Steve Ballmer: Safari a 'rounding error,' Mac losing market share

13468911

Comments

  • Reply 101 of 219
    piotpiot Posts: 1,346member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post


    I hate to go against the herd here, but Balmer is actually right. Apple talk a lot about their share gains in the US (which are both real and impressive), but if you look at their overseas success, it's not really there yet, and Microsoft dominate.





    I don't know why some of you guys make this subject so difficult. There is plenty of published data out there.



    Apple has increased it's global sales of Macs EVERY year since 2004.

    That rate of growth has been faster than the rest of the market.

    Therefore Apple has increased it's market share EVERY YEAR since 2004. Even this year (so far) when every pundit and their aunt told us Mac sales would drop.



    Quote:

    ......but if you look at the global numbers, Apple are not making progress against Microsoft.



    The Mac is NEVER going to dominate the conventional PC market. Ever!



    Apple's market share gains are modest but slow progress is still progress.
  • Reply 102 of 219
    If, as Ballmer has stated, Apple is a statistically insignificant "rounding error" in its competition against M$, why is M$ spending so much effort and money on its pro-M$/anti-Apple media campaign?



    Why can't M$'s products essentially sell themselves on their own merit of price and performance, instead of having to berate all the other competition with lies and half-truths. It would seem to me that M$ would be better off spending its resources on developing a worthwhile successor to its NT-based OS. Judging from the quality of the language that he uses, I have to seriously question the business and technical acumen of M$'s senior management.



    I think that M$ could learn a lot from the technical and business performance of companies like Apple and Intel, but M$'s hubris would blind it from the possibility of seeing the truth about itself and its need for real change. It's too bad for M$ that other companies are learning from M$'s mistakes and doing better as a result. Perhaps that is M$'s true legacy to the world of computers, just not what they had hoped or expected for themselves.
  • Reply 103 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    Obsess lately?



    No, more like informed. So he's not talking out of his ass like some people we know...
  • Reply 104 of 219
    zunxzunx Posts: 620member
    The day that Mac gains 25% market share, Windows and all the other Microsoft products will be history in three years. It is amazing that people use products as horrible has the ones made by Microsoft: the reason is just and only just inertia and ignorance.
  • Reply 105 of 219
    Is that why Safari has market monopoly in Smartphones? Must be a rounding error.
  • Reply 106 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by davebarnes View Post


    Internet Explorer \t 66.97%

    Firefox \t 22.98%

    Safari \t 4.07%

    Chrome \t 2.84%

    Opera \t 2.04%



    Interesting. At my webcomic's site (hardly a scientific sampling), I see:

    \t

    Firefox – 63.01%\t

    Internet Explorer – 15.68%\t

    Safari – 12.28%\t

    Chrome – 6.12%\t

    Opera – 2.03%



    Does that mean my readers are smarter than the average internet user?
  • Reply 107 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by christopher126 View Post


    Thanks for that. 'In business, if you aren't growing, you're dying.' That's why MS is advertising against Apple and why Balmer scoffs at Apple. The truth is they're very concerned about Apples gains!



    Absolutely! When you see a company like Apple in the top 5 PC vendors each quarter and knowing that they get most of their business from machines costing over $1000, with an average selling nearly double that of other vendors, and an 92% dominance of that $1000+ market and growing in a recession then even MS can see a problem arising.



    It?s more than just Apple taking it?s small share. It?s Apple taking the most profitable share which seems saturated and will force them to move into some cheaper machines which will gain them even more marketshare and grab the next highest profit area in PCs. If Apple grabs too much of this then the cheap $400 notebooks and $300 desktops that others produce will become even more of an issue in markets like the US. This really only affects MS in the long run, but that is a stone you don?t want to get rolling? but is it too late already?





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsier


    Ballmer said that he believes the higher price of Mac hardware has turned away some consumers.



    Of course it has. The fact that an item costs money will turn away some people. I love the side-mouth talking that CEOs do. Is there a class for telling the truth but not the whole truth?
  • Reply 108 of 219
    Shut up, sit down! Told you not to be stupid you moron, Steve Ballmer. I have Windows XP at work, because I have to use a PC. At home, I use a Power Book that runs Snow Leopard. Guess which one I prefer, Steve Ballmer? Not your crashing software
  • Reply 109 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by veloboldie View Post


    At home, I use a Power Book that runs Snow Leopard.



    Power Books are PPC based, how have you managed to get Snow Leopard to run?
  • Reply 110 of 219
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by I. Pod MacNut View Post


    Oh how I hope they maintain this attitude. Remember when Detroit automakers dismissed Toyota, Honda and Nissan?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mosqueda View Post


    Back in the 50's and 60's people thought the Japanese built little junk cars and brushed them away as insignificant. We all know how that turned out. Of course, thankfully, American carmakers are making a comeback, but it's been decades.



    Ballmer appears to have the arrogance of Henry Ford II, past GM Chairmen and other American industrialists. Of course Microsoft isn't sitting still, but they need to be a little more humble and recognize the growth and appreciate the serious competition they are facing.



    Imagine if just one government agency switches to OSX, just one. Or maybe one large company. Then the dominos begin to fall.



    No, MS is one of the most paranoid companies in the world about losing their position. Hence all those unfair/anti-competitive practices in the 90s when they were the unchallenged top dog.



    They don't want to be the next IBM...which is why they've pushed into search (lost), free email (lost), console (partial win), zune, winmo, etc.



    They may enter a segment late but they go in whole hog to make sure they don't completely miss the boat. Heck, Bing may be a far cry from Google but they have a presence and Bing is pretty decent.



    Whatever you think of MS, the corporate culture is not one of complacency.
  • Reply 111 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by veloboldie View Post


    I have to use a PC.



    There are some great advantages of having PCs at work.



    It takes ages to boot up, connect to the network, load all of the security software and system tray tools, so I can have a nice coffee, chat to my colleagues and have a pleasant 30 mins start to the day.



    Then, it works really slowly, with all of that security software so I don't have to work too hard. My manager understands when I don't achieve everything he wanted me to because he has a PC as well, and knows how slow they are.



    And when it crashes or freezes, like it does about 2 or 3 times a day, I have more breaks!



    I hope my company doesn't do an assessment of how much money it would save switching to Mac!!!!
  • Reply 112 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zunx View Post


    The day that Mac gains 25% market share, Windows and all the other Microsoft products will be history in three years. It is amazing that people use products as horrible has the ones made by Microsoft: the reason is just and only just inertia and ignorance.



    That can?t happen. For Mac OS X to have 25% marketshare it would mean they would have about the same market share as HP does now worldwide. They is based on units sold, not profit. How can Apple compete with a $400 notebook or a $300 Acer netbook and still make a profit with their business model? It just can?t happen.



    It?s okay that Windows has a dominate marketshare in the OS. With the internet becoming more OS agnostic every day this isn?t a problem and it?s good to have an OS out there that caters to the stagnant needs of companies and offers to license their OS to other vendors. Even if Mac OS X had a 49% marketshare to a 50% marketshare of Windows this would be a problem because that would mean that 1 out of every 2 PCs sold in the world is a Mac. When you look that sale price, this just isn?t possible. They already dominate the market segments they are in and take 33¢ of every $1 for every PC sold in the US. That is ⅓ of gross profit with only a 10% marketshare by units.
  • Reply 113 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Pretty reasonable observations. There really isn't that much difference between Mac, Windows and even Linux. Mac seems to have a little more finesse in the GUI department, but for example if you know Photoshop on a Mac, you should feel quite at ease working in Photoshop on Windows. However, when you have to do a lot of interaction with the file system, Windows seems a bit clunky to me but both can certainly get the job done. Linux interface is the clunkiest of them all but powerful and rock solid for servers. Any computer professional can master whatever OS is appropriate for the task at hand.



    While I agree with your last sentence, and the bit about Photoshop, I don't agree at all with the larger point.



    I use Linux at work (mostly because that's what our servers run and it's just simpler to use the same OS and my other choice was Windows, which just isn't nearly as stable) and if I were asked to describe the GUI (Gnome) in one word, that word would be "crude". As great as Linux is for servers, its GUI is simply (and I suspect always will be) years behind Mac or Windows, in appearance and functionality.



    I also have to work with Windows from time to time and it's a completely different experience from working on a Mac. Of course there are the obvious differences that are so often pointed out, but there are also very subtle differences that have a major impact on the user experience. For example, the mouse drivers on Mac OS give a much more natural and precise feel than those on Windows, and the way text selection works in various controls is far superior on the Mac. If I sat down to list all these little things that add up to a very large difference, I'm sure the number would run to hundreds, but the basic theme is that Apple pays far more attention to small details than Microsoft does.



    While they may all be similar in a very superficial way, it is absolutely not the case that, "There really isn't that much difference."



    EDIT: And I forgot to even raise the stability issue. My uptime on Mac OS is basically the period between system updates. I don't think very many Windows users can claim that.
  • Reply 114 of 219
    Ballmer is a rounding error.
  • Reply 115 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kozchris View Post


    My new Macbook Pro should be here tomorrow. Haven't had a Mac since the IIci was the latest. Not only a switcher but a developer moving to Mac. Can't wait until I can get away from Windows completely.



    That's great to hear. As another member pointed out I too regret not having switched earlier. I regret it a lot.
  • Reply 116 of 219
    Quote:

    May Apple enable flash on iPhone's Safari so I can actually use it consistently.



    Never going to happen. Apple not putting flash on the iphone is retribution to Microsoft for bundling Flash in IE back in the mid 90s to kill Quicktime.



    Payback's a bitch!
  • Reply 117 of 219
    Balmer has become the post turtle of the computer industry.



    "When you're driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle. You know he didn't get up there by himself and he can only see in the direction he has been turned. He doesn't belong there; he can't get anything done while he's up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down."
  • Reply 118 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ulfoaf View Post


    Sometimes I think Ballmer's IQ is a rounding error ... Why does he constantly rant about it if it is so insignificant? Remember the recent iPhone seizure incident.



    Gates must be pulling the strings. This idiot could not be running the company.



    "iPhone seizure" just about sums it up, all right.
  • Reply 119 of 219
    We all know that Steve Ballmer chats out of his ass. He has just makes crap up on the fly, without any baring on reality. Remember what he said about the iPhone. The fact is if Ballmer said it then it's probally bull. I think he is trying to replicate Job's RDF, but can't get it to extent beyond his own skull! I don't think people like being shouted at by a big sweaty ape man.
  • Reply 120 of 219
    Personal anecdote alert:



    I have been using Windows PCs at home ever since my family bought our first back in the late 90's - a Pentium 266 MHz running Windows 95.



    I acquired my first Mac a year ago via trade, but had to sell it a few months later for financial reasons. It was old by today's standards - a PowerMac G4 with an upgraded Sonnet PPC Dual CPU 1.3 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, and a 128MB nVidia graphics card with dual monitor support.



    In the few months I owned that machine, I was "converted" to Macs forever.



    Never before had I experienced such seemless harmony between hardware and software in a computer. I found OS X to be so much more intuitive, more in accord with how I thought a computer operating system should look and function than Windows Vista or XP.



    I found it refreshing to not have to run "Disk Cleanup" and "Defragmenter" utilities every couple of weeks (or sooner) or download a 3rd party utility to clean up and maintain a bloated, inefficient registry. It was so nice to not have to download the free anti-virus and anti-spyware software of my choice and configure it to update and scan regularly.



    I found these and other things I had come to accept as necessary for the operation and maintenance of a computer were either much improved and more intuitive, automated, or even unneccesary and irrelevant on my Mac.



    When I sold it, I noted that the resale value was much higher than it would have been for a Windows PC of the same specs and age.



    I have since acquired a 20" iMac G5 1.8GHz (on eBay for $255 + free shipping) and I have to say it feels great to be a Mac owner once again.



    I also have a computer running Windows 7 Ultimate RTM, and while I will readily and gladly admit that Windows 7 is a great improvement over Vista, the fact remains that those little things associated with maintaining, operating and protecting a Windows machine still remain.



    While I can see the strengths and weaknesses of both machines (which is why I have them both), I get more joy out of my 5 year old iMac than that newer Windows 7 machine.



    People are discovering Macs and Apple products now more than ever, and they are having similar experiences to mine. They are saying to themselves "wow...this is how a computer should work", and they are regretting not having checked Macs out sooner.



    While I agree that Ballmer and Microsoft should be more worried about Google at this point, the fact that Ballmer seems to be focusing so much on competing with Apple on so many levels is indicative that there is a fundamental shift happening in the way people use computers and gadgets. There is a fundamental shift in what people want.



    The economic recession has not diminished the demand for Macs and Apple products - it has enhanced it. People are looking for impeccable quality, lasting value, and first-class customer service.



    Apple has it.
Sign In or Register to comment.