... but without the Dell increase, the "industry as a whole" would have shrunk rather than expanded.
No, I think the point is that if Dell didn't grow, somebody else would have picked up the slack. They're poaching share from each other-- "competing" in other words... PCs are commodities. Macs are single sourced.
Only that you seem intent on confusing the issue of market share with that of market size.
I have to say that you seem intent on confusing what he's confusing. Earlier you thought it was "profound" vs "greater" influence, then you thought it was the use of "industry as a whole", now market "share" versus "size".
What Reilly's saying makes sense. It is not the lone conclusion to be drawn from incomplete data, but I haven't heard him suggest that it was. All he's saying is that if you break the table down by product rather than by manufacturer, Macs have a disproportionate impact on the growth of the industry.
If you want to nit pick, you can ask how many of those Macs were actually bought to run Windows, and therefore are not distinct products from the other manufacturers...
no, why? im comparing the shipping market shares, not shipping #s, its apple against others, not apple against itself in this comparison?
I think comparison of same Q of each year is to check the growth of the company itself, not to compare against other companies. Did I not get this right?😕
I think you got it in a later post but what your 3 quarters of numbers didn't capture, I think, is that Apple is selling to different customers than the others. Business purchases (a large fraction of Windows sales) runs on a different schedule, than education sales (a large fraction of Apple's market). So if you look at the school season sales, Apple's share will appear bigger, and if you look at January when most corporate budgets start, Apple will appear smaller.