“If you are desirous of keeping a healthy perspective on the differences between mere objects and personal philosophies the best advice is not to buy a Mac,” Chris Seibold writes for Apple Matters.
“Why not purchase the world’s greatest personal computer? Because once you do you’ll fall in love with the Mac,” Seibold writes. “You’ll wonder why more people aren’t using one, you’ll want to spread the word, you’ll become a zealot. Inevitably, you will remain confused why the Mac isn’t more popular and then you’ll begin coming up with ways to fix the Mac’s low market share blues. Here’s the trouble, the ways to ‘fix’ Apple’s market share problems are all prescriptions for a malady that simply doesn’t exist.”
“The notion that Apple has a market share problem seems obvious, but it isn’t as bad as a quick glance at the numbers indicate. The breakdown between business computer purchases and home computer purchases is roughly a 66 to 33 split. Apple chooses to compete in what roughly amounts to a third of the market. Sure, it has penetration in professional graphics, scientific and the film industry but Apple is, by and large, a consumer computer designer,” Seibold writes. “With that in mind, Apple’s market share looks much, much better. In the arena Apple competes (by default, not by choice) it performs fairly well.”
Much more in the full article here.
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Apple has 100% of the Mac OS X computer market. That’s all that matters to me…
Re: Pixar chooses Dell
three word explanation: conflict of interest
>My opinion is based on the fact that I own a nice chunk of Apple stock that I bought for $10.03 (split adjusted) on October 19 2000 and the fact that the same stock is currently at $60 and has been at $80.
fortunately then you’re going to have a long way to go before you loose anything but a paper gain as the stock falls.
Speking of Pixar – the reviews of the new “Cars” movie are not very positive.
maclover says: “Apple’s right where it’s supposed to be – at the front of the ‘Bell Curve’ … As usual, Windows users are the average, and make up the bulk of the numbers… Apple users are at the front of the curve, … smarter and wealthier than the norm, and using a superior OS. That’s the way life is – you can be sub-par, average, [or] elite… Apple will never be a popular computer for the masses, just like Ferraris will never be popular cars for the masses. Like I used to say when I sold computers – Apples are like Benzs, PCs are like Fords, which … sells the most…? And right then, the customers thought about what kind of person they were, and either bought a Mac, or moped over to the PC section.”
Spoken like a true salesman. Great story, but it has absolutely nothing to do with whether Apple staying ‘small-time’ is a good or bad thing. And it is bad, across the board.
First, the whole Chevy vs Ferrari example is a poor one, if oft repeated. Even with a certain degree of mark-up due to reputation, Ferrari’s are more expensive/better cars than Chevy’s b/c the latter use less expensive/lower performing parts. The fact that they’re more affordable is how Chevys become the car of the masses. It’s not that Ferrari’s aren’t “popular” (are you kidding??); most people just can’t afford one! And Ferrari can maintain themselves as a profitable, small market company, due to the fact that those expensive parts actually yield a faster/better handling car which – b/c it indeed IS ahead of the curve – they are justified in charging more for.
But you don’t need Chevy vs Ferrari to see this; Chevy (Malibu) vs Chevy (Corvette) demonstrates exactly the same thing. Even within brands, a better performing product equates to an ability to charge higher prices that will be paid by a knowledgable/willing customer. End of economics lesson.
Now here’s Apple, these days using exactly the same parts as all of their competitors, hence getting largely the same performance in hardware terms. Yet they are charging MORE than said competitors. Even worse is that they don’t have much choice but to do this, because their market share is so small that they can’t command the preferential pricing arrangements, that say a DELL or HP can, from their very limited number of suppliers (one). This in turn puts Apple at an enduring structural disadvantage vis a vis pricing.
Yes, the superior useability of OSX, and cool case design, levels the playing field somewhat. But not enough. When someone used to dealing with Windows sees a much cheaper – though indentically spec’d – option, they stay with Windows. It’s what they know, plus they save a buttload of money. In other words, in the case of x86 computers, there’s often no obvious tangible difference between buying the Corvette vs the Malibu. While we Apostles, spreading the Good Word, can sometimes get people to make the OSX leap anyway, a far more efficient method of getting more people to buy more Apple computers is for Apple Computer to be more price competitive.
And make no mistake, as I said, it IS important for Apple to gain share. If they don’t, they are stuck paying more for exactly the same x86 hardware as everyone else. If they have to consistently charge more than their competitors for said hardware, then their already small marketshare WILL shrink further. At some critical threshhold, that shrinkage will actually begin to hurt the company’s financial position, which will then make it harder for Apple to remain as an independent company (cheap or underperforming stock usually equals ‘takeover’). Now that they are in x86-world, with all the unforgiving economic realities that make it up, the truth is Apple’s in greater danger of not being able to maintain its ‘small-share self’, as it once could with ease when it used cheaper PPC-based hardware. DELL recently gobbling up boutique manufacturer Alienware is, I think, instructive.
It should also be obvious that Apple would be hard pressed to maintain it’s brand caché – one of it’s main sources of strength – as a wholly owned subsidiary of HP, DELL, or Lenovo. Not to mention the hit that would come to it’s nimbleness and creativity, operating under an additonal layer of corporate beaurocracy.
Besides, beyond all of the above, there is no good reason for an Apple fan NOT to want Apple to get bigger & stronger. How is the MacOS becoming a much bigger rival to the Windows juggernaught a bad thing in ANY universe? The world would be much better off all the way around! As for all this talk about us being at the ‘head of the Bell Curve’ – that’s a bunch of elitist pablum. In addition to actually masking the reality of Apple’s vulnerable position in the x86 world, it also does not serve the ‘greater good’.
The world should be run by Macs, not Windows.
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“Apple users are at the front of the curve, way less users, but smarter and wealthier than the norm“
—> I tire of self congratulatory statements like this. Cut the elitism!
“As for all this talk about us being at the ‘head of the Bell Curve’ – that’s a bunch of elitist pablum”
—> Again, agreed.
“Apple market share is worse now as it has ever been….despite everything that Steve has done.”
Actually Apple’s global share bottomed out at 1.8% and is now on the way back up. Apple’s share in pretty much every market is on the way up too (last year Mac sales grew at three times the industry average).
I wish these PC users would stop with the Mac / Windows market share thing. Apple are a hardware manufacturer and make the whole thing. MS make operating systems (pretty lame ones at that).
Compare Apple’s market shate to PC manufacturers who make high quality(sold for high profit margins) PC’s (like IBM or HP or Sony or Toshiba). That’s the market sector Apple competes in. The day Apple make OS X for beige boxes is the day you can compare Apple’s market share to Micro$oft’s.
And Chris is right. We can argue market share as much as we want but the shareholders are more concerned with increase in share price and if Apple decided to do a Dell and virtually give boxes away their market share would rise rapidly but their profit would fall slowly along with their share value.
Basically. Apple are carefully moving into new markets slowly and gaining profit quickly because of their cautiousness.