“In the battle for the computer market share between Apple Computer and Microsoft, clearly Microsoft has come out on top. Despite its second-place finish in the operating-system war, however, Apple continues to fight and win the popularity battles on the secondary hardware and music fronts,” Walaika K. Haskins writes for CIO Today.
“To its credit, Apple continues to defy analysts’ predictions that it will fail. Apple has set the industry standard for music downloads and portable music players. Apple has garnered some US$500 million in music downloads sold via the iTunes music store. Apple sold more than 6 million iPods in the third quarter,” Haskins writes. “With analysts estimating that as many as 400,000 Windows users have switched to Apple under what they call the iPod halo effect, the reports of Apple’s demise clearly have been overstated.”
Haskins writes, “The major difference between Apple and Microsoft is the type of consumer that each company perceives its users to be. That distinction shouts volumes. Microsoft pursued the wrong perception in appealing to its view of the common man. ‘It’s almost like Microsoft is designing [software] for geeks and Apple is designing for real people,’ said Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. ‘Microsoft’s common man approach is centered on the price [of their software].’ Wilcox said that in terms of functionality, Microsoft’s approach to the common man is too complicated and requires a ‘walk-him-through-it process.’ The user has to plug in something that launches the wizard. Then the user has to go through six or seven steps to get the device to complete a first-time configuration. ‘Whereas Apple’s common-man approach is you plug it in and it works,’ said Wilcox.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s high point in operating system market share is in the past, not the future. Geeks don’t use Windows’ wizards to help them through and those same wizards often fail for your average personal computer user; the vast majority of whom would be far better off on a Mac OS X machine than a Windows PC. To paraphrase Nigel Kendall, Windows PCs are designed by people who know a lot about computers and Apple Macs are designed by people who know a lot about people. Get a Mac, it just works.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft’s Windows ‘Vista’ too little, too late; could be rough times ahead for Redmond – July 28, 2005
16-percent of computer users are unaffected by viruses, malware because they use Apple Macs – June 15, 2005
Viruses don’t have to be a fact of life; there are no viruses on Apple’s Mac OS X – not a single one – April 21, 2005
Mossberg: ‘consider dumping Windows altogether and switching to Apple’s Macintosh’ – April 18, 2005
Apple touts Mac OS X security advantages over Windows – April 13, 2005
97,467 Microsoft Windows viruses vs. zero for Apple Mac’s OS X – April 05, 2005
Apple’s Mac OS X is virus-free – March 18, 2005
68,736 Microsoft Windows viruses vs. zero for Apple Mac’s OS X – March 12, 2005
Microsoft tries to turn its own security flaw into commercial gain – February 25, 2005
Cybersecurity advisor Clarke questions why anybody would buy from Microsoft – February 18, 2005
Microsoft: The safest way to run Windows is on your Mac – October 08, 2004
Mossberg: Apple iMac G5 ‘powerful, affordable, virus-free with better, more modern OS than Windows XP’ – September 23, 2004
Mossberg: Dump your Windows machine and get an Apple Macintosh to free yourself of spyware – August 25, 2004
Tired of patching patches to patch Windows patches? Writer suggests getting a Mac – August 03, 2004
SmartMoney: Long-suffering Windows users can only dare to dream of Mac’s ease-of-use – February 12, 2004
“To its credit, Apple continues to defy analysts’ predictions that it will fail. “
That’s because all the analysts are heavily biased. If they believe that windows is better because they are too ignorant to even have researched the issue, then of course the predict that apple will fail – without even researching the issue.
Don’t blame them – blame the people who sign their paychecks….
BZZZZZ, Micros**t is not “designing software for geeks” as the author puts it. What geek would ever need a wizard to hold its hand into a multiple steps setting process that requires re-booting multiple times at times?
Shheesshh. That’s idiotic. Clueless need to have a wizard telling “click here, are you really sure you want to do that, click that, pleas wait”.
Geeks are on Unix, Linux and now OS X. Windows? It’s for clerk minded people. Get real!
“the reports of Apple’s demise clearly have been overstated.”
How long have we been hearing this now?
MW ‘while’, as in, for a while
Microsoft’s approach to the common man is too complicated and requires a ‘walk-him-through-it process.
And this would be ‘designed for geeks’? To me it spells designed for idiots. Walk-him-through-it geeks? Pleeeeeeeeaaassse
Windows is for geeks who prefer to do everything the hard way or for smart geeks who like to charge their clients fortunes in it support to do everything the hard way or sheep people who know no different.
OS X is designed for people who want to use their computer for a range of tasks with the difficulty being influenced by the task itself not the software required to do said tasks.
Gee, I guess the UNIX under-pinnings of OS X isn’t for geeks…
Hey, stuff that works is the domain of everyone, not just “the common man”.
This guys don’t got “game”
I think it is designed to make you feel you are a geek: “WOW, I spent three hours and I updated Windows, installed security patches, installed drivers, rebooted 8 times ALL BY MYSELF and wife tells me I am a loser unable to do anything…. uhhhhmmme, ehhhmm, now WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?
Where is that pirated copy of Aliens vs Predator?!”
OS X scenario: “Good, installed by itself in 20 minutes now LET’S GET TO WORK!”
See the difference?
We STILL need to get the word out that Macs are here to stay! The non-Mac computer buying public is only BEGINNING to become aware that Mac sales are growing, not disappearing. Even in the last few months, we’ve seen articles predicting that Apple would get out of the Mac business and focus on iPods! That will change among the broad population only if we have another 9-12 months of growing Mac market share (yeah, sales SHARE, not “installed base”). And if it does, that will be a big benefit for all Mac users, who will find it easier to get Macs at work, find Mac versions of best-selling Windows software, etc.
Keep it up, Apple!
They have been wrong of Apple’s demise since the late 90’s. With some 8 Billion dollars in the bank and no debt Apple isn’t going anywhere. OSX has now taken the lead on the OS wars and Apple has won the music wars and will most likely go more video soon.
From what I see around here, Windows users need to be pampered by the IT staff for every single simplistic change to anything. And screw up their machines daily.
Mac users get on by themselves without troubles.
Funny geeks these on Windows.
Windows is designed by a bunch of monkeys who are actually all Steve Ballmers children. They have half the brainpower of their Dad (big monkey, watch the dance he sure can move!) so they can only produce half an OS – hence Windows was born!
My Macs rub my feet and and treat me to dinner when I am lonely. My windows on gets dirty. Hm.
I have heard something similar to the Nigel Kendall quote:
With the PC you have to teach people how the computer works. With the Mac they taught the computer how people work.
That comment about Microsoft’s common-man approach being centred on the price of their software seems to imply that Microsoft sells cheap software.
Given the price of their Office suite and operating systems, I’d argue that Microsoft’s products are anything but cheap, unless there’s an untapped market yet to be dominated by them, in which case it’s free.
And MS products, especially the OSes, are certainly not cheap given the hassle in maintaining them.
Or am I wrong? Or has someone already mentioned that and I’ve not read it? Whatever.
an eloquent quote worth repeating: “OS X is designed for people who want to use their computer for a range of tasks with the difficulty being influenced by the task itself not the software required to do said tasks.”
cheers M.X.N.T.4.1, very well put.
The big difference is Microsoft don’t always take that extra step, or go the extra mile to make their computing experience neater. Apple does, and it shows. It’s always the little things…
What I fail to understand is how MS still comes up with complex software after working so long on it! They spend years between releases, yet it always looks as though some things aren’t revisited and rethought through, so are still really complex or ugly (control panels for instance – esp. networking ones).
They don’t appear to spend the extra time to get things done well, they just get things done.
I do believe that users do have to know an awful lot about computing – sort of like driving a hand-cranked automobile, vs a car built today.
The article writer should have mentioned something much more meaningful about how Apple treats its customers vs. how Microsoft treats its customers.
Let’s look at the installation process. Macs with OS X installed come with installation disks that you can use to reinstall the system.
You can use those disks to install OS X on other computers, no questions asked, even though you’re not supposed to.
The installer doesn’t ask you any questions about installing, no passwords, keycodes, checking your computer’s internal serial numbers or reading your hardware configuration. No mind-numbingly stupid process of verification if you upgrade your memory, hard drive, graphics card, or plug in some peripherals.
Microsoft Windows XP? … hah.
The difference is: Apple assumes its customers are honest. Microsoft assumes they are dishonest.
Says a lot to me.
Also, Apple sells a “family pack” license (for Mac OS X, and iLife, etc.) at a nominal upgrade fee. Again, Apple makes it EASY to be honest and a good customer. Sure I don’t HAVE to buy a “family pack” iLife upgrade, but for an extra $30 to install on my other computers, why wouldn’t I?
Microsoft, on the other hand, has just announced that it will begin requiring Windows XP users to PROVE they own legal copies before downloading future updates (except security updates) to the system.
This is perfectly within their rights, and you have to protect yourself, but what does it say about them as a corporate culture?
They have a lot to learn.
blucaso
Microsoft, on the other hand, has just announced that it will begin requiring Windows XP users to PROVE they own legal copies before downloading future updates (except security updates) to the system.
This is perfectly within their rights, and you have to protect yourself, but what does it say about them as a corporate culture?
My take: They probably figure they are losing a certain amount, maybe 10%, to Apple these days, but the rest of the Windows users are too scared or too locked in to switch, so MS is squeezing them to make up the difference in lost revenue.
Difference between microshaft and apple is……
microshaft makes an OS for people who want to spend 90% of the time trying to identify and resolve problems the keep cropping up on their computer so that they can spend 10% of the time using it for real work.
whereas
apple makes an OS for people who want to spend 90% of the time doing actual work and 10% (if it actually is such a high figure) of the time trying to solve problems on their computer.
Ed: 10% ? In the last 2 years I only had to reboot to install upgrades. Backups are automatic and the machines simply runs or sleeps when I do not use it.
10%? In two years maintenance tasks are below time rounding errors. Not making it up: why would I give it a sacred fuck if it wasn’t so?
Seahawk said it in one of his posts: there are places where machines need to be on 24/7 . You see no Windows there. Linux/Unix and now some OS X is appearing.
10% is ludicrously gigantic off time and many places can’t even afford 0.1% downtime. No Windows there.
All you guys seem to have converted to the Mac in the pre-Windows XP days. And since you have moved, it is natural that you dont know how much better it has become.
I have been using XP for quite sometime now, I dont remember the last time it crashed. I do all my development work(which also involves some serious graphics programming) on a win xp machine.
I fail to understand why all you mac users keep complaining about Windows even though you dont use it…
Please dont respond if you wanna flame. Thanks!
Rara_Avis, I have to use windows at work and I hate it. Getting my mac made my home usage of a computer so much better but in contrast highlighted how crappy my work computing experience is. I am an Apple fan but I have no automatic hate of Microsoft just because they’re not Apple – I hate Microsoft through experience.
“All you guys seem to have converted to the Mac in the pre-Windows XP days. And since you have moved, it is natural that you don’t know how much better it has become.
I have been using XP for quite sometime now, I don’t remember the last time it crashed. I do all my development work (which also involves some serious graphics programming) on a win xp machine.
I fail to understand why all you mac users keep complaining about Windows even though you don’t use it…”
Actually, I DO use Windows – Everyday at work! XP Service Pack 2. You are correct in that it is a much more stable system than previous versions, and there are things that I like about it. But even if it doesn’t crash regularly, the way it used to, I still find a LOT of my time is taken up fighting with the machine to get it to do what I want it to do – NOT what it THINKS I should do! (I design training programs, so a lot of work on DreamWeaver, Flash, Fireworks, Word, Excel, PowerPoint…)
I am constantly aware of the system and the software, because it intrudes – I don’t know how to explain it, but when I am working on things on my Mac at home, I never seem to be aware of the system…I seems like the system just moves out of the way and lets me get things done!
I use XP Pro SP2 on my HP laptop. I have to reboot every 24 hrs or my OS, productivity software and USB connected hardware starts to malfunction. My Macs are rebooted only for software updates.
XP is not very good. You just have to use OS X to realize how bad it is.