[Ti] Apple's True Market Share!

[Henry Kalir]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Alex wrote:

> 
> On Tuesday, December 10, 2002, at 02:11  pm, Mike Stanley wrote:
> >
> > Ummm - I'm no market analyst so maybe it is legitimate to compare 
> > market-share amongst individual companies like this, although I think 
> > it is just as legitimate to group the Windows-based companies together 
> > since they all share the same platform and since, to an average user, 
> > moving between then software and user experience-wise would be nearly 
> > transparent.  In the end it does come down to "PC or Mac" after all, 
> > not "Dell, Gateway, IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Alienware, blah blah blah 50 
> > more companies OR Mac".
> >
> > And I hardly think trumpeting having a bigger share of the market 
> > (especially in 2000) than Toshiba, who pretty much only makes laptops 
> > these days, is something to be proud of.  I'd like to see figures from 
> > last year comparing Apple to Sony, though - and especially this year 
> > with Sony's big "we're a digital hub also" advertising push.
> 
. If you are comparing you must compare like with like, 
> otherwise the figures are useless. I am talking about hardware unit 
> sales and comparing manufactures of that hardware within the market 
> they compete. The fact that only Apple also creates its OS 
> indisputable, it is also not relevant, therefor neither is the fact 
> that the other manufactures use Windows.

Amazing! If Apple's hardware were capable of NATIVELY running its own OS
(aka - Mac OS) AND Windows equally well - then your point would certainly
hold. However, since we all know that that is NOT the case - you have to
allow for the fact that HP, Sony, Dell etc are all members of the Wintel
group, while Apple is there by itself. Of course Apple and the rest are
all memebers of the personal computer group, BUT...when you buy a Dell,
and then want to change it to an HP - there's no need to invest in the
software - your Dell computer's software will run on the HP too...NOT so
if you change to an Apple computer.

Now, lets get to the REAL concern of just WHY market share is so
important to us Macsters...Shall we?

Well...if you're a program developer, and there's a 90% slice of the
computer market held by the Windows OS and a 5% "slice" held by Apple
(give Linux at least 5% of the market...)...and assuming that this is NOT
a multimedia or some "specialty niche/thing like Photoshop..just plain old
stuff for Joe Blow....Or maybe an exciting new application...where would
YOU go? My $$ says - with the 90% crowd...which leaves us with a GREAT OS,
GREAT hardware...and no applications...All dressed up and nowhere to go!

Think I'm wrong? Look at the figures!

THAT'S my concern...

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Henry