“One of the oddest facts about the Wintel versus Unix (including Linux and the Mac) debate is that the Wintel proponent practically brag about never having actually used Unix while the most committed Mac/Unix advocates have generally used both If in reality the Unix products really are better, faster and cheaper, why is it that we’re always on the defensive, having to justif our choices against a Wintel default,” Paul Murphy reports for LinuxInsider.
“Review, for example, the information collected under the Macintosh Justification heading by Macintouch.com. There are seven subsections, each containing a number of success stories, purchase and use rationales, and more or less personal analyses of the costs and consequences that go with a Mac decision,” Murphy writes. “Read this stuff quickly and you’ll see that most of the contributers obviously have experience with both Wintel and the Mac but prefer the latter because Wintel consistently costs more and achieves less.”
Murphy writes, “Look more carefully, however, and you’ll see that the underlying reason in almost every case where the Mac lost out to Wintel doesn’t have anything to do with rational arguments based on cost, performance or functionality. Instead, Wintel proponents are shown as consistently fudging such arguments as rationales for decisions already made and getting non-IT executives to justify signing off on those decisions mainly by overweighting the argument that Apple’s market share has long since entered the insignificance of single digits.”
“In effect, Wingots seem to shout ‘We’re winning’ loud enough to convince the people around them that it’s true, and indeed you could fill a good-size book shelf simply by quoting analysts and commentators who’ve publicly written Apple off over the years,” Murphy writes. “It’s true, of course, that Apple’s share of new desktop sales runs only a bit over 3 percent right now, but the conclusion these commentators draw from this is wrong because the 3 percent is a measure of revenue dollars to PC sellers, not hours of usage by customers… In other words, it’s Wintel’s rapid upgrade cycle that’s been getting progressively more and more out of line with norms for industrial or retail electronics products, and therefore not falling interest in the Mac, that’s behind the numbers. Think about this for a minute: If PCs remained usable as long as Macs do, industrywide total revenues (aka customer costs) would be nearly two-thirds lower.”
Full article with much more here.
MacDailyNews Take: Amen, Brother Murphy.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple shows strong Mac shipment growth, market share gains in fourth quarter 2004 – January 19, 2005
Can Mac mini help Apple win back double-digit market share in the personal computer market? – January 16, 2005
Report: Apple gained significant market share of computer industry during past quarter – January 12, 2005
Analyst: With growing Mac market share, Apple has to start acting like a grown-up company – December 27, 2004
Is Apple’s market share really that important? – October 18, 2004