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Hi from another kiwi ;-)

I understand what you mean, and when you have companies like "The PC Company" producing reasonable machines at reasonable prices people question why they should pay a premium for a machine that doesn't do anything better than their the one that is cheaper.

ps. What is Jetstart like? do they still have that $29.95 unlimited special or have they scraped it?

I know enough people coming from linux, first being happy with OS X and now switching back. Others who look at G5s whom I talked to think that those are actually overpowered for their normal use. funny eh? first underpowered, now overpowered. What remained the same is the complaint that Macs are overpriced. So where does Apple go from here? no idea, see if I care.

I know enough people coming from linux, first being happy with OS X and now switching back. Others who look at G5s whom I talked to think that those are actually overpowered for their normal use. funny eh? first underpowered, now overpowered. What remained the same is the complaint that Macs are overpriced. So where does Apple go from here? no idea, see if I care.

They need to update their consumer line of products and they should have done it when they released the PowerMac G5. Another year, x86 will reach 4.0Ghz soon and the Mac crowd will still try to pull the "My G4 can out perform your 4Ghz P4 according to foobah benchmark".

"damn, i think you're the only person to ever udder that line "

I had a 1000TL2 and a 2500XL. Those where fine computer for their times. I am not the only one that liked those computers.

Stupid people....

Quote:
"Apple also needs to understand that we're not all on Steve Job's vast salary (which in itself quite inflates the price of Macs)"

Steve Jobs salary is US$ 1.00
That's one dollar
Total revenue last quarter was $1,545,000,000 so his salary adds about $.0000000006 to each item sold.

From Apple financials, proxy statement accessible at http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/NSD/AAPL/Proxy_statement_... or from Apple.com

"Steve Jobs salary is US$ 1.00 "

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3203

As a Capitalist I need something that WORKS, not something that crashes 3 times a day, and seems to believe it's my fault for clicking on a link on a website.

Wow! I always hear this rationale thrown around for the dominance of Windows vs Mac, but to quite honest I've owned both and never really saw an appreciable difference in the number of crashes beween the two. The fact that your PC crashes 3 times a day is not a product of Windows -- that is not normal. You're probably messing up somewhere along the line.

you need to look at that link you gave more. especialy below the salary table and the bit labled (1)

it goes into the reciving a 90million dollar jet and so forth. The one dollar thing is for show, and for avoiding lots of taxes.

I have to agree with others who have said that it's Apple's own marketing and brand image that has determined their small market share. OS X is great, but they target themselves towards a small section of the population, and so (by and large) that's what they get.

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, but it usually comes up: anyone who hopes OS X is ever going to be ported to x86 is going to be disappointed. One of the reasons Mac OS X is so much easier to deal with than Windows (or Linux for that matter) is because of the (semi) fixed hardware platform. Port to x86 and you're going to have to support the myriad hardware combinations, and support doesn't just mean code and drivers, it means tech support as well. Add to this that it would completely decimate the market for their own hardware. It'll never happen.

Regarding Windows crashes, I have seen plenty of Windows 2000 crashes (server and pro). Not nearly as many as Windows 9x, but they do happen. No idea about XP as I don't use it on a daily basis. Also, I would have to say an instant reboot in the middle of operation has got to be a hardware issue or a bad driver. TV cards are a big favourite for this one.

Sure, the mac is probably a very good computer. But if I'd get a 2:nd computer into my house I'd want something that can run the Mount Everest of software CD:s I've got stacked up against the wall.

I don't know if you've ever checked out Virtual PC for the Mac, but that is a very very nice app. I used it for two years without any major issues with my entire Everest-sized stack of PC software. Since the latest release, things have only gotten better.

XP is stable, especially if you use Mozilla.

I have had awful experiences with OS8-9 Macs. They were slow, unstable, crappy. At any large university, they were the machines no one wanted.

Things are different now with both OSes.

That's funny, I'm a student and I bought an iBook. Compact, good battery life, sturdy, full featured and Mac OS X is just sweet. Unix with a decent graphical interface. Quite frankly, it's not that expensive and gives a very good quality.

I just got rid of my iBook for reasons that had nothing to do with its quality. On the PC vs. Apple laptop front, Apple has a clear victory IMO. Having used one versus the other, the iBook shines versus a similarly spec'd PC laptop. If I had to buy another (errrr, if I could), then it would be the iBook. Desktops on the other hand...

Hard to build market-share during a recession without cutting prices and offering more features for less money. And cutting your margins.

Dell looked at hard times and said "We're going to use this opportunity to drive our competitors into the ground -- because we want to be the Microsoft of hardware vendors."

Apple is not in that position. Its whole product line is designed and priced to maintain margins -- not draw in new customers with great values.

An additional problem is OSX -- which requires lots of CPU power and RAM. If Apple only had OS 9, customers could get away with buying a lot less powerful computer without worrying about it becoming obsolete.

I'm not suggesting Apple push OS 9, just pointing out that OSX's hardware needs are an additional obstacle to getting prices to attractive levels for new customers.

http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/execupay.html Among executives at 100 of the largest companies that had filed proxy statements for 2002, the biggest earner last year was Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, who pulled in $78.1 million while his investors’ return slumped by 34.6%.

http://biz.yahoo.com/fin/l/a/aapl.html Apple made a miserable $3 million net profit in 2002.

SJ is bleeding Apple dry and failing to perform as well.

"An additional problem is OSX -- which requires lots of CPU power and RAM. If Apple only had OS 9, customers could get away with buying a lot less powerful computer without worrying about it becoming obsolete.

I'm not suggesting Apple push OS 9, just pointing out that OSX's hardware needs are an additional obstacle to getting prices to attractive levels for new customers."

And Windows 95 runs very well on a a 32MB 486/66 - so what. OS9 is absolute crap..no protected memory and no premeptive multitasking...a greyscale GUI. Linux on Mac is far better than OS9.

>>As a Capitalist I need something that WORKS, not something that crashes 3 times a day, and seems to believe it's my fault for clicking on a link on a website. <<

A myth. This may have been true with Windows-95. But I use XP all day long, and I have never had a crach. Windows-2000 is even more reliable.

http://www.macnn.com/news/16656&startNumber=10 Apple CEO Steve Jobs was the highest paid executive in the second quarter of 2002 with a bonus of more than $43.5 million (although he received no salary), according to the Executive Compensation Index released by the ERI.

1) Price

2) Compatability

#1 is largely the reason most don't adopt, or switch to a Mac. If you're a geek (as many readers here are), then you can appreciate a lot of what a Mac brings to the table (Everything from the cool new G5 case down to the robustness of a Unix-based backend).

If you're Ma and Pa Kettle, or even their son, Junior Kettle, you simply want to type your term papers, track your bank account, surf the web, and send your email, etc.

Realistically, a P233 will handle these chores fairly well. When you consider that you can get a fairly well decked out low-priced PC (We'll say for $300-$400) that comes with a 2.5Ghz CPU for less than $400.00 (http://www.pricewatch.com/1/43/4829-1.htm), this meets the need quite well.

Contrast that with a $799.00 low-end Mac (which will admittedly come with a built in monitor, if we're talking eMac) which comes in at a measley 800mhz (http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/702...), and you can see why people jump on the PC bandwagon.

And you can't argue the usual diatribe about Macs doing more per clock cycle than a PC because the Kettles don't know or care about that.

They simply want a PC that works, and the numbers on the PC speak much louder than those of a Mac to the average user. Hell, they could buy a very nice used 21" monitor for their system for another $150.00 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2742819079&categ...), they'll still walk away with a couple hundred in their pocket when contrasted to the cheapest Apple.

Apple has to get off their high horse of "You're paying so much for the quality that a Mac brings to your computing experience", and realize that if they want to attract the average user, they'll need more than high prices, and obnoxious ads with people we don't care about (remember the "Switch" ads awhile ago?).

The second issue (#2), compatability, is another major issue for people.

Most people who buy a PC today have either worked on one before (at the office, in school, or on an older machine that they're replacing), or have friends and relatives who have a PC. This is kind of a "safe haven" for people who aren't too up on computer technology, but who know that they want to surf the web, and so on.

Think about it... If you're even moderately knowledgeable about PC's, you've likely have friends and relatives contact you for assistance of one sort or another ("My PC's doing <this>... What's it mean?").

Similarly, these same friends and relatives (and to a large extent, offices) often have software that they are willing to loan out, and/or copy for their friends. I'm not saying this is ethical, but it is realistic.

Thus when buying a new PC, how many "non-computer" people, who are already worried about spending their hard earned $400, are likely to buy a computer which no one else they know owns, and which will not run any of their existing software, or their friends software?

Yes, people can buy comperable Mac software to replace most of their PC software, but add that cost to the already high price of a Mac, and you've got an even bigger arguement for sticking with an x86 PC.

You and I might be saving for a dual-G5, but for most of the computing world (again, average user. Not people reading this site or Slashdot), they probably aren't even aware of the pending G-5's that we're all raving about.

Apple could remedy this a couple of ways...

The most obvious: Cut prices on the their systems. Now. Yesterday. Soon...

Next step: This is one which they may have missed the boat on, but they should purchase a PC emulation company, and integrate the ability to run x86 software into their OS (or at the very least, offer it as a $49.95 addon, and heavily advertise this fact).

Yes, some will argue that this will create less of a reason for people to develop Mac specific software, but I would argue that it will not as PC-emulation would not take advantage of the Mac's unique features, nor would it likely run quite as fast as a native Mac app.

What it will do is allow those same purchasers to see that they don't have to immediately purchase all new software if they go with a Mac.

True, the Kettles probably still won't be able to call up their computer-savy friends and ask them for Mac specific help, but they can still contact them for application specific help, which would be kind of a security blanket for potential buyers.

Basically, this would allow anyone to buy a Mac, immediately start using it as needed with existing software, which they're likely familiar with, and then they could pick up the Mac specifics as they do their normal computing duties. Once they're used to a Mac, they'll start investigating software which exploits more of the Macs unique features, and eventually switch to more Mac software.

I think Apple missed the boat on this though due to Microsoft's purchase of the the manufacturer of Virtual PC, which is to my knowledge one of the best PC emulators for the Mac. They'd either now have to write such a beast themselves, or purchase one of the up and coming emulators. I am firmly convinced that such features would speed the adoption rate of the Mac though.

Perhaps Apples happy being a niche player, but they sure give the impression of a company trying to get back in the game w/regards to the average computer users. I just don't foresee this happening without some changes as per the above.

//Take for example viruses. Most users don't realize they can run OS X or Linux and not worry about them//

Really?

Boy, I'm glad you don't work in my IT department.

SJ is bleeding Apple dry and failing to perform as well.

He did the same at Next.

http://dpsinfo.com/essays/next.html

//The Tandy's where good stuff. There rest... //

Good grief. If a FREAKING TANDY WAS THE BEST computer you've ever used, you've got a lot to learn about PC's.

That's about as dumb as saying:

"Of the last 9 cars I've bought, 7 of them sucked. The Chevy Citations were good stuff. The rest ... "

// I had a 1000TL2 and a 2500XL. Those where fine computer for their times. I am not the only one that liked those computers. //

If those were the best you've ever used, then we must assume you haven't used a _quality_ PC in the last nine years.

Perhaps Jobs is a little too worried about making money for himself. I'd really like to see Apple get on top just because OS X is so damn cool. The whole "switch" thing was stupid because on TV it never showed the OS in action. Perhaps releasing a very limited version of OS X for PC would be a good idea. This way if people were very attracted to the OS and wanted to do more with it, they would be forced to buy a Mac. Or what about even a demo version of OS X for PC. To push the demo CD, Apple could say "This is what you can do with a mac" by letting people experience it for themselves. However, in reality this isn't econmically feasible, as it would cost Apple a lot to develop this version that could support a wide range or hardware. However, it could create "universal" support which would support many devices, but would run them in a rather handicapped way. But, there would be the computer retards that would think that that is exactly how it looks on a mac, and wouldnt understand the whole concept. It seems the best solution at this time is to lower it's prices A LOT in order to draw in customers during the recession. If Apple can hold off for a while without doing this, perhaps it would be a good thing to do once the economy is on the uprise again. The bottom line is that they need followers. If they can gain followers and keep up the things that made them followers, they will be on their way to success.

The logic in the original article is a little suspect. Stable or declining market-share does not necessarily mean that Windows users aren't switching.

The statistics point to a large percentage of Mac buyers in Apple stores being first-time Mac owners. The switch campaign is working to some degree.

The real question would then be, why aren't existing Mac owners buying new Macs?

I mean if your customers won't budge to anything else, why should you materially improve it? A smart businessman would say, look, there's much better (mac) and much cheaper (linux), but I still have 97 percent share. So why should I improve the product or lower the price, exactly? This is just common sense. MS is doing exactly the right thing from a business perspective, don't improve it, just rake in those 90 percent profits after expenses.

" "Of the last 9 cars I've bought, 7 of them sucked. The Chevy Citations were good stuff. The rest ... ""

Damn wish I thought of that one, that was good. Then again I also just saw lewis black on tv, so all the the most resent post were done in his voice, which makes for one heck of a better experiance when comments like yours come up.

But you still bring a good point. So many attack PC as cheap (in the low quality sense) and windows sucking. The truth of the matter is that hasn't been even a half truth for a long time. Even some of the cheapest computers you can buy, eMachines hold up very well. You would be hard pressed to find somehting that is truely crap on the hardware front. If you could assemble a truely bad computer it probably had a 30 dollar mobo, yes there are those, and even they do fairly well. windows is solid since 2k. I wish people would stop compairing macs to PC ala 1997, even then they were not to bad. And compaired to a mac of the time, just wonderful. I don't think many on the windows side challenge the quality of macs or osx. Everyone agrees its good stuff, much the same as the wintel side is good stuff. The inverse is not so true, the mac side sees wintel stuff as crap, maybe because they want to think that, maybe cause they haven't touched a PC in 6 years. Either way its very anoying.

I still can't belive someone defended tandy

as consumers switch more and more to laptops. I think Apple knows this and in the next year and a half, you will see great improvements in the capability of apple laptops (dual procs, G5s, etc.). People don't get that macs are ultimately cheaper because of their longer "usable" lifetimes. They go for what is cheap initially. So as long as x86 desktops can be had ~$500, Apple isn't going to make drastic inroads into this market....until people switch to wanting laptops instead. Apple is very competitive price-wise there and build superior machines. Ultimately, I don't see Apple exceeding 7% market share however as they are more like a "Dell" than a microsoft.

The "switch" campaign was never as intensive in Canada, and as a result I have to say it didn't influence my decision to buy a Mac at all. I think a dearth of advertising and promotion are really what limits Apple's growth the most.

Background: I've been a PC user all my life, and always enjoyed monkeying about inside the cases, installing and upgrading parts as I needed. For the longest time, I was hugely leery of Macs because they were the epitome of "brand name" computers, which I thought of (as a general class, including big name PC manufacturers) as too proprietary, expensive, and uncustomizable for someone on a budget who got more power over time through simple upgrades, rather than buying a new machine. I also found the Mac OS (version 8) to be cumbersome. I remember using it at a web design job I had, and I had to install a lot of new software just to get the computer to do what I wanted.

The introduction of OS X (and the ensuing buzz) is actually what brought my attention back to Apple, as well as things like the stylish iPod and its continuing good reputation among creative professionals. There was a fair bit of buzz last summer around the introduction of OS X 10.2 and it got me intrigued. But all of this was sort of peripheral to any active efforts on Apple's part to promote itself to consumers.

Through research and a lot of playing around with demonstration models, I made the decision to buy a Mac because it suited my needs the best. Some people consider Macs too expensive, but for me a brand new computer, PERIOD, is expensive, and yet I don't see a bargain-basement computer as being necessarily a better buy. I've gotten burned many a time buy purchasing the lower-end model (be it a printer, a modem, or whatnot) when honestly a few more dollars up front would have purchased something much better that would be more satisfactory down the road.

At the consumer-end of the Mac spectrum there is still a lot of value for the dollar. I accept that Windows has greatly improved over the years, but when the time came for me to buy a new machine, I no longer wanted to mess with drivers, security patches, viruses, and the like. I wanted something reliable and powerful that I could bring to school and get the most use out of.

I bought a 600mhz iBook last November, and have never looked back. I still use my PC at home, but the features, performance, and reliability of the iBook have won me over to Apple. I echo the responses from those who say they are approached by curious PC users when they take the computers out in public. They do wonder if it was expensive, if software will work on it, what I can do with it, etc., but they also want to touch it and play with it and more than one person has expressed remorse for the fact that they were talked into buying a PC laptop because of the conceptions of price, compatibility, etc. I feel like I'm an indirect advertisement, but have had more of an impact amongst my friends and colleagues than Apple's own efforts.

I think Apple still has a lot to do in terms of providing real information to the public.

well you are right on some level. But for sure MS keaps inproving, and what they have does not suck. But its wise to hold on to improvements for when you need them. Keap your weapons on reserve.

Same could go towards apple. They know the die hards arn't going anywheres, why try to give them a better value or better stuff when they know they can get them to pay high prices for marginal product gains. A die hard mac user won't go to windows, and certainly not anything else.

On a slightly differant level, but similar concept. How does one know apple hardware is good as it could be. Imagine if other people built mobos for apple systems, like in the x86 world. Poeple could benchmark and see if apple is on par in speed and stabilty for said speeds. Also for cost. But there is and never will be such a setup. So apple can be holding back speed and so forth because they don't need to and just feed it to users over time, or just eat the profits from using slower but maybe more stable tech.

The basic idea of what you said applies to most all business. Apple is no differant.

I love the new Macs but the hardware is still too expensive compared to PCs. And with a PC I can upgrade it very easily and inexpensively.

Apple could increase their revenue by releasing OS X for the Intel platform. But I'm sure Micro$haft won't let that happen, because it will outsell Windows.

I think Apple knows this and in the next year and a half, you will see great improvements in the capability of apple laptops (dual procs, G5s, etc.).

I don't think I want a laptop w/dual G5's sitting on my lap! A single G5 will likely be very uncomfortable due to the heat, but two would definately create some major warmth.

Aren't Apple laptops already notorious for being too hot?

Eugenia why don't you or your superiors simply change OSNews into something like OSFlameWars or OSNoPersonaLife?

Most people here should get a life and not Windows/OSX/Linux based computers!

Go out, talk to some other people! Get to know each other! Do something because the level dropped in the past few months desperately low... :o

Subsitute 'Apple' for 'Next' and history repeats

http://dpsinfo.com/essays/next.html

In founding NeXT, Jobs spent money very freely. Too freely. When most start-up companies are frugal, Jobs spent millions on setting up his headquarters and $100,000 for the design of the NeXT logo alone. When most start-ups manage people as competent adults, Jobs micro-managed and routinely publicly humiliated most of his employees. When many managers understand the need to listen to potential customers about their needs and wants in a product, Jobs chose to ignore everything that everyone told him. Jobs had a vision and mere marketplace realities were not going to disturb that vision.

Jobs' vision for the NeXT computer was that of a "mainframe on a desk." His original design was for a workstation that college students would buy. The workstation would look different. The workstation would use the newest technology, including an optical disk drive instead of the traditional floppy disk drive.

But a visionary needs capital, and Jobs did not want to use more than a few million of his own money. A few investors took an interest in his ideas, including Ross Perot who poured tens of millions of dollars into NeXT. Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon each invested over a half-million dollars*Dean Pat Crecine of CMU was an early NeXT board member. The largest single investor was Canon, the Japanese printer company investing up to one hundred million dollars.

Despite all the capital investments and despite the potential of the NeXT computer, the system was "yesterday's technology tomorrow for twice the price." It was too expensive for the college market, priced at about $4,000 a cube. When NeXT entered the commercial market in 1989, many companies felt the investment in NeXT equipment was too risky. NeXT workstations, competing in the workstation marketplace against the very fast and cheaper Sun SPARCstations, did not fare well.

After several years of struggles and layoffs, NeXT finally announced in early 1993 that it was getting out of the hardware business, and would only sell its proprietary NeXTSTEP operating system.

While Stross's book is interesting, I found the most engaging chapter to be the chapter on Sun Microsystems, NeXT's biggest competitor. Jobs is portrayed as so egotistical and so unyielding that parts of the book were literally hard to read. But the book is very useful as a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs who are convinced that "If I build it, they will come."

I think Apple is not marketing their products well. I've never seen any Apple's commercial on TV, for example, while i've seen a lot of Intel's commercials.

Victor.

Go out, talk to some other people! Get to know each other! Do something because the level dropped in the past few months desperately low... :o

I agree, although I generally think it's due to all of the whiny pissants who post anonymously. Typically they have nothing to offer other than flames and trolls.

They typically post crap like:
Eugenia why don't you or your superiors simply change OSNews into something like OSFlameWars or OSNoPersonaLife?

And...

Most people here should get a life and not Windows/OSX/Linux based computers!

Really... If these people are so adamant that there's life beyond computers, then why have they been reading OSNews regularly for the last few months themselves? Would they have an opinion on how bad or good this site is if they themselves were out living their lives and not bothering us with their diatribe?

Your logic boggles the mind o' Anonymous one. I'll bet down is up in your world also.

By the way... Good way to improve the site (posting off topic and such just to have your say. Would you like some cheese with that whine?)

Macs are just too damn expensive.

Had they gone the extra mile and done a full OS X for the pc rather than just stopping with Darwin, then you would have a migration path, first with software then with hardware. Right now though it is so much easier to just spend $200 to upgrade your pc than having to buy a whole system for the price of a new transmission for my car...I would rather have the pc and a transmission than a mac...

Up until OS X I had never had as many Windows crashes and my mac friends, I didnt even consider such an unreliable platform, until recently...I take that back I had thought about getting an iMac to put Linux on it...

David

Ok, lets hypothetically say that Apple would really like to break out of its niche market and grab a reasonable slice of the computer desktop pie. Before we start, wipe the idea of any previous Mac and the current eMac/iMac line up.

1) Break down the desktop into its various components. Yes, AIO (All In One) computers may look funky but the consumer aren't going to buy something which retards the ability later on to add, remove or change something.

The desktop has to be something funky and unique but functional. A case with the the ability to open the case without the need of tools, the inside logically laid out with colour coded symbols to indicate various parts.

As an example of this, lets look at the SGI O2. At the back, to get access to the motherboard and internals, a flick of a switch, and all you had to do was slight the sides out. No tools required.

The screen needs to come with in 3 sizes, 17 inch, 19 inch and 21 inch. CRT flatscreen trinatron should be the standard.

Mouse and keyboard. The mouse has three buttons, and the keyboard uses the standard UNIX layout.

2) The motherboard needs to be improved in terms of connecticity. Firstly Apple needs to drop OpenBoot and insted adopt EFI. This will enable them to utilise all the PCI/AGP options which are made available to PC consumers.

Currently, one has to wait till a special "Mac" version has been released, which is some cases will never happen because of the size of the market. This will result in a flood of new and more exciting options for Mac users. Oh, btw, EFI is a nice piece of work too if you read and understand the Intel specifications.

In terms of expandability, USB 2.0 and Firewire are a must, SATA completely replaces Parallel ATA, and to be a little more radical, get a CD producer on board to produce a SATA CDR/DVD-ROM drive.

3) For the desktop range, one brand option should be given, namely, ATI. One option, less inventory, less likelihood of over supply resulting in a reduce in costs. The standard video card should be a Radeon 9500 with 64MB DDR, and the option is given for the user to be able to upgrade from 9500 to 9600/9700/9800 if they so wish. The video card must sit on an 8x AGP bus.

4) The processor needs to be upgraded to minium of a G4 1.42Ghz and the FSB boosted to 266Mhz (133Mhz double pumped). The compiler itself needs more TLC spent on it. If it requires that 100 programmers are hired *JUST* to work on optimising the compiler for the G4 and G5 processor, then that is what should be done. This is part of the problem.

5) Software subscription should be offered to customers at AUS$120 per-year, and in return the user receives the latest version of MacOS X once released. This will guarantee a strong stream of income vs the gradual migration that occurs right now.

6) More retail outlets need to be developed outside the United States. The reseller programmes should be canned and instead the current business owners bought out and the original owner given the opportunity to be in charge of that particular Apple branded store. This will result in a strong reseller channel and will keep the piece with anyone who current have issues with the Apple store competing with the resellers.

7) Greater third party solutions on offer at Apple stores. These stores should be seen as a one stop shop for Mac users. Rather than being *just* a Mac should, they should be seen as *THE* shop to go to for ANY IT needs. Of course you would only stock items that are compatible with MacOS X. To boost loyalty, develop a Apple Store loyalty programme which include "members only nights" once a month where buy members can receive discounts on hardware and software.

8) Advertising should be focusing on what one can do with the Mac out of the box. Don't compare, demostrate the capabilities. When there was a Mac stand in the local mall, people were draw to them and were able to given them a try. Each local Apple should have a road show where by they have a crew(s) which goes around the whole country showing off Macs in malls and getting regular people to give them a try and ask questions.

Also, for television ads. Ones that are fun, catchy and people will remember. If Apple want some help, talk to Saatchi & Saatchi.

9) Better third party relationships. For example, in the education section of the Apple store, why not have a "Mac Art Pack", which includes a Mac plus various Adobe titles, and students can buy this whole pack for a reduced price than if they bought all the parts seperately.

Have a "Mac Home Pack" which includes a printer, various home related software titles, and again, sold at a discounted price that if one were to buy them seperately. Many companies I am sure will be more than happy to license OEM versions of their software to Apple so that they can be bundled with their hardware.

For small businesses, a "Mac Small Business Pack", which includes Filemaker, Microsoft Office X and MYOB all in a box ready to use. I know 5 small business owners who would move instantly to something like this if given the opportunity.

10) Better development tools. If that requires buying out Borland, then so be it. There needs to be a development environment where by the developer does not need to relearn an interface to get coding on MacOS X. Support Mono as well, and develop C# bindings for Cocoa so that C# written applications can use the Cocoa framework.

These ideas may appear to some as some PC w*nker talking out of a hole in his head, however, I DON'T want to see Apple go. I would love to see Apple get ti 15-20% and really give Microsoft a good hiding, however, for this "vision" to occur, things need to change. The PowerMac G5 was a good start, now they need to work on the other areas.

Mac OS X with 7 million users has about 0.5% of the global marketshare.

From a mainstream point of view, Mac is irrelevant. It is a curiosity, an endangered species.

The most important thing Apple does today is to provide working prototypes for new features to Microsoft's Windows team.

All the major music software vendors are fleeing the Mac platform now that Apple owns the music platform and the leading pro music apps.

Adobe is in the process of leaving the Mac platform.

Soon there will be nothing left except the few software titles that Apple sells.

And the marketshare will slowly shrink further. Who wants an expensive machine with no software?

Too bad Stevie "Gulfstream V Platinum Club" Jobs didn't learn this lesson at NeXT...

People here are assuming that Apple is led by a rational and competent management. Very unlikely. Apple will fail, because it is the child of a madman. Woz was cool and brilliant-SJ is just plain crazy.

It would be interesting to see where this "7 million" figure comes from as every Mac user I ever talked to via technical support (when I worked at an ISP) ran MacOS X. There was only one case of a person running MacOS 9, however, he had an old G3 Beige PowerMac, however, he too said he was convinced of the MacOS X. Another customer moved just before I left as she was still waiting for print sharing ability via an easy to use interface. They moved over when 10.2 came out.

People are gradually moving over as soon as Apple deliver them what they want in MacOS X. This is the exact situation that happens in the Wintel market. We don't suddenly see a *HUGE* exodus from one fopy of Windows to another, why? because people either fall into:

1) I'm running Windows [version] and are quite happy with it.
2) I'm running Windows [version], however, I can't run the new version because my hardware is too old, I'll buy one with it preloaded when I upgrade.
3) Its lacking [feature/driver/what ever], therefore, I'll wait a little.

if Apple was realy in so much trouble, their company would be performing more like sun than how it is which is more like dell.

Apple needs a CEO that will focus on the customer, not some stupid artistic vision that only appeals to rich cyberhippies and trust fund artistos.

Apple needs a CEO who sweats the implementation details, not tiny little aesthetic details.

Apple needs a CEO who likes normal people and isn't an arrogant prick.

Basically, Apple needs their version of Louis Gerstner to take the helm and really get the company focused on customers and solving real business problems.

Apple's got great technology but needs real business people to take the company to the next level of success.

I think Apple will be fine. They aren't going to take over the world, but they'll keep making money and new products for quite a while. I think we'll see more "switchers" once the G5s show up. Apple would have been in real trouble if IBM hadn't come along with the G5. Motorolla just was not a reliable supplier of up-to-date chips. As long as IBM decides that the 970 (and future generations of the 970) are worth producing, Apple will be around to sell nice desktops (workstations for some) based on them (if not, they could switch architectures and still survive). They probably won't grow out of their niche, but their niche will remain healthy.

7 million OS X users comes right from Stevie's presentation at WWDC.

Apple hasn't even "switched" 20% of their existing base from classic MacOS to OS X, much less any significant number of PC users.

If you can't get a classic Mac user to switch... something is really wrong that Apple doesn't want to admit.

Like... OS X is not that great of an OS. It's warmed up leftovers of NeXTStep with a crappier UI that runs incredibly slowly considering the mighty beef hardware Apple has vs. the 40Mhz 68040 NeXT Turbo had to run on. OS X simply doesn't have any Mac magic. It's all eye candy and no real innovation in how people use computers.

Thus 0.5% market share for OS X. Which will probably shrink over time as Apple is slowly losing many of their ISV's -- at least the ones they compete with.

Explain the huge turn around when Steve Jobs jumped on board? explain how they went from dire straights to $4.95billion in the bank?

so, what you are essentially saying is that they're rolling in cash, developing new products and moving forward but for some obscure reason they're failing? As for the revenue, if you actually TOOK THE TIME to read their financial statements:

Total Revenue:
Mar 29, 2003 Dec 28, 2002 Sep 28, 2002 Jun 29, 2002
$1,475,000,000 $1,472,000,000 $1,443,000,000 $1,429,000,000

Net Income Applicable To Common Shares
$14,000,000 ($8,000,000) ($45,000,000) $32,000,000

However, in Dec 28, 2002 there was a resucturing charge of $23,000,000 (plus 2million in charges for changing the accouting), and in Sep 28, 2002 of $5,000,000. Dec 28, 2002 was most likely due to some restructuring, however, apart from that, they have only dipped into the red Sep 28, 2002, and everything else has been financially rosie.

No, the dooms day senario is over rated. I might as well say that SUN is doomed because they have a difficult patch. Heck, I could say the same for many IT orientated companies.

Considering that they've been ontrack for 6 years, I find it hard to believe that suddenly Apple will croke.

Oh, and as for the previous management. Yeah, great move, sell of assets to pay for losses. What happens when you run out of assets to sell? thank goodness Steve arrived in time otherwise Apple would have been the business equiviland of a banana republic.

The Mac will start taking off soon: the big problem has been "the software gap". There is more Windoze software. That is changing. 1) Nowadays, zillions of UNIX apps are being ported to OS X. You couldn't DO that with OS 9-- too much effort for too little market share. 2) The Rapid app development tools for Mac, also, leave Windows in the dust. There is nothing like OPENSTEP on Windows. 3) The BEST software, increasingly, is Mac first or Mac only: iTunes; iMovie; Final Cut Pro. Then there's liquid audio and Shake...
Browsers: You can't buy a Windows machine with a decent web browser.IE for Win sucks even more than IE for Mac-- ask any web developer (re: standards compliance). Sure, you can DOWNLOAD Mozilla for Win, but most PC peopel I know are afraid to install anything that is not MSFT-approved, because the Windows OS's are so delicate (half from ineptness; half by design to kill off competitors, I think). On the Mac, you have Safari installed , or can install Camino. Mac users are NOT afraid to download.

I think it's just a matter of time. Turning an oil tanker (the PC industry) can't be instantaneous. With the increased software; incresed power (the G5-- read SERVER Market-- graphics types are already all Mac-- at least the good ones), and, most of all, with the Apple Store increased visibility, I think the OS wars are FAR from hopeless.

It has been assumed by many that Apple is a dying company. The fact is that it has been dying for at least 20 years according to Wall Street and other pundits. Good gracious, this sure beats the record time of a dying singer in a tragic opera.

So far all I have read is old hat and not very interesting. The Wintel crowd keeps pointing at older Macs and the Mac crowd replies by pointing at older MS Windows OS. There has been one shining thought through all of the biased swill. Apple has definitely not been advertising as much as the other computer companies.

The proper application of marketing can make a real difference. We have excellent examples of that. The person who sold a small rock for $1.00 made a fortune and then repeated it by selling a piece of cardboard (as a house for the pet rock) for $1.00. Then we have the excelent marketing example of the Beta Max losing out to VCR through marketing techniques.

Proper marketing is the one of the keys to help popularize a product in spite of its advantages or disadvantages. The problem that Apple has is trying to figure out how much to spend on marketing and how to deliver a message that sells. The price of the product is not nearly as important. If it were the automobile manufacturers would never sell many SUV models.

Apple needs a CEO that will focus on the customer, not some stupid artistic vision that only appeals to rich cyberhippies and trust fund artistos.

Apple needs a CEO who sweats the implementation details, not tiny little aesthetic details.

Apple needs a CEO who likes normal people and isn't an arrogant prick.

Basically, Apple needs their version of Louis Gerstner to take the helm and really get the company focused on customers and solving real business problems.

Apple's got great technology but needs real business people to take the company to the next level of success.

You're being honest, aren't you? have you looked at Louis Gerstner history as a manager. Look at how Louis Gerstner ran Nabisco into the ground and are *JUST* recovering from his bad management.

The only thing Louis Gerstner did was expand IBM's services offerings, oh, and buying billions of dollars in shares back to boost the share price. While all this was happening their hardware side was falling to pieces to the tune of $1.5billion lost on PC sales in one quarter alone. Then there is the software side which started to become a really bad joke. Thank goodness Louis Gerstner is gone and there is the new IBM CEO Sam Palmisano which is finally moving IBM back to the good old days of quality IBM hardware, great software and awsome service vs the Louis Gerstner "screw products, services rule" mantra he pushed. Btw, he was the nim rod who signed an agreement with Dell in which Dell sold computers and IBM provided the enterprise services. No wonder the PC unit fell to pieces with such a stupid management decision.

Hopefully their PC division will recover from such as stupid decision. Oh, btw, Dell has started their own consulting wing, and apparently their consultants are like their products; mass produced and are no better that the competition (infact worse), the only thing they can tout is that they're "cheaper!". The question is, at what cost?

Last November, my wife and I, fed-up with Windows problems (crashes, virus infections, etc...) purchased two 17" LCD iMacs. These are our main desktop systems (although I also use Linux and FreeBSD). We no longer have any Windows systems in the house.

We did not make this switch lightly. We thought it over, and decided to give Apple a shot. Neither one of us had used a Mac before.

In the eight months we've been using the iMacs, we have adjusted very well to them. They support all of our hardware, and we've had to purchase very little software for them (I bought a license for BBEdit, two licenses for CodeTek's VirtualDesktop, and one license for Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2.0).

I do all my development with the tools that come with OS X, and so far, we haven't needed Microsoft Office (I wouldn't buy it anyway, I'd use OpenOffice.org for OS X, X-11).

The Mac may not be right for everybody, but my wife and I like ours very much. Yes, they did cost a bit more than a WinTel PC, but I have not had a single problem with either system in the eight months we've owned them.

On two occasions I've tried to talk some of my friends into purchasing a Mac and what stopped them was not the price or software availability - they wanted their home machine to work exactly as the one they used at work.

For several years I've had Windows machines at work and my Mac at home. I found that my machine at home was more enjoyable use because it was differant than the machines at work. I did not feel like I was coming home and doing more work when I used the computer :-)

But I can see their point - they already know Windows and are uncertain about learning a new operating system.

>>NOTHING on the Mac compares to Music Match

True that. Nothing on the Mac compares to Gator and Bonzai Buddy either.

trollin trollin trollin....keep them dogies trolling....trollin trollin trollin...raw head!!!!

when some one says that nothing is better than music match you know they are 13, been using windows for 2 years, never used a Mac in there life, and are so myopic that they run into corners and trip over steps.

If any trolls are going to point to a drop in sales in regards to their iMac/eMac line, that would be perfectly normal considering the rumours of the possibility of a new processor being released and thus consumers holding back until they find out what the full story is.

I'm not convinced Apple ~wants~ a larger market share. Their "Switch" campaigne was more designed to strengthen and reinforce their niche, not change it. The ads seemed to be aimed at people that already own Macs.

And there are real reasons why they don't sell more, aside from the product image. Many of these of these have been mentioned already:

* The economy sucks. All computer sales are slow.

* Availability. Where do you even go to shop for a Mac? The nearest place from here is a two-hour drive.

* Market saturation. Many people have bought computers within the last three-to-four years and simply don't need a new machine.

* Software availability and compatibility. You can't just go to in WalMart and buy the stuff. It has to be special ordered and often costs more. Most of my software is hand-me-down and I know exactly one person who uses a Mac.

* High prices. Most people are not buying computers at all, and those that are are choosing very bottom-of-the-line PCs. The fantastic deals being offered by Dell and Gateway are the only reason they have decent sales at all.

* Education. The commercials did absolutely nothing to show *why* Macs are better/faster/etc. than PCs.

Personally, I think the new hardware specs are hot and OSX is a very handsome system. But with the economy, I just don't see myself as a potential customer.

Best Wishes,
Bob

I use Macintoshes because I'm just better than you. See, look at my coffee - it's French. You, I bet you don't even know what France is.

My name is Raven and I'm an elitist asshole.

Apple has only doubled it's market capitilization since 1984.

http://minneapolisfed.org/research/data/us/calc/ The dollar has depreciated 44% since 1984. Apple is essentially worth no more than it was in 1984.

// but most PC peopel I know are afraid to install anything that is not MSFT-approved, because the Windows OS's are so delicate .//

Delicate? FUD as usual, from Macinistas.

Non-MSFT-approved browsers I have running on my XP box:

Mozilla
Firebird (about the same, but still)
Opera
Netscape 4.7
Netscape 7
K-Meleon
Act

All run without problems.

Next?

"People do nnot buy more than one computer. Who really needs two computer at the same time besides GEEKS ?"

Guilty as charged....

- Pentium III ( Windows XP )
- AMD Athlon ( Windows ME )
- AMD K6 ( Windows ME/ BeOS 5.03 )
- PowerPC G4 ( MacOSX 10.2.3 )

* The economy sucks. All computer sales are slow.

Some are worse than others, however, some economies around the world are growing quite nicely. Maybe Apple should think outside the US.

* Availability. Where do you even go to shop for a Mac? The nearest place from here is a two-hour drive.

For me it isn't so bad, however, I can understand the problem. Apple needs to take the inniative and open more stores OVERSEAS!

* Market saturation. Many people have bought computers within the last three-to-four years and simply don't need a new machine.

Which is why they need to concertrate OVERSEAS where the market hasn't been saturated.

* Software availability and compatibility. You can't just go to in WalMart and buy the stuff. It has to be special ordered and often costs more. Most of my software is hand-me-down and I know exactly one person who uses a Mac.

Or Apple could promote their shop better so that users can buy the software off them rather than needing to scoot down to the shop.

* High prices. Most people are not buying computers at all, and those that are are choosing very bottom-of-the-line PCs. The fantastic deals being offered by Dell and Gateway are the only reason they have decent sales at all.

Who on earth would buy a Gateway? they are dying. Loss after loss after loss. The only thing to save it would be a big juicy contract from the US government. As for Dell, after the last time I tried to inquire about a product I was answered by a person who didn't understand me - which is strange as my accent, New Zealand, is really easy - and worse still, she sounded like an Indian with a fake yanky accent.

When you can get through to a person to inquirer about a hardware purchase, why on earth should I go to the effort of speaking slowly on the phone so that some person who doesn't know English can take my order?

* Education. The commercials did absolutely nothing to show *why* Macs are better/faster/etc. than PCs.

That can be traced right back to my post on 61-75.

umm...yeah...I guess your troll is based off no one looking at the link?

thanks for the calculator.

"As a Capitalist I need something that WORKS,"

Yup, like Windows XP.

"not something that crashes 3 times a day, "

Yup, never happen with Windows XP.

"and seems to believe it's my fault for clicking on a link on a website. "

Yup, never happen with Windows XP.

"I need something that when one app crashes, that's all it takes with it,"

Yup, like Windows XP.

"I need something I can connect to just about any system on, be it Mac Classic, OS X, BSD, Linux, Unix, Windows, any of them I have to be able to connnect to."

Yup, like Windows XP.

"I need something that can switch, without crashing, and allow me to write Russian, German, Japanese, all on the fly. (cmd+space bar)"

Yup, like Windows XP.

"I need something that when a bug is found, it WILL be fixed, no 'oh well there is nothing wrong with that product, everything is fine' then half a year later, a bug fix. "

Yup, like Windows XP.

"Macs do use less power (lies in the RISC chip),"

Oh ! You're talking about Macs and excluding Windows XP ???
Oh I see, you're a Troll then ?

The "market share" debate (what it is or how big it actually is or whatever) has been going on a while, but I think the latest quarterly financial reports pretty much silence it with cold hard numbers. I also think some fellow Mac users need to seriously consider learning chisenbop because they sure aren't using their $3000 computers to compute.

http://news.com.com/2100-1003_3-1026576.html

33.2 million dekstops, laptops, and intel servers rolled off lines.April to June

http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-1026425.html

April to June - "Apple said that it shipped 771,000 Macintoshes, of which a record 46 percent were portable machines"

This translates to a 2.3% share for the most current quarter. Not a 5%. Not an 8%. 2. They've been dropping .1% year over year for a while now - the OG iMac spike notwithstanding. These are consistent numbers not seasonal blips. Someone above said that to sustain this they must be getting new users - duh. But old users aren't upgrading as much either. Whether because they don't like OS X (me - although I like the 10.3 Finder and iTunes) or they don't have to or whatever.

PCs are not cars where the luxury builders have a market slot. Apple is alienating Microsoft and Adobe - two of the premier Tier 1 developers. I haven't upgraded my 9.1 box because I didn't care too much for OS X, but I like some features of 10.3 and am seriously considering it. But if all that's left in 2 years is Apple's integrated apps and a bunch of Tier 594 Open Source garbage because Apple has angered every major developer, well hell. Why bother.

As far as the general "what Apple should do" debate.

What Apple needs to do is the same thing as MS does. Do everything short of sending a daily hooker to developers. Get the development process and tools in schools. Free. Not just the cheap PCs for elementary schools. Make the Mac development tools as easy to use and ubiquitous as MS's tools. The more apps the more uses.

Apple became big because MS provided them with the killer apps, not the inherent usability of the OG macs. Windows became big because MS is a developer who understands what developers need. As the embedded Windows vs Linux article a few days ago said - MS makes software development an industrialized, commodity process. It also needs to stop angering its developers. The only developers MS angers are those it plans to annihilate.

And in my opinion, Apple is building great machines loaded with a great OS. Just be patient...

- Mark

http://www.icwhen.com/book/the_1980s/1984.shtml

Apple Computer reports to have earned a fiscal net income of $59.2 million, or 97 cents per share, on gross sales of $1.52 billion for 1984. This was the year the Mac was released.

This just happens to be almost twice Apples 2002 revenue and 40 times Apples 2002 net profit results (adjusted for inflation)

Microsoft reaches a gross sales volume of $125 million and employs 608 employees.

I don't know how Bill sleeps at night knowing Apple will put him out of business at any time.

I at one time was thinking about switching to a Mac because I do not like Microsoft, but Apple was to expensive and Apple seemed to be more interested in making fashion statements with Steve Jobs coming on stage and all his fans clapping uncontrollably and once they are shown the new product for their buying pleasure oohing and aahing right on cue, I quickly lost interest.

I do not think even if Apple lowers their price a little it will make much difference to their market share. I believe the only way to become a larger player is to just be a software company like Microsoft.

When I first read about the benchmark issue I thought it seemed more than just a marketing game and more that they were trying to deceive and wanted to see them punished but then again I want to see them succeed so there is more competition

If the Mac experience is really as good as the Mac devotees and Apple says and if you've tried a Mac once you will never go back then as Brad has already said they should have a trial period. Maybe something like a one time 3 months lease and the payment can be applied toward the purchase of the computer. With their big margins they should be able to afford it and if it is really as good of an experience as the Mac devotees say people will be keeping the machines and Intel and AMD get more competition and lower their prices and I benefit.

umm...you need to learn the diffrence between Market share (which you did not show) and shipments.


markets are counted from the installed base, Forbes says Apple has a 10% installed base of computers.

also, you need to count the consumer market on its own and report those numbers of installed base.

you need to look at the artistc/design markets on its own and report those numbers of the installed base

then you need to look at the cubical/receptionist market and report thise installd base numbers.

then you have the scope of what Apple and their competators are doing.

Aple focuses on the consumer markets and educational markets.....those numbers have a greater meaning to their business than over all markets

they focus on design markets, so those numbers are more importent than the over all market.

they do not focus on the white color market, and this is where the greatest disparity is.

by making your nmbers fine grained they get meaning.

a PC...My PC is nice...My PC is stable...My PC is fast...My PC has 2G's of Ram...

I have no reason to buy a mac right now...see me in two years...

No I was being facetious.

why would I pay $1000 for a G4 1Ghz with only 128m Ram? Why?

"Non-MSFT-approved browsers I have running on my XP box:

Mozilla
Firebird (about the same, but still)
Opera
Netscape 4.7
Netscape 7
K-Meleon
Act "

I said MOST users. As an OS News reader, I suspect you are not typical of "Joe six-pack".

.. you wouldn't think there would be more than 100 comments on Apple stories. They must be doing something right if people give a fuck about them.

And on a Mac (desktop) you usually don't even need tools to get at the RAM slots. We Mac guys tend to be do-it-yourselfers.

This is especially true for teens who want educate themselves on software like f.e. 3D modelers.


Not sure what other software is like but Maya personal edition is free.

"you wouldn't think there would be more than 100 comments on Apple stories. They must be doing something right if people give a fuck about them."

BANG! You hit the nail on the head... I'm always amazed at the number of responses, negative and nuetral, about Apple coming from PC (Windows in particular) users.

I just sold my IBM Thinkpad and replaced it with an iBook. My two home built rigs running XP and Linux Mandrake/Debian are on their way out to make room for the Dual 2Gig G5. I found an Apple 20" Cinema Display for $500 (because it has three dead pixels in the lower left corner...) at a local estate auction. Microsoft Office for the Mac will be the biggest software hit I'll have to take. Too bad Appleworks can't use Excel or Word documents. Appleworks really is a sweet little app. I am going to miss playing Postal 2. Oh well.

I will admit that both the iBook and G5 will have Virtual PC 6(Windows XP) installed on them to access certain business databases. I spend a lot of time daily looking at a monitor. Mac OS 10.2 has a superior typeface (I'm not talking about the font, per se), sharpness of GUI in general, I'm not quite sure how to phrase this, it's easier on my eyeballs.

Not being the technically literate computer geek that so many of you are, the above is the best way I can think of expressing what I like about the Mac so much. I run a very small business that through much sweat and blood has become reasonably successful. So I am willingly going to take the Mac plunge even though I am far from being one of Steve Job's sheep like worshipper/clones...

I'm sorry I didn't read this article but I will make a comment. Apple said the other day that 50% of people buying new Macs at their retail stores are first time mac buyers. I don't know if that puts a wrench into this article, but I think I will read it.

That was funny! Could you repeat that? :p

Not to be off topic, Windows family of products kick any other OSes bottoms out there for fun...

Yep! Just like most people here do to each other! :/

0. Writing Windoze does not make you any more in the loop. grow up.
1-2. Same apps is already there on i386 why wait until they are ported.
2. itunes is nice but for mp3 player I prefer winamp on the windows side and a bunch on linux. The music download is US only so that is not relevant for me. iMovie and Final Cut Pro is top seller and great all around.
4. Browsers. You have NO clue. Right now I have Firebird, Mozilla, Opera, Lynx and IE and that is only on the windows partition. Then I have the linux side. You actually have less browsers than me. Go figure.
5. OSX server well it is getting there but then you have yellow dog that is performing better on the same hardware.
6. Stop trolling and tell the truth as that is the only thing that will make users switch to a better way of computing. Making up reasons for a one-time sell is not gonna cut it.

From my post you would think I am a rabbid anti-apple loudmouth but that is far from the truth. I like what is made but hate the lingo that is often heard on boards.

"Not to be off topic, Windows family of products kick any other OSes bottoms out there for fun... "

Are you talking performance or sales in general. Of course in sales because windows is more competative with 95 other companies making computers targeted at the same peoples. Mac pro sales,,,,,,well that makes up 25% of Maya sales in the US(under OS X)and 20% world-wide. Adobe mac sales are somewhere close to 35 to 40% IN the creative field Apple is doing a great job.

Hmm not to exclude the mac only softwares, Final Cut Pro, the great I-App's, Studio Artist(which is used in movies for painting effects).

So what are you talking about, in sales of coarse Wintel will. There are just more customers. In performance,,,,,,well there are great programs that you wintel people can't touch.

What is so hard to see? I did demonstrate market share in very clear terms. Apple sold: 770,000 / Total sold: 33,200,000. That translates to 2.3%. Shipped doesn't mean sold. It means this is how many we put together and put on a truck to somewhere whether free or sold. As far as Forbes goes, link the article so we can see their methodology and the context.

And besides it's semantics. 770k out of 33.2M units. That says everything it needs to say. Doesn't that worry you? BeOS died because of lack of app support. That wouldn't matter if the apps on a Mac were the same as apps on Windows - say from Falcon NW to Dell. But they aren't. This isn't a BMW vs Saturn choice or a my weewee is bigger than yours contest. It's Betamax vs VHS choice. It means VHS video tapes get stocked on store shelves but beta tapes don't. If it gets worse, it'll be like trying to find a betamax tape today.

Finer grains do clarify some things, but in this case they obfuscate the general point. Are they gaining market share in the education market? No. Are they gaining ground in the design market? No - maybe maintaining, but def not gaining. Are they gaining any ground anywhere? No. Well, the iPod. Yay. Apple is becoming SGI and it needs help. SGI also made great machines, a great Unix, and beautiful monitors.

Dell is gaining everywhere and making lots of money doing it. HP is selling quite a bit and not making much money doing it. Apple isn't gaining anywhere, it's irritating it's primary developers and it is making some money doing it. Dell increased it's market share by more units than Apple sells in a year. Times 2.5. Apple wants to be Dell, trust me.

Overall

These discussions are relevant because Apple is the only legitmate competitor to MS in the desktop space. They are the only platform outside Windows with a supporting cast of Tier 1, solid, quality applications. If we lose Apple, MS is it. For those of us who love quality, no one else cuts it. I don't have time for beta garbage.

You guys can put your head in a hole and pretend things are rosy, but you aren't helping anyone. If we were evangelizing to non-Apple people, then sure we speak of the many bonuses. Apple currently has plenty of Tier 1 apps to fulfill most desktop needs. But they are dropping off one major app at a time. Right along with each .1%.

Sorry if I butted in to someones conversation. Later

While Win2K/XP has very rarely rashed outright, I have had it crash due to video drivers (nVidia/ATI). However, Explorer crashes or locks up fairly often.

arg....look....sold units does not translate to installed base.

PCs don't last as long as Macs do for useful life. so there for there is less velocity in shipments/sales and a much larger installed base than can be accounted for by looking at sales records.

do windows PCs out sell Macs...sure.....buy a whole lot.

does it matter? heck no. why? becasue companies are making a lot of money in the mac market.

also, to mention, Apple focuses more on the US market than it does the world wide market. and as Computing goes global to the 3rd world where most of the population lives, you will see Apple with a smaller share of the world wide market.

and, yes, market share in certain segments does matter more than global or over all market share.

why? simple. if Apple has a larger market share in certain segments, they will have developers making software for them.

if they have a 10% market share in teh US(installed base according to Forbes) thn Software makers will still make software for the Mac...why? because Americans spend so damn much more than the rest of the world does (obviously not compaired to total world wide market but as a group, they lead the world in spending and debit)

Apple will go under when their market share in the US drops to nothing, or the US market becomes irreliven in the world.

RE: EllisD
<quote>
What Apple needs to do is the same thing as MS does. Do everything short of sending a daily hooker to developers. Get the development process and tools in schools. Free. Not just the cheap PCs for elementary schools. Make the Mac development tools as easy to use and ubiquitous as MS's tools. The more apps the more uses.
</quote>
That is xactlly what the y must do, but Jobs dosen't want to pollute the experience of his computer. He would close the platform more if he could. I'm still wondering when he will drop darwin. He was going to drop mach from under Nextstep.

sigh...

O , as I developer send the daily hocker.

Donaldson

just had lunch over at MS Corporate office, the gentlemen who was my host was enjoying the day
loading the latest in a never ending series of security
patches- over a 100 computers- real productive!
Have YOU downloaded your patch today????????

Come on this is obvious.

1) apple is a high priced good (absolute price. no evaluation of value here) during a recession.

2) PC prices are being slashed like there is no tomorrow.

the higher the price of the good the more elastic regarding the effects of teh economy. That is a proven fact, with the exception of certain industries like health.

Given the economic difficulties most will choose the $899 dell pc. Money is in short demand for those of us who are not corrupt CEOs or lucky enough to be "friends" of George W Bush.

bitch, bitch, bitch, moan, moan, moan

PC people hate Macs

Mac people hate PC's

nothing new here move it along, take it outside, take it ouside.

I design and develop enterprise applications for a living, our clients run on windows and we are using Sun OS for the middle and back end. I switched about a year and a half ago when my first child was born. I was frustrated with how windows didn't integrate with my DV camera. If it did work then my scanner wouldn't work, plus I was going to have to shell extra money for a DVD burner, and additional software to make movies and DVD.

I figured if I was going to do all this I might as well buy a new system designed to do this kind of work, SGI was out of my price range but Apple was within my budget. Since my Mac also came with Apache, GCC, could run MS Office etc. I figured why not make this my main system and haven't regretted the move.
Since then I've helped my in-laws move from Windows to a Mac, a college buddy and his wife move to a Mac, My brother in-law who is an IBM consultant is looking to move to a Mac, and finally my wife who is also in the computer industry is planning on replacing her home system with a Mac.
I will be replacing my Sony Laptop as soon as Apple releases the next 15" PowerBook with the integrated Bluetooth, airport extreme, and back lighted keyboard.
My only grip so far is that, it is taking Oracle to long to finish porting their apps to OS X. Once that happens I'll put in for a G5 at work.

HERE HERE.

we communists need good computers too! ;-)

lol

That's great news Rob, but I doubt that your situation is representative of the whole market...

I switched to BeOS 2 years go. Don't plan to change any time soon. End of story.

macs only use less power because they are so much slower.

the argument risc vs intel isa is old and not even viable anymore. the bacwards compatibility on the part of the intel chips is such a small percentage, it hardly takes any more power than a motorola processor. and with each new generation of chips intel shrinks the percentage of that backwards compatibility peice and grows the rest of the processor.

it is pointless to argue that intels chips use so much backwards compatibility that they require more power. they require more power because they are more powerful chips.

More people would probably "switch" (I *hate* that word) if the enterprise market makes the switch. Problem is that this market can get really great deals from OEMs like Dell. They can probably buy 3 to 5 PCs for a Mac. Perhaps the useful life of a PC is shorter than a Mac, but I'm pretty sure that PCs still lead to a smaller TCO, especially that Windows 2000/XP are now quite stable. Anyway, I believe the shorter lifespan of PCs is because of sloppy programming, so Mac will probably suffer of the same problem once their userbase increase (as more bad programmers will develop for the Mac ).

I'm also sure that there are some people switching from the Mac to the PC... So Apple still have a lot of work to do if they want to keep their userbase! Btw, I don't remember who said that Forbes think the Mac userbase is 10%... but I would like a source, as I'm really sceptical. 10% in the multimedia market? Yes. 10% in the whole computer market? Nah.

yeah...you sound to be coming from a place of authority.

I like Macs but I have to critisize Apple on a lot of points.

The Mac commercial are stupid, plain and simple. First there is no need to slam Windows. Windows is fine but there are also a lot of people that would consider something else but it needs to be marketed to those people in a correct manner.

You also don't need to call Windows users stupid, thats pointless and achieves nothing. The nerds working at the Apple store and Apple Resellers have this semi-elitist attitude as well.

My advice is simple, get rid of the elitist attitude, lower prices. Fire Jeff Goldblum and your current ad agency.

Make the Mac the computer for everyone that doesn't like Windows. Their's no shortage of this group, its basically a quarter or a third of the people that have used Windows.

I have an PC running XP and an iMac running OS X. For me I can't stand people getting on here making comments about Apple or OS X that aren't true or they are said in hear-say by those who have never touch OS X. So most of the time, well all the time I stick up for the things I know and like about Apple.

Exactly. Ridiculising a group you want to "convert" is usually doing the opposite effect you want. It's a rule of propaganda:

Mistakes in Propaganda

Do not direct propaganda against the opposing side's rank-and-file. They are the people whom you want to persuade to cease resistance, malinger, desert, mutiny, or even change sides.

Source: http://www.stentorian.com/propagan.html

I'd love to try a Mac someday, but the "switch" ads didn't attracted me to them. In fact, they did the opposite, especially when 50% of what they're saying is clueless BS. "Unenlightened" people will irrevocably counter their claims this way: http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-07-12 ...

I'm beginning migration away from Windows. This very PC I'm typing on is being replaced with a new iMac. The failure of my old power supply damaged my HD & video card. So this machine is barely holding onto life and replacement was in order.

I've had my eye on Macs off and on since I departed the sunk ship that was the Commodore Amiga. Unfortunately, at that time it was cost prohibitive to make that switch as the hardware was $3k and PPC code was just beginning to take root so all the software would have been expensive in the long run.

Now that Macs have a decent OS the time has come to finally give Apple a chance. If it's a good match to my usage all 4 computers will be replaced.

"And on a Mac (desktop) you usually don't even need tools to get at the RAM slots. We Mac guys tend to be do-it-yourselfers."

Gahh!! please! what kind of PCs have you touched in the last 6 years. Most every computer out there has a cover that comes of with thumbscrews and the ram is right there. Hell my 5 year old IBM had has a lid that just pops off and I get at the ram. Get over the hardware. PC are good hardware and well designed. Also note the G5 doesn't have the fold down side no more, i'm sure working in that thing is fun.

If your going to say something about PC's don't say something completely stupid.

Also few mac users are do it yourself-ers. By the very philosophy of Apple they are not. It's all about never opening the computer, and taking it to apple stores to have certified apple ram put in it.

Now PC users are do it yourself-ers by a good margin over mac users. Many build there entire computer from basic parts, and amazingly you can often do it with no tools, or at best a single screwdriver for the whole job, how do they do it? Someplace I heard some crazyness about everything fitting and color coded and only fits one way and just being so freaking obvious. Oh and they can get all the bits they need to build one at any local electronic store for just a few hundred bucks. How crazy are they doing that with our certifiaction, hundreds of tools and complex manuals

just had lunch over at MS Corporate office, the gentlemen who was my host was enjoying the day
loading the latest in a never ending series of security
patches- over a 100 computers- real productive!
Have YOU downloaded your patch today????????

Funny how my AFB pushed the Office 2K->Office XP upgrade out in untended installations on several thousand W2K PCs in less than one week (mostly spread over 2 weekends and only limited by bandwitdh), a mere 2 weeks ago even, using tools available on the standard W2K server CDs. The techs are decent - but most have less than 5 years experience on the high side. And an MS IT drone is doing it by hand?

I'm sure MS doesn't use SMS or anything else to push out patches and they must all be loaded by hand.

MmmmHmmm....

by rockwell (IP: 12.24.216.---) - Posted on 2003-07-18 13:25:02

//Take for example viruses. Most users don't realize they can run OS X or Linux and not worry about them//

Really?

Boy, I'm glad you don't work in my IT department.

I guess I should be insulted, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

Perhaps you were referring to the fact that Mac and Linux users have to worry about Slammer shutting down internet?

Kevin,

No i'm quiet sure he's saying he's glad people with the OSX and linux have no virus so i don't have to worry mindset don't work for him. There arn't immune at all, In time they will have their share. No one wants a person working for them who doesn't take cation in something because the dumbly belive their safe.

After switching away from mac to pc in 1987, I recently switched back, buying a used 700 mhz ibook. OSX 10.2.6 runs smooth as butter, there are no slowdowns, Safari rocks, iTunes is kick ass music jukebox, and iMovie and iDVD make editing video a piece of cake.

I am so happy to be away from x86s. Computers are fun again.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=1999-01-13&res=l


I'm so sorry, but I just couldn't help it!
You all look like you could use a good laugh here.

I would have to buy all the software over again. Where is the savings in that?

I am so happy to be away from x86s. Computers are fun again.

So I guess you can only have fun with Macs? What a plonker.

It is the truth, Apple's marketing, while really good technically, it lacks any real content. They're never really saying anything in their advertisements.

They brag and boast, show some rather cool things, and maybe "tease" a product a little, but they never just show real world application of the product...

Show it being used for businesses running software - both average use (MS Office, networking) and higher end (UNIXy stuff like Oracle, etc.).

Compare and contrast the ease of use of Mail and the iApps, show Microsoft Office running and play that up. Show conneting to a Windows network and printing and the whole thing. Mention Linux and the open source phenomenom and how Apple (through X11) and other associations of the UNIX world can get you usefull free apps (OpenOffice, etc.). Show choice. Show convenience. Show peripheral support and upgradability.

In short: JUST SHOW SOMETHING. Pretentious art film commercials are as useful as throwing money in a toilet. People don't get it and really need to be shown this computer working in ways that are useful to them.

Mind share-sustaining, contentless advertisements are for liquor and cigarettes, because no one needs to know what those things do.

after the dell inerns are done, Apple should hire them for ads. do a sort of turn around ad with them :-)

I do agree with everyone who says that Apple should actually show some performance in their ads. The reason I agree though, is because that's the kind of ad that would actually spark my own interest. I know nothing about marketing, so this is actually a question to anyone who does, but in general do comercials that actually have real content to them sell better or worse than those who do? It seems like most products, no matter what they are, are sold purley on hype, style or druglike psychadelic imagery rather than actually giving an idea what it is and why I should bother to buy it. Does substance sell, or is it better to market a product, even if it is better than the alternitive, with style instead?

Content doesn't matter in commercials. I like Bud commercials, I drink Killians. What do the Dell commercials really do? They annoy the hell out of you and it gets stuck in your head like the latest boy band song. You don't remember anything about the latest special advertised, specs or performance, you just remember "Dude, you're getting a Dell."

It needs to be catchy, preferably funny and EVERYWHERE on EVERY Channel. I watch CNN and History and Discovery and I see Mac commercials frequently on one or 3 of those. I read Newsweek and every issue has a Mac ad the 1st few pages. But I don't see them in the more mainstream, areas (NBC, CBS). The crap my girlfriend watches has no Mac ads.

If it's REALLY annoying people will never forget it. Any Howard Stern fans here? How about that Trim Spa?

Triiimm Spaaa Trim SSSSpa. <sarcasm>Lots o' content</sarcasm> there but damned if I will ever forget those commercials.

Have a fat, ugly, pale guy dressed in red Spandex cyclist shorts with a cape dancing around an Apple computer screaming "Apple in your butt" for 30 seconds on the top 20 cable stations 20 times a day. No one will forget Apple. They may criticize their commercials, but they won't forget them. Your kids will pick it up and be saying it constantly. That's all that matters.

If anyone uses that all I want is a silver G35 coupe with the premium sound package:)

I think the general message in Apple's ads is good. It's the think different, we're not the average computing expeirence. Meaning certain aspects have been tighter-integrated and controled to allow for an easier and more comfortable computing experience. Great, lovely. So the thing is that the ads could just be executed better to give a better understanding of that. Meaning, the large population of computer users that don't know what that experience is. They have to first know what it is, before they can potentially drool over the product line. See, I'm a Mac user - I use and respect Apple's products. I get the ads. But, I have a sneaking suspiscion that the ads are for people like me - Apple's built-in customer base. People that want their products. Not people that may want their products. Others are painted a bit as outsiders, not very welcoming.

Now, you look at Microsoft's ads. MSN ads in particular promise the world and boast and the whole like, but they show people doing what people want to do with a computer. Lots of rather exaggerated and emblesshed screen shots and people smiling and high-fiving and the like.

Apple: they usually show a product with a rather obscure voiceover. Maybe some cute little inside joke to punctuate the point of the ad. Cold, stark. Yeah.

In all fairness, Apple has chosen a form of marketing that is a bit of a slow burn, you do see it working and creating interest among the PC crowd over time. I'm sure Steve Jobs has plenty of advise from inteligent people with real statistics. Some of their ads are really clear and briliant in their message. I just feel they could push it more.

get some comercials about a guy who walks arouns offices and checks to see if he can plug in and do the work:

"can I print now....GOOOD!!"

oh wait......

there is NO switch in this forum.

if you are only running one computer

and one operating system

YOU DON'T FUCKING BELONG HERE!!!!

leave.

(running xp, freebsd 4.8, os 9, os x, redhat 9)

XP, RH9, OSX

Apple's Switcher ads were shit. Who wants to hear from a bunch of morons who couldn't run apps on Windows? Here's a novel concept for Apple: show off how great OS X is. Show off how great the new PowerBooks are. Sell your PRODUCT, not stupid image ads with no content or substance.

It is amazing to me how every Apple thread on OS News generates a huge number of posts. For a company with supposedly insignificant market share, it obviously has a huge amount of mind share. Apple lovers and haters alike are drawn to this company and their products. Apple gets noticed. It speaks volumes about the staggering incompetence of Apple's marketing people that they cant translate at least some of that mind share into new sales.

Sorry for the frequent posts - I'm waiting on a lot of footage to render.

I think tv Mac ads have had a fatal flaw from the start. That first 1984 mac ad was great, but it set the tone for all the rest. "Their stuff sucks, buy ours." They never really say much about ours. That statement has 3 words for them and 2 for us. They spend more time on the "their stuff" than the "our stuff." The iMac, lamp version, ads are the only ones to concentrate solely on the product. It says "Look at me."

Time their switcher ads - I did. They spend, on average 20-25 seconds talking about how bad Their Stuff is and 5-10 seconds on Our Stuff. That works in politics, not consumer goods.

The people they want to impress either own "Their Stuff" or are seriously considering "Their Stuff." Not "Our Stuff." Most already know what Their Stuff does or doesn't do. They don't have to told that. What does the Apple stuff do?

Their print ads aren't very well designed either. Open the latest Newsweek to the front page. It yaps 64-bit computing everywhere. Techies think: "So what. It'll be a 64-bit processor running 32-bit aps on a 32-bit OS." The average Joe thinks "no obvious point, next page." It looks like it belongs in a trade mag.

The print ad for the PowerBook (iBook?)was pretty good. It featured a 2-page spread with foldout saying "this is exactly how big the new PowerBook is." On the flip foldout side, they listed the specs. They have massive growth in laptops. Go figure.

In Australia we didn't have the tell dude, instead we had Aristos who said, "Mate, you've got to get a dell!".

The worst part of the ad, he compared a freshly caught fish out of the Sydney harbour to a Dell computer. If a Dell has as much pollution content that the fish had, I wouldn't touch it with a 40foot pole.

Dells main source of computer revenue in the Asia-Pacific region is not Joe consumer but government departments who order computers in 10,000 lots.

As for Apple, if you take out the large government purchases hence, it is VERY hard to find out the actual market share that they hold in the CONSUMER market.

Well if anyone ever reads this I will be amazed. But surely now is the time for Apple to switch from being a hardware maufacturer to being an OS/software manufacturer. I have 6 PCs and its a given that I would definately buy a mach OS for all of them, if only Apple would see sense.

But oh well this is an old gripe. I guess it looks like they would rather die than move to PC.

Q

Do you have ANY idea of the cost involved with supporting the number of possible hardware configurations out in the PC world?

So Brad, tell me...

...Why is it you are planning on buying a Mac again?

Giving up a home platform and reimplimenting it on the PC hardware base is SUICIDE. Witness.... NeXT and Be Inc. Both would have been much better off trying to keep proprietary hardware. Developers also look at the fact you can run other OSes on that platform.

Since you can also run Windows why port that latest and greatest killer app or game? It's a huge waste of resources when they can just make you pay a couple hundred for a Windows license and another harddrive.

If your hardware platform doesn't allow this to happen, they have to consider you'd now need to shell out about a grand to run their product. Suddenly, an installed base of 10^6 users may not look so bad to spend the resources on for porting.

Apple's only hope of survival is to remain a niche solution on an alternative platform.

Here is the brunt of the problem for their style of ads.

As I mentioned before, if you are Nike you can just have an image ad. You don't even need to show a sneaker because every kid on the planet knows you are a shoe company. Everyone knows you make good shoes. There is no need to show or talk about the product unless maybe you got some new feature in there then you might add some silly ness with it. The main purpose of your ads is to keap your name out there so people know you exist and so invester know your actively doing something. Everyone knows they can go to the corner store and check out nikes, and thats where you go to buy them. Heck there are more Southern Pacific train commercials then apples buy at least 20 to 1, now why is there commercials for trains. For investors, to get the word out on a company so they no that company is something. Thats the other place image ads work. For established products and investing.

Now were you can't do this is startup product. If someone comes out with some new snack food the first commercials explain what it is before they start selling, other wise the prodect never moves. But once the world knows the product they just move to image ads since their more fun. These ads don't matter if your craft food or General Motors. If you got something new out you got to show it and explain it.

Now to apple. Apple wants to think they can do image ads because the are an establish brand with customers. well surprise you're not. People don't go to the corner store and get a mac. People don't have lots of freinds with macs. Even if they once tried a mac, which is probably why they currently don't, they haven't tried a new one with OSX and better hardware. Apple is only established with current customers, thus the image ads arn't going to anything for switchers. And the switch commericals were image ads, and bad ones at that. They have to act like they are a new company or have new product to get people. You have to show what you have and show why its good, or people just won't care. Dell can do interns and so forth because everyone knows what dell has, its a computer with windows just like the dozen the consumer has allready had at home and work and school. It has a new processor they saw in the intel commercials, they know it's faster and their current computer is old, they don't need much info other then dell has nice computers.

Also, yes the targeting of apples ads are wrong. As someone was showing where they have seen them, well I watch those stations and don't see them. Remember commericals still get broken up into reginal areas. Apple probably puts most of them in big city areas. This is why so many people have never seen apple ads, and others have. On top of this leaving off such a big chunk of the marget it also causes confusing in places like here. Some people see apple as this common company with ads all over and plenty of people have them. the others, and this is the magority , barely know of apple, see them as barely being around, see no ads and know no one with a mac. The reality is apple is quiet small and not to many people own one, 1 in 100 and ads are few and far bettween. If your a mac users this is probably hard to see, if not it's probably obvious. The only ads apple did big in all areas where switch ads. And they were horrible as all the above post have mentioned, once again if your an apple hardcore you probably struggle to understand why they were so bad, but then remember they were not ads meant for you. Ads in newsweek arn't going to get you very far, try Parade magazine, or even HotRod.

I live in one of the biggest college towns in the nation, you'd expect it to be crawling with apple ads and have a apple store. But yet theres nothing, no ads, no stores, not a single thing. And the amount of macs reflects that. You only see them on campus in labs and no one wants to touch them, though once again os9 ain't helping things. All there is, is the store through the campus computer center where you can order macs, which basicly acounts for nothing. Though one osnews reader did post a while back that they were very helpful in getting his ibook fixed and not for the 500-1000 bucks or so apple wanted to charge. Still if apple can't even tap university markets they are hurting. The best way to get people is get them when there young. Granted if your a college major there is a good chance your not going to be able to use a mac. Especialy if your in engineer, i have to many things that are windows only. I know people who were mac users and then became pc users because they became and engineer. Apple can't change this but they still have all the people who can use one. Think of the original iMac. People bought tons of them for their kids for their first computer. They were a damn cheap computers. At the time much cheaper then most all PCs. There were a seeding computer. If you gave them a mac first then they would probably stick with it because they wouldn't want to switch. Those kids go to college and upgrade to a better mac, graduate and get a top of line mac. Currently apple has missed this, and doesn't even have a line up for them. No parent aside from a mac user is going to buy a kid their first computer and it be a mac, that kids getting the 400 dollar dell and will have dells forever. Apple needs to wake up

It's the hardware I hate, apple is so caught up in keeping their proprietary nonsense that they are on the brink of entirely blinking it right out of the market. If they really want to survive they need to stop right now with their stubborn use of the PPC architecture, or even better, try to work along with everyone else (or at least one or two companies) to introduce some of the RISC concepts into x86 hardware. then there's ADC, and this new audio connector they have, I'll admit that ADC is a good idea, but when the rest of the industry is using DVI, it's just plain rediculous, it prevents people who'd like to use their very nice (better than most of the rest, yes) LCD screens on anything but a Mac, without diminished capability. I have no idea what the new audio connector is capable of, as I've just heard of it a few days ago, but WHAT THE HELL FOR? what's wrong with either SPDIF, TOSLINK, digital coax, or plain old multiple headphone jacks for multi-channel audio?
and why, oh WHY do video card makers have to make special versions of their cards to work on apple's AGP? why???? it's AGP, it's supposed to be a standard, why has apple made macintosh AGP so different that PC AGP cards don't work with it???


Please Apple, if you want to stay alive, please get your heads out of you respective posteriors and wake up to the rest of the computer world already.

and why, oh WHY do video card makers have to make special versions of their cards to work on apple's AGP? why???? it's AGP, it's supposed to be a standard, why has apple made macintosh AGP so different that PC AGP cards don't work with it???

If you actually took the time to read my posts you would actually realise that the cause of it isn't their implementation but the fact that the video card needs to be OpenBoot compliant so that it can work. I suggested in the same post that they should move to EFI which would enable users to install any old AGP video card as so long as the vendor issued Mac drivers with it or it was already supported by the operating system.

market share matters?

well lets say the entire persoanal computer market consists of 2 billion computers. if apple has 5% of 2 billion is 100 million!!!

2% of 2 billion is 40 million

so, sure Apple in these theoretical numbers has almost no market share, but the customer base is such that it is profitable to make software for the installed base.

you can not look at percentages of over all market when you are deciding to make a title for a platform, you must look at the streight numbers of customers.

so, while it is profitable to make a title for windows, it is also profitable to port it over to the mac since porting costs will be less than initial development costs and the installed base is large enough to sell to.

also...keep in mind that the world wide computer market is far from saturated and the growth in the numbers you see are more from opening new markets than selling to old ones.

also...keep in mind that the world wide computer market is far from saturated and the growth in the numbers you see are more from opening new markets than selling to old ones.

Which is why I have said that Apple has to stop being so bloody US centric and realise that computers have not penetrated has deeply overseas as they have in the US.

you can not look at percentages of over all market when you are deciding to make a title for a platform, you must look at the straight numbers of customers.

Also, the number of customers willing and able to pay for this software. If you have 20million people and if 9 million are willing and able to purchase your product, would you care that they only make up 2% of the over all user base?

btw, regarding the sum of 20million, IMHO that is VERY low in comparision to the number of Mac users who were registerd at the ISP I used to work for. Oh, btw, we have no relationship with Apple, infact, our relationship was closer to the PC vendors of our area.

2% would probably be the percentage that would be in say photoshop market. so you sell a $1000 software title to them that you sell on the other platform and you make money.

as far as consumer software, consumers buy or think about buying most of the software out there. infact, the fact that the mac market is smaller than the OC one is good for consumers because you are then as a consumer iven only the best titels and the crappy ones do not enter the picture because they barly make mney in the windows world.

"The Tandy's where good stuff. There rest... "

damn, i think you're the only person to ever udder that line

I love Tandy computers (the earlier ones, not the last few models). Tandy was at least trying to do new and different things to make their computers more interesting and useful than the International Business Machines and other clones that were out there in the market.

The PCjr invented the new features and the Tandy made them sellable. 16-color graphics when everyone else was monochrome or 2/4 color. 3-voice beeper with noise and volume adjustment (made nice cheesey music) and later a 3-voice digital chip that was the first DAC found in PCs (I think - I know it was the first to be built in).

If you don't know the beauty of Tandy computers, you weren't a Sierra gamer! Sierra games looked and sounded best on Tandy's for quite a while.

Try to do something more than browse the internet and use MS Office if you want some crashes. Try doing pro-audio and graphics. Basically, any function that pretty much requires kernel-mode drivers. Welcome to crashville USA.

Do the bare minimum with Windows and it's ok (though my tolerance for its behavior is at zero these days).

Try to do professional media work with it and you will see the reality. It isn't pretty.

Like those who think Macs running OS 9 would constantly crash, or that "there is no software for Macs", or thos who simply "hate Macs" for no particular reason. Well, the reason, of course is that they don't know them and they are different. Very American. Be mainstream. Follow the flow. Despise the minorities.

Sad how many ignorant and stupid people are around.

Try to do something more than browse the internet and use MS Office if you want some crashes.

FUD. Millions of people are doing more than that on their Windows PCs and they are not crashing them.

Try doing pro-audio and graphics.

I did SQA for a graphics company, and it was usually their drivers that were crashing the system. It is Microsoft's problem? No. In fact, they were also developing drivers & software for the Mac, and they were crashing as often - if not more - than PCs. It is Apple's problem? No.

AFAIK, there's a lot of graphic developers on the PC... If they were that unstable, I guess there would have much less, don't you think?

Basically, any function that pretty much requires kernel-mode drivers. Welcome to crashville USA.

If I create a buggy driver for Windows, it's Microsoft's fault, but if I create it for MacOS, it's mine? Right.

You have to blame those who create those kernel-mode drivers.

Try to do professional media work with it and you will see the reality. It isn't pretty.

Well, maybe it's not pretty in YOUR reality...

I would be curious about what hardware you use. Delta sound card? Matrox capture card?

yes, I have seen it crash but that was due to me being a Charlie Cheapskate and not purchasing a quality piece of hardware. I thought I could get away with an el-cheapo PCI card.

I am not disputing there are issues, however, I would be interested in knowing what hardware you have that is causing you greef. Regarding MacOS X, that crashes too. Heck, I removed a DVD and I suddenly received a kernel panic relating to the UDF driver.

If the issue is relating to the driver, then you should blame the hardware manufacturer not the operating system vendor. If the driver does cause problems, contact them and tell them the situation so that they can correct and reissue a new driver to fix it.

Machines:
SuperMicro mainboard (PC) with memory from Crucial.
Mac G4 (original Apple hardware, looks and feels wonderful, performs like poop)
UMAX S900 Supermac (kind of ugly but a better performer all around and very upgradable, w/G4 proc, runs OS 8/9/10 better than the newer Apple machine)

Devices:
Echo Audio Mona audio interface (both)
Wacom tablet (both)
Yamaha UX256 USB MIDI interface (NOT cheap!!)
SBLive (the only cheapo thing I have, but I can't seem to ween myself off of it due to it being the ONLY audio in BeOS that I get)

Software:
Too many to list all, but...
Cakewalk Sonar 2 (PC, not cheapo)
NewTek Lightwave 7 (both, not cheapo)
Cakewalk Project 5 (PC not cheapo)
Corel Painter 7 (both, not cheapo)
Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator (both, not cheapo)
Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 6 (PC, not cheapo)
etc...

OSes in use: WinXP, OS 8.5, 9 & X (obviously on separate machines)

I'm not using anything cheap or unapproved. Wait...Nix that; most drivers for everything on WinXP are not passed by MS labs because it's too slow a process for hardware developers to bother with it for every version (or any of them it seems sometimes). I've yet to see one driver for ANY product that is MS certified (not counting built in drivers).

I hate both platforms for the same reasons. Bad OS design, bloated, slow, crash-prone, bugs that go unfixed and unacknowledged, poor responsiveness to user actions, bad feedback to user, etc. OS X is no better than WinXP or visa versa. If it had the software and driver support, I'd use BeOS 100% of the time. To bad, but the reality is that I can do ZERO media work on BeOS (yeah, the Media OS). So I use WinXP for most work (and the Macs for Internet and some graphics and MIDI stuff when WinXP doesn't work out).

My real beaf is with the state of Computers in general. I think Apple and Microsoft are two big scumbags that need to be forcefully removed from the playground. That's all this industry is, really. A big playground dominated by two megalomaniacal bullies that will do whatever they feel like as long as they manage to control people and things. Steve wants a cult, Bill wants everything.

You should see my anti-computer posts on other sites and on other story forums around here.

But I just had to attack the "WinXP doesn't crash" crowd. Same goes for the "OS X doesn't crash" crowd. These people are either lucky and ignorant of just plain full of boiling horse manure.

Blaming the hardware manufacturer for bad drivers is useless. Every product I've ever owned has had the same track record and so has the support. If their product isn't the only one on your system, they refuse to believe they're the cause and they will refuse to work with you any further. It is the defacto standard status quo behavior of the entire computer industry and it sucks.

To just telling me, or any user, to simply go talk to the manufacturer about bad drivers is totally missing the point: computers in general, when being used for professional purposes, are unreliable in the extreme and the only reason people use them is because they are compelled to use them by convenience (over manual process)and expectation (try to tell your boss that you don't want to use a computer to do your job) and because there is a huge system of "support" that's expected to solve the inevitable problems (if you can afford the support).

That's right. We're compelled to use them. Try to work with your business partners while demanding that they send and receive all documents and communication manually. Same goes for design work and audio work. The tools are great when they work. For big companies that can afford a tech support team, if something fails, the workers move on to another box while the first one is being fixed. This isn't possible in a home studio or in the home in general.

Business gets along... end users get abused and programmed to think that they're the cause of the problem. People like me get pissed off and sick of trying to solve every freaking problem from a to z that comes up at work and then again with friends and family.

I'm sick of the pass the buck attitude of "it must be your [insert buck passing object here]; get a new [insert blanket solution here] and that will make everything fine."

The WHOLE SYSTEM is bad.

At the core of it lies two problems:

1) The for ever backwards compatibility so that the cheapskates of the world don't need to upgrade their software. We still have idiots here expecting to run DOS applications in 2003. If you need to run them then maybe you should step away from the computer and never use it again.

2) Hardware vendors who promote, "cheap", "cheap", "cheap" rather than "Moderately priced and good quality". It seem that users are now more interested in cheap rather tha quality and unfortunately we, the people who don't mind paying a little more, end up suffering so that a large portion can get their cheap stuff.

It's the same stuff I keep talking about, too (plus I'd add a few other elements to it, but yours cover some of the important ones). Glad I'm not alone out here!

Yep, backward compability can be a problem and is for certain in the industry. I don't think the dos example is relevant except when applied on the timeline from NT4 Server. I have for example a station with an instrument that is still running win 3.1 with an uptime just broken by thunderstorms as it just do one thing. What can i say I am cheap. This year it will go to the dumpster when we upgrade the instrument but sometimes in the real world for smaller businesses it is not worth upgrading until later date. If it works why throw away money. Then we have the other side of the coin. Who can update the computer park at the speed wanted by Microsoft. They even had to change license form due to this.

That is on the windows side, on the mac side we have all users of os9. Apple still sells a computer that boots os9 because it is asked for by the market. Then we have the outrage when a new function of the ipod is not there for free on the old ipod. Or that people expect osX to perform on old blueberry G3 imac.

I am sure that you will find if you put a PC together with quality parts:

ASUS mobo with all the new cool stuff on it like CPU shutdown in case of overheat, onboard fire wire, SATA, DDR 400, USB 2

then get near top notch video card...mabye one revision less

then get a new Creative audoligy

buy a nice case and have ports on the front for non-legacy headers

get a 17 in monitor,

get a near top of the line CPU....I like AMD

then buy everyting you need to make the computer quiet.....a quiet PS...a baracuda V 80GB hard drive....a rehostat, etc

then add a DVD-RW/CD-RW

buy the OS...winXP...then get good consumer photo software(MS makes a good one...I forget what it is called but it is nice)

get good consumer movie software

and if you are a developer, get good development software (Apple gives theirs away free...even the IDE which is as nice as VS 6...Xcode will rock even more)

add all that up and you will come to near 1800 -2000 bucks for the computer

2) The Rapid app development tools for Mac, also, leave Windows in the dust. There is nothing like OPENSTEP on Windows

The current dev tools on the Mac are a good 2-3 versions behind Visual Studio from MS in terms of RAD development.

Have any of you actually USED VS.NET ? ! Try it out and then load up Apple's 'project builder'. You'll see that its very much like VC++ 4, which is years behind ver 7 of VC on windows.

Half the 'wizbang' features the mac devs are just getting were available to Windows developers in 1998 for gods sake.

"Anyway, this thread will probably degrade into a Mac/Win/Nixlot pile-on soon enough. I think the bottom line is the price of Macs. I really believe many more "ordinary" people would take the Mac plunge if the prices came down across the board a bit more. "

"Penny wise and dollar stupid" is the unconscious mantra of the average Joe PC buyer.

Macs are far cheaper to own than a PC and generally last two to three times longer than a comparable Windows PC purchased the same day.

Finding people with 5-6 year old Macs running the very latest version of OS X is not at all unusual, but I doubt you will find a "still functioning" first generation Pentium machine running Windows XP.

Go ahead Wintel bozos, keep demonstrating your ignorance to the enlightened computer users of the world.

Oh, a mountain troll. Whee!

Macs are far cheaper to own than a PC and generally last two to three times longer than a comparable Windows PC purchased the same day.

Right. Care to back up your claims?

You know, most people I know are upgrading their PCs because of games and/or programs written in a sloppy way (i.e. not optimised at all). Those problems will appear on the Mac once more people switch and more companies develop for it. It's quite similar to Linux: they were claiming that it was far less buggy than Windows... until more and more people switched and find bugs in it.

Finding people with 5-6 year old Macs running the very latest version of OS X is not at all unusual...

You mean on the G3? At full speed? Care to back up your claims?

...but I doubt you will find a "still functioning" first generation Pentium machine running Windows XP.

Of course, the minimum requirement is a P2.

Go ahead Wintel bozos, keep demonstrating your ignorance to the enlightened computer users of the world.

If people like you are the enlightened computer users of the world, we're in deep shit.

True. There are quality hardware vendors unforunately the market is dominated by the cheapskate group.

For me, I do some Java programming and graphic work using Corel Graphics Studio 11. The Pentium III 550Mhz I use now is nice, however, I would like to have something that does perform a little better.

Oh, I've just given 1.4.2 SDK a try running Netbeans 3.5, and it is fast and rock solid. It taks 15 seconds to load it from clicking the icon to a fully workable IDE. So the speed of Java now on this computer is reasonable so if one were to say, "run a java application", I am sure you wouldn't hear a raw of laughter from the "I must have all my applications loading in 3 seconds" fan boys.

You comments remind me of the athesits who claim that some how they are the wise for not believing in all this "hocus pocus", yet the majority believe in a superior being. Should we who are the majority suddenly bow down the their "powers of reasoning"?

MacOS runs shithouse on anything less than a G4. I've used on every day for a few months so don't tell me that for some miracle or act of god, Wintel are the only ones that require more memory each release. Sure, MacOS 10.2 is a great operating system, however, to suddenly claim that it can run on an iMac G3 acceptably is a joke at best and a lie at worst.

btw, I have seen Windows XP run on a Pentium II and Pentium MMX. The gold rule is, make sure you have 256MB RAM and you will aright. You will only notice any slow down when you start using heavy CPU using applications. Things like mp3 codecs tend to chew up a bit of power when running.

Something suprised me today, i always tought that macs did not have any software besides(what appe makes)...
Wow, i was wrong, very wrong
They even have many games... A lot of quality software and more. I think this is impressive compared to the user base.
And they look so cool, yes still it seem to be quality!

For thoose who have not tested/seen one, find a (new)one and look at it...
...
I want a mac, who's paying

Guitarman,

Well by the ton of your voice you seam to think i have a problem with apples. I don't really and i never said anything negitive about them. I pointed out to the topic of why they arn't selling and the consumer issues with them. I switch OS's every few years and just like change. I really like the 17" power book. I want a laptop when I graduate. It won't be my only computer. But i want to have something portable to. Also I like OSX, its nice. Once I'm out of school the OS i use doesn't really matter since there isn't things i need to do on my computer for anything, I can chose what I do.

I never would have touched a mac before OSX. OS9 makes me hate them, its one of the worse OS's ever. Win 95 is far and above better then it. With OSX apple has for the most part made an OS i like, very few issues, no more then windows really. Their hardware is getting better. The G5 makes things better. I still have minor issues but i can find issues with most everything. Also the price for their laptops arn't bad. Also wintel laptops don't do much for me, though they are always getting better. It's simple something new for me.

Just because I point out what apple needs to change doesn't mean i wouldn't buy their stuff. But I want more people to be buying it. More users is better no matter how you slice it. I'm not some snobby elitist person. I'm also honest about them. I'm not in the distortion field that doesn't get it that their hardware is no better, or that thinks all things PC are crap. I see them how they are. I'm not in a position to buy a mac right now, but soon i will be, plus i can wait. I can wait till the second revision of a model, cause you don't buy a first revision mac anything.

The 17" power book is basicly the only appealling peice of hardware apple makes, the rest is either ugly or to small, or over priced for what it is. The G5 isn't bad, but it doesn't exist yet, so can't say much till they are out. Cube's new iMacs both were huge let downs when i say them, they look like ass in person. This leads to what i have been saying. I'm interested in a mac, but i have only ever touched 1 15" power book and only played with OSX on a keyox iMac on campus. I'm not about to send 3000 bucks to apple.com without messing with one for a while. And like most anyone i'm not going to drive 3 hrs one way just to check one out and think about it some more, also only get to play with it for a bit, not hours or days like one needs.

If you were thinking I'm an apple hater, or basher or windows fan boy, you simple don't get it and probably never will. Reality and seeing things as they are is very refreshing.

The current dev tools on the Mac are a good 2-3 versions behind Visual Studio from MS in terms of RAD development.

Have any of you actually USED VS.NET ? ! Try it out and then load up Apple's 'project builder'. You'll see that its very much like VC++ 4, which is years behind ver 7 of VC on windows.

Half the 'wizbang' features the mac devs are just getting were available to Windows developers in 1998 for gods sake.

VS .NET is nice and it does have a lot of great RAD features that boost of productivity. I certainly like developing with it better than with Java tools when it comes to desktop apps. However, the Cocoa frameworks are outstanding and, in my opinion, superior to either Java or .NET. Cocoa is certainly better than MFC or Carbon (I'm sure the procedural programmers will have issues with this). Hopefully XCode will make it even easier to develop Cocoa apps. As for the present, it's easy to develop an app in Interface Builder and Project Builder even without the niceties in VS .NET.

outside of enthusiasts, who is prepared to switch their OS? Only people that find something sufficiently compelling on one platform that they can't get on another. I'd say a second computer on a different platform would be far more likely than someone selling their existing kit & switching to another platform, with all the risks and uncertainties that entails.

The only reason I would see for a complete switch (outside of compelling apps being available that cannot be found on PC) is a 'joe average' sick of his old computer crashing or whatever, and not knowing the exact reason for it, and thinking that Apple will solve all his/her problems.

I second that. When I see users complain about the stability of Windows, guess what they have? they have every tweaker, modifier, "speeder-uper", stability improver and every other piece of snake oil that is sold on the market.

I've NEVER owned Nortons utilities, yet, I am able to maintain my computer quite nicely with the tools already included with Windows.

Also, most of these complainers have bought cheap crap. Yes, you heard me right, cheap crappy $200 computers. The IT world is the definate example of paying for what you get. If you purchase an elcheapo modem, what is going to happen? the error correction and compression will be of poor quality and you would find that it would keep dropping the connection.

Same with computers. If you buy your computer from Dans Dodgy Computer Dealer, what do you expect? when you pay $200 for a computer, what do you expect?

I'm a Mac and other OS user and I have to agree with those who said there is no real compelling reason to switch as far as the OS is concerned, especially for the average user. And I say that as a long time Mac user.

Arguments for and against these two OSes are just infinite loops now. You have to see what the companies themselves are doing and where they're going.

Microsoft is into everything with mixed results. Apple, with a couple of exceptions, is gone for it all with the digitial hub.

If I were an average consumer and had some decent info, buying and iMac with all the iLife apps would be a good move. I think that Apple (and Jobs in particular) blew the "Switch" campaign by making it a switch campaign. If they would have used the time to show people the digital hub, I think they'd have more success. It isn't that Microsoft totally stinks in this area, it's just that Apple has put together a very nice package out of the box that's hard to beat.

I have been recently amazed to see quite a few of my colleagues/work relations actually switch to OSX. The reason was mainly they didn't want windows and have been messing with linux for years without real satisfaction. I personnally haven't switched since I have known the mac community before OSX, and god, the last thing I'd like is to join these mac-blind fans, who were all graphists at the time.

If I were an average consumer and had some decent info, buying and iMac with all the iLife apps would be a good move. I think that Apple (and Jobs in particular) blew the "Switch" campaign by making it a switch campaign. If they would have used the time to show people the digital hub, I think they'd have more success. It isn't that Microsoft totally stinks in this area, it's just that Apple has put together a very nice package out of the box that's hard to beat.

Agreed. Microsofts current focus is on application servers and other server related technologies. Apple however is more focused on the end user by providing a complete solution. The argument isn't so much the cost but WHY should a person move to a Mac. If they are quite happy with their computing experience, why should they change? What can Mac offer that the PC either can't or doesn't do very well.

Regarding the switch campaign, they should have concertrated MORE on the consumer who DOESN'T have a desktop vs. trying to convert customers who current own a PC.

My main reason to switch is so that I can have a UNIX experience but have access to all the mainstream software which is available. I can be an arty-farty for 5minutes then jump down into the shell and hack away at some source code in a UNIX environment.

I think that is the compelling reason for most professionals too. They need to have compatibility with work but don't want to run Windows. They need Office because of the need to write macros for end users. Microsoft Office provides that ability. After giving it a go, it was well worth it.

Anyone who wants the answer to this has to use the "mom and dad" test. Would your mom or dad switch operating systems when they barely know Windows? Come on. Ain't gonna happen to the masses. Apple missed the boat long ago in the marketing arena. Beta was better than VHS. Who won? It's over.

The only thing that will change any of this is when the entire computing paradigm changes. Until then, MS rules the desktop.

The PC rules in the office. The Mac has a good share of the graphics market.

In Australia the consumer is obsessed with mobile phones. You can get one with a camera, PIM, bluetooth, PC-syncing, MMS, fax, Messenger and Hotmail ,email etc for nothing up front and about AUD$30 (<20 US) a month including some calls. Unlimited voice calls are available for AUD$99 (about US$60) a month capped maximum www.three.com.au using 3G technology. The handsets are still too bulky but will rapidly shrink.

I bought a Motorola V70 mobile phone today http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrf...

Weighs 85g (<3 Oz)and cost AUD$200 (< half RRP). Does a lot of useful things like fax, email, PIM, wireless syncing, currency conversion etc. A few more feautures and you have a basic portable office.

Within a few years mobile phones will probably have more power than a 1998 vintage laptop. You will be able to take photos and videos, take dictation, send quality video mails,transfer them via a wireless connection to your media centre etc. High call costs could be largely avoided by using wireless LAN (in airports, shopping centres, cafes etc)to tranfer data via landlines. A technology existed in Australia the mid 1980s that used base stations at petrol stations etc to connect to handsets. It wasn't cellular but a type of trunked radio. Not very sucessful because there were too few base stations and the range was very small (about as limited as Bluetooth). However combined with cellular methods in one handset it would be very useful.

Hardware solutions are much better for home users than personal computers and software. DVD players attached to a HDTV are far better than trying to watch on a computer.

Imagine a super multimedia Box. Crashproof QNX embedded OS, 1TB hardrive, 8GB ram, custom multimedia CPU, 256 MB videocard, wireless gigabit networking, broadband etc. When you walk into the room it syncs all your devices automatically, backs it self up via broadband to offline storage, downloads movies in the background etc. Connects wirelessly to a 200cm panel monitor etc. This is all feasible and readily affordable in 5-10 years time.

Beats a Mac or PC anyday for home use.

Apple doesn't make mobile phones of course - Sony and MS do.

Hats off to CooCooCaChoo for making sense, unlike the swill that most are selling here.

Yawn.
It's amazing how passionate people get about Apple. The naysayers and the zealots alike. What a company and what an OS! The grass is truly greener on the Apple side.

Attention Windows PC users:
Look forward to everything from restrictive DRM and anti-piracy crap to complicated licensing schemes. Oh, and a system that gets more features you don't really need.

Attention Mac users:
Look forward to exciting new and useful developments and a continued focus on a better user experience.

Does Apple want to make money? Yes. That's the point of them charging for things (I feel some people don't realize that). Steve and crew are hardly idle in this area. They did an admirable job of keeping the anchor down and riding out the lull in performance and now that that's through look forward to some amazing things.

Attention Windows PC users:
Look forward to everything from restrictive DRM and anti-piracy crap to complicated licensing schemes. Oh, and a system that gets more features you don't really need.

sorry but that applies to apple also, if you think that DRM will only apply to windows, you haven't been paying much real attention to the "pending doom of computers everywhere."™ known as the SSSCA/CBPTPA ( http://www.eff.org/IP//SSSCA_CBDTPA/ ) or even this, here's a google search for "Apple DRM" ( http://www.google.com/search?q=apple%20drm )

and to add to that, Mac zealots rejoice and brag about always having some feature or another of windows first, but DRM WILL be in windows first, but we windows users won't be bragging.