SteveJack thinks he has an idea for Apple to stem the tide of declining market share which is down to 2.05 percent based on recent IDC figures:
“Listen, Apple needs to put its money to use effectively for once. Take all of that ‘preaching to the choir/propping up the Mac magazines’ marketing cash and put it to good use instead by targeting a large corporation or two and getting them to switch. I don’t care if Apple has to use some of its $4.5 billion cash horde to get it done. Whatever it takes. Get a Fortune 500 company to switch from Windows-based computing to Mac OS X and Mac hardware… Let’s see what happens then. It can’t be worse than what’s happening now,” writes SteveJack in his article, “I could market Macintosh better than Apple Marketing in my sleep” in the MacDailyNews Opinion section today.
Full article here.
Anything has to be better than this “switch” campaign.
Think of it from the target audience’s perspective …
“You’ve made the wrong decision. Everything you’ve tried to do to make it work is doomed to failure because you made the wrong decision when you bought a Windows PC. Smarten up and by a Mac.”
Sheesh, “marketing by condescension”. Yeah that’ll work (read sarcasm).
How about showing them what you can do with a Mac. Let Windows users go “WOW that’s amazing, I want one!”
If you can’t lead by example don’t slam the competition!
Just my 2�
2% market share, now that hurts and does make one feel uneasy. If I figure this right 2% is just a couple points away from zero. Oh well, by then Dell will figure out a way to pay me to use their stuff.
Ah, the kids these days. All they are able to see is instant gratification.
If Apple had placed more money into advertising, they would have less for R&D. Also note that Apple is, both, a software and hardware manufacturer; they make the whole product. Apple could not be where they are today in terms of leading edge hardware and OS if it weren’t for their extrordinary and highly imaginative R&D department.
Apple execs see the future, and it doesn’t include the quick buck via flashy ads. Apple is committed to building the computer industry that the future will require. Even now, placing OS X next to MS Windows XP makes the latter look like a tired dinosaur from the 90’s. Soon there will be Panther, yet another major leap in 64bit OS and innovative GUI design, while 95% of the world trudges along with XP, Microsoft’s poor clone of Mac OS, drifting further behind.
The people that are attracted by the flash are NOT the people that Apple is targetting. They want people to buy their product because it is right for them, not because people are lured by a flashy ad.
It is obvious that Apple’s approach is to be around for the long haul. If this concept is too difficult to grasp, just think of “The Tortoise and the Hare”. Unless MS does something truly revolutionary and innovative, there WILL be an exponentially growing flood of people switching. And this won’t be because of an ad, but from people realizing that they don’t have to wait for MS to give them the features that their Apple-using friends have had for 5 years.
5%? 2%? Who cares? When was the last time you saw an ad for Porche?
I fully support Apple’s decision of quality over flash, and keeping their money where it is most useful; R&D!
Note that this is recent sales statistics, NOT i repeat NOT market share!
The reason for the poor sales statistics are pure and simply that the currrent PowerMacs are a bit (understatement of the century) lacking in more ways than one.
The reason the once great BW G3’s sold (and they REALLY SOLD, I know because I work for an apple dealership) was that they were head and shoulders a head of the game, they were faster in every way, they had the latest onboard technologies (i.e. the ATI 128 gl graphics card, firewire etc.) which was a compelling enough reason to shell out on a new machine.
If apple can repeat this feat by producing a cutting edge product, watch that 2% skyrocket (maybe to 3-4%) because everyone wants a PeeCee basher of a machine with 8x AGP, 400mhz DDR ram, at least 4gb max ram etc which Wintel now boast.
So if apple achieve this, its now down to us to keep our end of the ‘bargain’ and snap-up these machine.
heh, i wish that R&D money went into something that wasn’t the equivalent of a YUGO!! Although I am a staunch supporter of OS X, yes, I said OS X ONLY, the hardware lags INCREDIBLY behind. I can’t justify spending close to $3K for a machine that will fall behind in the speed categories. Yes, the PPC970’s are coming out, but how long will that take? Til November? December? Sure all the rumor sites say that they will have them ready by the summer, doubtful.
Bottom line, although I love Apple and the products they put out, I can’t put aside common & fiscal sense by buying a Powermac. Apple, get MOVING!
Umm. “Gnius” Market share is calculated by “recent sales statistics,” specifically by what percentage of computers you sold in the most recent quarter, in this case. On that note, 2.02 percent is exactly what Apple’s market share is right now. Which is to say, it’s not very good.
Aryugaetu. Your argument is moot. Porsche doesn’t compete against a single car engine monopoly, and the car market is very, very different from the PC market. I love when people pull out the Porsche/BMW/Mercedes/your favorite luxury car comparison, as if that proves that Apple is doing just fine. They’re not. If the car industry was like the PC industry, yeah, Apple would be Porsche, but all Porsches would run on wheat grass and no gas stations would sell it.
Apples and Oranges, to pull another useless comparison out of my butt.
Aryugaetu..
Apple has cutting edge hardware? like AGP8x, S-ATA (ATA 133?!!), full use of DDR, super fast FSB, the latest in ‘cutting edge’ CPU’s?
Uh, no.
I’m sure Apple appreciates attack parrots like yourself repeating the usual rhetoric, but it doesn’t remove the fact they are at a very sad 2%
See for yourself how Apple sales have taken a nose dive:
http://www.pegasus3d.com/mac_sales.html
I wish Apple would wake up a little more, but blind loyalty by rhetoric spewers who happily pay more for less keeps Apple offering inferior hardware at a steep price.
Too bad they’re not as good at selling computers as they are at manipulating customers.
declining market share does not mean declining sales people.