Mac Marketshare Increasing

[theBB]

Let's face it: Apple is a monopoly, but with such a small market share, it is a monopoly that we have freely chosen to deal with. We Mac consumers cannot go to the DOJ and claim we have no alternatives (just because your alternatives suck doesn't mean you don't have them.) If Apple were wildly successful and exceeded this threshold market share, their business model may be interfered with by the government.

First, being a monopoly is not a crime. Using your dominant market power to eliminate competitors in your or other fields could be a crime. It is called "Anti-Trust Act", not "Anti-Monopoly Act."

Yes, Apple is the only supplier if you want to run OSX, but OSX is not a "market." It is one of many operating systems out there. That's like saying Ford is a monopoly, because Ford does not let you buy a Ford from another manufacturer.

 

[milo]

Let's face it: Apple is a monopoly, but with such a small market share, it is a monopoly that we have freely chosen to deal with.

Apple is in no way a monopoly. What would they have a monopoly on, macs? That's like saying toyota has a monopoly on toyotas.

 

[topicolo]

Let's face it: Apple is a monopoly, but with such a small market share, it is a monopoly that we have freely chosen to deal with. We Mac consumers cannot go to the DOJ and claim we have no alternatives (just because your alternatives suck doesn't mean you don't have them.) If Apple were wildly successful and exceeded this threshold market share, their business model may be interfered with by the government.

By definition, having alternatives makes Apple NOT a monopoly.

On a side note, who actually voted negatively for this news item? It makes no sense

 

[JoeG4]

I don't think it will have virtualization, especially with the way they are supporting Parallels solution itself. I think a dual-boot or a fast OS switching type of solution is much more likely. Somebody around here was suggesting "sleeping" one OS and starting another. That's almost good enough. Afterall Apple does not want you to use Windows, it only wants you to believe you could run Windows if you had to, in order to ease switcher anxiety.

I've been planning a project like this (I finally got it on sourceforge, in fact) - The idea is to make the virtualization system able to hibernate any given OS (or freeze state it) in such a way that it can be restored as the host OS (and vice versa), so that you can give any of your OSes running (virtual or host), the host priorities while all the others become virtual.

OTOH, that could be laggy, and may be subject to limitations within EFI, only time will tell.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/fruitsalad/ <- shameless self promotion XD

 

[Marc-Mustang]

What percentage of Apple does Bill Gates own?

I know this does not have much to do with anything in this thread. I have heard Gates owns a some shares of Apple and was wondering how many or what percentage he owns. I have googled, ask jeeves, yahoo and searched this website for 45 minutes for the answer with no luck and thought you all in this thread could shed some light. Thanks for reading.

 

[Bonte]

5-7% is possible. Don't ever expect Apple to get above 10 again though.

At 7% the Mac will gain in momentum and grow to its full potential at 30 to 50% of the home market in probably just a few years, it will never stay at just 7%.

my 2c

 

[diehldun]

Is this "negative" news???

This is fantastic, but why one earth would someone (13 so far) rate this as "negative"?

 

[brepublican]

On a side note, who actually voted negatively for this news item? It makes no sense

Not that I did, but it doesnt have to. Besides, some people feel negatively about Apple's increase in share; there are a few cons...

 

[solvs]

I have heard Gates owns a some shares of Apple and was wondering how many or what percentage he owns.

I don't know how much personally he has, if he even has any, but MS used to own some. It was part of an agreement where Apple agreed to use IE and not sue them in exchange for the promise that Office would still be developed. They bought a sizable amount of stock in Apple, but they were the non-voting variety, so they couldn't get a say in anything. They sold it off some years later when they could, at a large profit I might add.

That was back when Apple wasn't doing so good and MS were feeling the heat from the DOJ.

 

[Marc-Mustang]

Bill Gates Question

Sorry guys. I was asking how much of Apple does Bill Gates actually own via stock, not the market share that Apple has. This info is very hard to find.

 

[CubaTBird]

This is awesome. The fact that Apple has gone above and beyond that 3% that we have seemed to stayed at for so long is most awesome.

 

[gwangung]

By definition, having alternatives makes Apple NOT a monopoly.

Really. We have an awful lot of ill-educated people around here who think they know economics....Wayyyyyyy too many people are saying that with a straight face.

 

[Frisco]

Sorry guys. I was asking how much of Apple does Bill Gates actually own via stock, not the market share that Apple has. This info is very hard to find.

Microsoft bought 150 million in non-voting stock. Hardly a controlling interest. They have since sold most if not all of that stock for a tidy profit. Apple in turn dropped the "Look and Feel" lawsuit (which they weren't going to win anyway) and MS promised updates to "Office" and IE. Microsoft has NO significant financial stake in Apple.

See this

 

[bousozoku]

is this 4.8% for the quarter or 4.8% total market share? if the former, nice, but no big deal; if the latter then very big deal.

It's 4.8 % total market share for the quarter.

It's more than it was and so it is a big deal. However, what matters is sustained growth not incidental spikes. If they continue to grow, they will have mind share as well as market share, especially with companies like Sophos telling consumers to buy Macs to keep their information secure.

Market share is an interesting figure anyway. It doesn't talk about the installed base, only about the very current sales figures.

 

[shen]

Apple produces very high quality machines and that's always going to ding them (ironically) in terms of market share as people will buy new machines less often and because loads of people aren't picking up bargain Macs at Wal-Mart. I know lots of Windows users and they buy new PCs on average every two years. I buy a new Mac on average every 5 years and most Mac users I know do the same. Market share is just meaningless, even when it's positive news.

Besides, Apple deals in the kind of quality that will keep it around for many, many years, regardless of which way its market share is going and that's all that I care about.

it is still odd to me using a Mac after so many years running windows networks and running linux and BSD. i used to upgrade at least parts, and generally whole machines every 14-20 months. now i have a G3 ibook, and it is fast approaching 4 years old, and i have no plans to upgrade for at least 9 months to a year.

when you can buy the low end entry level notebook and get great performance for 3-5 years, why would you upgrade?

....thanks apple!

 

[mrblah]

At 7% the Mac will gain in momentum and grow to its full potential at 30 to 50% of the home market in probably just a few years, it will never stay at just 7%.

50%? Did you forget how much Macs cost? One of the main reasons Dell has such a huge market share is because they are so cost effective and come with great bundles aimed at the average person. 50% of computer users could never afford a Mac.

If Apple can come up with bundles that include a monitor, printer, and scanner while still managing to be priced competitively with Dell then theyd have a chance at Dell level marketshare. Bundling iPods with Macs could be a great program for Apple as well. But they are very far away from offering anything close to what Dell does for that price, and thats what the average person wants (I doubt they are the least bit concerned with Windows, they just want a computer with everything they need).

Apple offers the programs people want, but theyre useless without the hardware to use the programs. They should do more to make it easier for non-computer people to get everything they need at a decent price (unlike shopping through dell.com which gets you good deals on a lot of stuff, shopping through Apple seems to cost more than if you bought the crap seperately)

 

[BenRoethig]

50%? Did you forget how much Macs cost? One of the main reasons Dell has such a huge market share is because they are so cost effective and come with great bundles aimed at the average person. 50% of computer users could never afford a Mac.

He also assumes that everyone else thinks like mac users.

 

[d_and_n5000]

Few years? How about next month or TOMORROW?!

Maybe I was a bit conservativeThis time next year. I'm just saying not too fast becuase bad things happen when companies grow too fast. Can't keep up with demand, can't keep up with expansion, can't keep up with worker volume. Grow gradually, and Apple will have time to adjust to all of these.

Trust me, its for the better to just take it slow.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Microsoft bought 150 million in non-voting stock. Hardly a controlling interest. They have since sold most if not all of that stock for a tidy profit. Apple in turn dropped the "Look and Feel" lawsuit (which they weren't going to win anyway) and MS promised updates to "Office" and IE. Microsoft has NO significant financial stake in Apple.

It had nothing to do with the "look and feel" lawsuit. Apple had lost that one five years earlier. The legal issues still remaining between Apple and Microsoft in 1997 were over multimedia.

Edit: And FWIW, Microsoft's "investment" in Apple amounted to about 5% of their market value at the time, which would hardly have been a controlling interest even if they stock bought them any votes, which it did not. Microsoft is thought to have divested the shares in 2000.

 

[MikeTheC]

My 2¢...

I 100% agree with the sentiment that Apple should not try to have a meteoric growth rate. From what I've seen over the years, a company can grow to any size it wants and be stable, but if it does it too fast (or, frankly, if it does it for the wrong reasons) it becomes unwieldly and unstable, and eventually will die. I know people here will laugh when I say this, but I fully expect to see this phenominon happen to both Wal-Mart and Home Depot, just like it's happened to countless other companies who got too big too quickly.

I firmly believe that marketshare is significant in that it is a make or break for software and peripheral development. It is also significant in that it contributes to overall "mindshare". Now, you can accept or reject "mindshare" if you like, but it absolutely has an effect because people believe it is important.

Furthermore, I have issues with the comments about marketshare increase alone as a primary contributor to getting Macs back into schools. The reason I have a problem with that is that school boards and school superintendants are typically in the back pocket of the IT staffs of the district, and so many of those staffs out there are all MS-heads. Until you can replace those folks (not convert, not convince, but replace) you're hardly likely to see much penetration into the educational market.

And with both businesses and schools, it's incredibly ironic that they cling -- positively cling -- to Microsoft and all things Microsoft and only things Microsoft, even despite the tide of spyware, malware, viruses and incessant security hole exploitation. I mean, they'll bitch and moan about all the holes they had to patch and all the viruses they had to contend with and all the maintenance issues which fill up their day, but mention "Macintosh" just once and they'll immediately jump on the bandwagon of "Anything not made by Microsoft sucks. Oh, and Macs doubly suck, and nobody uses them, and there isn't any software for them, and they just crash all the time." Yadda yadda yadda. Geez, if I had a nickle for everytime I heard that crap come out of the mouth of an allegedly-savvy IT guy...

Anyhow, one factor of significant import is Linux's market share, which is now either equal to or slightly in excess of Apple's. It's a good thing, on the one hand, because it means that competition is alive and well in the OS marketplace. But it also should serve as a wake-up call to Apple. They should know full-well what this means, since they're (at least to a degree) in bed with the Open Source crowd.

 

[guzhogi]

Furthermore, I have issues with the comments about marketshare increase alone as a primary contributor to getting Macs back into schools. The reason I have a problem with that is that school boards and school superintendants are typically in the back pocket of the IT staffs of the district, and so many of those staffs out there are all MS-heads. Until you can replace those folks (not convert, not convince, but replace) you're hardly likely to see much penetration into the educational market.

I'm the techie guy at an elementary school and 99.9% of all the computers in the district (not just my school, the entire district) are Macs. The last director of technology was really pro-Mac, along w/ a lot of the other schools' techies, which was a good thing. However, the kindergarten teacher @ my school has some peecees which she got on a grant to run some Windows only software (but didn't get them set-up since, according to the last director of technology, didn't fit into the district's technology plans). Also, each techie is getting a MacBook w/ dual boot because we're going to a new program that rates how well the kids to in reading & math where you can see the progress online, but the only way you can upload the results is on Windows. Boo!!! That's one reason why Macs still have low marketshare: no programs. It's a chicken & the egg problem. Mac marketshare won't go significantly up until more software is ported, but not very much software will be ported until mac marketshare is up.

One problem with increased market share is that there will be more attacks on them. One of the Mac's sources of security is security through obscurity. So, why go after an OS that only has 5% marketshare while another OS has 90%? I don't know whether Windows or Macs are more secure in terms of actual bugs and security holes, but we probably would if Windows & Macs get equal marketshare.

There are two main reasons that I know of to hack into computers, write viruses, or something: (1) to gain entry to a computer to get files, damage the company's infrastructure or (2) to be a jackass. The first one is probably for personal gain and Macs may be a target, the second to make yourself feel good at other people's expense and would probably be Windows-based to inflict the most damage. Anyone want to add something, be my guest.

 

[Lollypop]

well there are two market share stats that are at issue here. one is hardware sales, and one is OS X usage.

i.e. I have a mac mini, but it doesn't have X on it. It runs solely windows 2003 server with a couple of virtual servers on it also running windows 2003. It's dead quiet so i can run it in my room 24/7. so it's a hardware sale, but not using X.

I built a macbook for a client running XP only since that's what is required for work. i think more and more we will see apple hardware being bought for use with windows -- people who like the aesthetics but prefer to continue to use their current software library and/or have work restrictions.

-Wes

This statement worries me, yes a increased market share is good, but in the end I want it to be for the entire platform, the hardware and OS X! I run Parrallels for a few ancient windows only games but even then I somehow feel like Im betraying my decision to use OS X, I just hope leopord is a big success and that more and more cool apps are writen to keep people trying OS X and not windows.

Out of interest, why havn't you tried OS X server? Is there a specific reason you went with Windows 2003 server?

 

[BenRoethig]

This statement worries me, yes a increased market share is good, but in the end I want it to be for the entire platform, the hardware and OS X! I run Parrallels for a few ancient windows only games but even then I somehow feel like Im betraying my decision to use OS X, I just hope leopord is a big success and that more and more cool apps are writen to keep people trying OS X and not windows.

Out of interest, why havn't you tried OS X server? Is there a specific reason you went with Windows 2003 server?

I think the low marketshare for OSX is working against OSX server. It is, however, a problem of Apple's own making.

 

[gnasher729]

I know this does not have much to do with anything in this thread. I have heard Gates owns a some shares of Apple and was wondering how many or what percentage he owns. I have googled, ask jeeves, yahoo and searched this website for 45 minutes for the answer with no luck and thought you all in this thread could shed some light. Thanks for reading.

Zero.

 

[gnasher729]

50%? Did you forget how much Macs cost? One of the main reasons Dell has such a huge market share is because they are so cost effective and come with great bundles aimed at the average person. 50% of computer users could never afford a Mac.

What third world country are you living in, where 50% of computer users could never afford a Mac?