JEK
Senior Insider
Low market share is badge of honor, as far as Mac faithful are concerned
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News
Here's a multiple-choice Apple Computer trivia question:
How much has the Mac's share of the worldwide personal computer market increased since the beginning of the second Jobs era? Choose from:
A. Market share is up 50 percent.
B. Market share has doubled.
C. Market share has tripled.
OK, pencils down. The correct answer is:
D. None of the above.
Oddly enough, that's OK.
Steve Jobs returned to Apple's helm in the summer of 1997, after being forced out 12 years earlier, and revived the Cupertino company he and Steve Wozniak founded 30 years ago next Saturday.
Apple is now more successful than ever. Sales and profits are setting records every quarter. New models of Apple's Macintosh computers appear on magazine covers and make cameo appearances in numerous Hollywood movies and TV shows. Apple's iPod is bringing new acolytes into the Mac fold.
Yet despite well-deserved acclaim for design and ease of use, Apple's share of the worldwide PC market has tumbled from 4.6 percent in 1996, the year before Jobs returned, to just 2.2 percent in 2005.
Microsoft's bland and virus-prone Windows operating system continues to grab more than 90 percent market share.
Apple has pursued a deliberate strategy of appealing to a narrow audience of computing enthusiasts. These enthusiasts, the Mac faithful, understand the value of what Apple offers. They are willing to pay more than buyers of what hard-core Macophiles snidely dismiss as ``Windoze.''
Apple's main consumer desktop computer, for example, is the new iMac with an Intel processor starting at $1,299.
It's possible to get a Windows desktop computer and monitor for as little as $399, after mailing a bunch of rebate coupons. Such a system offers much less performance and fewer features than the Mac, but it's good enough for the vast majority of computer users.
Apple is thriving by not worrying about being a low-price leader. In comparison, the two biggest manufacturers of Windows PCs -- Dell and Hewlett-Packard -- do little better than break even at best on PCs they sell to consumers.
The Mac's tiny corner of the market is sufficiently lucrative to support continuing state-of-the-art innovation in the Mac OS X operating system and related software such as iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Spotlight and Safari.
So there's no immediate reason for Apple or Mac users to fret.
Meanwhile, the two research firms that track computer market share -- Gartner and IDC -- are in close agreement on Apple's decline.
Gartner puts Apple's 1996 share at 4.6 percent, IDC at 5.1 percent. Market share in 2005 was 2.2 percent from Gartner and 2.3 percent from IDC. According to Gartner, Apple's market share peaked at 15.8 percent in 1980 -- four years before the Mac was introduced.
``It's a puzzle for sure, to the average Mac user,'' says Leander Kahney, author of the 2004 book ``The Cult of Mac'' and an editor at Wired News in San Francisco. ``They are baffled that more people don't use the Mac.''
Apple is somewhat stronger in U.S. consumer market share, with Gartner giving Apple 5.8 percent in 2005 and IDC at 2.9 percent.
It's also worth noting that Apple's worldwide market share did move up slightly last year from 1.9 percent in 2004, according to Gartner, or 2.0 percent, according to IDC.
That's because Mac sales are exceeding industry growth rates. Apple shipped 38 percent more Macs in the fiscal year ended Sept. 24, 2005, than in the prior year, and shipments were up 20 percent in the last three months of 2005.
The Mac mini, introduced last year at $499 and now starting at $599, is no doubt stoking the trend by giving newcomers an inexpensive way to join the faithful.
Sales could get another boost later this year when Apple is expected to introduce an upgrade of its aging iBook consumer notebook computer, and from Microsoft's decision last week to delay the launch of the consumer version of its new Windows Vista operating system into early 2007.
Ultimately, PC market share may become irrelevant. As shown by the iPod's success, Apple looks to be reinventing itself as a digital entertainment company, and could introduce future consumer products that use the Mac operating system but aren't regarded as computers.
In the dark days before Jobs came back to rescue Apple from heavy losses and listless design, however, Mac believers often felt beleaguered and defensive. But now the clouds have lifted.
``Apple's always had a small market share,'' says Maureen ``Mo'' Langdon, a Mac systems administrator and chairman of Macruzer, the Santa Cruz County Macintosh User Group. ``So you just carry on. And you have that knowledge that, by George, it is a better computer.''
``People don't look down on you -- `You're still using a Mac?' -- like they did five or six years ago,'' added Steve Bellamy, an advertising agency executive in Menlo Park and president of the Stanford/Palo Alto Macintosh User Group.
Kahney, who regularly writes about the most devout of Mac true believers, concludes: ``Mac users are very confident these days. They're hipper and smugger than ever. Low market share is a badge of honor. It shows exclusivity.''
IV and I agree!!!
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News
Here's a multiple-choice Apple Computer trivia question:
How much has the Mac's share of the worldwide personal computer market increased since the beginning of the second Jobs era? Choose from:
A. Market share is up 50 percent.
B. Market share has doubled.
C. Market share has tripled.
OK, pencils down. The correct answer is:
D. None of the above.
Oddly enough, that's OK.
Steve Jobs returned to Apple's helm in the summer of 1997, after being forced out 12 years earlier, and revived the Cupertino company he and Steve Wozniak founded 30 years ago next Saturday.
Apple is now more successful than ever. Sales and profits are setting records every quarter. New models of Apple's Macintosh computers appear on magazine covers and make cameo appearances in numerous Hollywood movies and TV shows. Apple's iPod is bringing new acolytes into the Mac fold.
Yet despite well-deserved acclaim for design and ease of use, Apple's share of the worldwide PC market has tumbled from 4.6 percent in 1996, the year before Jobs returned, to just 2.2 percent in 2005.
Microsoft's bland and virus-prone Windows operating system continues to grab more than 90 percent market share.
Apple has pursued a deliberate strategy of appealing to a narrow audience of computing enthusiasts. These enthusiasts, the Mac faithful, understand the value of what Apple offers. They are willing to pay more than buyers of what hard-core Macophiles snidely dismiss as ``Windoze.''
Apple's main consumer desktop computer, for example, is the new iMac with an Intel processor starting at $1,299.
It's possible to get a Windows desktop computer and monitor for as little as $399, after mailing a bunch of rebate coupons. Such a system offers much less performance and fewer features than the Mac, but it's good enough for the vast majority of computer users.
Apple is thriving by not worrying about being a low-price leader. In comparison, the two biggest manufacturers of Windows PCs -- Dell and Hewlett-Packard -- do little better than break even at best on PCs they sell to consumers.
The Mac's tiny corner of the market is sufficiently lucrative to support continuing state-of-the-art innovation in the Mac OS X operating system and related software such as iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Spotlight and Safari.
So there's no immediate reason for Apple or Mac users to fret.
Meanwhile, the two research firms that track computer market share -- Gartner and IDC -- are in close agreement on Apple's decline.
Gartner puts Apple's 1996 share at 4.6 percent, IDC at 5.1 percent. Market share in 2005 was 2.2 percent from Gartner and 2.3 percent from IDC. According to Gartner, Apple's market share peaked at 15.8 percent in 1980 -- four years before the Mac was introduced.
``It's a puzzle for sure, to the average Mac user,'' says Leander Kahney, author of the 2004 book ``The Cult of Mac'' and an editor at Wired News in San Francisco. ``They are baffled that more people don't use the Mac.''
Apple is somewhat stronger in U.S. consumer market share, with Gartner giving Apple 5.8 percent in 2005 and IDC at 2.9 percent.
It's also worth noting that Apple's worldwide market share did move up slightly last year from 1.9 percent in 2004, according to Gartner, or 2.0 percent, according to IDC.
That's because Mac sales are exceeding industry growth rates. Apple shipped 38 percent more Macs in the fiscal year ended Sept. 24, 2005, than in the prior year, and shipments were up 20 percent in the last three months of 2005.
The Mac mini, introduced last year at $499 and now starting at $599, is no doubt stoking the trend by giving newcomers an inexpensive way to join the faithful.
Sales could get another boost later this year when Apple is expected to introduce an upgrade of its aging iBook consumer notebook computer, and from Microsoft's decision last week to delay the launch of the consumer version of its new Windows Vista operating system into early 2007.
Ultimately, PC market share may become irrelevant. As shown by the iPod's success, Apple looks to be reinventing itself as a digital entertainment company, and could introduce future consumer products that use the Mac operating system but aren't regarded as computers.
In the dark days before Jobs came back to rescue Apple from heavy losses and listless design, however, Mac believers often felt beleaguered and defensive. But now the clouds have lifted.
``Apple's always had a small market share,'' says Maureen ``Mo'' Langdon, a Mac systems administrator and chairman of Macruzer, the Santa Cruz County Macintosh User Group. ``So you just carry on. And you have that knowledge that, by George, it is a better computer.''
``People don't look down on you -- `You're still using a Mac?' -- like they did five or six years ago,'' added Steve Bellamy, an advertising agency executive in Menlo Park and president of the Stanford/Palo Alto Macintosh User Group.
Kahney, who regularly writes about the most devout of Mac true believers, concludes: ``Mac users are very confident these days. They're hipper and smugger than ever. Low market share is a badge of honor. It shows exclusivity.''
IV and I agree!!!