“Citing concerns over cost and compatibility, the top technology official at the federal Department of Transportation has placed a moratorium on all in-house computer upgrades to Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, as well as Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007, according to a memo obtained Friday by InformationWeek,” Paul McDougall reports for InformationWeek.
McDougall reports, “In a memo to his staff, the DOT’s CIO Daniel Mintz says he has placed “an indefinite moratorium” on the upgrades as ‘there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade.'”
“Among the concerns cited by Mintz are compatibility with software applications currently in use at the department, the cost of an upgrade, and DOT’s move to a new headquarters in Washington later this year. ‘Microsoft Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer [7] may be acquired for testing purposes only, though only on approval by the DOT chief information officer,’ Mintz writes,” McDougall reports.
McDougall reports, “The memo is dated Jan. 19. In an interview Friday, DOT chief technology officer Tim Schmidt confirmed that the ban is still in effect. “We’re analyzing different client software options and also integration issues,” says Schmidt. Among the options the Transportation Department is weighing as a possible alternative or complement to Windows Vista are Novell’s Suse Linux and, for a limited group of users, Apple’s Macintosh hardware and software, he says.”
“The DOT’s ban on Vista, Internet Explorer 7, and Office 2007 applies to 15,000 computer users at DOT proper who are currently running the Windows XP Professional operating system. The memo indicates that a similar ban is in effect at the Federal Aviation Administration, which has 45,000 desktop users,” McDougall reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “There appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade.” If the government can see it, anybody should be able to; Ballmer ought to be packing his golden parachute very carefully about now.
See, what you do is you get Macs from here on out and you run Mac OS X and Windows on them while you transition your apps and workflows from Windows to the reliable, productive, and secure Mac OS X over time. Take the money you save on support and apply it to software alternatives/coders who can write cross-platform apps… Oh, wait, this is the gov’t we’re talking about here! Silly us. Okay, so pick the stupidest, least reliable, most expensive option and overpay for it (don’t forget the kickbacks!) while implementing it haphazardly and illogically because that’s what you’re probably going to do anyway, no matter what. But good luck! Maybe lightning will strike twice!
MacDailyNews Notes: The FMCSA Moratorium on Microsoft Windows Vista memo here: http://infosys.fmcsa.dot.gov/VistaMemo.htm
The latest FMCSA IT Development Division release list (source) includes the following software:
• Aspen 2.8.2: For FMCSA border auditors only. Driver/vehicle safety inspection system enables law enforcement agencies to perform roadside safety inspections and to transfer those inspection results into the State and National data systems.)
• CAPRI 6.5.1: The Compliance Analysis and Performance Review Information (CAPRI) system provides a standardized method for conducting reviews on motor carriers, HM shippers, and cargo tank facilities. It is also used for Safety Audits on new carriers and Mexican carriers seeking to operate in the United States.)
• CaseRite 3.7.2: Designed to automate and improve the quality of the enforcement case preparation process. It is part of FMCSA’s suite of investigation software and shares data with CAPRI, UFA, and Aspen.
• CDLIS Access 3.4: The Commercial Driver License Information System (CDLIS) Access is a network of state driver license systems linked via a central site, which enables national access to any driver license status or history of safety violation convictions.
• eFOTM 2.0: The electronic Field Operations Training Manual presents investigation procedures and techniques in an electronic format. The manual is a tool to help you plan and complete simple, unusual, unique, and/or difficult investigations.
• ISS 2.11: The Inspection Selection System (ISS) enables screening of vehicles based on DOT number, MC/MX number, State number, or carrier name. ISS returns the carrier name and address, an inspection value, and other decision indicators to help measure the value of conducting an inspection.
• PIQ 2.8: The Past Inspection Query (PIQ) accesses a national database of recent inspection reports. This database contains inspection reports for the previous 180 days. PIQ retrieves an exact facsimile of previous inspection reports stored in the database.
• ProVu 3.1.1: A viewer which allows Federal, State, and private industry users to electronically analyze standard motor carrier safety profile reports.
• SAFER 5.1:Deals with vehicle registration data.
• SAFETYNET 3.3: No description.
• UFA 2.6.3: No description.
• Firebird 1.5.1: Firebird (sometimes called FirebirdSQL) is a relational database management system offering many ANSI SQL-2003 features. It runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms.
Related articles:
Gates: ‘Windows Vista’s had incredible reception’ – February 21, 2007
The Register reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Don’t buy it’ – February 20, 2007
Forbes: ‘Windows Vista utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune’ – February 09, 2007
Digit: Don’t buy Vista; Microsoft may be driving millions to stick with XP or move to Apple Mac – February 05, 2007
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’ – February 02, 2007
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: Five years for a chrome-plated turd – January 30, 2007
Digit: ‘Microsoft’s Windows Vista may be the best reason yet to buy an Apple Mac’ – January 29, 2007
Pioneer Press: Windows Vista shows ‘Apple is an innovation engine; Microsoft, not so much’ – January 29, 2007
Windows Vista disappoints, so get a Mac – January 29, 2007
CNET Reviews Windows Vista: Is that all? Clunky and not very intuitive vs. Mac OS X; warmed-over XP – January 24, 2007
Mossberg: Microsoft’s Windows Vista offers lesser imitations of Apple’s Mac OS X features – January 18, 2007
Windows Vista disappointment drives longtime ‘Microsoft apologist’ to Apple’s Mac OS X – January 17, 2007
InformationWeek Review: Apple’s Mac OS X shines in comparison with Microsoft’s Windows Vista – January 06, 2007
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Looks, Locks, Lacks’ – December 14, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard is 64-bit done right, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista kludge – August 14, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s new Mac OS X Leopard sets new bar, leaves Microsoft’s Vista in the dust – August 08, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
@Machopeful
You still miss the point. Mac sales are predominantly to personal users – and are highly seasonal. I thnk you will find that the best sales figures of any organisation are those for mac notebooks which rose 108% quarter on quarter according to the latest sales figures (search on here for the report from a few weeks back).
9,000 people a week are switching to Mac in Apple stores alone.
And I dont know where the book in PC sales is happening. HP had a good quarter for notebooks (but nothing like Apple in % growth terms) but desktops were flat. Dell units shipped, revenue and margin all went backwards.
Stay tuned brother. And, if you dont have one, buy a hat. You may need to eat it sooner that you think…
“9,000 people a week are switching to Mac in Apple stores alone.”
As I said, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to Windows PC sales, or even the growth rate of the PC market as a whole.
“And I dont know where the book in PC sales is happening. HP had a good quarter for notebooks (but nothing like Apple in % growth terms) but desktops were flat. Dell units shipped, revenue and margin all went backwards.”
HP is a huge company, you can’t expect the same growth rates for huge companies. In terms of increase in unit sales, they wiped the floor with Apple. Heck even Acer, another small company, exceeded Apple’s growth rate.
As for Dell going backwards, just where do you think a lot of HP’s gains came from? Think for a second, starts with a D…
@Machopeful
Now you make no sense at all.
You merely state the obvious when you say PC sales exceed Apple mac sales by a wide margin. No-one is disputing that. It was your statement (unsubstantiated) that Apple’s increase in sales was a “blip” as users switched from PowerPC to Intel.
You are obviously not a Wall Street analyst. They must be using different data than you.
I wonder why you feel it necessary to visit this site and “rain on your parade”. Is there something about people who use macs that you don’t like?
In my experience, people who enjoy “raining on the parades” of others have some deep personal issue which they have yet to deal with.
I suggest that you go and find a Windows site and say nive things to people. It will make you happier and make us happier. A win-win situation don’t you think?
@Machopeful
new article on here – the Age of Apple. Read it and weep mr windows apologist
First, Pacific Crest Securities has used NPD data to claim that Apple computer unit sales are up 101% year over year, with revenue up 108%
@Machopeful
Then, we have data from Net Applications showing that Apple computer market share has risen two points in the last six months to more than 6% world-wide,” Carl Howe (Blackfriars Communications) writes for SeekingAlpha.
@Machopeful
And then we have securities firms like Goldman Sachs predicting that iPod sales, despite their first quarter seasonal dip, are also rising year-over-year and could approach 11 to 12 million units in the first calendar quarter of 2007
“You merely state the obvious when you say PC sales exceed Apple mac sales by a wide margin. “
The point is that the GROWTH in PC sales far exceeds all those switchers, and the level of switching is minuscule compared to the size of the PC market. Growth in the PC market accounts for replacement of those switchers, and them much more. Remember a million or so of those “switchers” are not in fact switchers but dual OS X/Windows users. So you have a trend, 9000 a week switch to Mac. 20,000 a week begin running Windows on their Mac, and the PC market grows by about 500,000 Windows users in addition to the 5,000,000 units which would be sold without growth. Which way do you think the momentum is going? Big numbers sound good until you compare them with really big numbers.
“No-one is disputing that. It was your statement (unsubstantiated) that Apple’s increase in sales was a “blip” as users switched from PowerPC to Intel”
How else do you explain surge then flat and then declining sales. It’s the typical thing that happens when you have some pent up demand. You are clearly some sort of technical nerd with no business experience.
“Net Applications showing that Apple computer market share has risen two points”
Now you’re confusing market share with installed base, and using a flawed method to measure it. See my point above, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Stick to lovingly stroking your Mac and leave interpreting data to the big boys.
“predicting that iPod sales, despite their first quarter seasonal dip, are also rising year-over-year “
What on earth does that have to do with Mac sales? See my point above about your ignorance of business matters.
“Read it and weep mr windows apologist”
Why is it that anyone who points out FACTS that a Mac guy doesn’t like is a Windows Apologist?
Keep on tying your kangaroo down, sport.
@Machopeful
You are still wrong about seasonal quarters. I have worked in the IT industry for 30 years and it has always been a seasonal business, both here in Australia and in the US. To make any sense of sales data you have to compare with the same quarter of the previous year. Sales to personal users tend to get a lift in the quarter approaching Christmas and then decline in Q1. HP always does better in their Q4 which ends in November and Q1 is always much smaller. In some countries with a tradition of post-christmas sales, this can see a lift in Q1 Calendar year sales if the sales include a large personal-use component.
Where you do get the data for 20,000 Mac users starting to run Windows on their Macs? I have not seen any data suggesting that Mac users are running Windows on their macs in any number. I would expect some corporate Mac users to run Windows (I might, for instance, in order to run two Windows applications I run in my own business but I run a G4 Powerbook and I found XP on Virtual PC too slow and I use one of my PCs if I need to instead). I think your numbers are highly unlikely. And the 9,000 new Mac users are those who buy a Mac from the Apple stores and say that they are new to Mac. you will have to add the numbers of Macs sold through the other retail and commercial channels like BestBuy- I didnt include these.
Growth in PC sales? Not according to the latest data I have seen. HP desktop sales were flat this latest quarter compared to the same quarter last year, Dell desktop and notebook sales declined overall year on year for the latest quarter. Latest industry data is predicting no growth in the PC marketplace. Last quarter HP notebook sales were up by 20% or thereabouts but Mac notebook sales were up 108%.
The blip is simply a misinterpretation of the sales data. Redraw your trends using last year as a comparison – you will see the trend for Apple remains up. If there is any pent-up demand it is those who are waiting for Leopard and those awaiting Adobe CS3 and the new Mac Pro range.
If the installed base increases it can only be due to additional sales. An increase from 4% to 6% in installed base would actually require a significantly larger market share than 6% – you are right that it is not necessarily a perfect sample set for determining market share, but a 50% increase in the installed base is remarkable don’t you think? Wall Street seems to think that Mac sales are up and will continue to be up. Presumably they have access to reliable data.
iPod sales are a good representation of the seasonality of the market in general.
And as for FACTS – lets have some links to the data, especially your data on the 20,000 mac users installing Windows each week. I really find this hard to believe.
And while Apple’s market share is still small compared to Microsoft’s market share, it is moving in the right direction. And in the personal user space, Apple’s market share is much larger than their smaller overall marketshare numbers suggest. The personal user space is smaller – i think I read 30% of the market with business users being 70%. Perhaps 80% of Apple’s sales are to the smaller personal use sector which would make their market share in the personal user space a lot higher than 6% Perhaps as much as 20% but you can do the math – I am getting sleepy…
It is a tough time for Windows apologists. Microsoft are under pressure to perform – their quarterly earnings are down 28% last quarter and they are not exactly firing on all cylinders with Vista or Zune. At the same time Apple is earning plaudits in offices in Wall Street and across corporate America. Deservedly so. This will be a good year for Apple. And a great year for the Mac.
There is no need for insulting comments. You should not ever need to resort to this sort of tactic. If you have real data, and can express yourself clearly, then you should have no need for such language. I am interested in another viewpoint, but only if it can be supported by the data. I invite you to supply some real data and I am happy to find the links for the data I have provided if you cannot find them for yourself here on this site.
I do wonder why a Windows apologist would want to come on to a Mac user site and provoke the sort of response you seem to want. I have 30 years in the industry, have MCSE qualifications, run an IT business with 8 windows servers and a mix of Windows and Mac desktops. I made the move to Mac 18 months ago, with some trepidation. Not only am I not moving back, but I am now migrating the rest of my business to Apple.
@Machopeful
Some extracts from IDC & Gartner…
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=500384
…According to Gartner, worldwide PC unit shipments in the fourth quarter of 2006 grew 7.4 percent compared to a year ago. During the quarter, 67.3 million units were shipped.
[ my comment: You will notice in the table at this link that Gartner compare data to the same quarter a year ago. I hope you will finally take what I have been saying on this to heart…]
…Fourth quarter PC shipments in the U.S. decreased 3.2 percent. This was the second consecutive quarter that U.S. market showed a year on year decline.
[my comment: not exactly a booming market… ]
,,,Gartner analysts said the weakness in the U.S. market was attributed largely to weaker than expected shipments into the home market. In the fourth quarter of 2006, home desk-based PC shipments declined more than 20 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005 while mobile PC shipments increased more than 20 percent.
[my comment: the home market is where Apple Macs are strongest. And Apple are showing growth of 31% year on year overall and 108% in notebooks ]
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 239 million units in 2006, a 9.5 percent increase from 2005.
[my comment: 9.5% is not high when you consider the impact of rising middle class wealth in India and China alone… ]
Apple Computer
5.1% Us Market share 2006
3.7% US Market share 2005
30.6% growth year on year
[my comment: Whilst Apple are growing from a small base the growth rate is higher than anyone else (HP at 16%, Dell at -17.3%) and Apple only compete in limited market sectors.]
———-
IDC – http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS20525907
Worldwide PC shipment growth of 8.7% brought quarterly shipments to 65.6 million for the quarter. This was down from 9.1% growth in the third quarter and 1.4% below a forecast of 10.1% growth for the fourth quarter.
[my comment: sorry to labour the point, but business is SEASONAL so one quarter’s decline does not make a trend. As you can see from the next sentence…]
For all of 2006, PC shipments reached 228.6 million with growth of 10.0% compared to growth of 16% in 2005 and a forecast of 10.4% for 2006.
[my comment: but the trend is STILL DOWN]
The United States slogged through another slow quarter as consumer demand remained weak and commercial demand slowed considerably. HP had a huge quarter, leveraging strong retail and commercial business to grow shipments nearly 16% while the rest of the field struggled. Where a year ago Dell had nearly a 13% share lead, HP trimmed that to just 3.9% in the fourth quarter. While Lenovo continues to struggle with declining volume, and Gateway shipments were essentially flat once again, Dell revealed its vulnerability, with shipments falling precipitously under HP’s continued pressure.
[my comment: again, not exactly a booming PC market]
Apple saw another quarter of very solid growth as the company combined new portable products with strong retail sales and positive press following a successful transition to Intel processors. Worldwide and U.S. shipments were each up roughly 30% year on year. The company also continues to benefit from its music business and new developments such as the iPhone will not only drive more positive press and buyer interest, but further expand the number of people using at least one Apple product who may come into the Apple fold.
[my comment: Yep. We know. Now you do too… ]
2006 2006 2005 2005
Pos Vendor Units Share Units Share Growth
4 Apple 808 4.7% 614 3.6% 31.8%
[my comment: Apple tipped out Toshiba in the US market. Is closing on Gateway. At current rates of growth they will overtake Gateway by the end of 2007 to be number 3 in the US market tho still a long way behind HP & Dell]
————
US versus Worldwide Markets
Apple is executing a complex strategy including retail stores and iTunes movies/TV programming. This is much further advanced in the US than in other markets (there are only a few Apple stores outside the USA – none in Australia yet for instance). Apple’s worldwide share will lag that of the US for some time as they roll out their strategy internationally.
The key to understanding where Apple is going is in the US market where they are already well advanced in the deployment of all their strategies. And it is the market opprtunity presented by cross-product experiences and the Apple stores which is responsible for the head of steam building behind the Mac.
I bought an iPod, then a Powerbook and am now converting my business to run on Apple and also to market Apple-based solutions. My story is repeated (well perhaps not the business part yet) in markets all over the world.
Microsoft are right to be concerned. As are HP and Dell. Apple notebook sales at 108% growth are eating into the high end product set of HP, Lenovo and Dell. And that hurts!!
@Machopeful
Now I hope you will take this experience to heart.
in my initial response(s) i took the view that you were just on here to provoke mac aficianados. I responded accordingly. then i thought better of it and decided you may just be uninformed. hence my replies quoting data and giving you direct links to the reference material.
i have an open mind on the issue now. your response will answer that question one way or the other. if you were merely being provocative, and are therefore uninterested in learning the facts of the matter, then i suggest you find another site to frequent.
I am sufficiently irritateed by uninformed Mac-baiting to take anyone to task if necessary. It is not difficult to highlight foolishness. And the time is long-past when Mac users could be considered as weird, alternative or simply sitting ducks for personal jibes.
If you have no intention of exploring the Mac, then go find something constructive to do. If you are “hopeful” of one day acquiring a Mac, then be positive in your posts and do your research.
Apple is on a path to greatness. If you don’t see it, you are not looking. If you don’t like it, then you need to look at who you are and why this offends you.
And if you are a Microsoft employee who thinks it amusing to wind Apple fanbois up, then you are going to find this site evermore depressing…
I look forward to further debates with you in this forum. But lets agree to keep the personal nonsense out of it. Okay?
Forget the US market for a minute, we’re talking worldwide market share and sales. So throw away most of your text. Follow that up by throwing away comments about single vendors, portables, iPods and other irrelevant things. now we’re down to some pretty simple but illustrative facts.
“[my comment: 9.5% is not high when you consider the impact of rising middle class wealth in India and China alone… ]”
It is another 20 million units per year, or 390,000 per week. More than enough to replace your massive 9,000 switchers. The weekly total average sale number is about 4.6 million units, Many more then Apple can hope to sell any time soon.
Most of my point is that Mac guys get excited because they switched one or two friends. Meanwhile in the same timeframe millions of new Windows PCs are sold.
Think of it this way. In the week it takes you to find and convert a new switcher The PC industry sold new PCs equivalent to one for every person in greater Sydney or downtown Los Angeles (and then some).
“If the installed base increases it can only be due to additional sales. An increase from 4% to 6% in installed base would actually require a significantly larger market share than 6%”
It’s in how you measure that share. What is being measured is the number of visits by PCs of a particular type to specific English language only websites. Is it an accurate gauge of worldwide Mac or PC installed base? highly unlikely.
“And as for FACTS – lets have some links to the data, especially your data on the 20,000 mac users installing Windows each week. I really find this hard to believe.”
Figure that off the 1 million boot camp downloads by the number of weeks it had been available when Steve announced the million download number, fudge it however you like for 1) the number of people who download once and use on many machines 2) the number of people that play with it and give up 3) the additional number of people who run Windows under other solutions like parallels. From that you get about 20,000 people give or take per week setting up to run Windows on their Mac. My number could be out by 50% yet still be larger than your numbers of people switching to a Mac.
“Apple’s worldwide share will lag that of the US for some time as they roll out their strategy internationally.”
I’m not convinced the strategy translates to Bangladesh or Russia or China or even Australia. The relative wealth of the countries and spending power of the inhabitants are very different.
@Reality
The 9,000 switchers per week do not represent the growth in Mac users – just the people who buy a Mac in Apple stores and say they are new to Mac.
The marketshare data from IDC and Gartner show that Apple is INCREASING its marketshare.
Apple’s share in the worldwide market lags behind the US market because Apple have implemented their strategy in the US first. Give them a break for God’s sake. There aren’t any Apple stores in Sydney, let alone Bangladesh…
The Safari user level is still useful – since the sample set remains the same. In other words, within this sample set, Safari use has increased 50%. Whether this translates across the market as a whole is a moot point. But the sample size and sample base is fairly representative of the US market – at least as far as i understand.
You need to get the 9,000 switchers out of your head – these are merely Windows users who go to an Apple store and buy a Mac. Just look at the IDC/Gartner numbers.
Apple marketshare is GROWING whether you look at US or Worldwide numbers.
So is Mr Reality Mr Machopeful in reality? If so then I just gave you a serve on another post…
Lets talk about the US/Worldwide numbers for a minute.
Apple are rolling out an interesting strategy, based around the following components:
– Apple branded stores
– iPod
– iTunes on Mac & Windows (but not vista yet)
– iTunes store for music
– iTunes store for TV programming
– iTunes store for Movies
– Apple TV
– iPhone
– Notebooks capable of running dual boot
– iMac / Mac mini
Apple cannot roll all this out simultaneously in every market. Even if they wanted to. However, they CAN roll out the bits that work in any market they choose.
In the US market, all these strategies are being rolled out now. And, as a consequence of this strategy, Apple revenues are booming and Mac sales are booming also.
It is reasonable to assume that the implementation of these strategies in other markets will achieve comparable gains in marketshare.
So to get an idea is what is happening with Apple you need to look at the market where their strategies are deployed. Which means the US market is the best indicator of what to expect.
If you were interested in investing in technology stocks you would look at Apple and say – “there is a lot of blue sky here, and not much downside risk. The strategies deployed in the US have reasulted in 30.8% growth in Mac sales on top of growth in iPod and iTunes Store. And then there is an unknown EXTRA possible lift due to iPhone. And then there is the potential lift worlwide as Apple roll out these proven strategies in the UK, Europe, Japan, Asia and elsewhere.”
However you cut the numbers, Apple is doing VERY WELL INDEED. And Microsoft, with a 28% drop in earnings last quarter and a cautionary presentation to investors by Ballmer last month, is doing NOT VERY WELL AT ALL.
However big Microsoft is, they are on a decline. And, frankly, I do not see how they will stem this decline. What can you point to which will turn this big ship around? Vista is a disaster among disasters. Zune is a joke. And the company is fat and lazy. It is! They have never had to worry about costs. But they do now – the investor community will not tolerate a continuation of such a huge drop in earnings.
I have worked for three US multinational IT companies – Wang Labs, Burroughs/Unisys and Emulex and one European (ICL). And I have 30 years in this industry. I tell you that the writing is on the wall for MS. I am a recent convert to Apple – and I still have 8 MS servers in my business. So I am not a vapid Mac fanboi.
Do not underestimate the anger in the IT community. Microsoft is considered to be arrogant and clumsy. When there is a clear choice, IT professionals will be glad to stick two fingers in the air at Microsoft. It is this hidden antipathy which makes this a very volatile situation for Microsoft.
Mark my words. It it all downhill from here for Microsoft.
@Reality
One more thing. I didn’t respond to your point about bootcamp.
This is interesting. I have a Powerbook G4 which doesn’t run bootcamp. If I did have an Intel machine I would have downloaded bootcamp and installed Win2000 or XP so that I can run my financial software.
But what does this mean for marketshare?
Lets look at the possibilities here. It really is a very interesting topic…
1. A Macbook user runs Windows under bootcamp for occasional use. What does this mean for Apple or Microsoft?
a) where is the loyalty?
b) what does the software development industry make of this – do they develop for OS/X or Windows?
c) does the dualboot user eventually delete the windows o/s or do they move back to Windows post-Vista?
We dont really know yet. But I think a quick sample would show that Apple users run Windows because they have to – and then only for the apps that they must run on Windows. This would be a very uncomfortable situation for Microsoft.
If we look at notebooks, which are more likely to be sold to professionals, the 108% growth in Mac sales can hardly be missed by software developers. Sooner or later the Windows-only apps will be replaced by OS/X apps – and then its bye-bye Microsoft.
If you take the other view, then you would say that the dualboot capability means that developers can ignore OS/X,
Time will tell.
But a good clue is the relative passion in the mac and windows communities. Many, perhaps most, Mac users run Windows becauswe they have to. They moved to Apple because they wanted to.
My money remains with Apple.
“1. A Macbook user runs Windows under bootcamp for occasional use. What does this mean for Apple or Microsoft?”
It means MS wins in either case.
“a) where is the loyalty?”
MS makes the sale, what do they care if you Love Apple but buy their product anyway.
“b) what does the software development industry make of this – do they develop for OS/X or Windows?”
All but the largest will develop for Windows only, knowing that they are still addressing Mac customers.
“c) does the dualboot user eventually delete the windows o/s or do they move back to Windows post-Vista?”
Who knows. But in all likelihood they at least keep running Windows so that they can use the increasing number of apps which adopt strategy b)
“Apple users run Windows because they have to – and then only for the apps that they must run on Windows. This would be a very uncomfortable situation for Microsoft.”
Not really, since Mac usage is down in the noise. Therefore even if it gets to 5% worldwide (which would require an approximate doubling of share) it’s still an unattractive market, especially if you can pick up those customers with your Windows version.
If Mac share becomes a problem, all Microsoft have to do is discontinue the Mac version of Office which, as a matter of practicality, ensure that almost all corporate Mac users will be running Windows.
“the investor community will not tolerate a continuation of such a huge drop in earnings.”
And just what do you think the investor community will do?
“If you were interested in investing in technology stocks you would look at Apple and say – “there is a lot of blue sky here, and not much downside risk. “
No, if you knew anything about valuing stocks you’s say that the growth rates that are required of Apple to support it’s current valuation are unsustainable.
“I have worked for three US multinational IT companies – Wang Labs, Burroughs/Unisys and Emulex and one European (ICL). “
Wow, you really do have a history of picking losers. I guess your enthusiastic support has probably sealed Apple’s fate.
@Reality
Do you really think Microsoft are pleased to see their customers buying Apple Macs and, potentially, running Windows on them?
The investment community will insist on change. And if it does not transpire they will issue SELL notices.
Then the investor community will vote the board out.
And you will lose your short. Thats if you have the courage to put your money where your mouth is.