“Apple Inc.’s install base of Mac OS X users will be approximately 22 million strong come the end of March, ahead of the company’s next-generation Leopard operating system release, according to analysts at Bank of America Securities,” Slash Lane reports for AppleInsider.
Lane reports, “The figure is up by 6 million users since the Mac maker unwrapped its last major revision to the Mac operating system, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, back in June of 2005, analyst Keith Bachman told clients in research distributed earlier this week.”
“The securities analyst is forecasting the combined release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and associated iLife ’07 digital lifestyle suite to generate approximately $200 million in incremental revenue for Apple, compared to the $135 million drawn from Tiger,” Lane reports. “‘We believe that Apple will sell approximately $185 million of Leopard in the June and Sept quarters, which we assume will be biased to the June quarter, depending on the release date,’ he wrote. ‘We believe that Leopard will sell for around $129.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We hereby strongly protest to Bachman’s objectification of Leopard to a mere dollar figure. The nerve!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Shinobi” for the heads up.]
“What trash! Compare those numbers to the hundreds of millions of people with brains who use Windows and you Mac Twats are laughable. No real integration with enterprise-class Microsoft products, no real Exchange compatibility, constantly-decried and buggy “best in class” crapware like iPhoto and iMovie, handicapped core app’s like “Mail” (can this do a TENTH of what Microsoft’s version can do?), and on and on and on . . .
Now you’ve resorted to counting your pathetic drone hoards to the single million. 22 million, huh? A drop in the bucket, virgins.
Apple– you and your inbred incestuous users (errr, cult members) should stick to making girly-colored iPod nanos and special editions for outdated bands like U-longinthetooth-2. Leave the REAL computing to the powerhouses of the world: Microsoft and Lenovo.
Tools.”
Now that is what I call a very eloquent well written elegant post. It really portrays the elevated intellect of the author.
@Mac Nugget
Right on…
Things must be getting desperate out there in mac-hater-land. Even Zune Tang has gone into his cave to lick his wounds. If you listen closely you can hear lots of crowing sounds. Not birds. Neo-macophiles everywhere crowing loudly as we pat ourselves on the back for making the right decision and switching to Apple…
And for Windows-fanbois? Are they crowing about the fabulous reception the market has given to Vista? or Zune? or IE7?
We have earned the right to crow. And I suspect there will be a lot more crowing this year.
– iPhone
– iTunes
– iPod
– Apple TV
– Leopard
– Apple Notebooks
And I am sure Apple have a few surprises in store for us…
@Mac nugget
Lenovo? since when was Lenovo a “powerhouse”.
Anyone care to guess who this guy works for?
Buster,
(22 million plus 1) + 2
2 friends just switched this week.
Hmmmm….. do we see a trend?
MDN Magic Word: strong, as in, there’s a strong reason to switch.
As long as OS X 10.5 foregoes a serialization scheme a la Windows, it’s value is priceless! LOL. (Kidding,) I usually buy the family pack for value and legal karma. Though I think the family version specifies up to 5 machines in <i>the same household.</a> And my kids live with their mom, which makes me naughty. But I bought the PowerBooks, so Phttt!
Apple will reach 55% of the home user market within 5 years, assuming current growth rates are sustained. Actually, I think it will happen much sooner than this – perhaps within 2 years.
If you only said 3 years. Two just feels too soon. They haven’t even shipped Apple TV yet
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />.
Otherwise, a fantastic speculative comment.
Funny that Bank of America won’t allow direct integration of their online banking with Quicken for Mac, when their securities arm clearly recognizing the growing Mac user base. Bank of America only allows Mac users to export/import QIF files into their Quicken programs. Bank of America, get with the program!
We need to start a petition!
@ effwerd
It is, obviously, a guesstimate. But what I am looking at is that “aha” moment in the marketplace when there are sufficient Mac users out there, all evangelising the Mac after making the switch, that anyone buying a new computer will be told by at least 2 or 3 others to buy Apple. At this point, the slowly building stream of switchers will become a torrent.
In another year I think that the Mac base will be high enough for most people to know someone who has a Mac and likes it. At this point, one significant event could cause a major shift in thinking. A major virus/worm that attacked Vista, for instance, could do it.
Microsoft’s market share amongst home users is highly unstable. It remains large due to a significant degree of inertia in the system – people are used to buying Windows. They still think Apple is weird. There is a large population of people out there who dont have an iPod even…
But there will come a time when the inertia switches the other way – when it will be automatic to buy a Mac, perhaps because they never get hit by viruses, or perhaps just because they are cool…
When I decided it could happen in 2 years i took into account the shift I have seen amongst my own friends and acquaintances. A year ago they never would have thought of buying a Mac. Today every one of them is at least considering it. Many will still buy a Windows machine, but every quarter will see a shift in this.
And Apple’s stores are making a major contribution to this – just having the genius bar on hand is good reason for many to make the switch…
Its a guess. It might take longer. Microsoft might fix Vista and become the darling of the market again.
But I don;t think this pig will ever fly…
Apple should keep the 129 price tag. I always point out that when you buy Vista, you pay 399 for Home Super Mega Hyper Premium or something.
Two OS X family packs only cost 398, so Vista costs 10 times as much as Mac OS X.
Of course you can buy an upgrade (well must people can’t [OEM, OEM, OEM…]) but given the fact that upgrading from XP to Vista may include reinstalling the XP + SP2 + all other updates when WGA fails and fucks up the XP, is it really worth it?
If you own more than one Mac, even if you buy every 10.x OS that comes out, OS X is cheaper than Windows.
Since there are so many Mac users, how about we show the world how fast the Macintosh is and donate your unused computing time to a grid project. To join one and show the world the speed of the Mac, join at:
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
You can join a team called “Mac Daily News”
I want to see how much processing power we can donate. Any computer helps, even if it is only left unused for small amounts of time.