Debunking the 5% Myth

[thatwendigo]

I pulled this from the news story at osviews (http://www.osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1122&thold=0&mode=0&order=0), where a poster was talking about marketshare. Even more interesting to me are the claims made by a commentator, however.

In it's entirety (http://www.osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=NS-Comments&file=index&sid=1122&tid=5670&mode=0&order=0&thold=0):

Here are the numbers: from someones posting 2 years ago - doubt the numbers have changed very much! Read at your convenience:

-------------------------------------

Shattering the five percent myth
17 09 02 | 12:00 AM (@292) | BY JACK CAMPBELL

Several nights ago I thought I would hit my favorite search engine and
find out how many personal computers there are in the world. About two
hours later I had to finally give up the search for the night, and just
go to bed. It seems that innocent sounding question doesn't have a
widely published answer.

I'm now glad that I invested the time to dig up the numbers, because
the reality they reveal is pretty startling. And, after dozens of
telephone calls and e-mails, and many more hours spent on the internet,
all to find this one tiny pool of data, I finally pieced it all
together.

Now the question begs, just why was this so important to me? The answer
is simply that I keep reading manufacturer's numbers about their sales,
analyst rants about the state of the industry, and media numbers about
market shares, but without knowing the size of the market, I can't put
the numbers into any reasonable perspective. If somebody sells 10,000
widgets this quarter, is that a lot of widgets, or just a few?

I don't care about widget sales, but sales of computer operating
systems. Specifically, I am trying to get a handle on the evolving
relationship between Microsoft's Windows XP and Apple's OS X... without
any manufacturer's smoke clouding my vision.



The Tale Of Two Operating Systems

Everybody today knows that Microsoft Windows is the 600 pound gorilla
of the personal computer operating system business. And, everybody
knows that "Windows has 95% of the market.".

Before I get to some interesting revelations about the true condition
of the Windows vs. OS X feud, let me just relate a few recent
statements made in public by both camps.
Just this past week, Microsoft has said that, "... more than 46 million
copies of Windows XP have been sold through OEMs and retail outlets
since the software's release in October 2001."
Apple shipped the first release of OS X on March 24th, 2001. And, since
that time, according to Apple's Phil Schiller, it is estimated that
just over 3.0 million Mac users have adopted OS X as their primary
operating system.

Frankly, without any sort of overall market size reference, these are
both pretty impressive numbers, especially as the general ratio still
seems to jibe with that ubiquitous 95/5 ratio we all believe exists.

The Operating System Numbers

Now, let's take a look at this simple set of numbers that took me
somewhere around 30 hours of research to develop and to verify.
Here are the approximate numbers of computers today in the world, by
operating system and application:
520,000 AS400's, 210,000 mainframes, 3 million Unix servers, 9 million
NT servers, 240 million Windows PC's, 32 million Macintosh PC's, and 3
million Linux PC's.

Now that we have some real numbers to work from, let's do some playful
analysis.
First, let's take a look at the percentage of all personal computers
running Windows XP. Interestingly, of the 240 million total Windows
based PC's in the world, only 46 million have been upgraded to XP;
that's about 19% of the total Windows market running XP. If we include
Mac and Linux systems in the market total, it brings the XP percentage
down to only 16.7%. Now, I can see why Microsoft is a little touchy
about XP sales. XP is an upgrade that is nearly 100% compatible with
the previous version, so no software and few work habits must be
abandoned for a user to move up to XP. Even so, adoption is still only
at under 20%.
Of the total Mac installed base of about 32 million units, at least 3
million have installed and are running OS X as their primary operating
system. That's pushing the 10% penetration level that Phil Schiller
mentioned at Seybold. Not bad for a new OS that requires that you scrap
most of your older software and work habits. Even with that barrier to
adoption, that 10% of Mac users has moved to the new platform. Not bad.

Despite the statistical novelty of those ideas, the real shocker in
these numbers is here: Of the 275 million personal computers in the
world today, 32 million of them run some version of the Mac OS. Folks,
that's not 5%, like the urban legend has it; that's 11.6% of the
worldwide personal computer market. And, it's certainly not the 3% or
so recently published as the Mac's share of new computer sales.

So what?

So, more than 1 in 10 people who use personal computers in the world
are already using a Mac operating system.
The last time I checked, 5% did not equal 11.6%.

The Hardware Numbers

To cap off this interesting study, I'll now share one more group of
estimates with you: the percentages of installed personal computers
around the world, by manufacturer. These numbers are drawn a from about
20 different fragmentary sources, and have been compiled by me, to the
point that I am confident in their general accuracy. Take a look.

11.6% Apple
10.4% Compaq
9.8% Dell
9.1% IBM
7.3% Hewlett-Packard
5.1% Sony
3.4% Toshiba
3.1% NEC
3.0% Packard-Bell
2.1% eMachines
1.7% Microstar
1.3% Fujitsu
32.1% Others (each less than 1%)

Yes, gentle readers, Apple has more installed personal computers in the
world than any other individual computer brand. To phrase that idea in
another, totally acceptable and accurate manner:

Macintosh is the number one computer in the world.

What does that fact do to the "Five Percent Myth?"

[KC9AIC]

very nice article. I've always noticed a lot more than 5 percent of home computers being Macs. Nice to have reassurance that we're not an insignificant minority.

[Mav451]

hmm good stuff. This isn't too surprising when you take a look into computer labs. How many computer labs do you see running XP? None. Even at the workplace, most of it not all are 2000, with a sparse few running 98SE. I think this is probably corporate adoption, and your research reflects that. Aside from home users, most of the US (and US as in corporations, companies, industries) are still running 2k.

Likewise, I either have seen a G5 or G4 running OSX, but I don't see the OS 8.6 look unless i'm looking at an old school G3 iMac.

[JamesDPS]

For most of the people who really cling to the 5% (or less) numbers, unfortunately there's no article or study on Earth that would tell them differently... my roommate constantly says Mac has about 3% market share -- I've given up even bothering to argue with him because he somehow has that stuck in his head and won't let go. With him it all boils down to numbers, mainly cost. So I usually just sit smugly to myself without saying anything except "sure, sure..." but knowing that my computer helps me get a lot more (and better) work done in an aesthetically and architecturally friendlier way with fewer headaches than he would even know unless he bought a Mac. Which he won't, because he really has no good reason to (Excel runs on his machine pretty well, of course...)

But even given this sad observation, I'm very glad for your analysis! I would love to pore over some of the sources some time.... independent, undeniable proof! Kind of the same way I want Apple to release Power Macs that absolutely undeniably blow away every machine in every test as conducted by every source (cheaply!)... but sadly there's always bias to everything :/ (and it's usually an "Apples to Oranges" comparison, anyway)... still I think the tenet "you get what you pay for" is usually true (9 out of 10 times, at least), so I don't have a problem blowing 3 grand on an übercomputer! :D

[thatwendigo]

Whoa there, guys!

I didn't write anything but the introductory line... As much as I'd love to take credit for the research that went into this, I'm currently trying to track down the poster so that I can get his materials and start a project of my own.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, though. :cool:

[sonyrules]

Those numbers sound right, apple said it self there was over 30 million Macs in service, My question is that the PC number seams low. Not that im complaining. Its good to see macs at a higher level, and keep growing

[kewpid]

"market share" and "installed base" are different concepts.

"market share" refers to the percentage share of a particular market over a specified timeframe. Thus, last quarter, Apple had a 1.7% share of the computer market. 1.7% of computers sold in that timeframe were Macs.

Apple's "installed base" on the other hand refers to all Macs in existence in the world. Assuming that article is accurate, then Apple's installed base comprises 11% of all computers currently used. This figure should not be confused with "market share"

[ewinemiller]

"market share" and "installed base" are different concepts.

"market share" refers to the percentage share of a particular market over a specified timeframe. Thus, last quarter, Apple had a 1.7% share of the computer market. 1.7% of computers sold in that timeframe were Macs.

Apple's "installed base" on the other hand refers to all Macs in existence in the world. Assuming that article is accurate, then Apple's installed base comprises 11% of all computers currently used. This figure should not be confused with "market share"

You hit the nail on the head. Yes installed base is at a decent level, but market share is small, declining, is a reasonable way to predict future install base, and is what you should worry about. It's okay to be a niche product, but you don't want to be too niche. When it comes to the point that it's not worth it for 3rd party software developers to write applications for your system, Apple won't be able to provide everything. Corel is pulling away, Adobe has started. I write plug-ins for a 3D software package called Carrara. Most of my competitors have gotten to the point where they either don't bother with a Mac port at all or do it when they get to it, usually six months or more after the PC release. Large vendors are realizing it's not worth the cost to them, if you're a small guy it's worse. There just isn't enough money in Mac sales to justify another machine (which should probably be a dual so you can test that way), compiler, and targeting and testing two more platforms (OSX and OS8/9 since that is what Carrara runs on). I can do it because I've got the production pipeline already set up, have lots of products to spread cost over, and have even made it part of my business model to port for other people. However if I was starting from scratch I'm not sure it would be worth it. Declining market share is something to worry about.

[Rincewind42]

You hit the nail on the head. Yes installed base is at a decent level, but market share is small, declining, is a reasonable way to predict future install base, and is what you should worry about.

Actually it is very hard to use market share to predict future install base when your talking about products that are not fully interchangeable. For this reason, market share numbers matter 100% to PC manufacturers, but less to Apple. If you buy a Macintosh, you've committed to buying software and hardware that is compatible with Macintosh computers, and while hardware often is cross compatible software almost never is. Additionally if you look at the usable life span of most computers, you will find the Macintosh often beats them all. Going hand in hand with that, the low-end cost (minimum cost of entry) is higher for Macs than PCs (primarily because you can't get a striped down Mac from Apple like you can from a PC manufacturer or assemble a Mac yourself easily). These factors taken into account generally points to the trend that Mac users tend to buy fewer replacement machines and keep their machines longer. Assuming that most computer users only have one computer, this means that Apple's market share numbers will always look disappointing relative to the rest of the market.

[CmdrLaForge]

Declining market share is something to worry about.

I absolutly agree with you. And as I understood Apple their goal is to get back to 5%.

What I find really interesting is the very low number of installed computer base
520,000 AS400's, 210,000 mainframes, 3 million Unix servers, 9 million
NT servers, 240 million Windows PC's, 32 million Macintosh PC's, and 3
million Linux PC's.

They look so low for me. Today we have 4 billon people leaving on earth. 310 million in the US. In Germany today about 80 million people. Everyone I know has a computer. I alone daily use 3 ! Two PCs (notebook and desktop) and one Mac. But I have another 5 un-used just sitting in the garage. I would expect most people using a computer have more than one. At least two. That would mean ~150 million people in the world out of 4 billion are using computers ! Somehow I can't believe this.

Any thoughts ?

[ewinemiller]

They look so low for me. Today we have 4 billon people leaving on earth. 310 million in the US. In Germany today about 80 million people. Everyone I know has a computer. I alone daily use 3 ! Two PCs (notebook and desktop) and one Mac. But I have another 5 un-used just sitting in the garage. I would expect most people using a computer have more than one. At least two. That would mean ~150 million people in the world out of 4 billion are using computers ! Somehow I can't believe this.

I find the numbers a little hard to believe too. At home I've got 3 desktops (2 PC, 1 Mac), 2 laptops(1 PC, 1 Mac). At the day job I have another two desktops (PCs).

Each of my parents have three PCs in their household. One of which is a Pentium 133 laptop, easily 8 or more years old and still in use doing wireless webbrowsing for those that think just Mac folks keep their machines for a long time. All my siblings and the wifes siblings have two or more PCs in their household. Frankly I don't know anyone who doesn't have a computer personally, most have more than one in the household, and most use another one in the day job. These are not IT works or wealthy people either, just folks who do email, documents, web, etc.

[jxyama]

Actually it is very hard to use market share to predict future install base when your talking about products that are not fully interchangeable.

not to mention longevity... Macs tend to last longer than PCs.

[stoid]

While the number to inherently feel to be too low on the numbers of computers, I think that we are not able to make a good estimate based on OUR surroundings. The reason that people are posting on this board is that they are living a technology life in which they are surrounded by computers. I think that a recent survey showed that only 75% of Americans had access to a computer. That's not even HAVING a computer, and so I'd image most of those are people that have to go to local college or public library for access. Then there are the 1 billion or so people in India that are almost completely out of the computer scene, and most of the 1.2 billion people in China that would rather go to a computer cafe that are prevalent there rather than owning their own. I think that we as heavy computer users tend to forget how many people don't have the same access we do.

Just my 2¢

[laserbeahm]

I wonder if his numbers involve anything pre-Mac. I would image that a lot of Apple IIs were sold. A lot of underfunded schools still have labs full of them. As a matter of fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a school that doesn't have an Apple II somewhere on campus.

[ingenious]

I absolutly agree with you. And as I understood Apple their goal is to get back to 5%.

What I find really interesting is the very low number of installed computer base


They look so low for me. Today we have 4 billon people leaving on earth. 310 million in the US. In Germany today about 80 million people. Everyone I know has a computer. I alone daily use 3 ! Two PCs (notebook and desktop) and one Mac. But I have another 5 un-used just sitting in the garage. I would expect most people using a computer have more than one. At least two. That would mean ~150 million people in the world out of 4 billion are using computers ! Somehow I can't believe this.

Any thoughts ?

here's one: the world has almost 7 billion people on it, not 4 billion! :D "just a thought"

[wordmunger]

They look so low for me. Today we have 4 billon people leaving on earth. 310 million in the US. In Germany today about 80 million people. Everyone I know has a computer. I alone daily use 3 ! Two PCs (notebook and desktop) and one Mac. But I have another 5 un-used just sitting in the garage. I would expect most people using a computer have more than one. At least two. That would mean ~150 million people in the world out of 4 billion are using computers ! Somehow I can't believe this.

The article is two years old and probably relies on even older data. The most recent data I could find indicated that 5 percent of the world is online. That would be 350 million people out of nearly 7 billion--but that figure was three years old. I suspect it's closer to 10 percent now.

I suspect that most computer-owning families own just one computer, so the total number of computers may not be too far wrong: If 700 million people are online, they might only account for 300 million or so computers--perhaps more when you consider that there are millions of professionals who own multiple computers, or at least have separate computers for home/work. But don't just ask your computer geek friends how many computers they have, ask your garbage collector, or your hair dresser. Most people in the world are not professionals, they are manual laborers or substistence farmers.

[stoid]

here's one: the world has almost 7 billion people on it, not 4 billion! :D "just a thought"

I thought that we had just crossed the 6 bil mark a few years ago at most, still though, your point stands. ;)

[wordmunger]

I thought that we had just crossed the 6 bil mark a few years ago at most, still though, your point stands. ;)
Well, according to the world population clock (http://ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop) (which *sort of* works in Safari), we're at about 6.4 billion now. 7 billion is projected for about 2010.

[Westside guy]

I was looking at my site's stats just now, and remembered this thread.

In the last 10 months about 3% of my site's visitors were on Macs (Sawmill says I've had ~35K visitors; and yeah I know the difference between visitors and page views). You can dance around that number all you want, but I don't see the arguments about spoofing your browser and/or OS adding up to any significant cumulative effect.

Google's most recent Zeitgeist puts it at 4%. I find it kind of funny that the author of the cited article is trying to do all these gyrations and permutations with what he thinks are difficult-to-find numbers so he can run (or is the word "massage" more applicable) his own calculations, when Google already publishes the end data that he supposedly is after.

I don't buy the "Five percent myth" either - frankly that number's too high. :D I wish the Mac share were a lot higher, but you know what they say about "if wishes were horses, ...".

[thatwendigo]

I was looking at my site's stats just now, and remembered this thread.

...

I don't buy the "Five percent myth" either - frankly that number's too high. :D I wish the Mac share were a lot higher, but you know what they say about "if wishes were horses, ...".

Do the numbers for a given site necessarily tell you anything useful about overall population? The statistician in me says no, because it only tells you about the people who are interested in your site. Google might be a better indicator, but it still only tells you how many visited them in a given time period, not how many actually exist.

Site statistics measure the platform as it is reported and understood by software at both ends, gathered over a period of time, and not much more in this instance.

[rdowns]

Do the numbers for a given site necessarily tell you anything useful about overall population? The statistician in me says no, because it only tells you about the people who are interested in your site. Google might be a better indicator, but it still only tells you how many visited them in a given time period, not how many actually exist.

Site statistics measure the platform as it is reported and understood by software at both ends, gathered over a period of time, and not much more in this instance.

FWIW, my site (work) gets about 8% Mac visitors a month, abount 165,000 visitors.

[arsbanned]

I suppose Site visits would be marginally relevant, since a Mac related Site would tend to get more visits by Mac computers. For instance, these forums probably have a high percentage of Macs visiting them. That doesn't lend itself well to an effective statistic. :cool:
I agree on the argument of installed base vs. Market Share. Most stats indicate around a 3% or less Market Share for the Mac platform. Unfortunate, but unavoidable since it's a wealthy persons platform.

[Westside guy]

Do the numbers for a given site necessarily tell you anything useful about overall population? The statistician in me says no, because it only tells you about the people who are interested in your site. Google might be a better indicator, but it still only tells you how many visited them in a given time period, not how many actually exist.

Well, that "statistician in you" should know that when repeated sampling provides pretty much the same number time after time, it's likely a good representation of the dataset as a whole. :) Google's Zeitgeist is published on a regular basis.

If a site is not at all tangentially related to the subject being measured (for example, mine's a gardening site), it's hard to argue that - assuming you get enough counts to be statistically relevant - the site's visit numbers are somehow being skewed by the topic.

But hey - you're free to believe that there's a big percentage of Mac computers out there in the world that are not on the Internet, or are at least avoiding sites like Google in droves. ;) I choose to believe that the Mac owners out there use their computers in large part to do the same stuff the Windows users, Linux users, and Solaris users (etc. etc.) use theirs for.

[Grimace]

I find the numbers a little hard to believe too. At home I've got 3 desktops (2 PC, 1 Mac), 2 laptops(1 PC, 1 Mac). At the day job I have another two desktops (PCs).

Each of my parents have three PCs in their household. One of which is a Pentium 133 laptop, easily 8 or more years old and still in use doing wireless webbrowsing for those that think just Mac folks keep their machines for a long time. All my siblings and the wifes siblings have two or more PCs in their household. Frankly I don't know anyone who doesn't have a computer personally, most have more than one in the household, and most use another one in the day job. These are not IT works or wealthy people either, just folks who do email, documents, web, etc.

Keep in mind that in America, products are cheaper, and the mean income is higher than many other large countries. Take India - lots of people - not lots of computers. You are posting on a Mac message board!! That means that you by definition use computing all the time. The numbers don't seem all that high to me.

[thatwendigo]

Well, that "statistician in you" should know that when repeated sampling provides pretty much the same number time after time, it's likely a good representation of the dataset as a whole. :) Google's Zeitgeist is published on a regular basis.

I'm in my fourth year in a reasearch psychology program, actually, so I do have a working understanding of statistics, thanks all the same. Repeated sampling will show you that the representation stands for the sample group. Generalizability is extremely debatable, and always has been, especially in something as socioeconomically stratified as computer usage.

Of course, we don't have anything to base this on aside from a very loosely defined naturalistic observation, so it's even harder to apply to a broader group. The confounds that immediately leap to mind are factors like the cost of macs (implying certain economic trends in users), the demographics of computer use in general, the draw of certain sites, and software errors in either browser or site statistic programs.

If a site is not at all tangentially related to the subject being measured (for example, mine's a gardening site), it's hard to argue that - assuming you get enough counts to be statistically relevant - the site's visit numbers are somehow being skewed by the topic.

What's relevant? Gallup is willing to publish off of 1,000 adults polled through the phone. Even your method of sampling skews your results in some way. There is no such thing as a perfect statistical method.

But hey - you're free to believe that there's a big percentage of Mac computers out there in the world that are not on the Internet, or are at least avoiding sites like Google in droves. ;) I choose to believe that the Mac owners out there use their computers in large part to do the same stuff the Windows users, Linux users, and Solaris users (etc. etc.) use theirs for.

I use a proxy that screens me out of Google's information collections system. I can't tell you if it reports me as a mac, Windows, or Linux user, since I don't know what the proxy is running on. That's just one possible explanation for the difference in statistical numbers, and that leaves out things like competing search engines.

[JamesDPS]

I'm glad for people pointing out the distinction between market share and install base... I guess I hadn't thought that through -- clearly, Macs have a greater longevity than other computers (I'm still using my 4-year-old Powerbook and an - granted, upgraded - old PowerMac 9500, and I expect a new G5, when I get one, to last me a good 5 or 6 years); it kind of makes sense, now, how Apple can have a very low market share, but still have a decent install base that attracts developers. Of course, getting that install base to switch to OS X as much as possible is the key, and that was one of SJ's topics during his MWSF keynote (that is, how successful Apple has been with the changeover).

Anyway this whole thread reminds me of a book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393310728/qid=1081033398/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-9912952-5965548) I read in high school :D

[cubist]

... 520,000 AS400's, 210,000 mainframes, 3 million Unix servers, 9 million
NT servers, 240 million Windows PC's, 32 million Macintosh PC's, and 3
million Linux PC's. ...

Installed base numbers are very difficult to obtain. These numbers are likely mostly guesses. Who knows how many PCs and Macs are sitting in landfills, in garages, in attics? I have 20 computers in my house; some are connected and working, some are in storage, some are awaiting being thrown out.

Market share numbers are much easier to obtain: how many units sold this quarter? That's why we see them being quoted more often.

I recall about 5 years ago the results of a fairly large survey of PC users, that over half of them were still using Windows 3.1. Microsoft has never been happy about the upgrade rates. Most of the people I know with PCs at home are still using Windows 98. There isn't a single thing that XP does, that 98 doesn't do, that interests them in any way.

By contrast, Mac OS X is such a huge leap beyond what we used to do with 9, I wouldn't even consider going back. And it is a huge leap beyond Windows. Goodbye and good riddance, Windows, with your proprietary APIs and your DLLs and your _far _pascal _dllexport STDCALL MakeProcInstance() gibberish.

[Westside guy]

Repeated sampling will show you that the representation stands for the sample group.

Yes, and as I stated in my first post, the sample group likely is pretty much the whole group here; unless you believe there's the computer user equivalent of "dark matter" out there.

Generalizability is extremely debatable, and always has been, especially in something as socioeconomically stratified as computer usage.

Of course, we don't have anything to base this on aside from a very loosely defined naturalistic observation, so it's even harder to apply to a broader group. The confounds that immediately leap to mind are factors like the cost of macs (implying certain economic trends in users), the demographics of computer use in general, the draw of certain sites, and software errors in either browser or site statistic programs.

We're not discussing why Macs have the market share they do. The argument was that the statistics Google gathers on their visitors do not reflect the group of computer users as a whole. Unless you have evidence that there is some correlation between socioeconomic status and Google usage, this seems pretty much irrelevant.

There is no such thing as a perfect statistical method.

Yup. No argument here. :) But that hasn't ended this thread...

I use a proxy that screens me out of Google's information collections system. I can't tell you if it reports me as a mac, Windows, or Linux user, since I don't know what the proxy is running on. That's just one possible explanation for the difference in statistical numbers, and that leaves out things like competing search engines.

The first part is hard to argue with without doing some research on how proxies handle things like Google - do they proxy a Google search at all? I suspect, though, that it's not a significant factor since most of the proxy servers I'm personally aware of are running on Linux, and Google's Zeitgeist reports Linux usage at 1%.

The good site statistics programs have ways of attempting to ignore proxys completely, by checking things such as session length - I don't really know how effective that is though.

[thatwendigo]

Yes, and as I stated in my first post, the sample group likely is pretty much the whole group here; unless you believe there's the computer user equivalent of "dark matter" out there.

Actually, I know I'm a bad example, but I happen know that my family is in possessiong of at least four macs that are in running order, capable of runnings OS X (and I believe are), but not online. This is largely for reasons of switchings and NAT adressing off of thee and four-port broadband routers, which the manufacturers haven't made nearly as easy as Apple made their interface. I've got it working for my setup, but haven't fooled around with the other hardware in other domiciles.

Also, I do deny that there's any evidence that the sample group is representative. It's up to you to prove that, since you're making a positive knowledge claim and I've pointed out some problems with the basic assumption.

We're not discussing why Macs have the market share they do. The argument was that the statistics Google gathers on their visitors do not reflect the group of computer users as a whole. Unless you have evidence that there is some correlation between socioeconomic status and Google usage, this seems pretty much irrelevant.

They reflect the group of computer users who access Google. Period.

The first part is hard to argue with without doing some research on how proxies handle things like Google - do they proxy a Google search at all? I suspect, though, that it's not a significant factor since most of the proxy servers I'm personally aware of are running on Linux, and Google's Zeitgeist reports Linux usage at 1%.

The good site statistics programs have ways of attempting to ignore proxys completely, by checking things such as session length - I don't really know how effective that is though.

My understanding of the proxy I use is that it strips my IP from the search (substituting theirs) and bars the cookie from setting, which prevents Google from tagging my search results within their system. The proxy maintains system access logs for legal reasons, but they're deleted every seven days and don't contain the kind of information that Google harvests.

[Westside guy]

Also, I do deny that there's any evidence that the sample group is representative. It's up to you to prove that, since you're making a positive knowledge claim and I've pointed out some problems with the basic assumption.

This is descending into a case of "you say this, but I say that". I haven't seen you point out anything that doesn't seem more than tangential at best, but it seems obvious neither of us is going to convice the other.

[applebum]

In the last 10 months about 3% of my site's visitors were on Macs ...

If a site is not at all tangentially related to the subject being measured (for example, mine's a gardening site), it's hard to argue that - assuming you get enough counts to be statistically relevant - the site's visit numbers are somehow being skewed by the topic.



So, what you are saying is that 3% of the people with computers that are online, who are interested in gardening, are using Macs.

I would also guess that 100% of the people that visited your site have some knowledge of computers, would you say those numbers are statistically accurate for all people?

Your numbers may match up with the actual marketshare of Apple, but I tend to think it may be more coincidence than anything else. The only way I could see that site numbers were relevant was if every non-computer oriented website reported the exact same numbers.

[Zaty]

Guys, there's one thing I don't understand at all: As a recent switcher I wonder why Apple's market share is such an important matter. Does it really matter if Apple's market share is 2% or 10%? Does it make your Mac better or worse? I don't think so. As long as we don't have to worry if Apple may go out of business, their market share or installed baser for that matter is mere statistics. We all know that Apple's products are better than most of what's available today and that's what counts IMO.

[Abstract]

We're not discussing why Macs have the market share they do. The argument was that the statistics Google gathers on their visitors do not reflect the group of computer users as a whole. Unless you have evidence that there is some correlation between socioeconomic status and Google usage, this seems pretty much irrelevant.


Hey, this may be relevent: Mac users usually come from wealthier backgrounds/families than PC users, which is quite obvious considering their typical cost difference of the machines. I couldn't justify the cost until I saved up enough to buy it myself, and because Mac laptops are generally priced more competitively with Windows laptops.

I'm willing to put my testicles on the line and say that more Mac users can afford to get access to the internet when compared to PC users, and thus a larger percentage of can browse the internet because of their income. Someone who can only afford a $400 PC may not be so lucky, or may have dial-up. Of course, if they have dial-up, they may not be as keen to use the internet as often since its so darned slow. Also, someone with a fast connection can visit more sites in the same amount of time. So yes, socioeconomic status is probably relevent. Of course, I'm not a statistician or economist. ;)

Also, gardening isn't generally a luxury that many poorer people have. Some may have access to the internet, but if you don't own space for a garden, they probably won't visit a gardening website frequently. People with a yard AND spare time can search around on Google for a gardening website. People working two jobs to support their families to make ends meet probably don't have the time to garden, if such percentages for poor people were to exist.

And the pop'n of the world is 6+ billion, not 4 billion or 7 billion. Also, I thought there were 270 million people in the US, although I'm not too sure about that one.

PS: The entire article is wrong wrong wrong. :D All the numbers seem so darn low. One time I was at an ATM machine when it crashed and swallowed my bank card. It then booted back up automatically.......into Winblows. Even the frickin ATM's are Winblows!! That's a lot of Windows computers, I'd say.

[Mav451]

I wouldn't be so hasty to generalize it that way though.

I know myself, and other college students that come from a (and i'm probably still generalizing) "wealthy or upper-middle class" county known as Montgomery County or MoCo for short.

Many kids here are spoiled with Lexuses, Mercedes, and even Acura cars without working/paying a single dime. Then they are others how bought themselves a used Tercels, Civics, or Integras b/c they were much cheaper (4-5g's and lower, the Tercels sometimes even less than 1g).

Heck, I've had cable (for the Internet) in my house for a while. But I didn't whine to my parents to buy me an expensive/overpriced Alienware, or a mediocre Dell. Nope. Instead I would use my money to BUILD an AMD system, and with this knowledge I could save money on future purchases b/c of the EXPERIENCE i gain from doing this. Oh and I save a ton of money in the process.

Who else does this? I know plenty of guys who build their own (and not just geeks either, cuz i've been approached by jocks who want to do this just for CS), and they EASILY could have asked their parents for 3,000 to get an Alienware. But they all took the other path and built it by themselves, and undoubtedly paid for most, if not ALL of the costs. $800 is manageable from even a PT job in high school, $3000 is quite a different story though.

*PS: On population? My Environmental Science textbook in 11th grade already listed the pop at 6.2 billion, and that was over 3 years ago. It is entirely plausible for it to hit 7 billion in 2-3 years, as population growth is EXPONENTIAL (and that is very bad for us :( )

[SiliconAddict]

Just throwing my .2 in for what little its worth since I've never been a numbers man.....


OK. First off this sounds like someone who is not familiar with the Windows "family" of OS's and a Mac propaganda paper. He touches on XP penetration (And oh how MS loves to penetrate people\companies\various animals OK So maybe that last one was an exaggeration.) The problem starts when dealing with Windows 2000 an OS that is essentially identical to XP. XP for all intents and purposes is nothing more then 2000 with a bunch of bells and whistles throw in. 2000 was out long enough that I can guarantee that it has a MUCH higher penetration of the Wintel platform then XP. And since the differences between the two OS's are small many users, and more importantly businesses, aren't biting on XP and sticking with Windows 2000 Professional or even Windows 98.
I think the article's author is nitpicking at this point to play the number up to look better. The 11.6% most likely includes all Mac's. Even the ones that don't have a chance in heck of running OS X. We don't have any solid figures as to what percentage of that 11.6% are old obsolete systems. (Relatively speaking of course since even a 8088 could run a word processing program if that's all you want.) Without that information we can't tell what percentage is, and could be, a viable growth from OS X. People still using OS 9 and older are there for a reason. I'm guessing either: it just works, or there is a critical app that isn't available on OS X. These users, at least for the time being, can't be depending on by apple to sustain them since they won't be buying new OS's from Apple or new apps. I suppose you could call them an island of Mac OS. Is it probable that they will upgrade in the future? Possibly, but therein lies a problem. These users have software and hardware they will have to abandon. This leaves them in a vulnerable position for jumping platforms. Unlike a user running even a current duel G4 PowerMac who is in the position of upgrade to OS X since his system already is running OS X. Again these figures aren't telling the whole story.

There is the flip side thought which also applies to PC's. Of that 240 million what can be viably upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP and what % is on a new OS such as Windows 2000 or XP? These questions are just as valid for the PC as for the Mac. Unfortunately the statistics provided above are base stats. They don't fill in the whole picture. We don't know the age of the systems that make up that 240 million or the 32 million. What if 80% of that 240 million was less then 4 years old and 80% of that 32 million was greater then 4 years old both running pre Windows 98 and pre OS X? The statistics are deceptive. When they say market share I would like the term active market share to be used. Active being the systems that can support the current or near current OS, be it Windows or OS X.


PS-Oh and if you think I'm trashing the Mac I'm not. I'm an equal opportunity OS basher. Windows, Linux, OS X, BeOS, BSD, Amiga. It's all good. :D

PPS- 10.4% Compaq, 9.8% Dell
I believe those stats as far as I can throw Dell's corp HQ.

[ebuddy889]

[QUOTE=thatwendigo]I pulled this from the news story at osviews (http://www.osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1122&thold=0&mode=0&order=0), where a poster was talking about marketshare. Even more interesting to me are the claims made by a commentator, however.



I've noticed that most people about 10 years ago (around the Win 95 time) who were ready to buy a computer, usually coppied what everyone else was doing. Not having any clue what they wanted a computer for, or why to buy one. They just had to have one! because everyone else was buying them. At that time most were buying PC's off store shelves or QVC, beacuse of the prices and the amount of items you got for you're money. This still holds true.

You always see ads like complete PC system, 1.x Ghz, huge amounts of ram, tons of software and printer, cd, dvd etc for $400.00 with mail in rebate. To the uninformed economist this sounds like a steal.
So some of our Mac friends start to worry. They say "How can Apple compete with this"?

The answer is, Apple cannot. The don't even try. Apple depends on it's installed base (loyal Mac users) to buy Mac. It's that simple!

It is up to Apple's installed base (Us, we, the mac loyalists) to inform PC users that if you are finally fed up with

* All the Windows patches
* Poor quality hardware
* Confussing OS
* Viruses
* Upgrading hardware and software every 6 months to a year
* Complicated Program Installations
* Error Messages
* OS Freezes
* Incompatible Hardware
etc...
Try a Mac.

Some people firmly into PC still refuse to even take a glimps of a Mac. They believe that Macs are still in the 68k days with Localtalk networks and they claim that "Macs are way too slow for my needs on the network". They also say that "There are way more Programs for PC's than Macs". They fail to admitt that many of the PC programs they are standing firmly behind, crash at least once a day, and that crash usually takes down the entire system.

Bottom line... Apple isn't going anywhere. It's just going to take a little time.

PS Don't rely on stats and numbers.... It's like the polls in media.

[iMeowbot]

While the number to inherently feel to be too low on the numbers of computers, I think that we are not able to make a good estimate based on OUR surroundings.

Yes, local surroundings can be very deceiving. Just for fun, give this little toy (http://www.globalrichlist.com/index.php) a try.

(To save some suspense, the average worldwide annual income is about the price of an eMac.)

[rdowns]

Yes, local surroundings can be very deceiving. Just for fun, give this little toy (http://www.globalrichlist.com/index.php) a try.

(To save some suspense, the average worldwide annual income is about the price of an eMac.)

Woohoo!!!

You are in the top 0.151% richest people in the world.

There are 5,990,917,435 people poorer than you.

How do you feel about that? A bit richer we hope. Please consider donating just a small amount to help some of the poorest people in the world. Many of their lives could be improved dramatically or even saved if you donate just one hour's salary (approx $121.52)

Oh, and in case you’re interested you are the 9,082,565 richest person in the world.