There are more third party peripherals than ever. Software developers are making more products for the Mac than ever before. It's also easier for developers to make software for Macs than it's ever been before.
So long as the programmers and geeks of the world know how to code for Unix, and so long as they like having 10s of millions of potential customers, the Mac will be fine.
There are companies doing a good business selling aftermarket parts for my Datsun 280Z. They don't have marketshare, but they do good business and aren't going bankrupt.
I've got friends who own restaurants. The food costs more. The quality is high. One restaurant in a sea of McDonalds and Burger Kings doesn't even register on the marketshare scale. The businesses, however, continue to do fine.
Rolex doesn't have the marketshare of watches, but they'll not be going out of business anytime soon methinks.
Marketshare is important, but it isn't the end all be all.
Again, third party developers are coming TO the Mac, not fleeing from it. Things are going well.
These people aren't going away and they're not gonna all just switch to windows. Not now, not soon, not ever. The software may also run on PC - but so long as it comes to a Mac too, that's not a problem.
I just want to remind people that market share can decrease while installed user base increases. This means that the market share isn't as important as total number of active users. As long as that's increasing, APPL is OK.
The consumer market is very interesting and actually totally different to pro or 'the Enterprise' (God, I hate that phrase).
Apple have decided, correctly in my view, that the PC experience is pretty unpleasant for most people. These people don't actually 'like' computers as such, they like what they can do with them and feel they are a neccessity these days. My girlfriend says she loves her iMac, but she doesn't. She likes that she can do her work (graphics) and print it out without all of the paraphenalia of a design studio that was required before. Outside of Photoshop she is completely at sea and has no 'intuition' or inate understanding of how the machine does its thing. I think this probably typical.
Apple therefore sees its future in supplying the whole PC experience. The pretty harware, the easy to use software and now; ta dah! the actual content (iTMS). I think Apple is secretly extremely ambitious in the whole business of the home PC/home entertainment network. In the end the trick will be turn the consumer off buying 'a computer' but get them turned on to (cue Japanese accent) "Full Apple Lifestyle Experience!"
Yeah, I gotta second that while total installed Mac users grow, we will get more stuff than before. So for argument,
in 1995 there were 20 Mac users and 80 PC users, therefore 25% market share.
but now in 2003 there are 80 Mac users and 1600 PC users, developing for 80 mac users is better than developing for 20 mac users, even if back then Apple had 5 times more marketshare.
Hehe, my math skills are lacking after doing so much assembly coding :P
Yeah, I gotta second that while total installed Mac users grow, we will get more stuff than before. So for argument,
in 1995 there were 20 Mac users and 80 PC users, therefore 25% market share.
but now in 2003 there are 80 Mac users and 1600 PC users, developing for 80 mac users is better than developing for 20 mac users, even if back then Apple had 5 times more marketshare.
Hehe, my math skills are lacking after doing so much assembly coding :P
Units sold have danced around 3million/yr since ~94. The first graph looks positive with it's installed base, but trying to figure out how they came up with those figures, it looks like they are a sum of the sales from the previous ~9 years. Even if the average mac is in use for that long, maybe half can run OSX with any usable speed.
Comments
So long as the programmers and geeks of the world know how to code for Unix, and so long as they like having 10s of millions of potential customers, the Mac will be fine.
There are companies doing a good business selling aftermarket parts for my Datsun 280Z. They don't have marketshare, but they do good business and aren't going bankrupt.
I've got friends who own restaurants. The food costs more. The quality is high. One restaurant in a sea of McDonalds and Burger Kings doesn't even register on the marketshare scale. The businesses, however, continue to do fine.
Rolex doesn't have the marketshare of watches, but they'll not be going out of business anytime soon methinks.
Marketshare is important, but it isn't the end all be all.
Again, third party developers are coming TO the Mac, not fleeing from it. Things are going well.
These people aren't going away and they're not gonna all just switch to windows. Not now, not soon, not ever. The software may also run on PC - but so long as it comes to a Mac too, that's not a problem.
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://fink.sourceforge.net/
http://www.x11.org/
and so on and so forth...
The consumer market is very interesting and actually totally different to pro or 'the Enterprise' (God, I hate that phrase).
Apple have decided, correctly in my view, that the PC experience is pretty unpleasant for most people. These people don't actually 'like' computers as such, they like what they can do with them and feel they are a neccessity these days. My girlfriend says she loves her iMac, but she doesn't. She likes that she can do her work (graphics) and print it out without all of the paraphenalia of a design studio that was required before. Outside of Photoshop she is completely at sea and has no 'intuition' or inate understanding of how the machine does its thing. I think this probably typical.
Apple therefore sees its future in supplying the whole PC experience. The pretty harware, the easy to use software and now; ta dah! the actual content (iTMS). I think Apple is secretly extremely ambitious in the whole business of the home PC/home entertainment network. In the end the trick will be turn the consumer off buying 'a computer' but get them turned on to (cue Japanese accent) "Full Apple Lifestyle Experience!"
in 1995 there were 20 Mac users and 80 PC users, therefore 25% market share.
but now in 2003 there are 80 Mac users and 1600 PC users, developing for 80 mac users is better than developing for 20 mac users, even if back then Apple had 5 times more marketshare.
Hehe, my math skills are lacking after doing so much assembly coding :P
Originally posted by MajorMatt
Yeah, I gotta second that while total installed Mac users grow, we will get more stuff than before. So for argument,
in 1995 there were 20 Mac users and 80 PC users, therefore 25% market share.
but now in 2003 there are 80 Mac users and 1600 PC users, developing for 80 mac users is better than developing for 20 mac users, even if back then Apple had 5 times more marketshare.
Hehe, my math skills are lacking after doing so much assembly coding :P
With the help of google we can see real numbers.
http://www.pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html
Units sold have danced around 3million/yr since ~94. The first graph looks positive with it's installed base, but trying to figure out how they came up with those figures, it looks like they are a sum of the sales from the previous ~9 years. Even if the average mac is in use for that long, maybe half can run OSX with any usable speed.