“Thanks to the projected sales boom of Apple Computer Inc. for this year, Taiwan’s leading contract computer manufacturers, including Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co., Quanta Computer Inc., and Asustek Computer Inc., are expected to enjoy growing orders from the U.S. computer giant,” China Economic News Service (CENS) reports. “Insiders indicated that the total sales volume of Apple’s desktop and notebook personal computers (PCs) is likely to challenge 10 million units for this year, which may help the company return to the world’s ‘top five computer brands’ club… Last year Apple sold about 4.8 million PCs, up 35% from the corresponding volume of a year earlier, and is ambitious to boost the volume to 10 million PCs this year.”
CENS reports, “The statistics compiled by International Data Corp. (IDC) showed that Apple shipped around 2.2 million notebook PCs last year, with 70% of which [were] iBook models. Since Asustek is Apple’s key contractor for iBook PCs, it is expected to deliver three million notebook PCs for Apple this year; and Quanta is estimated to ship a total of two million desktop and notebook PCs to Apple.”
Full article here.
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Related MacDailyNews article:
Report: Apple Mac shipments to hit 10 million mark in 2006 – February 15, 2006
It’s only a matter of time, not if. All versions of Windows will be able to run in protected mode on Macs. That will make Windows more secure on a Mac than a regular PC.
Mac hardware will be 98% as fast at running Windows as native PC hardware, this will be plenty fast enough to be highly useable, even for gaming.
Apple has successfully transitioned their hardware offerings to traditional lower cost PC architecture and components (pata, sata, pci, usb, dram, etc) so their products are competitive cost wise with Dell or HP (namebrand) junk when you compare Apples to Pee Seas.
One last thing, you won’t be running Mac OS-X on your PC unless you’re a pirate, only a very teeny tiny portion of the entire PC universe will go thru the grief to bootleg Mac on their beige boxes. Heck, the bulk of PC users can’t even manage upgrading their OS, they just get a new one because their old one is so crapped up and slow.
Ok one more thing, in our house we have several old G3 iMacs that are running just fine on Mac OS 10.3.9. While they’d probably do fine on 10.4, I’m not switching any of the machines until I change them all. Now try running MS Vista on a 333Mhz X86 with 512M of dram and builtin video card, oh that’s right, you’ve got to buy a new PC for Vista.
I have been researching the switch. I don’t have the funds to buy a Mac currently but my next computer will be a Mac. I have gone just about as far in my research as my knowledge of programming and hardware will allow and I have passed all my written research on to a friend who is a die hard windows person. He acknowledges the superiority of OS X and is excited about the platform but probably wont switch.
I find it can be frustrating that some people are so wedded to what they know that no amount of logic will change their minds. As an example look at the numbers still using IE6. I mean, why? FireFox is in another world altogether, a world where the browser doesn’t crash the OS twice a day. But people are still slow to transition to a better browser. I have had to physically force a few friends to download FireFox and then they go, “Oh yeah, it is better, much better.” No S?!t Sherlock ………but they still use IE6 as their main browser. WTF?
It is the human condition that causes a large proportion of us to be fearful of new and different experiences. Personally, I think that new experiences are part of what makes life interesting. My status quo, Windows XP, doesn’t satisfy me so I am intending to switch. As a sentient human being it is my duty to search out the best experiences I can regardless of the fact that I may have to face a small learning curve or be confronted with unfamiliarity. Is it not worth it in the long run?
It is this entrenched attachment to the familiar that prevents more people moving to the Mac. It is also a fact that most people are not actually capable of making rational judgements based on their own thoughts. Is it rational for someone I know to say that he won’t consider switching to a Mac because he plays games? No it’s not because he doesn’t play games! His retort is, “Ah, but I might want to!” This, my MDN friends, is the challenge that Apple faces. The Stupidity of Humans.