Apple computers seems to be on a unstoppable march to overtake window systems. The only question seems to be when.
I for one have never owned an Apple but after doing a complete Vista clean reinstall in my Dell, the time has come.
Everyone you talk to is having problems with Windows products and Apple is hassle free.
I know Apple only controls 14% of the PC market right now, but consider a report by the NPD Group which said that Apple controls two-thirds of PCs costing $1,000 or more.
“In notebooks Apple is growing two times the market,” said Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis. “Windows notebooks are pretty much flat right now.”
For the first quarter, Windows notebooks had “zero percent” growth year over year, Stephen said. By comparison, Apple notebooks had “50 to 60 percent growth.”
On the desktop, “They’re up 45 percent,” he continued. “The [overall] market is down 20 percent. Windows desktops would be down 25 percent.” The figures are also for first quarter.
I spoke with Stephen earlier this afternoon. He remarked: “iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows.”
Apple’s market share in what NPD calls the “premium” category, or laptop and desktop PCs selling for $1,000 or more, is nothing short of phenomenal: 66 percent. That’s right, two-thirds.
So when do you think Apple with account for 50% of PCs sales?
Three years or less is my guess
Wild-ass guess: 7 years until Apple hits 50%.
Apple needs to:
– ensure there are no compatibility issues with using a Mac and communicating with corporate America. None/zero/zilch. While certainly not a large sample set, 3 self-employed consultant friends bought Macs over the last 6 months, and all had to go out and buy another PC because they had document compatibility issues with their corporate clients. Is there a fix to the compatibility issues they experienced? Probably, but it’s arguably easier/cheaper to go out and buy a new PC and be up and running in a couple hours, rather than spending days or hundreds of dollars trying to figure the compatability issues out.
– Get the public to start placing some faith in some Apple leadership outside of just Steve Jobs. Their stock takes a hit every time a rumor breaks out about Steve Jobs’ health……this will likely have some carryover to large corporate purchases if the perception is that Apple is doomed when Jobs is back out of the mix.
I personally don’t think Apple can grow to 50% while the IT decision makers in the big corporate buyers are in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and too lazy to learn how to use a mac (whether the learning ‘problem’ is real or perceived)……..there will be a groundswell of demand for Apples from the younger employees, but the younger ones don’t make the decisions yet, and the big corporate buyers don’t do anything quickly……….
If Apple continues to “impress” consumers with a better “toy” then the iPhone they will gain trust and credibility.
When it comes to the Mac – they have a log way to go – The destination reached matters more than the journey – the journey is full of ups and downs – that is LIFE
Nice thing about Apple computers is Windows users can still run Windows and Mac OSX at the same time using parallels software.
Great for those win users making the transition.
I don’t think Apple will ever come close to Windows. Frankly, there is no comparison. Apple has its uses when it comes to photo and video editing, but that’s basically it.
The two absolute reasons the Mac is doing well are:
1) Halo Effect
2) The commercials.
Both of which do not have anything to do with the actual product. I’m not a Windows fanboi by any stretch of the imagination: I’ll never touch Vista. But I would certainly turn to Linux before I do a Mac. Funny thing is that Macs are becoming more and more like Windows by adopting their protocols, like SMB.
Mountaingoat is absolutely right: the compatibility issues need to disappear, and they won’t (ie Macs don’t work with commercial copy machines unless you buy expensive options)
The corporate decision makers are being forced to learn Apples so they can iChat with their kids while at camp or school. Go into the Apple store and look at who is getting the one-on-one training, and it’s largely seniors. In fact spending some time at an Apple store and going up to computers to see what the person before you was accessing on the screen can teach you a lot about where computing and navigation is going.
This summer Apple gave Teachers some extra cash to run “Summer Camp” for kids at Apple. The camp was free and thousands of kids showed up. But what they learned about computers was how to teach their parents how to buy them. perhaps guilty the kids got all this daycare for free, or perhaps of the kids passion and the products themselves, sales were highest ever. I was there on the day last week when camp ended, and parents were picking up BOTH kids and new computers.
Apple will work across the enterprise due to the Cloud. This it’s the foundation of me.com and something I have blogged about extensively. I think I am on to something because information from my posts has been req
…quoted by Frank Schilling, Wall Street Journal, SeekingAlpha and now Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun. Of course since I worked at Citrix on the launch of the cloud, I know a little about it and including it would be the only tool that could deliver the promise of Apple to the enterprise. But Microsoft was Citrix’ biggest partner and best customer. It’s only because of the failure of Vista,and the kids influence on parents, that there now comes the real possibility of sharing and probably and acquisition. It’s all here:
http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/2008/07/apple-hints-at-something-new-see-for.html
I had planned on a buying a new mac in December, but stuck with a pc due to all the existing software I owned and the compatibility issues. Well, guess what? all my software was incompatible with Vista so I had to buy all new software anyway…
New purchases will continue to grow toward Apple – IMO.