“The well-documented but hard-to-prove ‘Halo Effect’ of iPods in the consumer space over the past five years has arguably caused a rise in Macintosh purchases. Certainly areas like education have seen significant rises in Macintosh purchases among iPod toting students. But the enterprise is a different situation entirely,” Seth Weintraub blogs for Computerworld. “Or is it?”
Weintraub explains, “The halo effect refers to a ‘cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations.'”
“In the case of iPods, the owners liked them so much that their perceptions of other Apple products were (rightfully?) inflated. The chances of an iPod owner buying a Macintosh increased. By extension, the Macintosh marketshare grew and continues to grow overall,” Weintraub writes.
Weintraub asks, “So will the iPhone cause an enterprise halo effect?”
Full article here.
We think the growing network of Apple Retails Stores has also had a major effect on Mac sales; maybe more so than the iPod itself (although it must be noted that Apple uses the iPod as bait to get people into the Apple Stores). iPod + Retail Stores = Consumer Mac Sales.
