Forbes Predicts 5% Desktop Share for Apple in 2005 1045
sebFlyte writes "Spurred on by the iPod, Apple's share of the desktop computer market will grow to five percent (from three percent) this year, according to research from Morgan Stanley. Apparrently nearly 20% of iPod users surveyed are planning to switch to Macs, and the sales figures for the last few quarters are backing up the theory of the iPod Halo Effect. All this suggests the question ... how many iPod-touting Slashdotters are thinking of switching?"
Stock (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple = Proprietary (Score:0, Insightful)
I'll switch (Score:5, Insightful)
20% switching? No way. (Score:1, Insightful)
Never happen. As soon as that 20% realizes there's no games for that shiny Mac in the store window, they'll stay right where they are.
What's Interesting ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for the trend, though, whatever the reason.
I'm switching (Score:1, Insightful)
Unless I sell it and buy DVDs instead
Why this is big (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad troll. No cookie. (Score:5, Insightful)
Closed desktop environment. Free IDE.
Tell me why you're not happy about this again? You could always run X11 and use KDE or Gnome or whatever. I personally feel that Aqua is worth every penny.
So 5% takes them back to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple makes a great product, but I seriously doubt it will see double-digit market share any time soon.
Go ahead Apple zealots, mod me into oblivion for speaking heresy.
Re:20% switching? No way. (Score:4, Insightful)
whilst certainly a concearn to some, one could look at what is available [apple.com], and determine if that will be enough to satiate their needs.
maybe though, the 20% have already taken the games and whatever into account, and still plan on switching, whereas the 80% decided they couldn't do without them, or the ones which are available.
of course its probably neither.
Re:Stock (Score:3, Insightful)
Switch (Score:3, Insightful)
OSX was the workhorse that sold me on Apple... the iPod's just a toy for long car trips and lugging data files around.
Wrong Crowd (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:20% switching? No way. (Score:3, Insightful)
Each of these possibilities are imaginable, so I think "Never happen" might be a little premature.
Re:Why this is big (Score:1, Insightful)
Can you point to any important research publications by Apple researchers in the last few years? I haven't seen any.
At some point, there's a threshold where growth begins to fuel itself through momentum (maybe ~10% or so).
Apple had more than 15% market share at some point; they dropped to the current 2-3% from that.
Re:Stock (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple stock has split three times total with the last two being last February 28th and June 21st 2000. The first split was back in 1987, so in terms of stock splits it has not been the best investment. However, I am quite happy with the investments and additional purchases I made a couple of years ago with Apple. The iPod and iTunes have certainly been a driving force for the increase in stock value as well as the halo effect that everybody is talking about. However, I see another big spike in the number of Mac users as they get out of universities. Specifically, Apple has been making huge strides in getting higher education users back into the Apple fold with many folks making the switch. From my perspective, I know that there have been at least a dozen folks who have started using Macintosh computers after coming through our lab in the last two years who previously were Windows users.
I didn't switch so much as just add it on (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'll switch (Score:2, Insightful)
Unlike you, I'm not just planning on switching, I'm using Macs alongside Linux machines. I can just say, if you are happy with the Mac over a Linux machine, your needs must be rather modest. The GUI is limiting and a pain to program, and the command line feels roughly like SunOS used to: it's an OK set of UNIX commands, but somewhat behind the times.
The rise (again) of console gaming... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would go further and say that there may be a great deal of overlap between the people that switch to Macs and the people that primarily use consoles for gaming - total end users that like the simplicity of hooking a console to a TV, shoving in a game, and having it just work, and similarly like the simplicity of plopping down in front of their Mac and having it "just work."
The big question is whether the Mac's software library is up to the task. It has respectable Internet software available and there is Mac Office (IMHO the single most important application to the Mac platform).
20%!?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ipod sales are predicted at 13.3 millioin units for 2005 [ipodlounge.com], but I find it hard to believe that one out of five (2.66 million) will convert soley due to their experience with the ipod (sure there is windows based frustration).
It would make sense that many people would say they plan to switch to the platform, but how many really follow through with that is going to be lower once they find the sticker shock on their standard systems. If they can gain a market foothold with the mac mini [apple.com] will may work. There is also the question of being retrained on a new system. There certainly is something to be said for the status quo.
Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, I found pretty easy instructions (two commands, edit the xinetd tftp file, then restart xinetd) on how to enable the TFTP server so I can update the firmware on my managed switch, the same two to turn it off. That switch has a built-in TFTP client, so having a server available was slick. The same instructions would have worked in Linux, but for some reason, I generally find instructions intended for Linux distributions to be more difficult than they have to be to perform what is really a simple task.
Sometimes I have a devil of a time getting Windows machines to share or transfer files, esp. between W2K and WXP systems, with a mini, I just connect to them both and transfer files as an intermediary.
I can't speak for anyone else, but (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear PC gamers fretting all the time about whether their graphics cards are up to snuff, whether they're going to be able to run the hot new game coming out in two weeks... I never have to worry about any of that. My computer can't run any games at all (except World of Warcraft, which I don't really want), but I know I can go down to walmart and there's more games there than I've got money to buy or time to play, and all I have to do is put a disc in a machine and switch it on. I don't even have to sign off AIM or Skype.
Okay, if your conception of "games" is "first person shooters" then the PC is where it's at and what I'm saying is worthless, but as far as I'm concerned, my lifetime needs as far as first person shooters go was sated completely in 1998. And if first person shooters aren't your thing then commercial PC gaming probably isn't going to do much at all for you right now. There's some interesting stuff coming out of the PC shareware game community, but when was the last commercial PC gaming got a game like Katamari Damacy, or Wario Ware? There was a time in the past where the pc games lineup made being a mac user a bit depressing but at this point, pc gaming seems like it wouldn't be worth the bother even if my computer could run it. I've got all the games I want and then some.
What do you mean, thinking of switching? (Score:2, Insightful)
I switched 3 weeks ago and have been very, very happy
I added a 12" PowerBook in addition to my Athlon desktop last month, and I'll tell you why I did, and why I am glad I did
This laptop will probably convince me to buy a Mac desktop next. I keep trying to use Quicksilver on my Windows machine. I keep wishing the software I had on my Mac were available on my PC.
Yes, my iPod helped me become more comfortable with the Apple brand name before I bought my PowerBook. I used an old PowerBook at work before, and that got me hooked too.
I bought the laptop right before I left for the Middle East (Qatar to be specific) and wanted it to store images on. It cost a little bit more than a new, larger memory card. But it's been very, very worth it
After all... (Score:1, Insightful)
More people play console games than PC games. That's where gaming is going.
Re:So 5% takes them back to... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's ok, they already know; Mercedes merged with Diamler Chrysler to survive. Ferrari was bought out by Fiat. BMW bought Cooper to attempt to draw new blood into their product line. So yeah, they've seen their impending doom and are doing everything they can to survive.
Re:The rise (again) of console gaming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you take games out of the equation, the only thing that's really missing on the Mac side is narrow vertical business and hobby apps (which, admittedly, can suck if you really rely on one).
No ipod (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'll be one of the converts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ummm thats what consoles are for?? (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember when the quake3 online console version came out (dreamcast?) and someone found a way to let pc players connect to DC servers. It was fun for about 15 minutes, winning a map at like 93-4 or whatever, but watching those people struggle while you ran circles around them just made it that much clearer that you need a kb and mouse.
Games (Score:5, Insightful)
First, if a game is decent, chances are, it exists for the Mac. Nearly all major games (Warcraft (I-WoW), Call to Duty, NWN, SW KotOR, Sims, etc.) have Mac versions that equal their Windows counterparts (not emulation). Second, who is running away from Linux because of the lack of games?
In all fairness to people buying these computers, it is about user experience. If the Macintosh delivers a better user experience, people will switch. The halo effect of the iPod is to show people what a well-designed machine feels like. Since (IMHO) the Macintosh has a much better experience, along with all of the accoutrements of a *nix under the hood, I had very little heartburn over switching.
Incidentally, the main use of my Mac is collision modelling in FORTRAN. Thank goodness for gfortran. The POSIX-compliant version is much more stable than its Windows counterpart and neither it nor g95 require MinGW on Darwin (obviously).
Finally, Darwin has the ability to compile the *nix OSS that we have all come to love. I keep a recent build of Apple's X11 on my machine and have yet to run into a tgz that didn't compile cleanly or with minimum tweaking. For those who love their OSS but don't like to work their own code, there are a couple decent package managers for the Mac as well (i-Installer [www.rna.nl], Fink [sourceforge.net], etc).
Re:I'll be one of the converts (Score:3, Insightful)
This suggests to me that your reasoning is flawed.
Sorta off topic (Score:1, Insightful)
1) I like Linux.
2) I like the Mac.
3) I mostly use Windows, (work and home).
If Mac catches up and passes (back) Linux it only proves what I have been thinking for a while now - and that is - If somebody does not do something interesting in the Linux GUI/desktop space Linux will never catch on (with the masses).
Considering all the things Linux has going for it - mainly, it runs on PC hardware and is free, there is almost no excuse.
All KDE/GNOME has to do is try something new - something cool - anything - do something creative!!! do something cool!!! I mean I know GNOME had a project render the desktop with vector graphics, I mean - do that!...
But, I a feel I am only typing to hear myself type .
Re:Why this is big (Score:3, Insightful)
How about QuickTime and FireWire, heavily adopted Apple technologies?
How about leading the march on all of the important new technologies? Who was the first PC vendor to popularize USB? To ship machines with integrated wireless networking? To ditch legacy ports and the floppy? To sell a computer with a GUI and mouse? To ship computers with integrated sound? To sell a laser printer for desktop use? Need I go on?
Apple spends a disproportionally huge amount of money on R&D. In turn, they have a disproportionate impact on the PC industry.
Re:I'll be one of the converts (Score:2, Insightful)
You're not really using MHz to compare, are you?
Speed is no longer a deciding factor (Score:2, Insightful)
Your point of view is obsolete.
Re:Stock (Score:3, Insightful)
My broker advised against it, but I figured someone was going to buy Apple or Steve Jobs was going to make it profitable again. A company ain't going to drop off the face of the earth if it has tons of valuable intellectual property and a fanatic evangelistic install base.
Pointing to research (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes: It's called OSX 10.3,
The simple fact is that Apple R&D seems to be going into helping users. For instance, coming out in Tiger we actually have what WinFS was trying to accomplish in Spotlight. Not just the searching abilities, but also the searching API that developers could hook document creation into which was so important to WinFS.
So look at the Tiger design docs and say Apple has no R&D publications. They just happen to be practical and technically oriented. After all, a company the size of Apple can't afford to throw billions a year into a hole with nothing real to show from it like you have with MS.
As I've said before, Microsoft R&D is just a way to make sure there are a lot of smart people not producing things for other companies. It's basically a cushy prision for people Microsoft fears being in the wrong hands.
Re:I'll switch (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no use for Linux anymore except as a server. I can just say if you are able to judge means of a person based on whether or not they are going to use a Linux machine, you are kidding yourself. And you must not have programmed more than "hello world" for the Mac, because it's not a pain to program at all.
But then again...
Re:Stock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll switch (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to be kidding me. The OS X API (Cocoa) is easily the best MVC, OOP framework I have ever used and learning how to program GUI app's in it is a breeze. They supply you with Interface Builder which allows you to visually create your GUI and then generate the classes for it so you can control it. It's pretty much out of the box.
Personally, I never found it easier than OS X for GUI programming and the whole point of the API (well, one of them) is to not distract you with the views so you can spend more time on the controllers and models.
Any command line tools you're missing can generally be downloaded and compiled (if you like this way/no binary around) so if the things you want are not out of the box, use fink to get all you want.
But anyways, the Cocoa is probably the most well designed framework for native application development around. If you cannot figure out how the GUI works and how to use Interface Builder/ Project Builder I suggest getting some more programming experience in a MVC/OOP environment. Grab a book or read some Websites. It's really great.
Re:I'll be one of the converts (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at how Apple is marketing the mini. What they're pushing more than anything else is the software bundle, and what regular users can do with it. It's almost as if the hardware is irrelevant. That explains why the small size is significant, but at the same time, not really the point of the thing; a small, unobtrusive device is a sort of physical representation of the fact that hardware is fading into the background.
Even the tiny box the Mac mini ships in is sort of reminiscent of software packaging. It's almost as if Apple is selling a really slick bundle of software that just, you know, happens to run itself without any need for the user to supply a computer separately. And at this price point, a lot of consumers who want to get into digital media might consider buying the thing basically as a media creation appliance, with the intention of keeping their existing computers for "computer stuff."
Basically, everything has gotten fast enough now that for most users in the consumer market, hardware performance just doesn't matter anymore. Design, quiet operating, operating system and software bundle are much more important, and Apple gets that, even if some performance-enthusiast tech-heads don't.
Re:I'll switch (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why I love OS X - it's the best of both worlds. It's got the UNIX-like microkernel so you can do all the UNIX hacking you want. On top of that it runs an amazingly-designed GUI, much better than any window manager or desktop environment I've seen on Linux (in my opinion).
But the greatest part, for me anyway, is that "it just works", so I don't have to bang my head against a wall trying to deal with drivers, .configure files, etc. And in my experience so far it's much easier to administer and operate than Windows. If Sun or SGI had the foresight to create a great GUI on top of Solaris or Irix, they could have perhaps been in Apple's place long ago, but they ignored the UI entirely, which kept only Solaris within niche markets, and I have no idea where Irix is nowadays.
While Mac OS still has it's quirks (the whole ctrl vs command key thing), compared to the major flaws of Windows/Linux/etc it's the best option out there for me.
I've also realized something else - that I do not mind paying for decent closed-source software. I can't stand administrating Windows and really despise the Microsoft way. And I think this severe dislike for Microsoft led me to dislike other closed-source software the same way. But I've since changed views after seeing OS X.
Just my 2 cents, YMMV.
Re:Let's take a look at the list (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I can't speak for anyone else, but (Score:2, Insightful)
However, that doesn't mean people necessarily are that picky about graphics. I am, and, although I'm not against playing a console game, I'd much rather play that game on my PC and meddle with the graphics options and the console to get my fix. Also PC games have more options as far as distribution/extras go. For example, Starcraft. On N64, it had all the SP missions and many multiplayer maps. On the PC, you got the SP missions, multiplayer maps, the ability to get and CREATE more SP and MP maps, the potential for mods, and just numerous little perks that you don't get with a console. That may have changed with recent consoles (haven't owned anything past Playstation 1 and N64), but I'm willing to bet that there are definite advantages other than graphics.
The advantage with the consoles is what you mentioned - the games. Especially fighter-style games (Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct etc.) come to my mind because I find them very entertaining, especially with multiplayer.
Another reason why my next desktop won't be a PC (Score:4, Insightful)
Now AMD has something like 3 (or more) adding up to 9 or 10 different PC CPU sockets. Add in the bazillion variants of RAM clockings, HDD (SATA, EIDE (3 different speeds), SCSI (god know how many different types, etc.) conection standards etc. and even for a hardwarefreak like me things are getting very confusing.
I don't have the time for this anymore. And since configuring a PC with good hardware and a good OS (Linux) takes lots of time, in the end a Mac is cheaper. Much cheaper.
Linux will be the future workhorse OS, OS X will be the appliance OS.
Apple has gotten things just right for quite some time now, they deserve the market share they are just gaining.
Re:I'm trying... (Score:3, Insightful)
My prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that spyware is such a huge honking problem and people are buying new PCs just to get away from it, I imagine it'll drive a bunch of people to switch. Honestly, if it weren't for spyware, I'd still go either way. All else being equal, PCs are still cheaper for low-end use. But with spyware being as bad as it is, I think Apple can really make a dent.
Re:Not Me (Score:3, Insightful)
if the idea of having a computer for you is to tweak it and play with it then a Mac isn't for you. If you just want it to "work" and don't have to worry about, then I really suggest you get one.
Re:I'll be one of the converts (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the whole idea of a cocoa GUI over FreeBSD + microkernel, tried OSX and loved it. Being Apple, it has much better application support than FreeBSD alone commanded.
But for a general purpose machine, both the much faster CPU, and bigger application market are good leverages, makes decisions tough. Thus the 3% of Apple. Otherwise goto any Apple show thousands of people walk around looking and lusting for the machines, and not buying them. Everyone knows Apple macintosh, many swear by it. Others would love to join, if it weren't for the very annoying application lackage. This is a serious problem when youre a gamer.
Mac lovers have told me to just buy a mac and just not deal with software that arent available for the mac. Now thats not so easy, given some of the biggest titles out there are PC-exclusive, heck not even a Linux version (and Linux's market is weaker for the same reason). Should any desktop OS gain the threshold market percentage, about 20% I'd say, software developers will take notice, and the application problem will be less acute. We're just not there yet, better hardware or not, better OS or not.
Hmm... someone might come up with a computer based on an unknown CPU, that runs awesome at 5GHz, beats the pants off Opterons, and the whole thing costs $100. Given not even netbsd runs on it, will you buy it?
Re:I won't convert (Score:2, Insightful)
If said 3rd party monitor has a standard VGA or DVI connector then it will work. This is just another one of many misconceptions about apple products. Same goes for any keyboard and mouse. Plug it in and it will work *Disclaimer: If you have some mutil-button/multi-function keyboard or mouse their may not be a driver that will work with apple.
But any Standard monitor/keyboard/mouse will work.
Re:Stock (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than sell at a certain price I've decided to sell when Newsweek runs a cover article about the "Unstopple Apple Juggernaut" or something like that. I figure when Newsweek clues in the party is about over.