On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Moandji Ezana <[email protected]> wrote:
> [Forked from "Scala 2.9 released, Akka 1.1 released; Scala Solutions and > Scalable Solutions merge, new Typesafe company"] > > 2011/5/12 Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> > >> Second, Macs are nowhere near winning the PC war. They did see a small >> uptick in sales thanks to the iPhone/iPad aura effect, but they are still >> completely crushed by Windows PC's. It's not hard to see why, since >> essentially, while Macs are probably better for developers, Windows is the >> undisputed leader in pretty much any other personal and professional >> computing area (games, Office, etc...). >> > > On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Josh Berry <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Also, the mac is winning the pc war? > > > By several measures, yes. > > (Disclaimer: I use Ubuntu (on a Dell) and Android and tend to get > frustrated whenever I try to use my father's Macbook Pro.) > > 1. Apple is now more profitable than > Microsoft<http://www.businessinsider.com/its-official-apple-earns-more-than-microsoft-2011-4>. > Among hardware makers, they're #1 by far in profit share, with 35% > (according to Deutsche > Bank<http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-profit-share-of-top-pc-vendors-2010-3> > ). > I don't see how this is relevant to measuring the PC market share, especially considering that most of the money that Apple makes comes from outside their Mac line. > 2. Apple clearly leads mindshare and sets trends. In any general > electronics store I go to here (Belgium), there are a bunch of ugly HP, > Acer, etc. laptops stacked randomly on a shelf, while Apple has its own well > thought-out space. There are Sony stores, but no-one goes to them. > Er... any objective data in here? I don't see much support for your "clearly" claims except for your personal feeling that Windows laptops are ugly. What you are saying shows that Apple is taking their marketing and user experience seriously (which we already know) but doesn't really stack up against hard numbers, which place Apple's market share around 5% in the world and 8% in the US (source<http://www.winsupersite.com/blogs/entryid/76068/mac-market-share-4-42-in-q4-2010-4-13-for-cy-2010> ). > Since they have insignificant enterprise sales (and distinctive branding), > you see a disproportionate amount of Macbooks in the street/parks/cafés. > Their owners actually care about them. No-one cares about the HP they use at > work. > More subjective and irrelevant data (note that I agree with you, but what you are saying has nothing to do with the discussion). > > 3. Counting the iPad (which I think is as much of a computer as any laptop > or netbook), Apple ships more computers than Lenovo and almost as many as > Dell. Its 9.5% worldwide volume share (according to > Canalys<http://www.canalys.com/pr/2011/r2011043.html>), > is almost triple what they had last year. I think that's more than a "small > uptick". > It you add iPad sales, Apple's market share climbs up to 11.77% worldwide, from 5%. Technically, you're right, it's a 100% increase, but if you look at absolute numbers, it's still 11.77%. A far cry from "winning the war". > 4. I get the impression that the Mac software ecosystem is a lot better > (and now, thanks to the Mac App Store, easier to access) for the general > consumer. To say nothing of the iPad ecosystem. A colleague was showing me > Flipboard and Al Gore's "Our Choice" today. If Android tablets have apps > that are equally delightful, I haven't heard of them. > > So, if being dominant in terms of profit and mindshare, competitive in > terms of volume (with near 0 enterprise sales) and attracting really good > software developers isn't winning, what is? > To me, winning means having a clear lead over the competition, and as far as we can tell with anything that's actually measurable, Apple is nowhere near that as of today. They have certainly made very impressive progress as of late, but keep in mind that climbing is much easier when you start from the bottom than when you are already at the top. Apple's real challenge will be to cross the 50% line and then keep climbing after that. Personally, I'm not convinced this will happen in the next five or even ten years, especially since their tablet market share is already showing signs of erosion coming from Android (which is only going to become stronger in the next couple of years). -- Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
