“Apple’s new 21-inch iMac was October’s best-selling desktop computer, according to retail analyst firm NPD. While sexy, the sales success was partially due to a slowdown in sales of competing PCs prior to the launch of Windows 7,” Jonathan Salem Baskin blogs for InformationWeek.
Baskin writes, “No it wasn’t.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, we’re gonna like this…
Baskin continues, “Nowadays, things need only happen concurrently to be connected; trends cross space and time via the Internet so that they appear not just parallel but inexorably intertwined. Much of what passes for analysis today requires no tangibly real proof of cause and effect other than that two topics can be surfed during the same online session.”
“It’s silly to presume that people bought iMacs because retailers were clearing out inventory prior to Windows 7. If anything, any clearance efforts on Vista boxes would have been a competitive pressure on Apple, meaning that its success was greater (selling in spite of redlined PCs),” Baskin writes. “If consumers were waiting for Windows 7, that wouldn’t have translated into Apple sales whatsoever; it would have depressed overall PC sales, though I have trouble believing that the vast numbers of Wintel boxes and retail outlets were so badly hit by new OS anticipation to make Apple’s sales numbers shine so much better.”
“The causality of consumer choice drove 21-inch iMac sales, and I’d guess it boiled down to very specific factors like functionality, in-store experience, and price,” Baskin writes. “Any schlub can see connections where none exist, and it makes for a fun read when analysts make these grand, expansive declarations from high above. But it’s usually a description of a theory, at best, and a fantasy, more often. The causes of Apple’s success have everything to do with what Apple does better, more creatively, authentically, and consistently than its competition. I think Microsoft or its hardware partners don’t fully understand this phenomenon. It’s what dooms them to suffering its effects.”
Full article – very highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Every once in a while, the searing truth burns through brightly. Jonathan Salem Baskin is a global brand strategist, is the author of Bright Lights & Dim Bulbs: The Year in Marketing Buzz, Brilliance & Buffoonery, So You Don’t Have To Repeat It — 2010 Edition, and writes the Dim Bulb blog. Bookmark it if you haven’t already.
