just don't care what apple's market share is, so long as the company remains profitable and we get to keep using macs to do our work. does this opinion match anyone here? it's definitly how i feel.
mainstream can be dumb. the mainstream has an uncanny ability to ignore great products based on stupid preconceived notions and/or just ignorance. who cares about them?
That's exactly how I feel. Marketshare is nice, but as as long as Apple is profitable, who cares?
Originally posted by CubeDude
That's exactly how I feel. Marketshare is nice, but as as long as Apple is profitable, who cares?
Is Apple had more market share, Motorola may have been more motivated these last few years in regards to production.
Is Apple had more market share, Motorola may have been more motivated these last few years in regards to production.
Not only that but the more market share apple has the more money they make and the more money they can throw at R&D and the cheaper they can sell their computers for...
What does Apple do about all these lazy, cynical, apathetic computer users?
What I do, laugh at them.
Originally posted by CubeDude
That's exactly how I feel. Marketshare is nice, but as as long as Apple is profitable, who cares?
Improved marketshare will spur software develpment. I am not one of those who disputes that you generally can get the programs that you need for Mac. However, there are still some gaps. I came across a couple just recently:
1. Logging into my wife's secured work network from home requires Internet Explorer for Windows - the version for Mac is not compatible. She has to do it via Virtual PC. Urghh!
2. The Quicken payroll service software (for Canada at least) is not available for Mac. Quickbooks has been made available (good!), but not the payroll service.
Both of these problems could be quickly remedied, but developers of specialized software sometimes don't bother if they feel that insufficient users are out there.
That only sounds wrong, but in the case of computers it isn't. We are accustomed to marketing conventions like the halo model, but for the halo model to make you money, you have to have a lot of pedestrian (cheap) models over which to extend that halo or it doesn't work. And as far as disparate markets like the Xserve and iMacs go, this is even more out to lunch as a marketing strategy.
A platform depends on a user base (and market SHARE) yes I know it's become evil to mention this in light of Apple's woes, but even a big base of affluent users will have trouble attracting third party support when it becomes too comparatively small. Then the sole supporter of the platform has to do even more work, and while the resultant integration is good, that makes it harder to have lower priced machines, widely available service and support, etc etc. How many banks treat macs as an afterthought?
Xserves will always be a hard sell simply because the base of mac users is not large enough to warrant their use. Sure they could be used to serve PC's as well as macs, but they'd be a much easier sell if any given deployment had to serve 2 or 3X as many macs as it currently does. So, Apple has to pushh cross platform relevancy to make that product suvive, which they should do anyway, but the relative paucity of macs leads to a relative paucity of Xserves. Can't be helped.
If we eliminate all of that and just deal with cluster servers, this market is possibly the smallest of all possible computing segments. Profitable, but still small, so Apple faces the double dilemma of dealing with a small segment and being the newest kid with a slightly less than "standard" box (I know, but the impression persists).
The ONLY place to tackle the comeback problem is with a total volume of mac seats out in the world. More affordable consumer machines, more boxes RETURNING to EDU, some business seats etc etc... That will allow Apple to sell services and back end to a wider base, perhaps even outside the mac user community, let them have alternative revenue to keep machines cheaper, let the cheaper machines bolstre market share, etc etc...
You need the seats first and foremost. A bit of chicken and egg, catch 22, insert your favorite cliche here...