Apple Marketshare and 'Sales Guys'

[MacRumors]

As part of the Macintosh's 20th anniversary, Newsweek's Steven Levy recaps the Mac's origins and discusses with Jobs about the Mac's (lack of) marketshare. Jobs is openly critical of the management of Apple during his absense:

Jobs has a theory about that, too. Once a company devises a great product, he says, it has a monopoly in that realm, and concentrates less on innovation than protecting its turf. "The Mac-user interface was a 10-year monopoly," says Jobs. "Who ended up running the company? Sales guys. At the critical juncture in the late '80s, when they should have gone for market share, they went for profits. They made obscene profits for several years. And their products became mediocre. And then their monopoly ended with Windows 95. They behaved like a monopoly, and it came back to bite them, which always happens."

[dennis88]

interesting

[jrv3034]

"They behaved like a monopoly, and it came back to bite them, which always happens."


That's a very wise observation on Jobs' part. I would hope they don't repeat the same mistakes again, should they ever have some sort of monopoly again. I think their work with the iPod has been great, and they don't stop innovating it due to it's success.

[johnnyjibbs]

So Jobbs is predicting Microsoft becoming complacent...

[fred815]

maybe jobs' viewpoint is also shown through the new hp ipod

[DanUk2003]

Originally posted by fred815
maybe jobs' viewpoint is also shown through the new hp ipod

Exactly. Apple's move to allow HP (and maybe others) to licence the iPod and install iTunes and the default media player on their PC's can only help Apple keep the marketshare on MP3 players / downloadable music.

[varmit]

If I catch onto what he is saying. Apple wont stop making new things. Just because they have a good market share with the iPod, doesn't mean they will be focusing all on just digital music. Lets take into account the rumors that have been posted: iBox, which probably wont come soon, but will. The projector, no name yet but hopefully compatable with any laptop with video output or regular computer. We have great computers and OS, iPod, which might become color and able to view the photos that you imported from your camera for storage, this is one feature that should come.

Apple still has space to move, and they are getting people to switch platforms. Maybe not as fast to show a spike, but a gradual slop is happening. I say this because after I got my iBook 2 years ago. About half my friends around me got one after seeing how easy it is and how happy I am with it. Personal Note: I'm and IT major at my school, which gives people confidence to switch, because I have.

[lindmar]

Jobs will never stop innovating and hopefully will never leave his company again, either fired or retired.
I am just happy to be a mac user right now..

I don't think the innovation will ever stop, look at the mini ipod, ti-books relativley new, g5's.....
it must be on going, but the product must remain as quality...

I am still not sure about the HP deal thingy...

[cubist]

Very perceptive statements IMHO. Good for a CEO to be able to stand back and see a big picture like that.

As for Microsoft being complacent, they have been complacent for some time. The last time the technical side had any primacy was in the IE4 days, but that was only a brief resurgence. Other than that, it's been all sales and marketing since Win95... the products are essentially unchanged.

[bensisko]

Originally posted by johnnyjibbs
So Jobbs is predicting Microsoft becoming complacent...

Not sure if this was a sarcastic response or not (my sarcasem meter is in the shop...), but Microsoft has been complacent for years. When's the last time there were any REAL breakthroughs in Office or Windows? Even though there have been improvements, XP and 2000 are still the same clunky Mac-knock-off they were in Windows 95.

Anyway...

[Wendy_Rebecca]

Apple has lost market share EVERY YEAR since Jobs' return. Where does he get off preaching the gospel of lower margins and increased market share?

1.88 percent. Just remember that number. It's damn near insignificant.

[Tulse]

It's a bit ironic that Jobs speaks so disparagingly of "protecting turf" when one of the earliest acts he took on his return as CEO was to kill the Mac OS clones. I think that was a smart move on his part, but there's no doubt that it was about protecting turf, and not innovation (some of the fastest machines of that era weren't made by Apple).

[ipiloot]

Originally posted by Wendy_Rebecca
Apple has lost market share EVERY YEAR since Jobs' return. Where does he get off preaching the gospel of lower margins and increased market share?

1.88 percent. Just remember that number. It's damn near insignificant.

1.99% to be exact. And the company is profitable by that market share, what is not the claim a lot of PC-makers can make. Call it cost control if you will.

I personally think that even 1% of the global market share is way better than extinct company that Apple would have been without Jobs returning in 1997.

[Knute5]

Jerry Kaplan, president of the ill-fated GO Corporation (the first PDA) recounts in his book, "Start Up", his experiences with Apple during the time that Jobs was gone and Jean Louis Gassee was the chief technical dude.

Gassee believed Windows would never catch up, that Apple could continue to charge "obscenely" high prices, and that the profits would continue to roll in with no need to ever consider licensing. So yeah, Jobs was probably quoting a well-known policy when he referred to Apple's "salesmen" era.

Ironically, without Gassee, Jobs would never have returned to Apple. Had Gassee not left and founded Be and the BeBox which fired the imagination of Mac users with its smooth multiprocessor performance, Apple wouldn't have made overtures to buy them. JLG could have netted hundreds of millions of dollars had he not held out for more money.

In the end, Apple opted to instead buy NeXT, which wasn't even being considered until a NeXT underling contacted Apple. And when all was said and done, Jobs' company and Jobs found their way back to Apple after over ten years away. And the changes he's made have pretty much rescued the company and the Mac platform.

[DanUk2003]

Originally posted by Wendy_Rebecca
Apple has lost market share EVERY YEAR since Jobs' return. Where does he get off preaching the gospel of lower margins and increased market share?

1.88 percent. Just remember that number. It's damn near insignificant.

Let's not forget that before Jobs came back to Apple, the company's situation was pretty poor. So many different and confusing product lines, numerous (and failed) attempts to create a modern OS that would eventually replace what become OS9 - not to mention the finances.

To be fair to Jobs, since his return Apple's product lines have become fairly streamlined (albeit pricey...) and he is a great visionary - case in point with the longer-term view he and Apple took with their digital-hub strategy, which has now formed the basis for iPod and iTunes Music Store.

I would agree that Jobs doesn't always live in the real world and is often arrogant. However, I personally could not see a (very profitable) Apple that is successful in the 21st Century without him.

Besides, you gotta love his turtlenecks...!

[wchamlet]

Well, if Microsoft was just a Windows only software developer I'd agree that they haven't innovated, a whole lot. But they do develop other things, such as DirectX, which is not just something for marketing.

I've always wondered about the marketshare numbers. Are those numbers based on all PC's and Macs sold, add infinitum? Or is it just the PC's and Macs sold for this current time period, i.e just this quarter? Because if it's based on what has been sold from the beginning, than that is absolutely stupid! I would assume that 95% (I like to make up bold statistics, it's good for the soul) of all the old machines are not even used!

[cripdyke]

so, what exactly does 1.88 represent.

And I thought that market share increased last year (up to over 7 percent in portables)?

And I also thought they increased market share for awhile when the first imac came out.

Are you saying that more old macs went dead that year than new macs got bought so there was a decrease in their share of Installed User Base - which is different from Market Share, (MS represents the % of current sales going to a given company - or segment, or whatever...).

[1macker1]

Why does Jobs talk so blasted much. Sheesh, where is the innovation at. Since when does taking an idea that's already there and making it better innovation. If that's the case, Dell would be king of innovation, which it is not.

And where is the hype behind the Mac turning 20. Where are the tv ADs (besides the ipods). I haven't seen a commercial for a G5/imac/emac since the G5 was first released. I guess they expect ipods and itunes to carry to company.

[ervinocus]

A somewhat strange comment, the one about the primary need for innovation, coming from the guy who abruptly slaughtered the NewtonOS, one of the best OS ever concieved, even considered the venial sins of its first implementations (till the MP2x00 serie, I mean) dued only to the limitations of the hardware usable in that years (1993-1998).

Anybody who used (or programmed for) a Newton MP2x00 with NewtOs 2.x will remeber forever the incredible quality of that experience, years ahead in power respect to any other OS and GUI available, both then and now.

The people that never used that OS are *not* entitled to comment on the iusse with the typical third-hand negatively biased comments already heard a zillion times.

[crees!]

A wicked smile cracks the bearded, crinkly Steve Jobs's visage, and for a moment he could be the playful upstart who shocked the world 20 years ago. "Hmm, look who's running Microsoft now," he says, referring to former Procter & Gamble marketer Steve Ballmer. "A sales guy!" The smile gets broader. "I wonder ..." he says.

It's Balmer! Look out!

[Sabenth]

Ok iam a semi sort of reacent switcher. ive had a mac for going on 7 months now maybe a bit longer. in this time frame i have seen the following..


Jag move to Panther
New G Chip
new iMacs bigger screen etc
new Apps.

Hell if this aint a company thats moving around.

Oh and of course iTunes not that i can use it yet..

Jobs is a how can i put this without upsetiing a few people. Bigg headed git who by all rights has changed apple.

But dont mean hes a god dose it dose he design any of this gear. all i hear is an idea is formed and then he takes over not much more than that. seems hes the head honcho because he knows how to become number one.

What i do know is this i like these productts and hope they dont stop making them ...

And by far Panther rules over windows and linux any day sorry i just feel that way ok....

wish i bought one of these sooner thats all

[Knute5]

It's a bit ironic that Jobs speaks so disparagingly of "protecting turf" when one of the earliest acts he took on his return as CEO was to kill the Mac OS clones.

As the owner of a Starmax, a Radius 81/110, a Umax S900 and a Power Computing box (all gone now), I hoped clones would revive Apple. They didn't, and Power in particular was doing a better job advertising and innovating, making Apple look like a stodgy old chump in comparison.

Jobs killed clones because they were a bad deal for Apple. They didn't provide enough revenue for the marketshare they cannibalized. Apple was in crisis and people, projects and policies had to be cut.

Consider that the first no-compromise Apple computer is the G5, finally liberated from the Motorola G4 millstone. It took Jobs over SIX YEARS to wriggle free from the legacy of Apple's blunders to finally define a platform good enough that it *might* be able to coexist with cloners.

We'll see what happens in future regarding this. But as for his initial decision to kill cloning - that, and other hard decisions like it, are probably why Apple is still around today.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by ipiloot
1.99% to be exact. And the company is profitable by that market share, what is not the claim a lot of PC-makers can make. Call it cost control if you will.

I personally think that even 1% of the global market share is way better than extinct company that Apple would have been without Jobs returning in 1997.

Hmm, how much market share does acer have?? Oh no! They must also be going out of business!!

[mhouse]

While I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the marketshare numbers that people usually mention for Apple (2-5 percent), they really do baffle me.

I live in a (relative to others which have apple stores) small market but we do have an Apple store here and let's just say I am pretty familiar with it. That store sells Macs all day everyday. Really. At a pace that is pretty amazing and that can't possibly be explained by existing Mac users simply upgrading.

I'm not sure how long this marketshare data takes to surface but I would be shocked if the numbers don't improve pretty significantly in the next year... because the sales rate I've seen are not those of a 2% marketshare.

[xtekdiver]

Originally posted by johnnyjibbs
So Jobbs is predicting Microsoft becoming complacent...

I think it's more of an observation than a prediction.