400,000 Windows Users Switch To Mac

bonch writes "Analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. wrote that 400,000 Windows users have moved to Macintosh, citing factors like the fabled iPod halo effect and the desire to escape the Windows virus epidemic. Mac shipments rose 35 percent, three times the rate of the PC market, with sales expected to surpass 45 percent in the current quarter. Quote: 'Assuming that Mac shipments would have been flat year-over-year, these percentage increases imply that about 200,000 Windows users purchased Macs in both the second and third fiscal quarters.'"

Comments

this is surprisingly good news

[VolciMaster]

and not because I'm an Apple fan (though I am). It means that people are starting to decide on the machine they are going to buy, not merely on price, but on capability (or incapability when it comes to virii). I presume that the majority aren't the so-called media pros that Apple normally markets to, but rather 'typical Joe' computer buyers who have decided that the benefits of a less-attacked platform far outweigh the higher cost. They're also not being put off by the lack of applications often cited for the Mac platform, which makes sense considering most people only want to send and receive email, chat online, surf the web, and do homework (papers etc).

The real test of this switching will, of course, have to be seen to continue over the next couple quarters, which would also show that most people are not caring about the processor used in the machines, so long as they work well.

Re:this is surprisingly good news

[BitGeek]

I don't see how you can't build oyur own mac. You can pick the amount of memory you want and the hard drive size, etc. What is it you want that you can't get from Build-To-Order?

As for price, you're not really saving anything-- if you're comparing using first tier products. Apple's machines are competitive with dells on price. And while you can go use random cheap parts to build a PC, you're not getting the same quality you get with a first tier manufacturer.

Now, if building your own machine is something you jsut enjoy, then I can understand that. (Though I don't know anybody laying out mother board circuits these days. :-) so its not really like building anymore.)

If you buy a desktop G5, you can put wahtever cards in it you want. Building a machine these days is merely a selection of parts that are assembled... I don't know what parts you can't get for a mac.

Re:this is surprisingly good news

[Gulthek]

I would love to go to the Apple if I could build my own machine instead of being locked into what they want me to have.

But that's just me...not everyone builds their computers. I do it cause it's cheaper and I just don't have the disposable income that others have. But I'll always crave a Mac.

So "they" want you to have it, but you crave it also. What is it you want out of a Mac? Why won't a cheap tower G4 work? Go to Low End Mac and browse their articles and found sales. You can get macs from less than $100 to over $10000; and you can't find something that matches your ideal?

If you only crave a mac, then you don't need it, and in that case you don't need a dual processer G5 to edit video in realtime with (or whatever). Sure you may want and crave the latest and greatest from Apple; but their older and now cheaper machines are great deals!

I have an 800 Mhz G3 iBook, and a dual 1.8Ghz G5. For day-to-day stuff (iTunes, email, web browsing, movie watching) the iBook holds up extremely well to the G5. It certainly doesn't feel limiting.

Rethink your "Mac Mini" doesn't cut it for me statement and try one out in the Apple store. Or pick up a cheap G4 if you really want customizability. But don't imply that Macs are only for the wealthy.

Re:this is surprisingly good news

[WiKKeSH]

Need more memory on an existing system? Buy more and plug it in. Can you do that on a Mac? Without being forced to buy the parts from Apple? I do not believe you can.
Well, dispite your beliefs, you can.

Re:this is surprisingly good news

[jaypaulw]

I just got my first mac sunday. (I am a PC user, and have been since christmas 1984 - PC Jr.) It's a G4 400mhz that a friend gave me because I've really had a surge in mac interest since first, I was given an ipod (christmas 2003) but more so I've really been interested recently because of the intel switch - I've really been excited about the possiblity of OS X into real mainstream.

The G4 is obviously slow, compared to my other PCs, which are newer. This Mac crashes a bit. The guts are all fairly standard, the CD drive behind the plastic door is just a beige OEM looking thing. It uses plain old PC100 memory that and I upgraded with memory from an old Dell. I'm sure the parts are of the same quality as any standard dell optiplex, or higher end dimension.

However, I really like OS X, it really is something quite special. A lot of it is "eye candy" I suppose - but what eye candy! I much prefer the dock to the taskbar. If I could use it exclusively over Win XP, I would. I just like. I like the little blinking power light when the thing is in sleep mode.

I have invested more time into linux (about a month), and have to say that between linux and OS X there's no contest for the "desktop." And coming from a month of linux expirimentation to Mac OS X basically makes you feel as if there is no limitations on your computer at all!

I actually make a lot of the computer purchase decisions in the accounting firm where I practice. And maybe someday OS X will be an option.

However, the problem is that in the business world, there are zero applications for mac. Obviously they are some, but there is just no way I could get by on one now. The other problem is that interoperability with the rest of business world requires a windows pc. Doublebooting would be a waste of time and money, even if it becomes an option.

So for now, since I am quite competent on windows, my personal machines are plenty secure and reliable, and I would be no more productive on a mac in any real terms at all, at this point there is no reason to "switch."

Re:this is surprisingly good news

[EggyToast]

Realistically, the only thing that's PC only for expansion is the video card.

Everything else is just stock stuff. Sure, there are mac suppliers that focus on mac compatibility, such as making sure their PCI cards conform to the PCI-X standard that powermacs use.

Harddrives are standard drives, RAM is standard (although you have to, as with any computer, make sure you buy the appropriate kind)... Heck, most "everything else" is already built into the mainboard -- the stock soundcard in macs already supports 24bit recording and CoreAudio, not to mention FW 400/800, Giga ethernet, optical audio...

The only thing that really are "mac only" are the mainboard, chip, and video card.

So no, in no way is Apple a single supplier for parts. They control the initial hardware. What you hack into it after that point is up to you.

Of course, try putting together a dual 64-bit processor desktop system on your own, and let me know how that works out for being cheaper. Or making something that is smaller than the mac mini with more functionality for less cost, or slimmer than the iMac.

Re:this is surprisingly good news

[Gulthek]

While your situation isn't the norm, it certainly isn't unusual.

But you didn't answer my question, on Low End Mac you can find perfectly useful Macs that will run 10.4 and run it well for less than $200. An entire computer sans monitor for the price of a decent video card! Or one third the price of Photoshop itself.

So what's the problem? A need to have the latest and greatest preventing you from getting an older system?

If you really and truly want to build your mac, then surf Low End Mac, eBay, and such until you find an old G3 or G4 at a good price ($50-$200, depending). Then buy it and rip it apart to get whatever part you want to call it. A few weeks later do the same. Continue until you have ripped apart and put back together enough macs to call it a system. Then put all the other systems back together and link them together via XGrid and you'll likely end up with a system more powerful than a wussy single tower G5.

BTW, What is it about your personal situation that makes waiting 5-6 months for a system problematic? What is it about the mac mini that makes it a bad system for your needs?

A starving artist should know that you can return your windows version of the software with a letter stating that you are switching to a different platform to the software maker and get free versions for the new system. Adobe is very good about this I know, I'm sure other companies would also respond well to a nice letter.

Switched?

[Winterblink]

I suppose there should be an important distinction made here between people who buy a Mac and have both Windows PCs and Macs, versus people who throw their Windows machine out the window (irony!) and purchase a Mac to replace it.

Re:Huh?

[BlackCobra43]

>_ okay I don't know how I missed that. I could do without the condescending tone however.

Mac Market share has always been higher

[BitGeek]

This has been a long time coming, and is less dramatic than I think people will realize.

The numbers of mac users have long been under-reported for a number of reasons:
1- The "independant" research agencies don't reports sales apple makes directly or thru apple specific retailers.
2- The sales market share is reported, rather than the Total Addressable Market (TAM)
3- Macs last a lot longer than PCs and are useful a lot longer
4- Windows is counted twice- once when the PC is sold and once when an upgrade is bought, meaning that many of the "new PC sales" are actually windows upgrades.

They don't go into their methodology for a reason-- because the goal is to market windows as the dominant platform. (How many linux boxes were shipped with windows and count as "windows marketshare"? A large percentage.)

Recently I heard that an independant survey had been done to find the TAM, and that this survey found that %16 of the household machines currently in use were Macintoshes.

I'm glad to see Apple has been growing Mac shipments. I hope that software developers will realize that the Mac market is much larger, and vastly under-served compared to windows. But then, again, I think maybe I should shut up and go write some software to sell, and hope nobody shows up to compete with me. :-)

I wonder if the intel switch will affect sales for Apple... but I don't think so. Most people don't realize that Macs don't already use Intel chips (believe it or not!) and it seems amazing to believe, but I think mainstream america thinks that Apple makes windows boxes and doesn't really see what the difference is.

This would explain teh failure of the switch campaign-- people think Apples are just another form of PC like Dell, and why would you care? They just buy what the salesman at the local store tells them to buy.

This brings up the third factor for Apple. The halo effect helps, and the ipod store brings people in.... but these average, mainstream amercians, then end up asking the salesman what computer to buy, and since they are in an Apple store, he sells them a Mac.

So, while I think computer retailing is on the decline, Apple's stores strategy will prove to be brilliant. When the others won't carry your product or market it, do it yourself.

And I'm glad to see Apple showing the haters to be wrong-- when given a chance to know about them, people will buy Macintoshes.

Article makes a lot of assumptions

[DeadBugs]

" Wolf wrote: "The iPod continued to lure Windows users into the Macintosh fold (in the third quarter). Mac unit shipments rose 35 per cent, three times the PC market growth rate." Mac unit shipment surged 43 per cent in Apple's second quarter. Wolf believes it's "reasonable to conclude" that this was "driven chiefly by Windows users buying Macs". "Assuming that Mac shipments would have been flat year-over-year, these percentage increases imply that about 200,000 Windows users purchased Macs in both the second and third fiscal quarters," he added. "

The article makes a lot of assumptions without using any real data on Windows users switching.

Could the surge in the second quarter have been caused by people who already own Macs upgrading or buying a Mac Mini as second system? Or even Windows users buying a Mini as a secondary machine? I know several Windows users who bought a Mini but still use a Windows machine.

Further more what is the plural for a Mac Mini?

Re:Article makes a lot of assumptions

[mcgroarty]

"Further more what is the plural for a Mac Mini?"

Mac Many.

Word Choice

[bill_mcgonigle]

Market Share refers to the sales cycle. You're talking about Installed Base. They're not the same and Mac haters have good reason for choosing to frame the argument in their terms.

Re:Word Choice

[sg3000]

>>The sales market share is reported, rather than the Total
>>Addressable Market (TAM)

>Market Share refers to the sales cycle. You're talking about
> Installed Base. They're not the same and Mac haters have good
> reason for choosing to frame the argument in their terms.

Actually the grandparent is more correct than the parent, although the terminology is a little off.

Although I haven't seen good universal definitions for it, Total Adressable Market (TAM) indicates how large the total market of people that could purchase a product is. For a software developer this is a very important number and is often the same as the fraction of the installed base that can run the software. So if there are 100 Macintosh users, 75 on Panther and 25 on Tiger, and your software application requires Tiger, your TAM is 25. It can get confusing when you start talking about Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), in which case, the definition of TAM could be 100 and the SAM is 25. However, those definitions are a bit fuzzy.

Market share is different, but it's a generic term. A good business person does not take the statement "Apple has 4% market share" at face value because frankly it has no meaning. Market share must be defined in terms of what the market segment is, what the time period is, and other factors. You can therefore have installed base market share for a particularly defined segment. And defining the base market can be complex because you can do it based on unit sales or revenue (revenue is easier to come by than unit sales)

Market share can easily be defined as the grandparent said:

> %16 of the household machines currently in use were
> Macintoshes

That's more useful because we know the time frame (installed base, so it's cumulative), and what the market segment is (all U.S. households). And unit sales versus revenue is irrelevant. We still need to know more about the segmentation of the households for this to be useful, but it's a good starting place.

That's why when various people quote that Apple has 4% worldwide market share, the figure is so meaningless. Are we talking installed base? Quarterly sales? Quarterly shipments? Share based on unit sales or revenue? What about market segments -- U.S. households, every PC (including those for specialized purposes, like factories or POS units?), etc. What about specifically people that want to purpose my application, what's the share there (getting into SAM here)?

But just like the press can screw up statistics during any election year, the business press can grossly oversimplify market share rendering it useless.

All that said, it's great that Apple's unit shipments are up and growing faster than the industry. What's interesting is the iPod has helped Apple's Macintosh sales better than any ad campaign they've run.

Reason why...

[zygote]

Wired: "Fabled iPod halo effect"
Tired: "Steve Jobs reality distortion field."

Quality of the OS

[guildsolutions]

I much, much preffer using OS X versus windows. OS X is so much more mature of an operating system than windows even attempts to be. The old addage of 'it just works' very much so applies. If Apple can come down in price a bit more, and bring in more software development, and market there machines a bit more agressivly, then Apple has a great chance to take over some market share.

Add to the fact with the rumors of all the DRM lockup of longhorn, OS X has none of that expect with iTunes, who wants to use an OS that is crippled for media?

I have purchased a Mac Mini, and a 17" top of the line Powerbook within the past 3 months. I was praying that OS X would at some point run on all intel/x86 hardware, but I doubt I ever see that.

Mac has OS X going for it, and Its a very good thing indeed, no wonder people are switching over and dumping spyware, adware, drm crippled, and virus infested PC's that, never ever come close to having a realitivly bug free, secure operating system.

I switched because of MS, not because of my iPod

[mcgroarty]

I recently switched to Mac because of the upcoming Intel switch. MacOS has been a pretty attractive platform since OS X 10.1 or so, but for all the ranting and raving about the PowerPC, it just doesn't stack up against P4 for general purpose computing. (Altivec is nice, but only helps in "broad brush" operations. It's pointless outside of graphic processing tasks.) Going Intel will be a huge boost for general purpose computing.

Meanwhile, I'm looking ahead at Longhorn. I'm not seeing Windows maturing in the way we'd all expected -- .NET was supposed to help unify the branching 64 bit architectures and foster finer-grained security controls, but MS are backing away from .NET for Longhorn. Instead of eating their own dog food and telling us it's good, they're telling third party developers "you go first" and apparently waiting to see if it's safe for THEM first. Why is skipping out on .NET so bad? Things are bad enough with wildly different Windows configurations, thanks to MS' lack of library/DLL versioning and much larger range of hardware platforms. It's impossible for a developer to test or even forsee every target configuration. And now instead of migrating to .NET with versioning and a narrowed virtual target platform, we're just going to add random combinations of DLLs from 3-4 slightly different CPU architectures in the mix.

MS' operating system lifecycle is 3 years and growing, and we're preparing to see more of the same. The current model is too fragile to do new and exciting things reliably, and so unless MS are working on a new OS in secret, Windows is going to be a pretty boring place for the next 3-5 years.

Re:Still a computing firm ?

[BitGeek]

Yes. There is no contradiction there. Apple is, and since 1984, has been an Operating System provider.

They sell their OS in a metal and plastic box, rather than a cardboard one like Microsoft... but that is what they do. The ipod and the Mac are just two product lines in their core business of making operating systems.

Re:Still a computing firm ?

[bill_mcgonigle]

This clearly flames the debate : is Apple all about iPod now (or already video iPod) ? Or is it still a true old fashion PC company ?

Yes.

It's an old-fashioned PC company. They do R&D and come up with new, good ideas (and sometimes some bad ones).

It's not a mass-marketer who tries to sell as crappy of a box as they can get away with. That's the new-fangled PC company.

Mac was certainly a foot in the door for the Music and Film industries - don't discount Mac usage in those industries as a reason why Apple got the green light to do iTMS.

Old reliable needs good care and feeding, and she probably has a few tricks left in her. Lest there be any doubt, if Mac was unimportant they'd let it languish on PowerPC.

Re:Or there's a better explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, no no no. I always buy two or three G5s to help inflate obscure, random surveys about computers. It is worth the extra six grand.

Where's the tipping poing

[intmainvoid]

In the last year Apple has gone from 3.7% to 4.5% marketshare. Impressive, but even at that pace there's a long way to go to even 10% marketshare.

What'll be interesting is if at some point network effects kick in and Apple's marketshare really takes off. What marketshare do you need to get to before people stop worrying that "no one else has a mac"? Once Apple is past that things will get interesting!

x86 advantages

[michokest]

The true advantage of the x86 switch for Apple is being able to capture sales from windows users in two ways: 1) Dual-booting, or just selling it to the user with OS X knowing that he can fall back to windows if anything goes wrong. I bet most average joes would just keep OS X -I did. 2) VIRTUALIZATION. Being able to run Windows inside OS X at almost-native speeds would be the greatest thing that could happen to us people needing some vertical windows apps. With only an alt+tab get into a virtual-pc (or whatever), get it done and go back to OS X. I'd go for that. As for *nix, everythings working pretty nice. Wish they'd make X11 a bit more transparent, duh. OS X could be in some years THE operating system...

Re:x86 advantages

[vertinox]

With only an alt+tab get into a virtual-pc (or whatever)

That's Apple Key+Tab you insensitive clod!

(unless you have regular PC keyboard on your Mac then it's still Alt+Tab. On an Apple Keyboard(tm) there is also a button that says Alt on it, but it's not the same as the Apple Key or which is also known as the Control key.)

What a spin!

[spitefowl]

Just because sales raise does not mean that a Windows/PC user has 'switched'. Even if a PC user did buy a Mac, it doesn't mean he's abandoned his PC for OSX land. I, myself, am considering purchasing a Mac just to work with the otherside. That in no way means I will never use my Windows/Linux boxen again.

My Parents New Machine

[Omega1045]

My brother and I just bought our parents a Mac Mini to replace their aging PC. They love it. I had been anti-Mac for a long time, for what I consider to be good reasons. My reasons for our decision of Mac over PC (Windows) in this case were:

1) My positive experience with my iPod,
2) The security and virus issues associated with Windows and the lack of said issues on Mac,
3) The Mac Mini is now in the range of price I am willing to pay for a desktop computer, especially one that will mainly be chacking email and surfing the web,
4) Positive reviews of Mac's OS X from programmers and IT geeks.

Mac has done a lot of things right lately to start winning over former Mac haters such as myself.

Re:My Parents New Machine

[chochos]

I just gave my parents my old graphite iMac G3 @400MHz. They had a very old PC with windows 98. They had bought a digital camera and couldn't connect it. buying a USB card and installing the drivers was a nightmare. The hard disk finally failed... they called me and I told them I would temporarily let them borrow the iMac. My mother just loves it! she can plug the camera now and up comes iPhoto automatically; Mail is so much better than the old Outlook they had, connecting to the internet (they still use dialup) is so much easier, and well, Safari is way better than explorer 4 which they were using... so my parents are switchers now and won't show in these stats. How many more cases like this can there be, where mac fans give away their old macs when they get new ones?

Another day, another statistic

[garote]

Seems like every day we hear conflicting reports about Mac sales figures, especially when compared to sales of computers in general. Then where was that article a few days back about how Apple itself doesn't care about Mac sales, and of course the Cringley reply to that... And there's the distortion of the "Mac fan base", which may or may not be living inside its own insulated bubble of filtered opinion...

How about if we all just relax, take a stress pill, and buy the computer we personally prefer?

Even the guys who sit around the TV and argue the superiority of their favorite pro wrestlers admit that it's just a pastime. How many of us are willing to admit the same about our computer advocacy?

I got my friend a Mac..

[kisielk]

While I'm a PC user who uses primarily XP and Linux myself (I'd like to purchase a Mac in the future) when it came time to help my friend buy a new computer, I recommended she get a Mac mini.

Traditional her and her family had always bought PC's, mostly because they were the default option. They owned several old Compaqs and a white-box store built machine. The primary reason I got her to buy a Mac is because she's a totally non-techie, and hasn't the slightest clue about computers (nor should she have to, IMO). Mostly she just wanted to be able to type stuff up for college, browse the web, IM, email, and play music.

Initially she was very hesitant about going through with the purchase (she had been set on a Dell previously..) since it was something totally new and she was concerned she wouldn't be able to use it. But I eventually convinced her to buy the Mini.

I was supposed to go over there and help her set it up once it arrived but when I called her to confirm, she gleefully told me that she had managed to set the whole thing up by herself and was already using. No help from me required, and this was someone who was a complete techno-phobe.

She's had her mini for several months now and uses it way more than she ever used her PC, which was full of crashing software, crawling with spyware, and in generally a bad state. Last I checked, the mini was running good as new. She's now recommending it to all her friends.

I think this experience highlights what I think is the best part of Apple's whole initiative.. they have simplified the computing process for the average user. Most people have no need nor desire to be computer experts, they just want the damn thing to work properly and stay out of their way. This is the way it should be. I really hope Apple keeps up the good work, because if someone like my friend can set up, use, and maintain their computers with so little trouble, then Apple is doing things right.

From my experiences with Microsoft, I still don't think they "get it". People should just be able to USE their computers, and from what I've seen of Longhorn, it doesn't look like the situation will be improving..

Re:I got my friend a Mac..

[Blakey Rat]

I think this experience highlights what I think is the best part of Apple's whole initiative.. they have simplified the computing process for the average user.

Just FYI, Apple (or at least Macintosh) products have *always* been that way. You make it sound as if Apple changed their focus or something... the entire point of the Macintosh line of computer, even in 1984, was to make a computer that anybody can use easily.

Nice Timing

[jay95]

I just bought my first Mac (iMac 20") yesterday. Over the years, I've had a 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Athlon, and now a G5. I was a heavy Windows user until around Win98, after that I mostly have used Linux.

So yes, I am a win for Apple. But Windows pretty much lost me years ago. I'll still continue to use Linux, but will have no need to dual boot to Windows anymore.

I switched.

[ashp]

I'm one of those switchers.

I got a mini-mac just to play with, a new gadget, figured if I didn't like it then it was only the minimal specced model.

Within two days I removed my PC completely, and gave it away to someone. I was using XP, because I'm too lazy and I don't really have the time to mess with things. I used to use Linux exclusively, but (personal opinion) the font handling was so bad I gave in.

It's funny, this mini-mac is drastically underpowered and when I do things like unzip stuff I notice it, but for general use I guess I just don't care. I use a webbrowser (Safari), itunes, adium (MSN),
mail, terminal (ssh), and none of those need much power.

Well, this was long and pointless, but this thing is just so elegant that I couldn't stop myself gushing like a fanboy.

Re:One question

[tsa]

I agree with you on all that, but there is no proof for the claim that 400k Windows users have switched. It could very well be that a lot of the buyers of new Macs are former Linux users, who finally have a system that is very good and /really\ desktop-ready.

I switched too

[failedlogic]

I was a user who switched not more than a month ago. I had a fairly high-end PC (Athlon 64, 1 GIG RAM, Radeon 9700, etc). My computer was more equipped, I discovered, for playing games. The main reason I switched to the Mac wasn't the hardware (the 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 w/ 1 GIG RAM I have is nice, true, and the LCD is nice for documents tho the CPU is 20% slower). Its been for the software and not for OS X itself.

Spotlight, some apps included with the OS and some others I've bought as shareware really make my academic work so much easier. OS X is nice otherwise for the Unix stuff (shell scripts especially). I don't use Automator or Applescript since for what I need to do, the shell scripts are easier.

The difference I see is this: all Mac OS X apps are user-centric whereas Windows apps are too task-oriented. They don't overwhelm with Menu options or buttons. There's greater empahis on tabbed-interfaces.

Allow me to illustrate the difference as I now refuse to use Word for my Academic work for the following reason. I've found a program called "Copywrite" which lets you easily flip between different documents and add notes to the project or each document easily. This program alone shows the difference, to me, between Windows and Mac apps. Pages is another great app. I was trying earlier to stop using Word and move to an app that doesn't lock my work in as much as Word does. I've changed my workflow to use a plain-text editor (Copywrite) to write the text, biblio, etc and then use Pages to format the text. Brilliant. I save all the headaches of Word-atuo-formatting-clippy crap. These two programs are really the killer-apps for me.

Re:More talk about switching than ever do...

[phillymjs]

From the geek perspective, why would I switch NOW? We know that the MacTel machines are coming which makes purchasing any PowerPC based Mac less reassuring.

Try looking at things from a perspective other than that of a geek. As a geek, you probably know how to secure and maintain a Windows box. I've got news for you: for every person like you using Windows, there's ten or more who aren't like you and who feel powerless to keep their machine from getting owned and/or having their personal information/identity stolen. We've got enough people just throwing out their malware-infested PCs and buying new ones that the practice merited an article in the New York Times.

As far as the non-geek public is concerned Windows malware is an unchecked epidemic, right now-- a Mac is a solution to that, right now. Non-geek types don't look at development roadmaps to determine when they purchase a new computer. They usually buy something current when they need it, and use it until it dies-- they will most likely never crack it open to upgrade components, and probably won't even upgrade the OS over the lifetime of the machine (a habit developed when the major Windows PC makers refused to support any OS other than what shipped with the machine). They have no reason to care about what's down the road, because everything they're buying today will cover their needs for a long time to come. When they're ready to buy another brand new machine, the Apple x86 transition will be complete.

~Philly