I would expect they have at least a few thousand. Visit their site and look at how to become one. Their subscription services aren't cheap so I doubt they fake the data. Why would anyone buy the reports if that's what they do? https://www.idc.com/prodserv/subservices.jsp ;
Stop with the dummy routine. It's not that IDC fakes data, its just it selectively presents points of data devoid of any meaningful context to present a severely exaggerated picture that flatters its clients.
Its hard and to explain away how IDC isn't purposely lying on behalf of HP, Dell, Samsung, Google, etc.
Stop with the dummy routine? Really, personal insults now?
Daniel, the "clients" are obviously those companies subscribing to the relatively expensive reports they make their income from, and they're not just in the computers and smartphone industry either as you obviously know from visiting their website. Are you claiming "someone" is paying IDC specifically to fabricate favorable reports, glossed over exaggerations of the truth, and thousands of clients then buy those intelligence reports not realizing they aren't reading the truth? Wow.
I would certainly expect you have proof of these payments you know of made by Google and Dell to IDC to produce those favorable reports if you're going to call others a dummy for not simply believing you. Do you? Not that I've ever presented before, so if not then please don't confuse readers with conjecture presented as fact just as you'd expect from any of us less-knowledgeable peons. Who knows you might be right. Or not. My opinion is not.
It's great to have a supportable opinion, circumstantial evidence and all, but tell readers that what it is: Your opinion. It's not a fact that Dell. or HP, or Google pays IDC to create less than objective intelligence reports is it?
EDIT: Meanwhile in other news the EU is getting ever more aggressive in it's quest for tax money. The French this morning raided Google offices in Paris looking for evidence of tax evasion. They believe Google is shifting profits to Ireland. Details at 11.
I think the mistake DED is making in all of his articles recently is the same mistake he complains that others make - namely trying to make both companies fit into the same narrative. Then his points mostly seem to boil down to - if you're not making the most money, you're not making any money.
Google doesn't care about the premium/low end mix of their products as long as they use Google services - that's the model they've chosen and they clearly are not a hardware company. So their goal is to take even more than the 84% of the smartphone market they already have and get people using their services and get ads served to them. The progress of Chromebooks is only a plus to them - they previously had trivial share of the desktop market and it's now helping them get a foothold there.
That being said, their model pretty much translates to far less revenue and profit per customer. But for heaven's sake, these two great companies choosing to not compete directly is not some winning/losing narrative for either side.
Google really is headed for a crisis. They desperately need to move the user base to web based search. The iOS keyboard is essentially a Hail Mary pass.
They missed on their revenue numbers for the last quarter. Cost per click revenue is down and Facebook allows for far more precise targeting of digital ads. Amazon is moving its membership to their app, bypassing Google search all together.
Chromebooks going into schools aren't going to do anything to fix Google's long term problems.
Google is going in multiple directions, including some that involve very major capital investments like fiber. Other than digital search ads, they do not dominate the profits in any other segment. And Microsoft is beginning to take search marketshare with Bing. The company is unfocused and undisciplined.
The more I analyze Google, the more I realize that the company is headed for a crash.
Apple is going to take Qualcomm's modem business and give it to Intel. It means that QCOM's profits rapidly decline. Intel gets into the iPhone and has a guaranteed source of profits on the dominant mobile platform. Apple continues to invest in TSMC and in return TSMC produces state of the art CPUs that no one else can touch for mobile performance. Snapdragon performance won't keep up. Either for CPU performance or for modem performance.
Android gets relegated to second tier hardware with the Snapdragon and Exynos CPUs being built on a less capable process.
And if Apple gets exclusivity for Intel's 3D XPoint memory on mobile devices, all of the air will be sucked out of the Android market.
Honestly, practically none of this is true. The iOS keyboard is a hail-mary pass when A) Apple has just now copied Android by allowing third party keyboards and Google has ALWAYS placed their apps on iOS and Mac OS X and C) Google's revenue from Apple is increasing, not decreasing?
Google missed their revenue target, but only slightly. Unlike Apple, their YoY profit increased, as it has for the past several years in a row. Yes, Google gets competition from Amazon and Facebook, but the latter two are siloed. Cost per click has been going down for years; Google has compensated by getting more clicks. Chromebook's going to schools doesn't fix Google's "long term problems" but you have failed to list a single "long term problem" ... just wishful thinking about Apple's only (non)competitor in mobile magically lowing away. Microsoft is beginning to take marketshare with Bing? First off this isn't true, as Microsoft's market share has fluctuated from their very small base for years, and second isn't Microsoft vulnerable to the same issues with Amazon and Facebook, or even more so? The issue is that unlike Google, for whom Bing has NEVER made a profit which is why Microsoft has renamed it 3 times, Microsoft is more likely to just give up on losing money. And when that happens - and when Yahoo finally goes belly up - Google will be the last man standing, with their biggest problem being the resulting anti-trust issues (which is why Google has given cash to Yahoo in the past to keep them going, the same reason why Microsoft gave Apple cash to stay afloat in the 1990s).
Apple is going to take Qualcomm's modem business and give it to Intel? Well gee, that is going to leave poor Qualcomm with the 80% worldwide market share that is Android! Just remember that Qualcomm gets far money from their CPUs than Intel will get from the modems. No one can touch TSMC for performance? The truth is that both Qualcomm and Samsung can. Again, 80% of devices made are Android, and they go to Qualcomm, Samsung and MediaTek for their chips. None of them go to TSMC, so what TSMC does with Apple is irrelevant.
The air will get sucked out of the Android market? How? They can either just keep going to the same component manufacturers that they have been since 2008 and let Apple go to theirs. Or they can switch to TSMC and Intel just like Apple! Or is Apple going to sign some sort of exclusive deal with Intel and TSMC to keep Samsung, Huawei and the rest from signing up? Sure, like Intel and TSMC would do that in a million years. They would be far more likely to tell Apple - who has a long history of leaving their suppliers high and dry to the point where some even declared bankruptcy - to go take a hike. You are aware that A LOT of the companies that make Android devices also make Windows PCs and Chromebooks with Intel CPUs? Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi ... you name it. Why on earth would Intel threaten their PC chip business - which is where they make their most money by far - in order to be the exclusive supplier to Apple for VERY CHEAP modem chips? Knowing full well that fickle Apple reserves the right to drop Intel for another modem chip supplier 5 years from now, leaving Intel with NEITHER Apple OR the Android and Windows business?
But hey, you guys have been predicting doom and gloom for Google and Android for the past 8 years. I guess one more theory that makes absolutely no sense from a technology or business standpoint on why the owner of Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Google Cloud Services (which is doing just fine in the enterprise with APPLE among their customers ... not that this article mentioned that), Google Maps and Android is just as good as any.
The dumbest fracking thing ever posted on Apple Insider.
Apple should 100% create a A chip laptop, that would kill Chrome books in an instant because they're margins is so thin the wouldn't be able to compete.
The dumbest thing ever posted is the continual claims about "thin margins." Apple fans seem to think that the tech market A) began with Apple and consists only of devices that Apple makes and sells. So obviously, because Apple sells PCs, TV boxes, smartphones, tablets, headphones etc. at high margins, that is the only way to make money in consumer products generally and electronics specifically. Right? Right?
Except that companies have been selling cheap PCs at low margins FOR THIRTY YEARS. The companies that do it ... Lenovo, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Vaio ... are still in business and are doing fine. The only major ones to go out of business were not only cheap PC competitors like Compaq and Packard Bell, but IBM, the one manufacturer with an Apple-like premium-only with high margins and extensive support strategy! They were undercut by the competition and wound up having to sell both their PC and small server divisions to Lenovo! But that is just PCs, right?
Well, no. Headphones and accessories? Companies that make cheap ones have always been around and will always be around. LG reports that they make more money on accessories for their smartphones than they do on smartphones, even though they aren't "premium" like Beats! (Which is one of the reasons why they will never stop making smartphones, because if they do, their smartphones accessories business will dry up. Buy LG accessories to go with a Samsung, Motorola or Huawei smartphone? Why, when Samsung, Motoroal and Huawei make their own accessories?)
All right. Let us get into stuff that Apple doesn't make. TVs? Well you can either pay $5000 for an LG, Sony or Samsung HDTV ... or you can spend $250 for a Haier or RCA one. RCA, Haier and the other cheap TV manufacturers MUST be going out of business because of the low margins right? Nope. They've been in the market for years - though most of the cheap TV brands sell primarily in Asia - and some of them (like Huawei) are finally getting into the premium electronics market for the first time after decades of existing on the fringes as budget electronics and appliance manufacturers by selling Android smartphones!
Stereos? More of the same. The companies that were making cheap analog stereos and speakers to plug into (similarly cheap) TVs a decade ago are now making cheap bluetooth and NFC TVs to sync with cheap Android phones and Chromecast Audio dongles. Some of these companies are now building cheap speakers with Chromecast Audio built in. Watches? Timex, Armitron and Casio have been in business for decades and will remain so, and at least a couple of them are now either making Android Wear smartwatches (like Casio and Swatch) or are investigating their own smartwatch/IoT platform. Look, if budget and cheap devices have always existed with the companies making them turning profits, that's not going to change.
So please. Stop it with the "the margins are too low to stay in business" thing. It is not true. It has never been true. Decades and decades of consumer and electronics devices prove otherwise. You even have (or had) entire retail chains that specialize in cheap electronics. So long as Wal-Mart (for example) stays in business, companies will exist to sell Chromebooks and Android phones and tablets to their patrons. Who knows, some of them may even use Walmart Pay to buy them! That immutable fact of commerce isn't going to be changed by Apple fans - who obviously by the comments on here never shop at Wal-Mart or any place like it anyway - wishing it to.
All this columnist had to do was state that it took the best quarter ever for Chromebooks to surpass MacBook sales in a quarter where everyone is waiting for the new MacBooks come out and as such the only ones buying them are A) deal hunters and emergency purchases. That is something that is actually true. But instead, we get several paragraphs of caterwauling.
Look, we know that Chrome OS is a failed product because Google failed to create compelling software and services for it, and third party developers similarly failed because either A) they are all developing for iOS or Google failed to create good Chrome OS products for them to model their own after. But it is curious: education is the one area where Google actually did make useful products and tools for ChromeOS. And it happens to be the only area where Google has made headway. Google is probably hoping that kids who use Chrome OS in school will buy them for home use, but there is no evidence of that happening. They are also probably hoping that making inroads in the education sector will lead to purchasing managers who acquire them also buying them when they leave government for the private sector, but Apple's longtime penetration in education didn't gain them private sector market share either.
As for the "their analysis didn't include iPads" thing ... these same analysts reported that Chromebooks surpassed iPads in education 2 years ago. Many Apple advocates - including those on this very blog from searching past articles - disputed those findings, but now they are beyond dispute, and the only purpose that raising it here does is to ridiculously call the analysts biased. However, no one was calling these same analysts biased from 3Q 2014 until 4Q 2015 when they are all reporting record sales for iPhones and MacBooks and dropping Android and Windows market share. It is only when they report bad news - even if that news only seems bad in context - that everyone wants to knock and discredit them. But here is the reality: schools quickly found 3 things about iPads.
1. They lacked GOOD educational tools to supplement existing classroom instruction, and they lacked the time, money and resources to restructure their curriculum and pedagogy around iPads, especially when a viable alternative already existed. See the LAUSD/Pearson/iPad scandal - which this blog more than adequately covered - for a textbook illustration on that (very bad pun intended).
2. They lacked the IT tools to manage all the iPads. This is something that Apple has never provided for any of their products going back to the PC era and is one of the main reasons why PCs got entrenched in the enterprise to begin with. Only when it became possible to sync Apple devices with Microsoft's Active Directory and Exchange products did this begin to change in the enterprise, but surprise, surprise - public schools, who tend not to have the same IT resources as private companies do, especially at the school level as opposed to the school/government management office building level - find Google's tools for Chromebooks far more easier to manage than Windows Server also. Until Apple actually comes out with enterprise-type software and services for their hardware, something that they could have and should have done 25 years ago this is not going to change.
3. iPads mean tiny screens, no keyboards or mice, no multi-tasking and no USB drives. Meaning that unless you are a very technically skilled person - which 99% of teachers and their pupils tend not to be - they are very difficult to use for productivity type tasks. Yes, you can get an iPad Pro and trick it out with accessories like the keyboard and stylus but A) that doesn't remove the problem with quickly and easily transferring files and oh yes that increases the cost to like $1500. Which means you may as well get a MacBook. In fact, a school district recently replaced their iPad "toys" with MacBooks, as an article on this very site stated. Now note: this was a wealthy, suburban northeastern school districts who could afford $1500 per student on MacBooks. For 80% of school districts, including Tim Cook's own former high school, it is either a $250 iPad Mini (with the 7.9' screen and no input device beyond the touchscreen) and a $250 Chromebook with the keyboard, touchpad, and for which you can get cheap USB mice from anywhere.
So relax. Chrome OS is still a failed product and MacBooks are still a very successful one. But this is primarily due to the failure of Google's "web and cloud based OS" strategy, not of any merit of Apple (or for that matter Microsoft, who by the way still has a much larger education presence than iOS, Mac OS X and Chrome OS combined). Had Google simply come out with a more user friendly version of Debian to accompany Chrome OS (right now you can only access Debian in developer mode and it isn't user-friendly; it is just Debian) with a compelling suite of apps and services to go with it, they might have gotten headway. As it is, they are going to just stick Android apps written for mobile phones in a memory and CPU-sucking Android VM container on a tablet OS, which will perform terribly and be thoroughly useless for everyone except the die-hard Google fans. Meaning that if you are looking for a cheap PC, a Windows one (whether Windows 10 or Windows 7 if you can find it) will continue to be a much better deal than anything in the Google ecosystem ... if for only because 80% of the benefits of ChromeOS can be had by simply running the Chrome browser on Windows. Sure, the Android apps won't be on the Chrome browser for Windows (only because Google is stupid enough to close off a potentially huge revenue stream but that is another issue for another day) but who cares ... those were developed for phones anyway, and there are a lot of much better Windows applications available that do the same thing.
Chromebooks are attractive for schools because you don't have to spend any extra money to use Google desktop cloud apps. Total investment a couple of hundred bucks per laptop. But wait ---- if a school wants MacBooks then they have to spend way more. If they want iPads they have to spend way more.
And google cloud apps are pretty damn good. I mean they are concerningly good if you own AAPL.
How do you do word processing on a MacBook? Rent microsoft word every month for the rest of your life? Use Pages with its confusing protocol regarding .docx files?
Oh wait the school can just spend 200 bucks and use google Docs.
Could you you do even more amazing things on an iPad than on a Chromebook in class? Yeah. Do teachers by and large know how to do those amazing things? Well no. Why not? Teachers do not get paid. And only non-poor people largely use Apple. So teachers are more likely to own android and come from a personal familiarity with Google/android.
So you two things going on. Chromebooks are way cheaper. And teachers are more familiar with android. Put that together and boom.
Yes I have no idea what I'm talking about lol but iopinions cost even less than Chromebooks.
Stop with the dummy routine. It's not that IDC fakes data, its just it selectively presents points of data devoid of any meaningful context to present a severely exaggerated picture that flatters its clients.
Its hard and to explain away how IDC isn't purposely lying on behalf of HP, Dell, Samsung, Google, etc.
Stop with the dummy routine? Really, personal insults now?
Daniel, the "clients" are obviously those companies subscribing to the relatively expensive reports they make their income from, and they're not just in the computers and smartphone industry either as you obviously know from visiting their website. Are you claiming "someone" is paying IDC specifically to fabricate favorable reports, glossed over exaggerations of the truth, and thousands of clients then buy those intelligence reports not realizing they aren't reading the truth? Wow.
I would certainly expect you have proof of these payments you know of made by Google and Dell to IDC to produce those favorable reports if you're going to call others a dummy for not simply believing you. Do you? Not that I've ever presented before, so if not then please don't confuse readers with conjecture presented as fact just as you'd expect from any of us less-knowledgeable peons. Who knows you might be right. Or not. My opinion is not.
It's great to have a supportable opinion, circumstantial evidence and all, but tell readers that what it is: Your opinion. It's not a fact that Dell. or HP, or Google pays IDC to create less than objective intelligence reports is it?
EDIT: Meanwhile in other news the EU is getting ever more aggressive in it's quest for tax money. The French this morning raided Google offices in Paris looking for evidence of tax evasion. They believe Google is shifting profits to Ireland. Details at 11.
Trying to play victim is just pathetic. Claiming someone is doing a 'dummy routine' is not the same as calling them a dummy, but you know that.
And surprise surprise, your argument, as usual, consists of nothing but feigned incredulity and straw man arguments. The bias that DED points out speaks for itself, whether there is a specific agreement, or implied or inherent bias due to the fact that the vast majority of IDC's clients are not Apple Inc. You feel there's no motivation for bias?
It's pretty sad when the crux of your argument is that DED didn't put "Editorial" in the heading.
Stop with the dummy routine. It's not that IDC fakes data, its just it selectively presents points of data devoid of any meaningful context to present a severely exaggerated picture that flatters its clients.
Its hard and to explain away how IDC isn't purposely lying on behalf of HP, Dell, Samsung, Google, etc.
Stop with the dummy routine? Really, personal insults now?
Daniel, the "clients" are obviously those companies subscribing to the relatively expensive reports they make their income from, and they're not just in the computers and smartphone industry either as you obviously know from visiting their website. Are you claiming "someone" is paying IDC specifically to fabricate favorable reports, glossed over exaggerations of the truth, and thousands of clients then buy those intelligence reports not realizing they aren't reading the truth? Wow.
I would certainly expect you have proof of these payments you know of made by Google and Dell to IDC to produce those favorable reports if you're going to call others a dummy for not simply believing you. Do you? Not that I've ever presented before, so if not then please don't confuse readers with conjecture presented as fact just as you'd expect from any of us less-knowledgeable peons. Who knows you might be right. Or not. My opinion is not.
It's great to have a supportable opinion, circumstantial evidence and all, but tell readers that what it is: Your opinion. It's not a fact that Dell. or HP, or Google pays IDC to create less than objective intelligence reports is it?
EDIT: Meanwhile in other news the EU is getting ever more aggressive in it's quest for tax money. The French this morning raided Google offices in Paris looking for evidence of tax evasion. They believe Google is shifting profits to Ireland. Details at 11.
Trying to play victim is just pathetic. Claiming someone is doing a 'dummy routine' is not the same as calling them a dummy, but you know that.
It's pretty sad when the crux of your argument is that DED didn't put "Editorial" in the heading.
Daniel is perfectly capable of answering, unless of course you know something factual to add about IDC and their "clients" than has been mentioned in the past few posts. If so what is it?
The comment I made wasn't for the article, plainly understood as an editorial. It was for Corrections/Daniels specific comment to me asserting fact where none is yet demonstrated, but if he has 'em I've no doubt at all that he'll post 'em.
So US schools bought more chromebooks than Macs in one quarter, not an issue unless it's repeated quarter on quarter. Then it becomes a big issue. It doesn't need a DED diatribe to try and obfuscate the potential problem brewing. Without a low cost educational SKU you could see Apple slowly pushed out of the educational sector. When budgets are stretched it is easy to see why the low cost option is taken.
Honestly, how can they sell a laptop for such a low price? I'm looking at an Acer for $172 on Amazon, and that's the retail price. I can't imagine what the wholesale price must be.
It still has pretty much the same number of parts as any other laptop: 16 GB SSD 2 GB DDR3 RAM Intel dual core processor 2.16 GHz Intel HD graphics HD LED screen WiFi radio
Battery Charger
Keyboard Touch Pad Shell/chassis Circuit board Assembly Packaging
So US schools bought more chromebooks than Macs in one quarter, not an issue unless it's repeated quarter on quarter. Then it becomes a big issue. It doesn't need a DED diatribe to try and obfuscate the potential problem brewing. Without a low cost educational SKU you could see Apple slowly pushed out of the educational sector. When budgets are stretched it is easy to see why the low cost option is taken.
And decades ago, they bought more Commodore PETs than Apple]['s.
The initial bottom line cost has been and will continue to be most school buying agents' main concern.
Trying to play victim is just pathetic. Claiming someone is doing a 'dummy routine' is not the same as calling them a dummy, but you know that.
It's pretty sad when the crux of your argument is that DED didn't put "Editorial" in the heading.
Daniel's a big boy and is perfectly capable of answering, unless of course you know something factual about about IDC and their "clients than has been mentioned in the past few posts. If so what is it?
The comment I made wasn't for the article, plainly marked as an editorial. It was for Corrections/Daniels specific comment to me asserting fact where none is demonstrated. Try reading more carefully to understand the point being made before jumping to conclusions.
Oh geez. More of the exact same. So unless you have incontrovertible evidence then one can't make an assertion? Literal much? That's one of the most obnoxious ways to have a discussion.
Also, what does "Daniel's" ability to reply have to do with my post?
(FWIW, although I sometimes "Dislike" your posts, any dislikes in this discussion won't be coming from me.)
The dumbest fracking thing ever posted on Apple Insider.
Apple should 100% create a A chip laptop, that would kill Chrome books in an instant because they're margins is so thin the wouldn't be able to compete.
Not really the dumbest thing ever posted. Many people on this site like to lump iPad sales in with personal computer sales. If so, then why can't the Chromebooks be lumped in as well? It's a computing device with limited local storage, and access to an app store for additional apps (http://www.omgchrome.com/google-play-store-coming-chromebooks/). If you buy into that logic, then it's definitely newsworthy that Chromebooks are outselling MacBooks -- but just as a data point for comparison, not as an indicator that MacBook sales are doomed.
An earlier report by Tom Warren for The Verge cited IDC analyst Linn Huang as emphasizing that Chrome OS took the lead "in terms of shipments," making it clear she wasn't talking about revenue or sustainable profitability, or even strategic importance.
So US schools bought more chromebooks than Macs in one quarter, not an issue unless it's repeated quarter on quarter. Then it becomes a big issue. It doesn't need a DED diatribe to try and obfuscate the potential problem brewing. Without a low cost educational SKU you could see Apple slowly pushed out of the educational sector. When budgets are stretched it is easy to see why the low cost option is taken.
Apple also doesn't provide a system for managing the Macs, nor a system for managing the content from a teacher/student perspective. Google does. https://www.google.com/edu/
I'm not endorsing Google products, but you can see where the "cheap devices and free tools for students and teachers" aspects of this approach would be very attractive to cash-strapped schools.
The dumbest fracking thing ever posted on Apple Insider.
Apple should 100% create a A chip laptop, that would kill Chrome books in an instant because they're margins is so thin the wouldn't be able to compete.
Not really the dumbest thing ever posted. Many people on this site like to lump iPad sales in with personal computer sales. If so, then why can't the Chromebooks be lumped in as well? It's a computing device with limited local storage, and access to an app store for additional apps (http://www.omgchrome.com/google-play-store-coming-chromebooks/). If you buy into that logic, then it's definitely newsworthy that Chromebooks are outselling MacBooks -- but just as a data point for comparison, not as an indicator that MacBook sales are doomed.
I think the biggest problem people are having is the idea of comparing sales of $300 things to sales of $1,200 things.
This may be the first time Chromebooks, in particular, have outsold Mac laptops... but it is hardly surprising if you really put your mind to it.
We've been here before. Cheap Windows PCs also outsell Macs... and they have for decades
I think the biggest problem people are having is the idea of comparing sales of $300 things to sales of $1,200 things.
This may be the first time Chromebooks, in particular, have outsold Mac laptops... but it is hardly surprising if you really put your mind to it.
We've been here before. Cheap Windows PCs also outsell Macs... and they have for decades
I think it *is* surprising to some people as they consider the Chromebook another Google failure. Time will tell on the "failure" part, but the sales/shipment volumes are getting traction.
Stop with the dummy routine. It's not that IDC fakes data, its just it selectively presents points of data devoid of any meaningful context to present a severely exaggerated picture that flatters its clients.
Its hard and to explain away how IDC isn't purposely lying on behalf of HP, Dell, Samsung, Google, etc.
Stop with the dummy routine? Really, personal insults now?
Daniel, the "clients" are obviously those companies subscribing to the relatively expensive reports they make their income from, and they're not just in the computers and smartphone industry either as you obviously know from visiting their website. Are you claiming "someone" is paying IDC specifically to fabricate favorable reports, glossed over exaggerations of the truth, and thousands of clients then buy those intelligence reports not realizing they aren't reading the truth? Wow.
I would certainly expect you have proof of these payments you know of made by Google and Dell to IDC to produce those favorable reports if you're going to call others a dummy for not simply believing you. Do you? Not that I've ever presented before, so if not then please don't confuse readers with conjecture presented as fact just as you'd expect from any of us less-knowledgeable peons. Who knows you might be right. Or not. My opinion is not.
It's great to have a supportable opinion, circumstantial evidence and all, but tell readers that what it is: Your opinion. It's not a fact that Dell. or HP, or Google pays IDC to create less than objective intelligence reports is it?
EDIT: Meanwhile in other news the EU is getting ever more aggressive in it's quest for tax money. The French this morning raided Google offices in Paris looking for evidence of tax evasion. They believe Google is shifting profits to Ireland. Details at 11.
Microsoft's relationship with Gartner and IDC is well documented on the web. There is no conjecture. The article is just pointing out what details IDC makes public in the form of "news" and how carefully the logic is coached.
At issue is not IDC "data" but how the company cleverly words things and how the media extrapolates conclusions that are not actually supported as fact.
Comments
Daniel, the "clients" are obviously those companies subscribing to the relatively expensive reports they make their income from, and they're not just in the computers and smartphone industry either as you obviously know from visiting their website. Are you claiming "someone" is paying IDC specifically to fabricate favorable reports, glossed over exaggerations of the truth, and thousands of clients then buy those intelligence reports not realizing they aren't reading the truth? Wow.
I would certainly expect you have proof of these payments you know of made by Google and Dell to IDC to produce those favorable reports if you're going to call others a dummy for not simply believing you. Do you? Not that I've ever presented before, so if not then please don't confuse readers with conjecture presented as fact just as you'd expect from any of us less-knowledgeable peons. Who knows you might be right. Or not. My opinion is not.
It's great to have a supportable opinion, circumstantial evidence and all, but tell readers that what it is: Your opinion. It's not a fact that Dell. or HP, or Google pays IDC to create less than objective intelligence reports is it?
EDIT: Meanwhile in other news the EU is getting ever more aggressive in it's quest for tax money. The French this morning raided Google offices in Paris looking for evidence of tax evasion. They believe Google is shifting profits to Ireland. Details at 11.
Google doesn't care about the premium/low end mix of their products as long as they use Google services - that's the model they've chosen and they clearly are not a hardware company. So their goal is to take even more than the 84% of the smartphone market they already have and get people using their services and get ads served to them. The progress of Chromebooks is only a plus to them - they previously had trivial share of the desktop market and it's now helping them get a foothold there.
That being said, their model pretty much translates to far less revenue and profit per customer. But for heaven's sake, these two great companies choosing to not compete directly is not some winning/losing narrative for either side.
And google cloud apps are pretty damn good. I mean they are concerningly good if you own AAPL.
How do you do word processing on a MacBook? Rent microsoft word every month for the rest of your life? Use Pages with its confusing protocol regarding .docx files?
Oh wait the school can just spend 200 bucks and use google Docs.
Could you you do even more amazing things on an iPad than on a Chromebook in class? Yeah. Do teachers by and large know how to do those amazing things? Well no. Why not? Teachers do not get paid. And only non-poor people largely use Apple. So teachers are more likely to own android and come from a personal familiarity with Google/android.
So you two things going on. Chromebooks are way cheaper. And teachers are more familiar with android. Put that together and boom.
Yes I have no idea what I'm talking about lol but iopinions cost even less than Chromebooks.
And surprise surprise, your argument, as usual, consists of nothing but feigned incredulity and straw man arguments. The bias that DED points out speaks for itself, whether there is a specific agreement, or implied or inherent bias due to the fact that the vast majority of IDC's clients are not Apple Inc. You feel there's no motivation for bias?
It's pretty sad when the crux of your argument is that DED didn't put "Editorial" in the heading.
The comment I made wasn't for the article, plainly understood as an editorial. It was for Corrections/Daniels specific comment to me asserting fact where none is yet demonstrated, but if he has 'em I've no doubt at all that he'll post 'em.
It doesn't need a DED diatribe to try and obfuscate the potential problem brewing. Without a low cost educational SKU you could see Apple slowly pushed out of the educational sector. When budgets are stretched it is easy to see why the low cost option is taken.
I'm looking at an Acer for $172 on Amazon, and that's the retail price.
I can't imagine what the wholesale price must be.
It still has pretty much the same number of parts as any other laptop:
16 GB SSD
2 GB DDR3 RAM
Intel dual core processor 2.16 GHz
Intel HD graphics
HD LED screen
WiFi radio
Charger
Touch Pad
Shell/chassis
Circuit board
Assembly
Packaging
Chrome OS
Google Apps
I don't get it.
Seriously.
The initial bottom line cost has been and will continue to be most school buying agents' main concern.
Also, what does "Daniel's" ability to reply have to do with my post?
(FWIW, although I sometimes "Dislike" your posts, any dislikes in this discussion won't be coming from me.)
An earlier report by Tom Warren for The Verge cited IDC analyst Linn Huang as emphasizing that Chrome OS took the lead "in terms of shipments," making it clear she wasn't talking about revenue or sustainable profitability, or even strategic importance.
https://www.google.com/edu/
I'm not endorsing Google products, but you can see where the "cheap devices and free tools for students and teachers" aspects of this approach would be very attractive to cash-strapped schools.
This may be the first time Chromebooks, in particular, have outsold Mac laptops... but it is hardly surprising if you really put your mind to it.
We've been here before. Cheap Windows PCs also outsell Macs... and they have for decades
At issue is not IDC "data" but how the company cleverly words things and how the media extrapolates conclusions that are not actually supported as fact.
You say too many ridiculous things to respond to.