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Q2 Mac Shipments Outpacing Industry?
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VicMacs said:
YES! Midgets that use Macs! I love it...
wait... is it Dwarves? Little People? Midgets? I think they don't like one of those terms... sorry if I offended someone...
I've wondered how the comparative Mac/Wintel/AMD sales percentages look
if you only consider 2005 computer sales.
if you only consider 2005 computer sales.
aethier said:
Ummm...not 1 billion computers, but $1 Billion in sales. Or about 5 million Powerbooks and Powermacsor 20 million Mac Minis.
aswitcher said:
Of course, market share numbers are wonky, but theyfor whatever reasoncarry weight with games and software developers, as well as peripherial makers, so a nice increase would be really helpful in proving that the Mac platform is a viable and long term business to be in.
It's not a good metric, but is unfortunately the one a lot of people pay attention to.
adamjay said:
This is just plain stupid. Do you really believe that R&D dollars are what's holding Apple back from introducing a PB G5? Apple has never skimped on R&D, they spend more than most. Were you aware they have $6 BILLION in cash and no debt?
rikers_mailbox said:Speaking of. . .
When are Q2 earnings posted? I always forget where I can find that info. . this "internet" thing is just too BIG!
http://www.apple.com/investor/
Market share...
The thing about Market Share is that the submarkets are more important to Apple.
Apple's strengths are in the Education, Publishing, Graphic and Video markets. It has been pushing to keep its strengths there after a period where their dominance was eroding. Which is why, I think the eMac will stay. It fits its role, especially in the K-12 realm. iMacs and Mac minis are great for college dorm rooms. OS X is a great OS for science and academic research with its UNIX underpinnings. The G5s have helped as well and in keeping the graphic/video/publishing markets. The software is there in these markets for the Macs because Apple is strong (and for research many UNIX programs have easily crossed over).
The corporate market is not one Apple has gone for. This is where Apple looses a great deal of overall marketshare. Companies tend to buy and replace computers at a faster rate than home users plus there is a greater tendency to have one computer/ person, which means the corporate market makes up a large portion of the overall computer market. Apple is weak here and therefore you don't the same selection of corporate software for the Macs as you do for Windows. What hurts Apple though is 3rd Party peripherals. The overwhelming dominance of Windows in the office setting, means many peripherals are for Windows machines. Apple in the near future will not be able to grow much in this market.
Where Apple needs to expand is the consumer market and this is where it is pushing with iMacs and Mac minis. If it can grow here, then more software will become available that people use (though Macs have pretty much any software anyone needs at home, though choice is always nice). It will also mean more peripherals will become available.
Apple is also looking to increase its share in the server market. The gaming market is one Apple hasn't addressed. It is a tough market. There are Wintel computer companies that are specialized for this market and there is the competition with the game consoles so it is understandable why Apple is not specifically pushing here.
Basically if Apple can keep and reclaim their dominance in their main markets and expand in the consumer market than it will be in good shape regardless of overall market share.
The thing about Market Share is that the submarkets are more important to Apple.
Apple's strengths are in the Education, Publishing, Graphic and Video markets. It has been pushing to keep its strengths there after a period where their dominance was eroding. Which is why, I think the eMac will stay. It fits its role, especially in the K-12 realm. iMacs and Mac minis are great for college dorm rooms. OS X is a great OS for science and academic research with its UNIX underpinnings. The G5s have helped as well and in keeping the graphic/video/publishing markets. The software is there in these markets for the Macs because Apple is strong (and for research many UNIX programs have easily crossed over).
The corporate market is not one Apple has gone for. This is where Apple looses a great deal of overall marketshare. Companies tend to buy and replace computers at a faster rate than home users plus there is a greater tendency to have one computer/ person, which means the corporate market makes up a large portion of the overall computer market. Apple is weak here and therefore you don't the same selection of corporate software for the Macs as you do for Windows. What hurts Apple though is 3rd Party peripherals. The overwhelming dominance of Windows in the office setting, means many peripherals are for Windows machines. Apple in the near future will not be able to grow much in this market.
Where Apple needs to expand is the consumer market and this is where it is pushing with iMacs and Mac minis. If it can grow here, then more software will become available that people use (though Macs have pretty much any software anyone needs at home, though choice is always nice). It will also mean more peripherals will become available.
Apple is also looking to increase its share in the server market. The gaming market is one Apple hasn't addressed. It is a tough market. There are Wintel computer companies that are specialized for this market and there is the competition with the game consoles so it is understandable why Apple is not specifically pushing here.
Basically if Apple can keep and reclaim their dominance in their main markets and expand in the consumer market than it will be in good shape regardless of overall market share.
rdowns said:
It is pretty amazing. Not long ago it was $4B, now it is $6B. At a 10% rate of return Apple could fund its R&D (a little over $500M) just on their investments.
I wonder why Steve is piling up this much cash? The first couple of billion made sense. It was a great buffer and stabilized the stock price. It now looks like they have more cash than needed. Would they use it for acquisitions? With the stock price high like it is it would seem a better idea to do acquisitions via a stock swap. Maybe Steve has his eye on a large target which will require a combination of stock and cash?
I smell an acquisition (or 2 or 3) by Apple in the coming months. I haven't the foggiest idea who Apple will try to acquire though.neutrino23 said:
dongmin said:
You might be surprised as to how many HIGHER end Macs are selling we have bought close to 2000 ourselves.
1835 of them Xserves 30 or so Power Books and the rest Power Macs
Obviously that is small in comparison to overall sales but if we are buying a lot I would expect we are not the only ones. I had an Infiniband dealer tell me of a Cluster in the Oil & Gas Ind. That is currently at 1600 Processors that will grow to 6000 by the second quarter 2006. Thats a chunk of Xserves.
neutrino23 said:
As a car accessory, the Mac Mini needs a couple of things. First, a decent interface with the car's computer, to monitor the various things happening with the car. And second, a radar/laser detector. It would be pretty funny to tie that in with a GPS unit to see where the "Bacon" is.
I did a quick search trying to compare Apple 2005 Q1 sales to Dell
and it looks like Apple is doing far better than single digits overall.
Dell's 2005 1st quarter results indicate $13.4 B in revenue
compared to Apple overall revenues @ $3.4 Billion
This is why I wanted to know only current year 2005 market share sales figures rather than including all previous sales.
The figures I would like to see are actual CPU sales rather than
a mixed product total.
Just curious
and it looks like Apple is doing far better than single digits overall.
Dell's 2005 1st quarter results indicate $13.4 B in revenue
compared to Apple overall revenues @ $3.4 Billion
This is why I wanted to know only current year 2005 market share sales figures rather than including all previous sales.
The figures I would like to see are actual CPU sales rather than
a mixed product total.
Just curious
Radar/laser detectors aren't legal in some places (at least in certain U.S. states they aren't). I haven't the foggiest idea how to get the Mac mini and the car's computer to talk to each other.Lynxpro said:As a car accessory, the Mac Mini needs a couple of things. First, a decent interface with the car's computer, to monitor the various things happening with the car. And second, a radar/laser detector. It would be pretty funny to tie that in with a GPS unit to see where the "Bacon" is.
Apple should not drop the price too much as this will start to impact on the overall quality of their products.
Apple have to walk a very narrow line between sales prices and quality of product. This is something they are doing well. You may need to save a bit more to get a Mac or iPod but they will work way past a PCs usability. Remember, most of the problems that PCs have is BECAUSE they are cheap.
Ask your self. Why do people buy computers? They buy computers to do tasks of the moment like email, web, word processing and perhaps some photoshop. The computer you get will always be able to do these things for you. The problem comes when the next version of the software comes out, or you want the next big game to play.
It is human nature to want the new nice shiny things in life. However, when you buy a Mac you can use it for that much longer. I have been using an iMac since 1999 for graphic design work and only now am I looking to upgrade to a G5 tower (nice shiny and new). The iMac will then be handed down to my cousin, plus the latest OS that it is running as she heads off to Uni. Not bad hu!
Apple have to walk a very narrow line between sales prices and quality of product. This is something they are doing well. You may need to save a bit more to get a Mac or iPod but they will work way past a PCs usability. Remember, most of the problems that PCs have is BECAUSE they are cheap.
Ask your self. Why do people buy computers? They buy computers to do tasks of the moment like email, web, word processing and perhaps some photoshop. The computer you get will always be able to do these things for you. The problem comes when the next version of the software comes out, or you want the next big game to play.
It is human nature to want the new nice shiny things in life. However, when you buy a Mac you can use it for that much longer. I have been using an iMac since 1999 for graphic design work and only now am I looking to upgrade to a G5 tower (nice shiny and new). The iMac will then be handed down to my cousin, plus the latest OS that it is running as she heads off to Uni. Not bad hu!
G.Kirby said:
Not necessarily. They could just lower their margins a bit. Just got my Mac Mini, and even though it's a cheap computer, it feels like a hi-end piece of equipment! Seriously, as far as "feel" and looks are concerned, it could easily cost 2-4 times as much as it does!
I am seriously in love with that machine!
It does feel like apple are developing a battle chest full of cash for some reason. And yes they could drop their margin a bit but at the end of the day they are running a business. I cant help think that they have some investment plans. Either that or Steve Jobs is sat on top of the large pile of cash, rubbing his hands and laughing like Doctor evil.
wrldwzrd89 said:
I suspect something related to delivering HDTV video content to the Mac (both home and business).
Some good candidates are TiVo, El Gato, Canopus, Netflix, etc.
When the Mac mini was rumored, I bought some stock in TiVo and NetFlix as speculation.
There is a lot of jockeying around (by various companies) in the Computer/TV/HDTV/Movie Rental marketplace.
TiVo's box runs Linux, is programmable thru a Java SDK, and has a large subscriber base of loyal users, and a legendary, industry-leading PVR UI. (Plans for HDTV next year).
NetFlix is the current leader in DVD Movie rental through the Mail (Plans for Online delivery (VOD) next year).
To see what all the fuss is about, (yesterday) I bought a TiVo and a 17" flat-panel TV to connect to my Mac mini.
My goal is to have an inexpensive computer/media center combo in a single box... (not quite there yet).
The TiVo is pretty easy to setup (as Video Recorders go) but not as easy as a Mac.
I haven't really had a chance to play, yet, but my initial impressions:
1) This is a whole lot more complicated than it needs to be
2) The TiVo box seems superfluous, the Mac mini could easily handle the software (given a tuner and video interface)
3) The Mac mini has a DVD player/burner (NA on the TV or TiVo)
4) The 17" TV does a surprisingly good job as a computer display at 1280x1024.
5) The remote control(s) are the key components of the UI
6) While the TiVo has a very good remote for its function, you still must use the TV remote if you want to record and view different shows concurrently-- then if you want to switch to the computer, you need the mouse/kb.
I do like the fact that you can pause (if you remember) a TV show you are watching on TiVo, then switch to the computer display (or direct TV) for a few minutes-- then back to TiVo to resume watching the show.
But, here I was, sitting on my bed with a wireless kb, wireless mouse, a TiVo remote, and a TV remote... a lot of fumbling around. (BTW, Apple's wireless mouse works just fine on striped sheets).
The whole experience had me longing for a simpler, more-integrated UI-- something like an iPod clickwheel (for selections) a 10-keypad for channel input, and a chordset for character input.
All-in-all, I like the capabilities I have in this kludge of hardware, but it should be a lot easier to use.
The company that resolves this is going to make a lot of money.
The one company that could do it right is Apple.
Lynxpro said:
Ummm dude. NO. NO NO NO NO NO. Leave the car's internal computer alone.
What a car Mac needs is a rugged hard drive. In the summer time my cars internal temp gets into the 90's-100's. In the winter time its in the negative zero or colder area. We had about -20* earlier this winter. This is supremely hard on a hard drive. Hard drives aren't designed to take that kind of abuse. The rest of the system can probably handle those extremes without too many problems but I can guarantee you that people installing these systems who don't live in temperate climates will have a failed hard drive within a couple years.
dont24 said:Bought my first Mac, a mini, last weekend. No iPod yet. But very soon
How will Apple know we are former PC users? Does Apple have some type of survey?
Go here and tell Apple your story:
http://www.apple.com/switch/tell/us.html
wrldwzrd89 said:
Speeding is illegal too. So what?
The same goes for the license plate spray that confuses the red light cameras.Just imagine the fun that could be had. A laser/radar detector that senses where the beam is coming from (to a certain degree). The detector tells the Mac Mini the info. The Mac Mini grabs the GPS coordinates from a GPS plug-in device. Using Bluetooth, the Mac Mini fires this information across your mobile phone's *cellular* (GPRS, Edge, whatever) network to access the net. It reports the data and grabs what other users have reported.
It would operate like KissMac (or Kismit on Linux) does when using GPS and cell phones to report open wifi access points to the rest of the war driving community.
I decree this program shall be called "Bacon Bits mini"...
SiliconAddict said:
I must totally disagree. Being able to read the automobiles internal computer codes is beneficial for the car owner. This gives the owner an extra layer of knowledge as to whether or not there are problems with the car, and it serves as a check against unscrupulous automobile dealers and independent shops who currently are able to read the information the car is reporting. I know there are a couple of programs on the Windows side that allows this, but I am not familiar with any on OS X.
Furthermore, if this sort of stuff took off, it would increase the chances of cracking the proprietary report codes that some manufacturers are using to lock customers in and prevent independent shops from competing effectively.
The option of boosting "performance on-the-fly" comes a distant second to what I just wrote.
It's "Kismac" not "Kissmac", BTW. If I were building such a device, I'd add 802.11n WiMAX transmission capabilities (when the standard is finalized, of course) so my results could go even farther.Lynxpro said:Speeding is illegal too. So what?
Just imagine the fun that could be had. A laser/radar detector that senses where the beam is coming from (to a certain degree). The detector tells the Mac Mini the info. The Mac Mini grabs the GPS coordinates from a GPS plug-in device. Using Bluetooth, the Mac Mini fires this information across your mobile phone's *cellular* (GPRS, Edge, whatever) network to access the net. It reports the data and grabs what other users have reported.
It would operate like KissMac (or Kismit on Linux) does when using GPS and cell phones to report open wifi access points to the rest of the war driving community.
I decree this program shall be called "Bacon Bits mini"...