“Why has the iPod been so successful? Partly it’s because Apple has been able to parlay its device into a must-have fashion accessory. Unlike its Macintosh computers, which are excellent but expensive, the iPod is an affordable luxury, one that young professionals and even students–or at least their parents–can afford. As Steve Jobs said during a recent special event marking the release of new iPod models, ‘iPod has become a cultural phenomenon.’ And he’s right: Sometimes products transcend their market categories and reach into the public consciousness at a much deeper than would normally be considered possible,” Paul Thurrott writes for WinInfo.
“Clearly, the iPod is such a product. This situation makes it difficult for competitors like Dell, Rio, or even Creative, which arguably created this market, to make inroads with other products. Consumers aren’t asking for portable audio players under the Christmas tree this holiday season, they’re asking for iPods. And a Dell DJ or Creative Zen Whatever isn’t going to cut it. Any parent or other gift-giver who believes otherwise simply doesn’t get understand the emotional connection Apple has been able to create between the tiny white devices and their owners,” Thurrott writes.
“One area where the success of the iPod has not translated into other successes is Apple’s long languishing Macintosh computer line. Though Apple had hoped that a swell of iPod customers would result in higher sales of the pricey but elegant Mac, that has not been the case. According to Gartner, Mac worldwide market share fell to 1.8 percent in the most recent quarter, down from 2.1 percent in the same quarter a year ago (annual market share figures for Apple placed Mac market share at 1.7 percent for calendar year 2003). In the US, Apple’s Mac market share dropped from 3.6 percent to 3.2 percent in the same time period,” Thurrott writes.
“Why has the Mac failed where the iPod succeeded? Curiously, it seems that the pundits–and I’ll count myself among this group–were wrong about one crucial aspect of Apple’s strategy with the iPod. We’ve been saying that Apple has been making the same mistakes with the iPod that it did with the Mac by keeping the system proprietary and not working with others. But it’s now clear that the market for the Mac and that for the iPod cannot be so simply compared. Today, the Mac is an excellent computer, but it doesn’t offer much value over Wintel-based systems, and is correspondingly too expensive, both in out of pocket costs and in the cost of migrating to a new computer platform. Computers like the Mac typically cost $1000 to $3000, which is beyond the reach of many consumers, and not a purchase that can be made lightly by anyone but the truly affluent,” Thurrott writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A $999 iBook or $799 eMac or $1299 iMac G5 is “too expensive” and only for “the truly affluent?” Paul’s nuts. Crazy, we say. Off his rocker. And it’s too early to say that iPod hasn’t translated into Mac sales. Only 6 million iPods are out there (2 million in the last quarter alone) and people take 3 or so years to upgrade their PCs. Patience. Paul’s worst nightmare is about to begin.
Value? What’s the value of a rock-solid operating system that doesn’t fall to its knees after 20 minutes on the Internet and become littered with viruses, worms, adware, spyware, malware, etc.? What’s the value of a computer that just works correctly and does what you want it to do? Windows iPod owners will see the value of the Mac – just give them a chance.
If Darwin had met Thurott then the theory of natural selection would never have occurred to him.
Eh? Can we drop this fashion accessory before I, the homophobe, opt for Dell DJ?
Okay, Paul uses an 4G iPod guys.. he’s no fashionista… Apple’s stuff has been a pleasure to use for years and years.. Paul’s own admission of iPod dominance means there’s more to it than Celeb status or sth..
Of course.. if you can get an eMac for a couple hundred dollars more.. how is the eMac affordable..
.. What.. the hell is he talking about..?
LOL
Gosh, now it turns out I only have a computer, not a system. Gimme a system!! I want a real, wintel-based system!!
Don’t click on the link to Thurrot’s site. You are just generating traffic of which he can boast to his advertisers.
I think that he is just out there baiting the mac faithful with his nonsense, feeding the search machines, so people will visit his site and give him the hits with which he earns his income. Ignore him! That will hurt him most.
thurott is a joke…..
He deserves to be spending most of his time trying to stay ahead of the virii du jour, the add / spyware du jour.. and all the popups…
maybe this is what he consicers “value-added”…
Hasnt he heard that Macs arent really that expensive ??
The new G5 iMac is actually the most inexpensive desktop computer you can buy…. when you consider what you get for your money !!
But then… Thurott couldnt go into a Wall-Mart with a fully loaded credit card…. and buy himself a clue !!
Stopped into my local apple store (sagemore in marlton NJ) the other day. I was picking up a LaCie HD…but spent time browsing and checking out the new stuff.
While I was there…maybe 10-15 minutes – two people came in and purchased brand new macs…one a tower G5, the other a G4 powerbook…and what did they both have in common…they were windows converts.
I over heard the one guy basically mock his own purchase…he was basically said his friends were berating him for switching…but he was tired of his PC constantly being plagued spyware and viruses. He’d had enough.
The other fellow muttered the same complaints. He was questioning the genius about all sorts of software and seemed surprised everything he wanted to run was available…it took three bags for the guy to get everything out to his car.
And this was a Tuesday evening around 7pm. The place had about 10 people in it…and they all were buying.
People are getting fed-up with Winblows crippling their computers….the tide might be turning….
GRRR.. <edit>.. how is the eMac *NOT* affordable </edit>
What is Thurrott’s marketshare (measured as total number of readers) compared to Walt Mossburg? If we don’t click on the link to his site we can make sure his marketshare drops.
He writes these kind of comments from time to time to convince himself that Apple is not the way to go. He gets paid for saying this. He’s not a journalist or even analyst at all. He’s a “paid for” shill for Microsoft. He uses totally faulty logic, makes outlandishly stupid statements and gets the “hits” he needs on his site to continue his miserable existence as a “writer”.
What Paul Thurrot is not saying – citing from the Forbes article he refers to – is:
“What makes the numbers most interesting is the fact that despite a 34% increase in Mac unit sales Q3 to Q2 at Apple’s retail stores, the company’s market share continued to decline in both the worldwide and U.S. figures. “
That again shows how silly is concluding that Apple is declining based on %market share.
Apple is growing, only the computer market share growth is dominated by corporates and business which EN MASS provide their employees with cheap crap PCs by the truckloads.
this may of already been mentioned: but sales “appear” to be down this quarter, but it’s the same quarter apple didn’t sell iMac for 60 days… plus had constrained supplies of G5 and G5 Servers. so we will see the numbers uptick quite strongly next quarter.
MDN, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop pretending Thurott’s opinions make any sense at all. Would you link to an article by Bozo the Clown on the merits of Windows XP vs. Mac OS X. Exactly! Thurott’s a clown so the best thing to do is just ignore him from now on – whatever he says!
OK. I know what a virus is. But what the heck are adware & malware?
Can someone please explain?
“[…] Dell, Rio, or even Creative, which arguably created this market […]”
Okay, I’ll give credit to Rio and Creative for creating the market. But Dell?!?! Come on!
Dell’s DJ came out long after the iPod! Hell, most of us remember when Dell was selling 2G iPods!
It’s like listening to a creationist spouting off about intelligent design. He’s though of the conclusion he wants and works backwards from there rather than working forward in order to learn the truth.
I think he’s only referring to Creative for creating the HD based market.
I believe we can hold the faith. The turn will be slow because Macs last so much longer than PCs. Even our newest brothers and sisters will find that they can go a couple of years now without buying a new PC, but as we gain more users, the rate of PC replacement will slow since more people will be using Macs. More low end vendors will go belly-up and profit margins on the existing vendors will go down as Dell & Co. cut prices even further trying to bolster the sagging PC market. Everyone will be running around bemoaning the collapsing tech market, while Mac users (with many happy switchers!!) will still be enjoying a burgeoning market, with increasingly more advanced machines and an even more sophisticated OS.
Pie in the sky? Perhaps. Time will tell, won’t it.
Wow! More inane comments from ThoroughlyRotten! I can’t believe it! He’s usually so sensible and intelligent!
</sarcasm>
I’m convinced he’s a Mac lover who figured out that he can make a healthy living writing FUD about Apple and then cashing in on advertising thanks to all the hits he gets from the angry Mac devotees. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Anyone as stupid as he appears to be wouldn’t even know how to boot a PC, let alone publish something on the web.
It’s the sales of PC’s that have gone up, especially in developing countries, there will always be a market for the very best.
Paul is looking at things again from a market share point of view and not of a profitable point of view.
Apple stock is 145%!!! Over 4 billion in cash!
Apple has been dying for real when Steve was gone, but now he’s back and hooked up with IBM which is building a whopping 360 Tflop PowerPC based computer that will be the fastest for tens of years.
The G5 chip is fully 64 bit, dual cores next year too!
Oh we are not dead, Apple isn’t playing in the gutter for low margin profits for a good reason.
Let the cheapo’s fight over the bones, Apple is eating steak and potato’s.
“Though Apple had hoped that a swell of iPod customers would result in higher sales of the pricey but elegant Mac, that has not been the case. According to Gartner, Mac worldwide market share fell to 1.8 percent in the most recent quarter, down from 2.1 percent in the same quarter a year ago”
One can have “higher sales”, and lower “market share” at the same time. Of course, this forgets to mention that iMac sales were bound to be lower due to the constrained G5 supply, but hey, why ignore facts, this is “anal”ysis.
At the end of the day I don’t give a toss what Thurrott or any other writer says about the mac platform and apple.
I mad my decision 10 years ago and am glad to say I have never regretted going over to the mac.
I made an educated decision and look forward to using macs to the grave!
Not once have I thought – ‘I want to buy a windows pc’!
A message to thurrot – “Give up and shut up! – No one on the internet or in the I.T. industry who reads your crap believes a word you write and if anyone does then they’ve been living in mental home for the last 10 years!”
What’s it like thurrot – being the laughing stock of the internet and being known by everyone on the planet as a total global dickhead and a waste of space on the planet?
I have to work on Wintel and Mac, and there is simply no comparison. Windows is a world of aggressively mediocre software, and annoying bugs, viruses, and headaches. My Mac just sails along, doing what I ask; doing it well, and making me happy in the process. No contest. Mac wins. Is it worth the extra money? If you consider all the HIDDEN costs of Windows, the Mac costs far less in dollars, time, and aggravation. If Apple can do so well with such low market share, imagine what they’ll do when people sicken of the plague that is Windows. They obviously CAN serve a niche market and do just fine, while improving future copycat products, and providing an inspirational and refreshing alternative to the monopoly’s wares. Think of the world with Apple, and thank your lucky stars they exist.
One of my clients called yesterday morning in a panic. She was with one
> of her clients.
> The woman couldn’t receive e-mail suddenly.
> I said, “Mac or PC?”
> She said, “PC.”
> I said, “Alexis, you know I don’t touch Windows.”
> She screamed, “Stop being a fucking dick and help her!”
> I said, “What do you want me to do?”
> She said, “Just talk to her.”
> I said, “Fine.”
> This woman gets on the phone. She
> describes the problem
> she’s having getting e-mail. I said, “Did you call Earthlink?” She
said,
> “I’ve been on the phone with them all morning and they were no help.”
> I sighed. I said, in an extremely tired voice, “What’s the error?”
She
> rattled off a bunch of crap that made no sense… error numbers…
> can’t retrieve e-mail because of error ######. I sighed again. I
> gave her the number for THE GEEK SQUAD.
>
> I wish I was as big as THE GEEK SQUAD.
>
> They called again this morning. THE GEEK SQUAD Geek was there
> for 3 hours yesterday. He charged her a flat $230 for virus removal,
> but her e-mail still didn’t work, and now she couldn’t get on the
> Internet
> as well. She opted not to pay for more service even though THE GEEK
> removed a ton of viruses, spyware, and other malware.
>
> (If you are a PC user, you probably have this crap even if you don’t
> think you do.)
>
> I said, “I’m sorry, but I thought THE GEEK SQUAD was supposed to
> know what they’re doing. We discussed this a bit more and one
question
> led to another and finally she mentioned that just before all the
> trouble
> started she bought a new copy of NORTON ANTI-VIRUS and installed it.
>
> I said, “What? … You did what?”
>
> She repeated herself.
>
> I said, “Turn Norton off completely, then try your e-mail.”
>
> Sure enough her e-mail came through.
>
> She was reading it, then the computer shut down.
>
> She started it again, started reading her e-mail, then the computer
> shut down again.
>
> She called back…
>
> “If I switch to a Mac, will you come and help me, move all my files,
> and get me
> up and running?”
>
> I said, “Yeah. Warm up your credit card. Call Sandy at Melrose Mac.
> Tell her you want My
> Windows Refugee package.”
>
> I’ll be there with the new computer by noon.
>
>
Simply faithful, consistent brown-nosing at its best. Enough said.
theloniusMac
Great story !! …. Cant wait to hear the obvious happy ending !