> Why is it that forums & mailing list that are not Mac related they never > even mention Mac's ever. But on a Mac forum they always, always have to talk > about PC's.
This is an easy one. :) You can look at total marketshare, and there are a =lot= of macs out there. But out of shipping units, apple now has about a 4-6% marketshare depending on which company does the statistics. That has consequences, namely: For the typical PC user, many of them can probably go their entire computing life without ever coming into contact with a mac user. Everyone knows who apple is, especially people really into technology- but for the average PC user the mac never factors into their existence unless they have something they want to print and the printer charges them extra, or someone on a mac sends them a microsoft word document and forgets to add the .doc extension. But, that isn't the case for mac users. If someone owns a mac and just does email/web/etc then the PC might never factor into their lives unless they want to share a file with a PC user or want to run software that won't run on a mac. But for probably a large percentage of mac users, they run into the PC world quite often. Print designers get pc files, mac-based web designers have to test their sites on PC's, even plugging into a corporate network. And on and on and on. The trick is not to get defensive about your computing platform of choice, but it is still good to be knowledgable about other platforms/software. If you go onto an adobe golive list, probably 25% of the users will go apesh*te on you for saying, "dreamweaver does this, and its cool. How come golive doesn't?" Not good, in fact I think it can start to cause the death of a platform... Elitism or defensiveness is never good. The other side of the coin (and its just my personal opinion, and people may disagree) is that apple probably has 35% of their userbase who would buy a mac 2years from now even if you ended up paying $3500 for a laptop with a 700mhz chip in it. That isn't good, as apple has no reason to innovate. :( Knowing what the competition is doing makes you a much more informed consumer and keeps apple on their toes... The print industry is a good example. Apple was really pissing it off 2-3years ago, and so many print companies were looking at switching to windowsnt it wasn't funny. MS and intergraph were taking over the print shows, and apple was feeling the pain. Apple got their act together and was able to (in the design area, not necessarily RIP's, filesharing) push the NT market out to the point that MS just had a tiny booth at last years show. Same with the education market, etc... If you're willing to buy anything apple is selling, they have no reason to lower prices/margins and compete. Ie, if you're willing to pay a 30-40% premium for a slower computer with an OS with less features, apple has no reason to make computers at a 15% margin with MORE features. That's one of the reasons why the iPod got so much press at first- when apple's back is against the wall they have a tendancy to come up with something insanely great. When it's not, they have a tendancy to coast. >Neither platform is better or worse than the other. They are > just different. Agreed. :) -- Michael Bryan Bell http://homepage.mac.com/michael_bell/ -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
