Market Share thoughts...
Originally posted by soggywulf
Unfortunately, this strategy hasn't paid off in market share. They are indeed losing switchers and even losing loyal customers, by not being competitive. Lower market share makes their computers less attractive and more expensive. Part of the desirability of a computer is performance and snappiness.
(Apologies in advance for spelling/grammar errors...)
In my uneducated opinion, this is what i see...
The car analogy is quite a fitting one, rarely is any worrying heard about BMW's market share etc. They differentiate their product based on their heritage, quality but still are in touch with their pricing.
It seems that the Windows based machines appear to offer greater value for money in terms of performance. This is because performance is measured through quantifiable variables, processor speed being the most important of those. These variables together with price is used to differentiate most mainstream PC manufacturers or assemblers. Style does play a part in certain parts of the consumer and professional market, such as the Sony Vaio range amongst others.
But compare this against the way cars are sold and we see a disparity, frequently, they are protrayed as a lifestyle product illustrating the intangible benefits of a product.
As we are aware, "the megahertz myth isn't true", more cycles per second doesn't neccesarily mean a greater performance. So why are computers not sold with some other, more meaningful performance comparison, perhaps a benchmark score? Maybe it is because the common user has grown to understand that larger numbers in their computer is better, 2ghz worse than 3, 512 ram better than 128 etc. and so selling to this broadly understood principle is a good idea.
But as we move forward a few new trends are beginning to emerge,
1. Most importantly, platform is becoming irrelevant, computers are becoming a tool to view data. We are caring less and less about where our data is stored or how, just so long as we can access and manipulate it from anywhere. (This fits David Gelertner's model of computers becoming like a telescope, i.e. the telescope doesn't hold the stars inside it, it just lets you look at them)
2. The consumer market is beginning to appreciate the intangible. The switch campaign really highlights this, users expect reliable, safe, and trouble free computing.
3. The prosumer/professional market is now demanding the intangible. Reliability, strength and robustness are demanded.
When we look at these, it seems that Apple products represent good value for money in terms of the total cost of ownership, it just works is a common theme amongst apple users... statistically speaking, being more reliable means lower ongoing costs; more consideration for the user by providing a more intelligent interface means less learning which is all good for improving your productivity which again saves money.
For individuals that examine the TCO, Apple appears to be a sound choice. Reliability nearly always beats out and out performance. I would've given up nice animated right click menus and so on in Windows many times over if i hadn't lost a whole couple of hours work a day before a deadline because Word 97 didn't do it's autorecover thing properly (hands up if that happened to you too).
So going to the point about Apple not being competitive, i would say that they are considering the total cost, their hardware is well thought out (and it looks nice) and they present a compelling set of features in their operating system and the applications that are available.
I think market share, although not quite irrelevant, is not as important as it appears. If Apple did have a larger market share, it would have found far harder to innovate in the way it has done. A smaller pool of users allows you to throw away the rule book and challenge preconceptions, and there i think Apple suceeds beyond all others. I find it hard to see how Windows could have successfully migrate all users to a completely new system with such a large share. It not be advantageous as you point out from a business sense, after all, fewer users means fewer sales.
But even the sharpist businessman has to note, there is something special about this company, an ability to innovate in such a way that is almost rare, capturing the minds and interest that far exceeds it's number of users.
