This is true but Apple suffers primarily in the niches it does not try to compete in and hardware is less an issue today because of the Intel shift.
Within the markets that Apple does compete in, it does have sufficient share to get vendor support (like Adobe, etc). It has Office, it has browsers, it has database packages, etc.
In some business software segments there are few or no offerings on the Mac but that's because its not a niche Apple is striving to meet. But I'm of the mind of "so what?" To compete in that arena requires competing against Dell for the lowest common denominator business desktop.
In that environment I wonder how much advantage OSX really has over Windows and Linux. I see advantages in the content creation domain and for overall usability but folks are moving toward a web paradigm to reduce deployment and TCO costs in the business domain.
From what I have read here, Mac users hold onto their machines longer than PC owners (no hard data, just an impression).
My question is how many machines access OS X updates through Apple and how many licensed Windows machines access Windows update. The OS 9 users and Win95 users should cancel each other out as neither is supported by updates anymore.
It seems to me that number of machines updating their OS online would give us a pretty good idea about how big the active user base for each product really is.
most techies however use windows more than linux. Linux is not very usable as a primary OS. It has potential, for the life of me I don't know why they don't get on the ball! They need to accept the fact that not everyone will use the terminal. It's incredibly difficult to even install a program in linux without the terminal! What's the deal with that?!
Ever tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu? You do not have to touch the terminal if you dont want to. Linspire as well is very easy times are a changing buddy Should give it a look its pretty impressive and Dapper Drake just released today for Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
Linux is progressing at breakneck speed IMO. I have been using it solid for nearly 3 years now as my primary systems. I have seen a heap of changes its pretty cool.
What hw/sw support is missing because Apple doesn't have the market share from the sub-$1000 (presumably tower) market? Games is the only thing I can think of. iLife seems to be a market leader in terms of capability. MS Office exists. .mac seems to have a lot of the features you would want there.
HTPCs could be the other arena where the Mac suffers but that would be better addressed by a sub-$1000 media center Mac. The Mini isn't too horrid a start in that direction. The only thing the mini cant do is play games well.
There is only one way to determine overall marketshare, and that is based on numbers sold. If 1000 computers are sold and 50 of them are Macs, then Macs have a 5% market share... That's all there is to it.
The numbers in this article clearly only account for one quarter and ignores the millions of Macs sold in previous quarters. That certainly cannot account for over all market share.
Marketshare and profit are not mutually exclusive because Apple can sell more computers but not really gain much more marketshare.
Its true Apple will keep a low marketshare as long as it does not sell value priced computers.
The other part of it is Apple does not need to sell value priced computers to stay in business nor to be extremely profitable.
Quote:
From what I have read here, Mac users hold onto their machines longer than PC owners (no hard data, just an impression).
There are still lots of working G3 iMac's around. I still have mine that I got in 1999.
I can't even say it, how could I have tried it!? ha ha
Quote:
Originally posted by SlicerDicer
You do not have to touch the terminal if you dont want to. Linspire as well is very easy times are a changing buddy Should give it a look its pretty impressive and Dapper Drake just released today for Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
I can't really give it a look anymore, I gave up my P3 Dell for windows stuff in favor of dualbooting my new MBP. Unless I can install linux with BootCamp =/
Quote:
Originally posted by SlicerDicer
Linux is progressing at breakneck speed IMO. I have been using it solid for nearly 3 years now as my primary systems. I have seen a heap of changes its pretty cool.
The article is talking about quarter-to-quarter marketshare, not installed base. Some estimates of installed base actually put Apple at around 10%, though I have a hard time believing it, even though Apple hardware generally is useful for much longer than typical PCs.
Gaining marketshare is a real uphill battle. The overall market is growing every quarter, so you have to significantly outperform the rest of the market to gain any ground. That, and a single percentage of the computing marketplace represents well in excess of $1 billion in sales. So, while 1% gain seems like nothing when expressed as a percentage, it's actually a pretty huge deal to a company the size of Apple. If Apple got up to 15%, it would be a mindboggling achievement and would be studied and discussed in business schools for decades to come.
It will be very interesting to see what Apple does when Intel's CPU line is rounded out with Conroe, Woodcrest, and Merom. They will have vastly more flexibility to put out a wide variety of products at various price points. As much as many of us wanted to believe in PowerPC, the lack of progress and diversity of the G4 and G5 really limited Apple in what kind of products they could deliver, and how much they could charge for them. Besides the ability to run Windows via Bootcamp or virtualization, this is the real win for Apple in switching to Intel.
Apple's never going to make a loss-leader $300 little box. They are going to build quality products targeted at the markets they feel are most important, and they're going to make those products cost-competitive with similar PCs while maintaining a reasonable profit margin for themselves. Since Steve Jobs returns, they have picked their battles very wisely and rarely been off-target with a computing product (the G4 Cube is the glaring exception). They're smart enough to not bite off more than they can chew right away, which has sunk many other tech companies; I think this explains their seemingly lukewarm interest in the enterprise market at the moment. I believe they'll have all the weapons they need to go to war in that market very soon.
As for the clones: they were eating far too much into Apple's own marketshare to make it work for Apple (yes, you can say Apple deserved it, but still...). Jobs claimed he attempted to re-negotiate the contracts, but the clone makers told him to "pound sand" (I recently re-watched that old SJ speech on YouTube). Would we be better off today with 18-24 months' worth of G3 clones from Power Computing if it helped drive Apple into bankruptcy?
Agree that Apple has a tremendous opportunity with all of M$'s floundering with Vista. I'll bet they pull out all the stops at WWDC with Leopard and pro hardware. Can't wait!
What hw/sw support is missing because Apple doesn't have the market share from the sub-$1000 (presumably tower) market? Games is the only thing I can think of. iLife seems to be a market leader in terms of capability. MS Office exists. .mac seems to have a lot of the features you would want there.
HTPCs could be the other arena where the Mac suffers but that would be better addressed by a sub-$1000 media center Mac. The Mini isn't too horrid a start in that direction. The only thing the mini cant do is play games well.
Last I checked, the mini is priced under a grand.
Vinea
A $899 laptop and a $750 mini-tower set-up. The only sub $1000 Mac is the mini. That isn't enough IMO. The software is fine.
The other part of it is Apple does not need to sell value priced computers to stay in business nor to be extremely profitable.
I think this is debateable. I remember when Win 95 came out and Mac market share began a sharp nose dive. The lower cost of pcs and the improvements in the Win OS really took their toll on the Mac platform. Currently because OSX has advantages over Windows and Apple has brought some nice designs to market, Apple is doing well with it's current business strategy. What happens when Vista gets it's act together? I've no doubt that in a few years Vista will be better than what hits the market next year. When Vista is 'good enough' for most users, that combined with pc cost advantages could once again hurt Mac market share and profitability. How much lower can market share go and Macs still be relevant? It happen in 1995 and it could happen again.
I think this is debateable. I remember when Win 95 came out and Mac market share began a sharp nose dive. The lower cost of pcs and the improvements in the Win OS really took their toll on the Mac platform. Currently because OSX has advantages over Windows and Apple has brought some nice designs to market, Apple is doing well with it's current business strategy. What happens when Vista gets it's act together? I've no doubt that in a few years Vista will be better than what hits the market next year. When Vista is 'good enough' for most users, that combined with pc cost advantages could once again hurt Mac market share and profitability. How much lower can market share go and Macs still be relevant? It happen in 1995 and it could happen again.
It will happen again, because people are attracted to familiarity and price.
The two companies who hires me, telling me the same story. Why should they pay so much euro's extra compared with the US. It, the price difference is in no way justified.
So, now they will buy wintels, both with a total 7100 ( almost sure Compaqs ) in this case ( spread over six months ) . I do hear more of this kind of stories. If Marketing can count then he knows that if Companies buy a Mac that means 'one more Mac == one less Wintel" but also the opposite way. If they buy a wintel, they will kick out the same amount of replaced mac's plus at a later time the others ( leftover ). This calcs 'one new wintel == two less mac's'. It will take at least > 6 years to go back to Apple. After three years when they replace the current buy ( eol ), it means again one more wintel sold.
So I understands the 'why the market share goes down'. Even about the single buyers, Apple dont like them, they dont want them to buy mac's. Apple like to be difficult and proud.
The other part of it is Apple does not need to sell value priced computers to stay in business nor to be extremely profitable.
Exactly. And software developers don't need value priced computers either. Their users rarely buy software once they've bought their cheap desktops or if they're business computers, it rarely goes past a copy of Office.
What 'technology' and 'developement' do they need to offer an $800 entry level tower? Subnotebook?
None, that's precisely the point. They could easily produce PC clones that run OS X, but what's insanely great about that? What's uniquely Apple about that? How does that protect brand values? How does that protect profitability?
Actually, the market share numbers are not misleading...
There is only one way to determine overall marketshare, and that is based on numbers sold. If 1000 computers are sold and 50 of them are Macs, then Macs have a 5% market share... That's all there is to it.
A consumer survey would not (as you say,) represent "real market share," it would only represent a segment of the total market.
Apple's market share numbers are completely accurate in relation to the market as a whole..
Market share is definitely different from installed base. A consumer survey might show the installed base for a particular market segment, but it doesn't show market share.
A guy walks into a Fry's with an ad that says they have a computer tower with mouse and keyboard for $199 - only to discover that its running Linspire. He's used to Windows and realizes that he hasn't a clue as to how to work in Linspire ... he wants something familiar. The salesman points him to the $399 Windows box on the floor. It's double what he thought haew s going to spend, but it's still a pretty good price for a computer - and that's the end of the sale. Fry's carries a Mac line ... they have a whole section of the store devoted to Macs, but the sales people either don't know anything about or point their customers to that section. It's assumed that anyone purchasing a new computer is making the decision based solely on price. This guy might be much happier with the $599 Mac mini once he realizes it won't crap out on him in a year or have to bring it back to get all the spyware and adware taken off, but no one tells him there is yet another route he can take.
Should Apple produce a sub-$1000 notebook and compete solely on price with Compaq or Gateway or Dell, because that's what you're essentially asking them to do. It as more to do, I think, with people's fear and apathy than anything else. Who wants to learn a new operating system? Not too many people. Sales reps at stores that sell multiple platforms also are terrible at pointing out the Apple line. When someone does have a question, having a sales rep that knows little or nothing about a Mac can turn a potential buyer off.
Apple can't compete for market share based solely on price - OS X allows people to check e-mail and surf the web as well as or better than anything else out there. The iLife suite lets people be productive with their machines if they wish. This goes unnoticed and Apple's new ad campaign didn't o much to further the actual computers. I loved the ads but I don't think they're effective at gaining new users.
I think if you combine a more aggressive advertising campaign based on the machines and their qualities (you have to use direct comparisons to Windows for most average users to understand what you're doing), request retailers to hire Apple-trained personnel so that they are able to effectively communicate with customers, and continually display the computers and all you could possibly do then you needn't change the line-up. Would I like to see Apple offer more computers ... sure, but not doing so won't bankrupt them.
Apples own hardware is now PC hardware, you need a different argument now. They had that OS running on PC for 5 years Jobs said. Making a great product but not selling it was stupid.
Apple only has to support Intel PC hardware, and they optimized for that particular hardware. They didn't optimize for nVidia, ATI, VIA or whoever else in terms of specialized drivers for their chipsets.
I doubt that they had to put a lot of effort in maintaining a somewhat generic x86 build (IIRC, for a long time maintained only on 440BX chipsets, not functioning on anything else), they probably simply did testing for cross platform correctness and maintained a few drivers.
The tide has already changed direction. You'll see the Mac market share start to rise this quarter.
Apple's market share has been slowly climbing for a few years now, you haven't been paying attention, it was below three percent, now it is about five.
In fact, if Apple weren't so enthralled with style over substance, maybe they could produce a "Pro" computer with more then (sic) three USB ports and didn't weigh 60 pounds
The Powermac is a workstation, not a desktop. Complaining about the weight doesn't make sense as that's about the weight of other high end workstations too.
Comments
Originally posted by vinea
This is true but Apple suffers primarily in the niches it does not try to compete in and hardware is less an issue today because of the Intel shift.
Within the markets that Apple does compete in, it does have sufficient share to get vendor support (like Adobe, etc). It has Office, it has browsers, it has database packages, etc.
In some business software segments there are few or no offerings on the Mac but that's because its not a niche Apple is striving to meet. But I'm of the mind of "so what?" To compete in that arena requires competing against Dell for the lowest common denominator business desktop.
In that environment I wonder how much advantage OSX really has over Windows and Linux. I see advantages in the content creation domain and for overall usability but folks are moving toward a web paradigm to reduce deployment and TCO costs in the business domain.
Vinea
But what about the sub $1000 consumer market?
My question is how many machines access OS X updates through Apple and how many licensed Windows machines access Windows update. The OS 9 users and Win95 users should cancel each other out as neither is supported by updates anymore.
It seems to me that number of machines updating their OS online would give us a pretty good idea about how big the active user base for each product really is.
Originally posted by DeaPeaJay
most techies however use windows more than linux. Linux is not very usable as a primary OS. It has potential, for the life of me I don't know why they don't get on the ball! They need to accept the fact that not everyone will use the terminal. It's incredibly difficult to even install a program in linux without the terminal! What's the deal with that?!
Ever tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu? You do not have to touch the terminal if you dont want to. Linspire as well is very easy times are a changing buddy
Linux is progressing at breakneck speed IMO. I have been using it solid for nearly 3 years now as my primary systems. I have seen a heap of changes its pretty cool.
Originally posted by backtomac
But what about the sub $1000 consumer market?
What hw/sw support is missing because Apple doesn't have the market share from the sub-$1000 (presumably tower) market? Games is the only thing I can think of. iLife seems to be a market leader in terms of capability. MS Office exists. .mac seems to have a lot of the features you would want there.
HTPCs could be the other arena where the Mac suffers but that would be better addressed by a sub-$1000 media center Mac. The Mini isn't too horrid a start in that direction. The only thing the mini cant do is play games well.
Last I checked, the mini is priced under a grand.
Vinea
There is only one way to determine overall marketshare, and that is based on numbers sold. If 1000 computers are sold and 50 of them are Macs, then Macs have a 5% market share... That's all there is to it.
The numbers in this article clearly only account for one quarter and ignores the millions of Macs sold in previous quarters. That certainly cannot account for over all market share.
Marketshare and profit are not mutually exclusive because Apple can sell more computers but not really gain much more marketshare.
Its true Apple will keep a low marketshare as long as it does not sell value priced computers.
The other part of it is Apple does not need to sell value priced computers to stay in business nor to be extremely profitable.
From what I have read here, Mac users hold onto their machines longer than PC owners (no hard data, just an impression).
There are still lots of working G3 iMac's around. I still have mine that I got in 1999.
Originally posted by SlicerDicer
Ever tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu?
I can't even say it, how could I have tried it!? ha ha
Originally posted by SlicerDicer
You do not have to touch the terminal if you dont want to. Linspire as well is very easy times are a changing buddy
I can't really give it a look anymore, I gave up my P3 Dell for windows stuff in favor of dualbooting my new MBP. Unless I can install linux with BootCamp =/
Originally posted by SlicerDicer
Linux is progressing at breakneck speed IMO. I have been using it solid for nearly 3 years now as my primary systems. I have seen a heap of changes its pretty cool.
Your primary? And you have a mac????????????
Gaining marketshare is a real uphill battle. The overall market is growing every quarter, so you have to significantly outperform the rest of the market to gain any ground. That, and a single percentage of the computing marketplace represents well in excess of $1 billion in sales. So, while 1% gain seems like nothing when expressed as a percentage, it's actually a pretty huge deal to a company the size of Apple. If Apple got up to 15%, it would be a mindboggling achievement and would be studied and discussed in business schools for decades to come.
It will be very interesting to see what Apple does when Intel's CPU line is rounded out with Conroe, Woodcrest, and Merom. They will have vastly more flexibility to put out a wide variety of products at various price points. As much as many of us wanted to believe in PowerPC, the lack of progress and diversity of the G4 and G5 really limited Apple in what kind of products they could deliver, and how much they could charge for them. Besides the ability to run Windows via Bootcamp or virtualization, this is the real win for Apple in switching to Intel.
Apple's never going to make a loss-leader $300 little box. They are going to build quality products targeted at the markets they feel are most important, and they're going to make those products cost-competitive with similar PCs while maintaining a reasonable profit margin for themselves. Since Steve Jobs returns, they have picked their battles very wisely and rarely been off-target with a computing product (the G4 Cube is the glaring exception). They're smart enough to not bite off more than they can chew right away, which has sunk many other tech companies; I think this explains their seemingly lukewarm interest in the enterprise market at the moment. I believe they'll have all the weapons they need to go to war in that market very soon.
As for the clones: they were eating far too much into Apple's own marketshare to make it work for Apple (yes, you can say Apple deserved it, but still...). Jobs claimed he attempted to re-negotiate the contracts, but the clone makers told him to "pound sand" (I recently re-watched that old SJ speech on YouTube). Would we be better off today with 18-24 months' worth of G3 clones from Power Computing if it helped drive Apple into bankruptcy?
Agree that Apple has a tremendous opportunity with all of M$'s floundering with Vista. I'll bet they pull out all the stops at WWDC with Leopard and pro hardware. Can't wait!
Originally posted by vinea
What hw/sw support is missing because Apple doesn't have the market share from the sub-$1000 (presumably tower) market? Games is the only thing I can think of. iLife seems to be a market leader in terms of capability. MS Office exists. .mac seems to have a lot of the features you would want there.
HTPCs could be the other arena where the Mac suffers but that would be better addressed by a sub-$1000 media center Mac. The Mini isn't too horrid a start in that direction. The only thing the mini cant do is play games well.
Last I checked, the mini is priced under a grand.
Vinea
A $899 laptop and a $750 mini-tower set-up. The only sub $1000 Mac is the mini. That isn't enough IMO. The software is fine.
Originally posted by TenoBell
The other part of it is Apple does not need to sell value priced computers to stay in business nor to be extremely profitable.
I think this is debateable. I remember when Win 95 came out and Mac market share began a sharp nose dive. The lower cost of pcs and the improvements in the Win OS really took their toll on the Mac platform. Currently because OSX has advantages over Windows and Apple has brought some nice designs to market, Apple is doing well with it's current business strategy. What happens when Vista gets it's act together? I've no doubt that in a few years Vista will be better than what hits the market next year. When Vista is 'good enough' for most users, that combined with pc cost advantages could once again hurt Mac market share and profitability. How much lower can market share go and Macs still be relevant? It happen in 1995 and it could happen again.
Originally posted by backtomac
I think this is debateable. I remember when Win 95 came out and Mac market share began a sharp nose dive. The lower cost of pcs and the improvements in the Win OS really took their toll on the Mac platform. Currently because OSX has advantages over Windows and Apple has brought some nice designs to market, Apple is doing well with it's current business strategy. What happens when Vista gets it's act together? I've no doubt that in a few years Vista will be better than what hits the market next year. When Vista is 'good enough' for most users, that combined with pc cost advantages could once again hurt Mac market share and profitability. How much lower can market share go and Macs still be relevant? It happen in 1995 and it could happen again.
It will happen again, because people are attracted to familiarity and price.
So, now they will buy wintels, both with a total 7100 ( almost sure Compaqs ) in this case ( spread over six months ) . I do hear more of this kind of stories. If Marketing can count then he knows that if Companies buy a Mac that means 'one more Mac == one less Wintel" but also the opposite way. If they buy a wintel, they will kick out the same amount of replaced mac's plus at a later time the others ( leftover ). This calcs 'one new wintel == two less mac's'. It will take at least > 6 years to go back to Apple. After three years when they replace the current buy ( eol ), it means again one more wintel sold.
So I understands the 'why the market share goes down'. Even about the single buyers, Apple dont like them, they dont want them to buy mac's. Apple like to be difficult and proud.
Originally posted by TenoBell
The other part of it is Apple does not need to sell value priced computers to stay in business nor to be extremely profitable.
Exactly. And software developers don't need value priced computers either. Their users rarely buy software once they've bought their cheap desktops or if they're business computers, it rarely goes past a copy of Office.
Originally posted by backtomac
What 'technology' and 'developement' do they need to offer an $800 entry level tower? Subnotebook?
None, that's precisely the point. They could easily produce PC clones that run OS X, but what's insanely great about that? What's uniquely Apple about that? How does that protect brand values? How does that protect profitability?
Originally posted by solsun
Actually, the market share numbers are not misleading...
There is only one way to determine overall marketshare, and that is based on numbers sold. If 1000 computers are sold and 50 of them are Macs, then Macs have a 5% market share... That's all there is to it.
A consumer survey would not (as you say,) represent "real market share," it would only represent a segment of the total market.
Apple's market share numbers are completely accurate in relation to the market as a whole..
Market share is definitely different from installed base. A consumer survey might show the installed base for a particular market segment, but it doesn't show market share.
A guy walks into a Fry's with an ad that says they have a computer tower with mouse and keyboard for $199 - only to discover that its running Linspire. He's used to Windows and realizes that he hasn't a clue as to how to work in Linspire ... he wants something familiar. The salesman points him to the $399 Windows box on the floor. It's double what he thought haew s going to spend, but it's still a pretty good price for a computer - and that's the end of the sale. Fry's carries a Mac line ... they have a whole section of the store devoted to Macs, but the sales people either don't know anything about or point their customers to that section. It's assumed that anyone purchasing a new computer is making the decision based solely on price. This guy might be much happier with the $599 Mac mini once he realizes it won't crap out on him in a year or have to bring it back to get all the spyware and adware taken off, but no one tells him there is yet another route he can take.
Should Apple produce a sub-$1000 notebook and compete solely on price with Compaq or Gateway or Dell, because that's what you're essentially asking them to do. It as more to do, I think, with people's fear and apathy than anything else. Who wants to learn a new operating system? Not too many people. Sales reps at stores that sell multiple platforms also are terrible at pointing out the Apple line. When someone does have a question, having a sales rep that knows little or nothing about a Mac can turn a potential buyer off.
Apple can't compete for market share based solely on price - OS X allows people to check e-mail and surf the web as well as or better than anything else out there. The iLife suite lets people be productive with their machines if they wish. This goes unnoticed and Apple's new ad campaign didn't o much to further the actual computers. I loved the ads but I don't think they're effective at gaining new users.
I think if you combine a more aggressive advertising campaign based on the machines and their qualities (you have to use direct comparisons to Windows for most average users to understand what you're doing), request retailers to hire Apple-trained personnel so that they are able to effectively communicate with customers, and continually display the computers and all you could possibly do then you needn't change the line-up. Would I like to see Apple offer more computers ... sure, but not doing so won't bankrupt them.
Originally posted by vinea
People seem to want macs given the sale rankings on Amazon. Currently 1,2,3,6,9, and 10. It seems the MacBook has driven Mac mini sales down.
This has been discussed before, Amazon is not an indicator of what the overall market is doing.
Originally posted by Aurora
Apples own hardware is now PC hardware, you need a different argument now. They had that OS running on PC for 5 years Jobs said. Making a great product but not selling it was stupid.
Apple only has to support Intel PC hardware, and they optimized for that particular hardware. They didn't optimize for nVidia, ATI, VIA or whoever else in terms of specialized drivers for their chipsets.
I doubt that they had to put a lot of effort in maintaining a somewhat generic x86 build (IIRC, for a long time maintained only on 440BX chipsets, not functioning on anything else), they probably simply did testing for cross platform correctness and maintained a few drivers.
Originally posted by MacTel
The tide has already changed direction. You'll see the Mac market share start to rise this quarter.
Apple's market share has been slowly climbing for a few years now, you haven't been paying attention, it was below three percent, now it is about five.
Originally posted by Louzer
In fact, if Apple weren't so enthralled with style over substance, maybe they could produce a "Pro" computer with more then (sic) three USB ports and didn't weigh 60 pounds
The Powermac is a workstation, not a desktop. Complaining about the weight doesn't make sense as that's about the weight of other high end workstations too.