whatever happened to good old-fashioned unit sales?
Fred Anderson said during the q2 conference call that Apple is no focusing on increasing marketshare, but they are working to increase revenues. In a nutshell, Apple said marketshare numbers are meaningless and Apple doesn't compete in every market. Unit sales are up 5%. Some analysts commented that Apple is falling behind the increases in PC unit sales, but Apple countered that they are holding steady.
I am glad to see Apple's unit sales are up 5%, but I think marketshare is of key importance. Sure Apple doesn't have to have a big presence in the under $600 club, but I wold like to see increased unit sales above the pace of the market.
Apple needs to take advantage of the serious momentum it has in the computer industry.
1. growing concerns over security in microsoft products
2. increasing marketshare of linix and other open source software
3. increasing consumer demand for digital hubs and content creation machines with video and photo editing.
4. Technology upgrade cycle begining again
5. Explosion of storage market and the popularity of xserves in data centers
6. positive PR resulting from ipods, itunes and general warm fuzzies about Apple
Apple is doing very well in the "core markets," but to remain viable as a consumer platform Apple does need marketshare to increase or at the bare minimum hold steady.
Looking at some of the recent software loses, it is inperative for regular users to continue to choose Apple as the home-based genral purpose digital hub.
Adobe isn't releasing photoshop album or premiere to Apple users. Adobe discontinued frame maker. Corel ended Corel Draw, Palm said goodbye for the upcoming palm software, Microsoft said no more to IE and its MSN messanger and internet services lag severely behind their pc counterparts. AOL 9.0 features do not work on macs (yeah i was irritated when i tried to watch the NCAA tourney..windows media only..and windows only). norton is ending systemworks.
I know in many cases the Apple developed software was superior to these competing products, and other ones had not been updated for a while, but we still need software competition as a platform.
Even if Apple develops the best software in the world, you want to be free to choose an alternative. We need options, maybe not 207, but at least another competing product so you can evaluate your needs and choose the best solution.
Hopefully, Apple will change their mind and again focus on unit sales and leading the market instead of merely coming close to keeping up.
I am glad to see Apple's unit sales are up 5%, but I think marketshare is of key importance. Sure Apple doesn't have to have a big presence in the under $600 club, but I wold like to see increased unit sales above the pace of the market.
Apple needs to take advantage of the serious momentum it has in the computer industry.
1. growing concerns over security in microsoft products
2. increasing marketshare of linix and other open source software
3. increasing consumer demand for digital hubs and content creation machines with video and photo editing.
4. Technology upgrade cycle begining again
5. Explosion of storage market and the popularity of xserves in data centers
6. positive PR resulting from ipods, itunes and general warm fuzzies about Apple
Apple is doing very well in the "core markets," but to remain viable as a consumer platform Apple does need marketshare to increase or at the bare minimum hold steady.
Looking at some of the recent software loses, it is inperative for regular users to continue to choose Apple as the home-based genral purpose digital hub.
Adobe isn't releasing photoshop album or premiere to Apple users. Adobe discontinued frame maker. Corel ended Corel Draw, Palm said goodbye for the upcoming palm software, Microsoft said no more to IE and its MSN messanger and internet services lag severely behind their pc counterparts. AOL 9.0 features do not work on macs (yeah i was irritated when i tried to watch the NCAA tourney..windows media only..and windows only). norton is ending systemworks.
I know in many cases the Apple developed software was superior to these competing products, and other ones had not been updated for a while, but we still need software competition as a platform.
Even if Apple develops the best software in the world, you want to be free to choose an alternative. We need options, maybe not 207, but at least another competing product so you can evaluate your needs and choose the best solution.
Hopefully, Apple will change their mind and again focus on unit sales and leading the market instead of merely coming close to keeping up.
Comments
As long as Apple and developers turn out profit every quarter it's all good.
Actually, I am glad not everyone is a Mac user.
Originally posted by jade
I am glad to see Apple's unit sales are up 5%, but I think marketshare is of key importance. Sure Apple doesn't have to have a big presence in the under $600 club, but I wold like to see increased unit sales above the pace of the market.
I'm interested in Apple's sudden change of tack, because they were rather volubly trying to increase market share. And nothing happened.
What's interesting is that although they appear to have done a 180, their average gross margin took another hit (half a percent), their iPod margins plunged 4%, and they're going to go down to a Dell-like 20% this summer. This is a continuation of their earlier strategy to trade gross margin for market share, except that they're no longer talking in terms of market share. I think they're trying to change the debate toward installed base.
Looking at some of the recent software loses, it is inperative for regular users to continue to choose Apple as the home-based genral purpose digital hub.
OK, let's pause here for a second. Why would you choose a computer to be a digital hub? Because you can set it up and use it that way. Choice only becomes important, generally, when no one solution is generally adequate. But if Apple bundles a really solid solution - whether its theirs or someone else's - not many people are going to care about whether it has competition, because it works. Competition becomes useful when someone gets arrogant and starts slacking off. But Apple isn't.
Adobe isn't releasing photoshop album or premiere to Apple users. Adobe discontinued frame maker. Corel ended Corel Draw, Palm said goodbye for the upcoming palm software, Microsoft said no more to IE and its MSN messanger and internet services lag severely behind their pc counterparts. AOL 9.0 features do not work on macs (yeah i was irritated when i tried to watch the NCAA tourney..windows media only..and windows only). norton is ending systemworks.
1) They probably figured that, with iPhoto on board, FCP for sale and Premier for Mac hopelessly dated, it was not worth the cost and trouble to compete. They were probably right. As long as iPhoto and FCP are better, who cares?
2) Framemaker has had second-class status at Adobe since they bought the app. The user base is concerned that the Mac cancellation is only the first such, and that Adobe will try to migrate Framemaker users to InDesign. Adobe is putting a lot of effort into the Mac version of InDesign.
3) Corel ended Corel Draw because nobody bought it. That's competition for you. There are lots of better apps for the job, and Corel can hardly afford to keep that suite around on the Mac just for the sake of warm fuzzies. Since OS X, we've actually picked up more alternatives in this space.
4) Palm is trying not to follow Corel into irrelevancy. At any rate, if they just use standard synching protocols, it won't matter whether they offer a custom Mac app.
5) Microsoft said no more IE, period. Not on Windows, either. Nevertheless, the Mac browser landscape looks better than it has for as long as I can remember. Remember what it was like before Safari? As for Messenger and MSN, I'm not sure why you brought them up: We actually have them now, where we didn't before. They might not be up to PC snuff, but is that surprising? MS wants you to run Windows, so of course they'll make those services work better on Windows. Apple does the same thing.
6) AOL 9.0 might not work so well on Macs (because of MS' deal with the NCAA? What? How is that AOL's fault?), but it works a whole heck of a lot better than prior versions. Remember when we didn't even get whole versions, and there was talk of AOL dropping Mac support altogether? This, too, is an improvement.
10) Norton is ending SystemWorks? I thought they were ending NUM. At any rate, as the AI report points out, this is something Symantec is doing on all platforms: Moving away from the increasingly redundant system utilities toward anti-virus and security solutions. I can't blame them. This is an issue of the overall needs of the market changing, not an issue of Mac support.
I know in many cases the Apple developed software was superior to these competing products, and other ones had not been updated for a while, but we still need software competition as a platform.
Even if Apple develops the best software in the world, you want to be free to choose an alternative. We need options, maybe not 207, but at least another competing product so you can evaluate your needs and choose the best solution.
Hopefully, Apple will change their mind and again focus on unit sales and leading the market instead of merely coming close to keeping up.
What makes you think they aren't focused on unit sales? Do you think it's entirely, 100% Apple's fault that they don't grow so quickly? Would you be willing to accept cheaper components and a shorter useful lifespan to increase market share? After all, the 5 year average lifespan of a Mac, vs. the 3 year average life span of a PC (which both MS and Intel are trying to shorten, by the way) means that even if both had the same installed base, PCs would have a higher market share. Does that make the PC a more attractive development target?
Originally posted by soulcrusher
Why do people care about market share at ALL?
As long as Apple and developers turn out profit every quarter it's all good.
Actually, I am glad not everyone is a Mac user.
Nowadays, every time I see someone dredge up the old market share discussion, I get this image in my head...
Sorry, Amorph. I just couldn't let a logical, well-thought-out post like yours go too long without a nice followup post.
We have very different opinions on choice. Choice is relavant no matter whether or not the current solutions are adequete or sub par. Competiton leads to improved products, and for switchers out there it is nice to see a familiar name.
Nifty photoshop album features not in iphoto:
better use of metatag data.... it actually uses it!
more output choices slideshows, cards, calendars
I love iphoto...but I would like an opportunity to evaluate a few other choices as well. Same is true with iDVD (vs Encore)
Or premiere... what if all of your pc friends use premiere and you have used it for a while and are used to the quirks habits and shortcuts. Not its time to learn a whole new program FCP or FCE.
With Palm cancelling all native mac support you effectively have to PAY to use any PDA with your mac. That sucks. Sure I understand that microsoft isn't really going to make pocket pcs compatible out of the bix, but palm has always been a stronghold for Apple users.
In some cases Apple software has a lot of choices and is stronger than it has been. Especially in Apple's major niches. The places I worry about are the ones that fall outside of the niche and more into the general use side.
It is like the Mac video card market....sure ATI or nVidia could be profitably making retail cards, but they would only sell 50k a year...is it worth it to produce that many?
Apple has a really clear direction for where each product targets, but is slow to adopt trends that don't fit in with their vision. The education market is becoming more and more like the Enterprise market. Adobe is busy standardized PDFs for business communications, and PDF creation to lik with databases and other proprietary corporate software. This transition it a way to help companies become more paperless and manage all of the data and information coming in from everywhere. School of course lag behind these things for a while of course, but with more and more Cortporate leaders coming into manage schools we can expect to see more coporate-like school administrations. I would hate to see apple left out of this potential boom, because these new standards do not work on a mac. (not just reading pdfs, but the creation, organization and integration they provide. These are the real daggers of decreasing marketshare.
The larger message all of these high profile droppings send is....Apple computers do not matter anymore for general consumers. And once that perception gets out, there is no stopping the ramifications.
"Don't get a Mac no one uses them."
"Mac users don't use their computers for online banking and their numbers are neglibable...forget about it"
"99% of our customrs use PCs so our internet software doesn't need to run on Macs"
"Apple is dying out...we do not need to make drivers for our products"
"Apple marketshare is 1%, we can drop our mac tech support."
"The only people who use Apples are video editors and muscians, even the graphic designers are leaving in droves. Since our product doesn't fit in that space we do not need to develop a Mac version"
Even if Apple is profitable, with shrinking numbers it doesn't necessarily make sense for developers to stick around.
Originally posted by jade
AOL 9.0 (no mac equivalent) has exclusive broadband content like Basketball games and so on streaming live. These things could easily be cross platform, since they are actually web based. MAc users miss out on the huge improvements Aol has made with the new version: better email, better AIM, more features.... The Mac Aol is actually a version behind the PC one.
This is still better than imminent cancellation, which is where we were a couple of years ago.
We have very different opinions on choice. Choice is relavant no matter whether or not the current solutions are adequete or sub par. Competiton leads to improved products, and for switchers out there it is nice to see a familiar name.
The latter is somewhat true. The former is bunk. Competition is not what market idealists think it is, and the fruits of competition are far more ambiguous than people think they are.
But one of the fruits of competition is that companies that can't compete drop out. So you're always going to have some attrition. The question is, is that relevant?
Besides, your second point plays against your first. If people want a familiar name, and they find it, are they going to look at another product even if it's much better? You said no yourself when comparing Premiere to FCP.
I love iphoto...but I would like an opportunity to evaluate a few other choices as well. Same is true with iDVD (vs Encore)
The desire to evaluate does not drive competition. Sales drive competition. You might have liked to have Corel Draw around to evaluate, but it didn't sell, so it's gone. That's competition for you.
With Palm cancelling all native mac support you effectively have to PAY to use any PDA with your mac. That sucks.
Not if the product's worth paying for. Palm Desktop was Claris Organizer, and I recall Organizer having many satisfied paying customers in its day.
Missing Sync should only be necessary if a) the Palms don't use the standard iSync understands, or b) the Palms are such an obscure product that there's no point spending money to add support.
The larger message all of these high profile droppings send is....Apple computers do not matter anymore for general consumers. And once that perception gets out, there is no stopping the ramifications.
Actually, since most of your "droppings" send different messages (like "we want you to use InDesign"), that's not true. And the rest of your post sounds like the latter days of OS 9, not today.
You still haven't explained how, if there's this mass exodus from the platform, it has more attention than it's had in a decade and more developer attention than ever before, from markets that have never looked at Macs before, or which (like 3D and science) were slowly moving away from them.
The reason? People don't target market shares. They target markets. Apple's installed base is large and growing, their products are extremely well suited for a number of markets, and those markets are responding.
Even if Apple is profitable, it doesn't necessarily make sense for developers to stick around.
Nevertheless, it makes more sense now than it has for a solid decade for developers to stick around. Evidence? They're flocking to the Mac in droves. Sun's Java team? All Macs. The Perl team? All Macs. Linus Torvalds has a G5. Etc. Apple has never had this kind of developer attention before. Not ever.
Many of these new developers are targeting the niches, but the people defecting are the general use consumers....and these are the developments I am most concerned about.
The science people, muscians, and video editors will always have plenty of choice in software...Apple develops a lot of it and Apple has a huge marketshare.
The home user niche is where it is unclear where Apple stands...and these are the items that you will miss most if they leave. The basics: Quicken, quickbooks, real player, and so on.
Apple has a really clear direction for where each product targets, but is slow to adopt trends that don't fit in with their vision.
3D animation on Apple is still very behind the PC side, and there aren't any ultra premium video cards for Macs that will allow them to compete in this space.
The education market is becoming more and more like the Enterprise market. Adobe is busy standardized PDFs for business communications, and PDF creation to link with databases and other proprietary corporate software. This transition it a way to help companies become more paperless and manage all of the data and information coming in from everywhere.
School of course lag behind these things for a while of course, but with more and more Corporate leaders coming into manage schools we can expect to see more coporate-like school administrations. I would hate to see Apple left out of this potential boom, because these new standards do not work on a mac. (not just reading pdfs, but the creation, organization and integration they provide. ie the new Adobe Designer software) These are the real daggers of decreasing marketshare.
Originally posted by jade
I have noticed a lot of interesting people jumping into Apple products, what I am not sure about if it is keeping pace with the defectors. These defectors are going to best buy...
I have to say this sounds like a lot of conjecture and typical "the sky is falling, Apple is doomed" FUD. Care to back this up with any concrete numbers or cite some real examples beyond personal experiences? My personal experience is just the opposite. I have seen people around me become increasingly interested in switching to Mac and know no one who has "jumped ship".
3D animation on Apple is still very behind the PC side,
Why do you say this? Do Cinema 4D, LightWave, Maya, Renderman, and Blender mean nothing to you? Please don't tell me you're a 3D Studio junkie...
Originally posted by soulcrusher
Why do people care about market share at ALL?
As long as Apple and developers turn out profit every quarter it's all good.
Actually, I am glad not everyone is a Mac user.
Just because concerned Mac users want increased marketshare does not me they want 100% marketshare. We're talking small steps. Get up to 5%, then 10%, then maybe 15%. That certainly wouldn't make everyone a Mac user.
It'd just be nice to see Apple selling more machines. Increased marketshare would mean they have compelling products that are both innovative in design and competitive in price, as well as marketed well (like the iPod). That would bring nothing but good things for all Mac users. Sure, Apple has innovative designs for its Macs, but as for competitive pricing and good marketing.... I don't think so
My data is purely empirical.
I was working in a big box retailer that sold Apple computers.
Here were the main types of Apple users I met.
1. the new people like me....bought a mac because of os x over the past couple years
2. the people who had performas (or some other previous mac...in the days of os 7-8... I'm not counting the Apple 2e crowd) and jumped to pc and then were pondering coming back
3. The people looking for upgrades to imacs.
4. The fence-sitting switchers
5. the diehards..always mac won't go back
6. The people who inherited a mac (typically super old ones)
The ones I had the most trouble selling macs to were the #3s.
And I met quite a few. Some were graphic designers, some used windows at work, mostly imac users and some were the B&W users.
The reasons they did not want a mac anymore were very simple
1. while I had one it wasn't compatible with work/games whatever
2. the others ones said, hey i love my mac, but these new ones are too expensive...and windows isn't really that bad...I can't won't spend 2k on a new mac (and they typically hated the emac)
3. my mac is too slow and these PCs are faster
4. all my friends use PCs and they will hook me up with the software and their computers do stuff mine won't
We all agree, you want to play games on a computer...all the time...and you want the newest one, buy a PC.
But when it came time to show them how cool OS X is, and how many more peripherals you can use these days, and how the developers are flocking and there is a lot of cool software out there.
So typically I would try to sell them the easy stuff like a RAM upgrade and panther. For some it would work, and it would give their mac new life..But a few months down the road they would come back and buy a PC.
The other people who just outgrew their imac came in for a desktop with more expandability...but powermacs (g5 and g4) are way more than the competition if your needs are average...so on to PC desktops for these folks
And the last lot were the ones who stuck with it but were sick of hardware lock-in...they wanted more choice in wireless cards, and peripherals, and video cards and so on. They went to PC land too.
Of the imacs looking for a new computer crowd, I would say maybe 10% got a new computer if they weren't the diehards.
I only sold a few computers to the diehards..they either had updated hardware or weren't looking to update.
And the inheritors: they typically go an older than dirt mac, discovered the grass wasn't greener, and sucked it up to buy their own machine, a PC, because it was a hazard to find parts and peripherals for their old school mac. (it was always like a 2e and I would explain to them the reason they couldn't find parts was not because it was a mac..but becasue it was 15 years old) Inheriting can be the best PR or the worst PR...depending on who you meet along the way.
Apple has said it many times...they really need to preach to the choir and get the current old-school mac users to upgrade and purchase the new hardware.... but a lot of people in the installed base are sitting on the fence.
Before everyone here discounts my opinions on market share as FUD, I wold like to note why I am concerned.
The PC space is still growing at a rapid rate. a lot of that growth is in the low end, but these aren't machines being purchased for cash registers and dumb terminals. These guys are actual home users, browsing the web, emailing pictures and doing their taxes. The cheap people upgrade fast..and they typically never look at Apple ever during their computer consumer lifetime. With computer sales going up 10% a year, and Apple sales only increasing by 5 percent...the Apple users become less relvant. Even if there is a huge number of us.
Corel Draw died because they decided that 4% of their customers were not enough.
Check out this eweek piece about way Savvy businesses go where customer are..even if there aren't many.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1547363,00.asp
But unfortunately not every company thinks logically. Intel said, when discussing whether or not selling chips to Apple was important to them. In a nutshell they said...having Apple as a customer isn't going to make a dent in our sales one way or ther other. They are a drop in the bucket on the scheme of our overall sales.
The smaller Apple market share is compared with overall home computer users, the more develpers think it isn't worth it to bother with the niche.
Originally posted by jade
My data is purely empirical.
And that means it isn't data, it's crap.
I don't mean to be rude, and for all I know you could be right,
but that doesn't make it any less crap.
Originally posted by jade
I didn't say the sky is falling tomorrow... I am think more like what will happen over the next 3-6 years.
My data is purely empirical.
I was working in a big box retailer that sold Apple computers.
Heh. I warn everyone interested in Macs away from those stores. Anyone who remembers the mid-90s, and followed the whole iMac fiasco with Best Buy, probably does likewise.
So I imagine your data's just a little skewed. Besides, we have the aggregate numbers from the Apple Stores, and those tell a very different tale.
The PC space is still growing at a rapid rate. a lot of that growth is in the low end, but these aren't machines being purchased for cash registers and dumb terminals. These guys are actual home users, browsing the web, emailing pictures and doing their taxes. The cheap people upgrade fast..and they typically never look at Apple ever during their computer consumer lifetime. With computer sales going up 10% a year, and Apple sales only increasing by 5 percent...the Apple users become less relvant. Even if there is a huge number of us.
But the companies selling those machines are either making no money or losing money. That's not a sustainable market. Right now you're seeing a war of attrition waged by Dell against everybody. That's driving the prices down into predatory territory. Don't expect it to last long, because companies have to make money too.
And I still can't imagine how you think we become less relevant because PC users upgrade faster, distorting market share numbers. The installed base is as big as it is, and it's growing, and anyone interested in selling into that market knows that. Absolute numbers are all that matter, because you don't sell to percentages.
Corel Draw died because they decided that 4% of their customers were not enough.
And only 4% of their customers were Mac users because... Mac users took one look at Corel Draw, pointed, laughed, and went back to Photoshop.
Corel Draw couldn't compete in the Mac market. So its death is irrelevant to overall Mac market share. After all, the same market sustains a number of demonstrably superior drawing/painting applications. Meanwhile, Corel's still shipping Painter for Mac. Why? Because Mac users like Painter, and they buy it.
But unfortunately not every company thinks logically. Intel said, when discussing whether or not selling chips to Apple was important to them. In a nutshell they said...having Apple as a customer isn't going to make a dent in our sales one way or ther other. They are a drop in the bucket on the scheme of our overall sales.
Most companies aren't entrenched monopolies like Intel. Corel would love to have its apps bundled with every PC sold, but that just isn't the way of things. The Mac may be a drop in the bucket for Intel, and Intel may be saving face, too, but it's not a drop in the bucket for a lot of other companies.
The smaller Apple market share is compared with overall home computer users, the more develpers think it isn't worth it to bother with the niche.
Apple's share of the home computer market is growing. So the developers who look at quarterly market share are probably too dumb to develop a worthwhile application for the Mac in the first place. Fortunately, there don't seem to be many of those. As I've said, and as I will continue to say until it gets pounded into your head, the Mac has never in its entire history had this level of developer attention.
Originally posted by Amorph
Apple's share of the home computer market is growing. So the developers who look at quarterly market share are probably too dumb to develop a worthwhile application for the Mac in the first place. Fortunately, there don't seem to be many of those. As I've said, and as I will continue to say until it gets pounded into your head, the Mac has never in its entire history had this level of developer attention.
I certainly agree with Amorph's comments here. Just looking around in the CS apartment at my college, there's been some growth in people using Macs in the classes I'm in. Not to mention an even greater growth in general Mac usage on campus... when I was first here I barely saw anyone use Macs... now I'm seeing several on any given day.
The more they can get developers, including student developers to use Macs, the higher likelihood of more shareware and other programs that will be developed for Macs in the future. That helps contribute to the choices available to users.
I get the feeling that slowly things may be coming together that will give Apple some momentum, specifically the iPods and its associated mindshare, as well as reasonably priced iBooks that appear to be selling pretty strongly. That Apple was still selling ~750k Macs in a quarter that saw just about zero product updates, as well as being a quarter that I assume is typically slower than others, is a good sign.
Originally posted by Amorph
[B]Heh. I warn everyone interested in Macs away from those stores. Anyone who remembers the mid-90s, and followed the whole iMac fiasco with Best Buy, probably does likewise.
So I imagine your data's just a little skewed. Besides, we have the aggregate numbers from the Apple Stores, and those tell a very different tale.
Well everyone still goes to big boxes for cds, printers and mice....I still think it is a valid place to look at computer users. Apple stores tell a different tale, but not everywhere has an Apple store. I like in northern california...and people from fremont/hayward (east bay) don't go to the Apple store because they think it is two far...and 4 are in a 20-30 mile radius of that area.
But the companies selling those machines are either making no money or losing money. That's not a sustainable market. Right now you're seeing a war of attrition waged by Dell against everybody. That's driving the prices down into predatory territory. Don't expect it to last long, because companies have to make money too.
The low end really isn't important to me...it is really the other PC makers after the middle...these are Apple's big competitors. Dell is playing it smart with supply and demand...as well as the bottom feeder emachines they have managed o be successful in a difficult market. It is hard to believe, but emachine also makes a profit, they are privately held. They also have little debt, that is why Gateway snapped them up. They have some crazy amount of revenue per employee of like 6 million dollars, and they never rely on closeouts to move product: they only produce and ship product to match actual retailer orders. Great idead. The product is then directly shipped from the seemblers.
Apple could really increase profits by taking a look at emachines and Dell's supply chain management. But the low end is a zero sum game, but I would like to see Apple make a move to get more PC makers to bundle itunes. Gateway/emachines would be a good bet since they are not intel's best friends.....only could help with marketshare and future sales.
And I still can't imagine how you think we become less relevant because PC users upgrade faster, distorting market share numbers. The installed base is as big as it is, and it's growing, and anyone interested in selling into that market knows that. Absolute numbers are all that matter, because you don't sell to percentages.
PC lifespans are increasing..in fact my parents have 2 PCs entering year 4..after a processor upgrade after 2 years. Other people I know I hitting year 5 on their notebooks. And there isn't a real push to buy new machines other than the shiny factor. Actually not that many PC users update frequently. It's only the ones who want insane frames per second on their games, or fell prey to the shiny factor, or suddenly decided they want to edit video or burn DVDs. Not really that many. These people buying PCs evey 2 years...are the sames ones buying them over and over and over. They also hang out at Fry's buying more RAM bigger hard drives, new video cards, faster DVD burners and everything else weekly. They are the computer store groupies...who are in line at the crack of dawn for the pending release of Half-life 2.
The rest of the PC users are just like mac users...use the machine till it breaks or their needs change significantly. Int 4 year range. In fact Microsoft admits, their biggest cause of cannabilization of the sales of new products is the previous version. There are still many people out there on Win 98 and Win ME/2000
The absolute numbers vs percentages really depend on what software we are talking about...and the resources of the comapny making the titles. For a small company developing let's say recipe box management software, going after the Apple users wouldn't be cost effective. For a wireless hardware maker...it makes sense to go linux, unix mac and maybe even dos. In the big categories ther will always be lots of choice, but in the smaller categories...the shakeout could be most profound.
But only time will tell....After we look at Dad's and grads and back to school.
My inital post has nothing to do with the impending death of Apple...it is more about why I think marketshare is still important.
Apple still faces other challenges to overcome the unit sales problems: like inventory, QA and supply and demand. If Apple gets these problems licked the rest will fall into place, Apple already has momentum as a noted before, but how will Apple take advantage of it?
It all goes hand in hand.
And the non-upgraders are also Apple's big problem to..many MAc users don't upgrade their software or hardware because what they have works just fine....from os 8 to jaguar.
/me grumbles about not having a mind reading search / post vetting feature and draws your attention to the thread in the News forum.
Originally posted by jade:
Fred Anderson said during the q2 conference call that Apple is no focusing on increasing marketshare, but they are working to increase revenues. In a nutshell, Apple said marketshare numbers are meaningless and Apple doesn't compete in every market. Unit sales are up 5%. Some analysts commented that Apple is falling behind the increases in PC unit sales, but Apple countered that they are holding steady.
Actually, I was a little worried Apple might post a loss this quarter, but they seemed to do alight for themselves! Yay iPod!
Unit sales though are making me go
I was hoping Apple would have at least an 80K quarter carrying some momentum from the G5s, iPods and the PC industry in general rebounding... I've heard HP's sales are up 25%, Dell's way up too apparantly, etc. Marketshare is definitely going to sting this Q. Hopefully the summer refreshes will turn some of these numbers around.
Time for the next revolution Apple, hop to it!
Cheers,
C.
Originally posted by soulcrusher
Why do people care about market share at ALL?
The biggest reasons for a Mac user to want Macs to have more market share:
1) We'd get more software which is Mac compatible.
2) We'd get more web sites which are Mac compatible.
While it's true that there's lots of Mac software, it's also true that there are a few things here and there that you just can't get for Mac. Virtual PC isn't a great solution a lot of the time, and besides, if you can't get away from Virtual PC, you aren't really escaping Windows. (With my G5, Virtual PC hasn't been able to work for months now, and there are still a couple of months left to go -- just for the privilege of spending more money on a new version since my already paid-for VPC 6 doesn't work.)
I recently bought this piece of Windows home design software because there simply wasn't anything truly comparable the Mac. Sort of, kind of like, half-overkill, half-not everything that I want, for more money, yes, but nothing like this $129 package that was just what I was looking for.
If Macs had more significantly more marketshare, you can bet there'd have been a Mac version of this software, and I wouldn't have had to settle for running this on my PC.