I'd go further and say that to ask if Apple is "winning the war" is to misrepresent Apple's position. They're building compelling products, selling them at a price point of their own choosing, and doing very well out of it.
They don't care about their market share in an absolute sense. If they did, they would run lower prices and take more sales. It's a bit like, in the human sense, following the crowd. Most laptop manufacturers follow the crowd, they build machines similar to, and priced closely, to those of their competitors (and they all run The One OS to bind them... erm sorry!). Apple is the geek of the electronics business - they do what they want, they don't feel obliged to follow the crowd and be seen to 'fit in'. And they've made it work. Of course the consumer sees things differently because the cost (at least in Europe) puts a Mac of any kind at the top end of the market. Many (non-IT) people make their purchase decisions based on (a) the features they need and (b) the ticket price of the machines with those features. When I talk to my non-IT family and friends and explain what they get with a Mac (hassle-free running, no bloatware, longer-lasting hardware, cheap OS upgrades, genius bar support when you want it) when compared to a PC (yearly AV subscriptions, no useful support from the vendor, the inevitable scrub and re-install every 12-15 months, expensive OS upgrades) then they start to see that unless they are shopping in the bargain basement, a Mac starts to look more affordable because of the downstream savings (in money and time). I've digressed more than I should here but that's in part because I sat through the Chrome keynote on Wednesday and yes, it's far from mature but Google are pushing the same agenda - "its quick, its simple, it just works". Looking forward to my Chromebook next month! On May 13, 4:24 pm, Alexey Zinger <[email protected]> wrote: > That's a valid, but very limiting point of view, I think. I hope you wouldn't > apply the same model to pursuits like mathematics or art. Where does computer > science land in all this then? > > Alexey > > ________________________________ > From: Chris Adamson <[email protected]> > To: The Java Posse <[email protected]> > Sent: Fri, May 13, 2011 11:17:24 AM > Subject: [The Java Posse] Re: Is Apple is winning the PC war? > > On May 12, 10:55 pm, Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I find this pretty typical in discussions involving Apple. Whenever the > > exchanges start discussing numbers, Apple enthusiasts tend to quickly dig in > > with a "I don't care, Apple makes tons of money which means they're great". > -- 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.
