“Apple’s stores may be shrines to the tech giant’s minimalist aesthetic but they are also a key weapon in its battle with Microsoft, according to an analyst,” James Rogers reports for TheStreet.
“The stores, which are popping up around the globe, have already lured masses of Windows users onto the booming Mac platform, Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf says, and continue to play a pivotal role in the clash of the two tech heavyweights,” Rogers reports. “‘[The Apple Stores] have become a magnet in attracting Windows users to the Mac platform,’ explained Wolf, in a note released on Wednesday. Windows users purchased half of the 606,000 Macs sold in the stores during the March quarter, he added.”
Rogers reports, “Needham estimates that, since 2004, more than 18 million Windows users have switched to a Mac.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
Microsoft could have cut the number in half simply by closing one of their two stores.
I used to feel special using a Mac. Now, I’m just one of the crowd.
18 million liberated happy souls!
@ madmac –
You should still feel special using a Mac…
18 million free at last.
I feel special using a Mac.
I switched from Windows in 2005. I have switched most of my friends and relatives as well, including people from work. My friends think I am an Apple freak, and I think it is true.
Happy owner of iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone, aTV, iPad, plus peripherals. I left the dark side.
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I know this is off topic, but I love Ballmer’s music video. You have to admit the guy has talent in the music industry.
Apple stores are truly one of the biggest wins for Apple in the last decade. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for Apple to place stores in high rent districts in 2001, I assumed they would be a money loser.
Yet at the same, I knew that Apple had to do something radical in retail because no one else in retail gave a flying rip about Apple products. It was simply awful.
Man, I am so glad they succeeded in this area!
As a long-time Mac owner, I’m thrilled to be surrounded by larger and larger numbers of Mac users.
So what happened to the Microsoft/Windows stores?
I like to say to my windows friends: if you cut me you won’t see blood, it will be applejuice pouring out of my veins.
I can’t remember his or her name, but who was the rube who proclaimed that Apple would be pulling the plug on a very expensive mistake after a month when Apple launched the first Apple store?
Count me as one of those 18 million and without an Apple store to get my hands on and try an iMac myself I might not have switched.
Aw, c’mon, that’s not counting all the converts from Mac to Windows in the Gateway Country stores….
LOL.
There are some here too young to remember the Gateway Country stores….
“I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake,” Channel Marketing president David Goldstein told BusinessWeek at the time. The title of the article in which that quote appeared: “Sorry, Steve: Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work.”
-from http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9431/
@ MadMac
Then you have been using it for the wrong reasons all along.
As a Mac owner since 1995, what has MS ever offered that was enticing enough for one to purchase? I sorry but a “Windows 7” tv commercial touting the split screen of two windows when dragging them to the side of the desktop or a “Dock”? Innovation abound, my friends…
Thanks, A.Turing!
Here in Australia, I reckon most people hadn’t even *seen* a Mac a decade or so ago. They had absolutely no idea what they were missing. If you wanted to see a Mac in a shop you had to drive past literally about 50 “computer” shops to get there. So you had to be very deliberate if you wanted one, and why would you be if no-one around you knew anything at all about them? If any newbie wanted “a computer” virtually no-one around them would recommend a Mac because they, in turn, had never seen or used one, and there was only a remote chance that the local computer shop would happen to be a Mac shop. The vast majority of people literally did not know that there was a choice. To them, the term “computer” simply meant a Windoze box.
I was once actually asked if I was in a secret society or something, because that person had never met anyone in his entire life who used a Mac. To the average person, it seemed that a Mac was some mysterious, semi-mythical thing that you occasionally heard about, but never actually saw and, of course, no-one used one.
So when Apple started opening stores I was really confident that they’d be a great success. Finally, people would see that there’s a choice. They’d have a chance to play with one and see that, yes, it does all the normal things like surfing the net, typing text, sending and receiving email, etc. etc. and that it does those things extremely well.
IMO the chance for people to actually see and play with a Mac was *desperately* needed!
I like to say to my windows friends: if you cut me you won’t see applejuice, it will be blood pouring out of my veins.
(Apologies to Applejuice…the devil made me do it)
@ MadMac
At least we can say we were Mac users before it was cool.
It is always worth reminding that the flagship 5th Ave store in NYC (pictured above) rakes in almost twice as much money per square foot than the next retailer on 5th Avenue (that would be Tiffany’s). Apple sells $35,000 worth of goods in a year; a C-Class Mercedes Benz for each square foot of space (10,000 sqft). Tiffany rakes in about $18,000, then next Harry Winston at $12,000. Other retailers on 5th Ave follow below (shops such as Bergdorf-Goodman, Bulgari, Gucci, Prada, Emporio Armani, Cartier, Chanel…).
“There are some here too young to remember the Gateway Country stores….”
Moo.
“There are some here too young to remember the Gateway Country stores….”
There are some here too young to remember that “Gateway 2000” was their original name.
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Saw the Microsoft store in Scottsdale Fashion Quater Mall last week. What a sad exercise! Banners all over the admittedly upscale mall, yakking about the MS store. Was kind of pathetic to see how much they have mimicked the Apple Store. One thing I noticed, as a ex-furniture person, is that the tables, while looking like the ones at an Apple Store, are in fact chunkier looking and seeming to be made out of some sort of ‘engineered’ wood product, as opposed to the real wood of the tables at the Apple store (looks to be birch or beech). There were actual non store staff in the store, but it was not busy,and I saw no one leaving with any purchases. Compare that to the new store for Apple at the new Scottsdale Quarter (flagship type, going by the pics it gets on apple site). It was busy all the time, as I passed by it a few times and was there twice. (Canadian with iPad, woohoo)
Am I the only one at finds the idea of a MS store in a high end mall a bit of a joke?