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Vista Taking a Nibble Out of Apple in OS Wars?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 06, 2007 02:08 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:4, Funny)
Also, people who use Intel Macs are just not getting on the web because they're so busy making movies and recording their bands and stuff. That would explain the difference as well. And they're probably playing World of Warcraft, or some of the other great two year old games instead of getting on the web.
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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, Interesting)
This chart [hitslink.com] on browser trend is interesting too. IE's market share is slipping like the Big-3 autos. Slow and steady.
I can't wait until IE dips under 50%. That should drive off the last of the 'IE only' websites, which seem to be decreasing in number (of course, I support one at work, though for a limited corporate audience- gack! I am lobbying heavily with the vendor to support Firefox!!).
But I hope Firefox doesn't get too dominant (fortunately, it won't). Competition and the adherence to open standards (at least for more mature technologies) are good things.
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Yep... (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows: +0.20
Linux: +0.15
Mac: -0.30
Not a huge deal, although I think the Linux uptick is a bit of an unreported story here. Also, what's with the share of Windows NT growing from 0.71% to 0.80% (the only other MicroSoft OS showing growth)? That's like a 12.7% increase for an ancient OS! So, yeah, given that anomaly, I'm somewhat disinclined to give their figures that much weight.
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Re:pfft (Score:4, Interesting)
Further, a variation of 0.3% seems within a margin of error for the ebb and flow of users visiting a block of web sites--even tens of thousands of web sites. For all we know the dip in MacOS X users visiting those web sites came from an "Apple TV" effect: MacOS X users may have been more likely watching their bright shiny new Apple TV boxes rather than surfing the web.
(I'm not saying this is what happened; I'm saying that the statistics used here are hocus-pocus at best.)
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:pfft (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how many of these are just virtual images... Realistically it's probably a negligible number, but of the more than 20 people in my department here at work that I just polled, 1 of them uses Vista as their production environment, and 8 of them said they've dabbled with it in a virtual image. Granted I work in the tech industry so my percentages are probably a bit skewed...
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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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Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS! (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Firefox on OS X, and my main issue is that it doesn't feel like a "proper Mac application". Certain things don't work like every other program.
For example, on single-line text input boxes, a Mac user should be able to hit the up arrow or down arrow to go to the beginning or end of the line. Firefox doesn't behave correctly.
Widgets don't just look wrong; they look like they were pulled off of a Windows machine. And submit buttons are a different size than regular buttons. [abqpc.com]
In the OS X version of Firefox, the menus aren't Mac-like at all.
Don't get me wrong; I actually prefer Firefox to other browsers. But Firefox has been on the Mac platform since 2003. Within the last four years, the theme has changed several times. Heck, the toolbar icons have changed at least once under each incarnation(Phoenix, Firebird, and Firefox). Within those four years, I would have expected an attempt at making the browser act and look like a proper Mac application, rather than a port from Windows.
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Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS! (Score:4, Interesting)
I use firefox, because I prefer the wider selection of extensions and I actually prefer XPCOM, but hey... to each his own.
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Dualboot? (Score:5, Informative)
2%? (Score:5, Funny)
$20 says Microsoft will simply disable XP machines to boost sales.
Re:2%? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Must be tired (Score:4, Funny)
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)
"increase security at Apple stores to stop riots" (Score:5, Funny)
Security Log of Rent-A-Cop Sam MacSnappy
9:54 a.m. The store is due to open in a few minutes, and already there's a vast, unruly mob outside. Look at those thugs. I saw one guy crunching on a celery stick in an obviously agressive manner, and another slurping a Zero Fat Smoothie with total hostility for authority. Go ahead, Zippy. Make my day.
10:13 a.m. First arrest. Somebody named Merriam got a little too friendly with the new sub-$1000 unit. I told him, "You can do those kinds of things at home in your 1970's-decorated palace of sin," but in the end I still had to mace the sucker.
10:28 a.m. Man down! Man down! They're got Security Associate Clyde Dawkins on his back, and they're tickling him with a long feather boa and singing the "Macarena"! It's just unspeakable!
10:37 a.m. We've barricaded the storefront, but I don't know how long we can last. All these guys in thick, black retro eyeglass frames are throwing themselves against our makeshift barriers, then collapsing with long, attenuated sighs. It's like watching insane undernourished salmon trying to spawn--salmon in pencil-thin black jeans! The staffers are no help, standing around discussing their favorite yogurts and "the identify crisis of the Finder," whatever the hell that is.
10:48 a.m. That's it. I quit. No money is worth watching a grown man kiss an iPod.
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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
Guilty as charged (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife still has some problems, but seems quite happy so far.
So yes, in our case, buying an iPod led us to buy a Mac.
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.
Poor statistics (Score:4, Informative)
So TFA was inaccurate, not sure whether it was on purpose or just due to incompetence.
Parent
2%? Seems high. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:2%? Seems high. (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
Re:Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
From Net Applications' site [hitslink.com]:Ok. What kind of code is it? JavaScript? What if I regularly browse with Java and JavaScript disabled?
Or even simpler, what if I don't browse websites that use Hitslink? 40,000 websites is really not that much. Pandia [pandia.com] notes that one estimate of the number of active websites in 2006 was 47 million (using the low end). Assuming that's true, 40000 websites is only 0.08% (less than one-tenth of one percent). That's hardly enough data to accurately portray what's going on worldwide, in my opinion, especially if the sites used to generate the stats are Windows- or Microsoft-centric.
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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.
Re:Are mac sales lower than their market share? (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
Linux has a chance after all! (Score:4, Funny)
And 4% of the desktop computers connected to the Internet are using Linux! Woo! We're beating Windows!
Apple has to offer a decent mid tower. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mac market share is stable at about the 6% mark. These are the people who like integrated monitors or the toy mini. Pro just won't matter for market share as it is ultra high end.
If Apple actually has the slightest interest in increasing market share beyond the current they have to offer what mainstream buyers want and are used to. A decent mid size tower at an affordable price.
I actually want to buy a Mac. I use Linux/Solar/Windows at work and would like a decent Unix workstation at home, but don't find Linux polished enough (my desktop at work runs Redhat).
What is stopping me is the lack of decent midrange hardware without integrated monitor. This gap has to be obvious to Apple execs, perhaps they are moving the company in the direction of devices and away from computer and don't care about computer market share.
I will buy a new computer in the next 6 months. No midrange tower or equivalent and it will be another PC and that will be my computer for the next 4 or 5 years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What, waiting for Leopard before browsing the web again? I you are goin to make an argument at least make one that makes sence.
Maybe like which web sites are the stats generated from, maybe those are somewhat windows biased?
Statistics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not the point (Score:4, 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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Re:Could be the hardware..... (Score:4, Informative)
I'd post numbers, but I don't have a lot of time to waste on arguing with people who are unlikely to be persuaded by facts anyway. Consumer Reports puts Apple hardware reliability as #1 overall. It put them #2 for laptops, right behind Sony. The study our IT guy bought access to only covers laptops but placed them #1 for laptop reliability for 2006 of all the major vendors. I'd post links if they were not both password protected, but buy an account at Consumer reports, it is well worth it.
If you're a real cheapskate you can read an article by someone who did pay for access to consumer reports, like this Ars Technica article [arstechnica.com]. The most relevant excerpt might be, "As for reliability, Apple Computer crushes the competition, at least among desktops. Based on 77,700 responses, 11 percent of Macs bought between 2002 and 2006 went in for repair or had a serious problem. Sony was next best, at 15 percent, and Gateway was last at 19 percent. Among 50,100 respondents with laptops, Apple was at 18 percent, along with the majority of manufacturers. Sony was at 15 percent, but it should be noted that 3 points or less is not considered meaningful." That reference was in regard to their survey based study which suffers from self selection (but is still better than nothing) but their spot purchasing study concluded the same. In fact, pretty much every independent study I've seen comes up with similar results. Have you ever seen a real study (not an anecdote) that ranks Apple lower than #3 for hardware reliability?
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Re:Could be the hardware..... (Score:5, Interesting)
The attraction of OS X is that you have it before you, on a piece of hardware on which you know it will run. You don't have a situation where Microsoft points to the OEM, the OEM points to some Taiwanese chip maker's web site for an "updated" driver, unsigned by Microsoft to fix what should have been working the second you pulled the computer from the box.
God bless Linux, but I have to tell you, it has its moments. Is it superior to Microsoft? You bet your sweet bippy. Am I going to run it on my primary notebook machine? I have. Why don't I now? Because I deal with computers and electronics all day and the last thing I want to do when I'm on my own time is maintain a computer in typical PC fashion.
Or, to put it another way; having the hardware and OS lock-in was an attraction to me because I was pretty certain that I wouldn't have to endure the torture of Microsoft in the workplace. And I was right.
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The "Macintosh" HAS been stagnant lately. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Windows Monoculture Still Strong (Score:4, Informative)
Oh dear... 10 minutes on Google should fix most of that:
I've never seen a Macintosh POS system.http://macpos.com/e t/e s/e nsepos.com/
I've never seen a Macintosh timeclockhttp://www.christianjames.n
http://www.posim.net/
http://www.posoe.com/e
http://www.shopkeeper.com/
http://www.sixths
http://www.xpertmart.com/
http://www.conceptualize.com/
I've never seen a Mac waste hauling program.I've never seen one period...
I've never seen a major financial package that runs on Mac, or even has a Mac client (think SAP, Oracle, etc)http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/macos/inde x.html
I've never seen a medical billing package that runs on the Mac.http://mac.unimaas.nl/sap/
http://www.databaseconstructs.com/mchilites.html
On the other hand, I've never seen a virus that runs on the Mac. Heard rumors of them but have never seen it.Parent