“By my calculations, based on Steve Jobs’ claim that half of all Macs are sold to first-time buyers, roughly 9,000 people switch to the Mac every day. They’re buying new iMacs, MacBooks, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros, most of which come in at sticker prices of $1,200 and up, plus add-ons. With OS X Leopard and iPhone hitting in June, I expect all hell and hallelujah to knock over those fence-sitting switchers. I’m looking forward to that,” Tom Yager reports for InfoWorld.
Yager reports, “What makes the 9,000 number so impressive is the courage of the users switching from Windows. Let’s face it: Words such as ‘friendly’ and ‘intuitive’ don’t easily tip the scales against ‘familiar’ for professional users who have been running Windows their entire careers. It becomes ingrained that the only roles a platform’s core GUI needs to fulfill are authentication, program launching, and file management. It’s counterintuitive to many professional Windows users that system software should do anything more than that.”
“I know someone who is of that very mind-set. She has used Windows since 3.0 and has never seen any reason to use anything else. Her computer, she says, is a tool, not a toy (jab); she needs neither a point-and-click nursemaid nor eye candy, and she’s too busy to see how that other half lives just for the sake of broadening her horizons. I can’t argue with any of that. These are the unmistakable words of a hardcore non-switcher,” Yager reports.
Yager reports, “Nonetheless, I piqued her curiosity when she happened by while I was working a project that brought together the UNIX command line, X Window, Windows, OS X, and Mac application resources. I was running a two-headed Mac Pro, and she said that I made it all look so easy. That’s as much credit as she’s ever given a Mac. I saw in that an opportunity.”
Full article — the beginning of Yager’s interesting and fun test — here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Embrace and extinguish tested once again. We look forward to finding out Yager’s results, although, as you can see below, we already have a good idea of what will transpire.
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About 3 million a year?
Ve vunce “converted” und processed about 3 million a year in my day, as vell.
Look carefully.
There’s a little tag there. “Article tools sponsored by HP”
I found that kinda ironic.
At 3 million a year it will take 100 years to have a very big impact. Speed it up Stevo!
not impressed,
A user base of over 20 million that’s growing 3 million per year can have quite a big impact.
Developers take note. We’re here. Our numbers are growing. And we have money. Get coding.
“First time buyers” != “Switch to Mac”
not impressed
This kind of growth is exponential, so in perhaps 10 years it the tables would be turned. but before that other systems will come to compete so don’t waste you time in waiting. live on the moment
But still of every 100 computers sold today ONLY 3-5 will be Apple computers.
@Fred M: “Developers take note. We’re here. Our numbers are growing. And we have money. Get coding.”
What is it you are wanting????
Eddie the one,
I want it all, but I’ll settle for AutoCAD first.
Will a woman resist curiosity? LOL. That’s funny. Oh, the seduction of it all. Clever.
At 3 million a year it will take 100 years to have a very big impact. Speed it up Stevo!
I doubt that this number is a constant. As mac switchers grow, the number should increase exponentically.
According to IDC’s latest numbers, in the US, Apple has about 10% of the notebook market and about 4-5% of the desktop market. We’ll see what impact Leopard has on those numbers later this year.
This growth will not be linear…..but exponential…Once people see the Mac in operation they want one.
Here’s my story…my wife’s sister (medical student) first got one early last year a mackbook. Her boyfriend liked, so he got one later that year(2006). She came to our house over the holiday break Dec 2006.
The whole family had a lot of fun making pictures with photo booth, songs, playing some games and all…she showed us all the silly pictures her and class mates made…
My wife and I had a baby boy on Dec 28, 2006…we took a lot pictures…My wife ‘s sister edited the pictures on her MacBook and they looked great…so I put the new pics up on my Yahoo Photos account…and sent out an email to all my friends and family to take a look.
Lots of people replied, and wanted to know how those pics were made…I told them on the MacBook…the lots of questions started about Macs..
Early January…I decided to switch from windows and bought a MacBook Pro. Its a great platform for computer science majors…Now my wife and kids want one..so we are buying a Mac Mini in March when Leopard is released.
My Mom surprised me last week and bought an iMac from the Apple Store in St. Louis.
My Wife’s Brother a Computer Engineer, is switching from Windows and buying a Mac also in March when Leopard comes out.
My comp. science advisor, bought A MacBook 6 months ago…Now has just bought a MacBook Pro last week. My Computer Science TA bought a MacBook last semester.
Many people in our department already have MacBooks or MacBook Pros.
It will be an exponential growth…as people show it off to others, many of them will want one.
Isn’t it interesting that, every time David and Goliath duke it out, some people cheer for David and some people cheer for the giant!
Those 3 million switchers will each tell 10 people about their switch.
3 of those 10 will switch, making another 9 million.
Those 9 million switchers will each tell 10 people about their switch.
4 of those 10 will switch, making another 36 million.
Those 36 million will each tell 10 people about their switch.
5 of those 10 will switch, making another 180 million.
Those 180 million don’t need to tell anyone because everone knows about it and is switching anyway….
Game over.
Poor Goliath is busy slaying office furniture, squirting unwilling victims and picking at his foot infection.
Go Apple!!
@impressed: “This kind of growth is exponential, so in perhaps 10 years it the tables would be turned. but before that other systems will come to compete so don’t waste you time in waiting. live on the moment”
I hope you’re right about the “…other systems will come to compete…” part, I really do hope you’re right. Real multiple competitor OSes, not just hardware, need to come into play; This is the only way the end user is ever going to see where we could really be with personal computing – the one and only way.
“”I know someone who is of that very mind-set. She has used Windows since 3.0 and has never seen any reason to use anything else. Her computer, she says, is a tool, not a toy (jab); she needs neither a point-and-click nursemaid nor eye candy, and she’s too busy to see how that other half lives just for the sake of broadening her horizons. I can’t argue with any of that. These are the unmistakable words of a hardcore non-switcher,” Yager reports.”
No.. those are the unmistakable words of someone who is going to wake up one day and wonder what the hell happened because they self-blinded themself to the changes going on in the world around them.
MDN word: fear. Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
Himmler,
Very bad joke. Not funny (although, it is).
And yet that same woman probably dances half-naked, and drunk off her ass on top of the copier at the office holiday party.
THAT’S when you show her a Mac.
(Make sure Photobooth is on.)
Vat ve vant hier iss Vista convert stories…true believers who svitch from Macs to Vistas…gut pipple who varoom from iPlods to Zunes, but vat ve see hier is just the other kinds of converts. Vat I vant to know are there any stories about svitchers from the Apple to the Microsoft side, and if not vy not?
Ve are vaiting.
Können wir auf Thema zurück bitte?
(Stay on topic please)
“… and she’s too busy to see how that other half lives just for the sake of…”
with running anti spyware software, reinstalling Windose and reformatting the drive you just don’t have time for that… Got it!
Microsoft is working from scratch on a Unix based OS to replace Windows.
It should be ready by 2020 +/- 2 years.
I can’t wait.
No really, I can’t.