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Vista Taking a Nibble Out of Apple in OS Wars?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 06, 2007 03:08 PM
from the chomp-chomp-chomp dept.
from the chomp-chomp-chomp dept.
PetManimal writes "Despite all of the positive buzz about the Mac operating system and the 'halo effect' of iPod sales, Mac OS X market share actually dropped last month, reports Computerworld: 'The share of PowerPC-based Macs fell ... from 4.29% in February to 3.94% in March. That dip was not fully offset by an increase in Intel-based Mac hardware, leading to a overall net decline in Mac share of 0.3%, to 6.08% in March.' Meanwhile, Vista is rising, the article says, with just over 2% of computers connected to the Internet using the new Windows OS. The figures are from a company called Net Applications, which collects its data from the browsers of visitors to its network of 40,000+ Web sites."
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Why Microsoft Should Fear Apple 576 comments
jcatcw writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie says that Microsoft should be afraid because Apple has gotten smarter about how it competes. He says that it's the Parallels Desktop software that has been truly transformational for the Mac. Finnie did a simple three-month trial of the Mac last in the fall and realized four months later that he wasn't going back. Since then he's received hundreds of messages from readers who've also made the switch. 'In the end, this is about perception. It isn't about Apple's market share or even its quarterly sales numbers. (Apple's notebook computer sales for the fourth quarter were 4.1% of all portable computer sales, according to DisplaySearch.) What this is about is that Apple is reaching the right people with its product, winning new converts, Windows user by Windows user -- and creating buzz. How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel. And that's the condition Microsoft should fear. Because buzz can turn into something much harder to combat than sheer numbers.'"
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pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is a down blip, it's due to people waiting for Leopard, not because of vista, and ho boy...wait 'till you see her hit the track
Re:pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
The criticism about sales vs. avg. machine lifetime is valid.
In the auto industry we look at UIOs- "units in operation" - that is available via state vehicle registration records. On the whole, the data is pretty good.
Of course, we don't need to register our computers (yet), so we don't have that option.
Assuming the data [hitslink.com] isn't crap, I noticed that Apple has been gaining market share at an average of 0.34% a month since last September, until the 0.3% dip this past month. They went from 4.3% to 6.4% pretty quick, and it's notable b/c that's switching vendors (unlike Vista, which is mostly same vendor, different product). What will be interesting is the next couple of months- was this just a blip? What happens when Leopard comes out?
I'd put my money on 'blip'. I hereby forecast continued growth for Apple, though maybe averaging 0.1-0.2% per month unless they come out with some kickass hardware soon.
And no, I'm not a fanboy.
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
The stats come from website logs, which is basically snake oil as far as accurate numbers goes. The decline could be something as simple as Apple developers tweaking Safari's caching parameters. Since Intel Macs already have the latest version of Safari, if the latest version is more efficient at caching resources, that means that HTTP traffic from PPC Safari users will slowly decline as they upgrade to the latest version of Safari, while Intel users are already at that level.
Or it could be something completely different - HTTP traffic analysis is useless for determining browser/os market share and the littlest thing can skew the numbers wildly.
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Informative)
You need to account for licenses sold in relationship to market growth, transitions to new OS, and consumers who have postponed purchases while waiting for new operating systems.
That said, PPC OS X usage dropped, Intel OS X usage increased, people are timing hardware purchases to coincide with Leopard's release, and people are cashing-in on their wait for Vista. These are factors that may reduce the PPC Mac OS percentage for March, but that is not the same thing as a reduced install base, nor is it a sign that the growth of Apple's install base is entering an extended stagnation.
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Dualboot? (Score:5, Informative)
2%? (Score:5, Funny)
$20 says Microsoft will simply disable XP machines to boost sales.
Sorry, that was just me. (Score:5, Funny)
over 2 percent?!! (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, Microsoft, you win.
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
=)
New Hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Which websites? (Score:5, Funny)
Not a shocker (Score:5, Informative)
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ [macrumors.com]
mini is still at CD, not C2D. iMacs haven't been updated in over 200 days. macbook and MBP in 150. Compare that with the ONLY way to upgrade on the PC side - buy a new machine, and you begin to see the appeal of Vista over OS X when it comes to hardware sales. Finally, Tiger is on it's way out as well. So people are holding off on new Macs until they come pre-installed with leopard.
Would like to see the figures once leopard comes out
Here I come (Score:5, Funny)
They won't be connected for long:
net start BOTNET
Very misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
I do a lot of consulting work and it's very hard to get a new PC for someone that doesn't come with Vista. They don't want Vista but they have no choice. Then we get to deal with figuring out what software they need works and what needs patches and what just plain doesn't work and never will.
0.3% well within margin of error.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which means, Apple's share hasn't changed. Despite the fact there are less PowerPC machines than before.
Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we get real? Apple's market share dropped for one month? Let's see what could cause that:
There. That took about 3 seconds to think up. When Vista has displaced Apple for 3 months in a row, we can talk. Until then this is stupid hype designed to make Vista look like it isn't a dog sales wise (when from MS you would think it would have started selling like Windows 95 did). Plus, this is the PowerPC share that dropped. They are old and slow as hell (I'm using one). Now that CS3 is out (and was about to come out by the time they did this survey) you'd be an IDIOT to buy one. So the Intel side didn't jump up. People are probably waiting for CS3 (to put their requisitions in at work), or for Leopard (coming any time now, June 21st at the latest).
Non-story.
But, what does RoughlyDrafted say?! (Score:5, Funny)
Are mac sales lower than their market share? (Score:5, Interesting)
If PCs have a much shorter useful life, their percentage of sales will be higher than their actual percentage of machines in use.
Bogus data (Score:5, Insightful)
"Net Applications collects its data from the browsers of visitors to its network of more than 40,000 Web sites."
Any statistics that purport to show "usage" based on browser hits is inherently suspect, especially if the stats are used to imply they have some larger meaning. If they can answer these questions, I'll believe them:
- How are the servers of these "40,000 webs sites" identifying unique users? (server logs, scripts, or both? How long are the sessions they are looking at?)
- Are they looking at number of hits, unique user views, or what?
- How well can they ensure that machines are not being counted multiple times?
- Which sites are included? Are both microsoft.com and apple.com sites included? What about msn.com or mac.com? How many tech-savy sites are included and how many might-as-well-be-AOL newbie sites?
- Are the results from some sites weighted above or below other sites?
I'm not saying they haven't taken all these things into account, but publishing them (or referencing them by a third-party) without including how the data was gathered makes this all just so much noise.
Re:2%? Seems high. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Statistics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:OMFG are you people serious? (Score:5, Funny)
Remember the first time you ordered something in the mail? All you did was think about how cool the thing was going to be.
Now, do you remember the let down when you got the item and it was crap?
It's like that, every single day.
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