Not saying their doomed, I'm stating two facts,
1. They look like fools for the hardware that they offer right now,
In front of the consumers that have been handing them record quarters in a recession, or in front of consumers who are already putting Apple on track for record sales this quarter?
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/16/npd-strong-mac-and-ipod-sales-in-march-quarter-so-far/
Or do they only look like fools on Mac forums, which is about as meaningful as a pair of thermal underwear in Death Valley at high noon.
2. They are losing money from this delay no question. Not all Mac users are die hards, many are on the fence, and this is pushing them onto the PC lawn. Microsoft made the biggest blunder they could with Vista, and now that they are past that, they are raging back with 7. Best sales out of the gate of any operating system ever. Major consensus is that it's great. People are getting happy with Microsoft again. Vista was the biggest blessing Apple had in the last 5 years. And they used it well, but now 7 is here, and people like it. = Problems for Apple.
They're losing money even though consumers are buying at an excellent rate (according to the latest NPD numbers)? Better call Tim Cook and tell him the bad news! LOL
Its already been shown that Windows 7 has had no effect on Mac sales. The only problem for Apple is figuring out how to spend all that extra cash on hand. Apple has the Premium end locked, with MS
locked out of it.
As for Winblows sales, everything looks impressive after Vista.
It's hundreds of millions of PC users waiting for the Vista nightmare to be over. What did you expect? Poor sales of Windows 7?? What are the alternatives offered by MS? XP and Vista. One is an 8+ year old dog of an OS, the other is a massive flop. That's hundreds of millions of PC users dying for an upgrade after years of getting the shaft. And Apple's Premium end of the market has natural barriers to entry, starting with the $1000 minimum fee. Apple doesn't compete in the market segments occupied mostly by MS. Of course, Apple is now transitioning away from the traditional desktop computer + desktop OS paradigm.
PC users outnumber all others, and always have, whether MS released a good OS or a lousy one - PCs are cheap and now more disposable than ever (netbooks.) The bottom of the retail pyramid is always the widest. The biggest computer-using segment uses PCs. Now throw in an OS that fixes Vista and by sheer force of numbers alone (volume) you'll have a great quarter.
There's no miracle here. Just the massive number of PC users who suffered for years, now jumping at the chance to upgrade. It's nothing new, miraculous or groundbreaking. BUT . . . MS *did* release a Windows that lives up to their expectations, and they deserve all the credit in the world for that. It's a shame that it took this long, though. Right now, Windows is really all MS has going for it in the consumer market. And I think it will be enough to help MS ride out the difficulties they're experiencing in their other consumer-oriented ventures. It should allow them some breathing room to develop their mobile segment and give investors a good reason to maintain their confidence.
It makes no difference whether any one version of Windows succeeds or fails. PC users, by virtue of the low cost of entry into the PC market alone, will always outnumber users of all other platforms. Windows will always sell well, in whatever form, because it can run on the cheapest hardware - and this is what you find the most of. But now, we're seeing highly concentrated sales of a particular version (good news) because everyone was waiting to upgrade and end the XP/Vista pain, which lasted far, far too long.
