IDC: $200-350 Chromebooks shipped 37% more U.S. units in Q1 vs Apple's $1,200 MacBooks

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  • Reply 41 of 46
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member

    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.
    The real "winning/losing narrative" is that Apple is missing out by not having "market share" among unprofitable segments of the market. IDC does this for Macs, for iPhones, for iPads and most recently for Apple Watch. Apple is "losing" market share, in that IDC defines ridiculous markets that trade reality for artful statistics. 

    The article is noting how absurd it is to "report" that $200 netbooks are in any meaningful way outperforming the sales of premium Macs, and what lengths IDC has to go through to state this without venturing over the line into purely false information. It's only in the US, only in education, and only by shipment units. 

    It's not important that PC makers are losing. The article is pointing out that Apple is not losing just because there's a narrative being spun in efforts of creating a false impression of failure. 


  • Reply 42 of 46
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member

    512ke said:
    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. 
    Yes that's true - Chromebooks are a cheap option for schools to put a keyboard and screen in front of students. 

    What's interesting is how sustainable this can be to do at a loss by companies like HP, Dell and Samsung. At some point they will have to stop doing things that lose them money. Also Google: it makes nothing from Chrome and education offers little potential for selling ads. So how does that business continue, when it isn't growing beyond edu as planned? 
  • Reply 43 of 46
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member

    runbuh said:
    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.
    Very little traction in a market that isn't valuable, going on 7 years after Google first announced ChromeOS as a product aimed at the enterprise. From that perspective, it is a failure. No money in 7 years of effort. No clear potential for anything turning around. Makes Surface look good in comparison. 
  • Reply 44 of 46
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,178member
    gatorguy said:
    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. 

    You say too many ridiculous things to respond to.
    So it's your opinion then that IDC is being paid to issue misleading reports just as I said, you've no proof that such a thing actually happens. Fair enough, I've no problem at all with opinions, nor with editorials. You very often raise good points in them.
    techlovermorrolansingularity
  • Reply 45 of 46
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,178member

    "Why Tim Cook’s old high school is no longer giving students Apple MacBooks"

    "Apple MacBooks were given to every student from third through 12th grade in Robertsdale and surrounding Baldwin County. Teachers, too.  Younger students used Apple iPads. That added up to more than 20,000 Apple devices. It was part of a three-year, $24 million plan that school officials called the "Digital Renaissance."

    But school officials decided to stop using Apple devices last month. Instead, students will be given Lenovo Chromebooks...

    Each Chromebooks costs about $200, 75 percent less than a MacBook, according to school board documents. The school system plans to spend $6.6 million to buy 23,500 N21 Chromebooks to give to students before the start of classes this fall.  That will be paid for by selling the used MacBooks.

    In arguing for moving away from Apple products, Homer Coffman, chief technology officer for Baldwin County schools, told the school board that not only are Chromebooks cheaper, but that they are "simpler to maintain and simpler to use." And they're more secure than MacBooks. And teachers and students already use Google education applications, which are compatible with the Google-run Chromebooks."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/03/08/why-tim-cooks-old-high-school-is-no-longer-giving-students-apple-macbooks/






  • Reply 46 of 46
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    More facile analysis from IDC.  :*
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