“Lost in the market panic last week were some critical details on Microsoft’s conference call. In our opinion, these offered tangible evidence that the Windows monopoly that has carried the company since its inception is beginning to erode,” Henry Blodget writes for Silicon Alley Insider.
“Of the top 10 bestselling laptops on Amazon today, 7 are netbooks (70%). The other three are Apple Macs, which also don’t ship with Windows. None of the 7 net books costs more than $500. Of the 7, only 1 (one) runs Windows Vista. Another runs Windows XP Home (a cheaper, simpler operating system). And one runs Linux,” Blodget writes.
Top 10 Laptops (Amazon)
3 Apple Macs (No Windows license)
5 Windows XP Home
1 has Linux (No Vista)
1 Vista
Blodget writes,” Desktops, obviously, are a different story. But most of the growth in the PC market is now coming from cheaper, lower-end computers that are mostly used to go online. And those ‘net books’ just don’t need to run fully featured versions of Windows.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Opportun” and “james W.” for the heads up.]
“Sure Windows is there, but only on 60% of the top-selling notebooks at Amazon. 60% is a number we haven’t seen associated in any way with Windows before.”
No HPs, NO Dells, do you seriously expect us to beleive that those two companies have disappeard overnight?
Or could it just be that the Amazon store is not a representitive sample?
> Apple won’t topple Windows anytime soon in most markets, even though it is a superior OS.
Apple does not want to “topple Windows anytime soon.” Apple’s approach is steady and strong growth year after year for many years. That’s how to run a successful long-lasting business.
Eventually, Apple will be the #1 PC maker, and it will happen with Mac OS X market share at about 25% and Windows still trudging along with more users. So you see, Mac OS X does not even need to beat Windows for Apple to become #1. Apple’s competition is not Microsoft. An underachieving Microsoft is the best friend Apple could ever ask for, because all of Apple’s real competitors rely on Microsoft to provide their OS.
If Apple wanted a faster route to market share dominance, it would be playing in the low-margin high-volume PC field. It’s not. And I’m very thankful for that…
@Yawn
Or could it just be that the Amazon store is not a representitive sample?
I agree. I don’t know anyone that buys their computers from Amazon.
OK, maybe Amazon is not the ideal yard stick to measure this trend but Mac market share is growing. And it’s growing fast.
Students at many US universities are buying MacBooks disproportionately to the rest of the PC laptop industry. Remember, Apple is one single computer manufacturer competing with many in that market sector.
As Apple sells OS X to upgrade existing Macs (that’s Macs not PCs). Microsoft are not a direct competitor of Apple, Companies like Dell and HP are. So M$ really only compete with Linux in market share. As Linux is free, They are not actually competing in a business sense with Linux developers either. This means Microsoft are a monopoly with an eroding OEM market due to open source.
However indirectly Microsoft’s total market is shrinking slightly every month as a result of Apple kicking Dell’s, HP’s and every other PC manufacturers collective arses.
I am a parent with two teenage kids who will be going to University within the next few years. All of their friends are interested in Macs for the first time after seeing what they can do and after their piss poor experiences with Windows at school.
So Apple’s year on year growth compared to that of the collective PC industry is what’s important. That and Apple’s continued profit as a company for their shareholders.
It’s a paradigm shift that’s happening and it’s happening exponentially. Apple’s market share is going to snowball and in the next five years they will be bigger than Microsoft and it’s Microsoft’s fault for selling crapware.