1 Million Windows to Mac Converts So Far in 2005

UltimaGuy writes to tell us AppleInsider is reporting that according to one Wall Street analyst over one million Windows users have switched to Mac in the first three quarters of 2005. It is speculated that these numbers are a direct result of the popularity gained through the iPod and related technologies in addition to security concerns from Microsoft. From the article: "According to checks with Apple Store Specialists, Wolf also said a larger than expected percentage of Windows to Mac converts appear to be purchasing Apple's higher-end systems and that their transition is fueled by the epidemic of viruses and malware on the Windows platform."

Comments

No Suprise Here

[flakier]

I just wonder what the tipping point will be before we start seeing an exponential rise in Mac malware.

Then what, the masses start switching to BSD or Linux?

Re:No Suprise Here

[Kjella]

OS X is basically a BSD.

If you consider two house that both have a full concrete cellar, where one built a very secure retail shop (BSD server) on top, while the other built a very nice reisdential house (OS X desktop), then your analogy is correct!

Re:Scanned

[general_re]

I just scanned the article but where did they get these numbers from?

Like many analysts, he pulled it straight from his butt. Or, more specifically, he gathered a few anecdotes from Apple salesmen and extrapolated them to cover the entire universe.

And is anyone keeping track...

[Lead Butthead]

And is anyone keeping track of the number of people that switched BACK after discovering that they have to re...invest substantial amount of money into Mac version of software titles they already own for the x86?

Re:Ah, but how many Linux to MacOS converts?

[MoOsEb0y]

I actually switched from Linux to MacOS because I was sick and tired of fighting with my system configuration everytime I updated my packages or wanted to install new software. OS X allows me to run all of the same OSS apps that I loved on Linux (VNC, SSH, irssi, etc) while at the same time being a joy to use.

I first was exposed to OSX from the leak to x86. After that, I loved it so much I got a Mac Mini (the first mac I've seen which I could actually afford).

ipods success

[oddbudman]

To me this increase in sales can be somewhat attributed to the success of the ipod. The ipod certainally has brought a whole lot more exposure to apple in general over the last 12 months. And it's not like OSX is a bad OS for them to be pushing, if someone is curious and checks it out they probably won't be too dissapointed. Couple that with the fact that Windows XP is a few years old and is starting to seem a little dated. Windows will probably strike back a little come Vista but I guess only time will tell.

Re:"switched" or "also bought"?

[plover]

I don't think the distinction between 'OR' and 'XOR' is important. That they chose a 'NOT PC' is really the telling factor. Ten years ago when "average" PCs were a thousand dollars, and "average" Macs cost more than that, very few people owned more than one computer. But now, it doesn't require a financially crippling investment just to try one.

If Apple wants to call them all "switched", well, that's fine for marketing. But just having their foot in one million more doors, that's huge no matter what. And unless Apple pulls a huge boner, I would suspect most of those million will actually switch and stay switched. (At least until they get tired of Super Breakout. :-)

Never ass/u/me anything...

[dada21]

TFA: "If we assume that all of the growth in Mac shipments during the past three quarters resulted from Windows users purchasing a Mac, Or Mac users wanted a second PC, or their kids or parents needed their first or new immigrant H1B workers bought them. How can they assume these numbers are ex-Win users?

appear to be purchasing Apple's higher-end systems They appear to be? So they might not be? Huh?

fueled by the epidemic of viruses and malware on the Windows platform. Based on what figures? Last year it was "fueled by better video editing" and before that "fueled by better graphics editing" as sales people only mimicked their pitches.

the firm on Monday downgraded shares of the company's stock to "Hold," saying it believes Apple shares are now "fully valued." Because the 1 million Windows converts are all that will convert? Not only shit can be pulled from an analyst's ass.

"During the past year, in response to the introduction of breakthrough new iPods and Macs and outstanding financial results, we've doubled our price target." And even $61 is a worthless number, offering no real income (profit dividends, interest, commitment sales, etc). Take your stock money, start your own business, and stop gambling.

Still, the analyst hedges his bets, explaining Apple's "frenetic pace of innovation" could present new opportunities,"The ship is not sinking, but it might. It could also fly possibly." These people are worthless.

I have friends who are analysts, and they're worthless, too. My Costa Rican bookie gives me good advice based on the pros. These analysts either give neutral advice, or just enough so that mom's stock will go up.

As a Mac user

[Overly Critical Guy]

These are interesting times to be a Mac user. It's incredible to say it, but Apple is actually on the upswing after a decade of total Windows dominance. Dell's revenues and sales are down while Apple's keep growing beyond the industry average.

As a Mac user myself, I'll just say this. I don't want an Apple monopoly dominating computing; I would just like an Apple marketshare at around 35%-45% again. It would make for a much healthier market and would mean a lot more applications for Mac, instead of waiting a year later for a third-party port.

So before you Mac-hating Linux kids start flaming another Apple article, most of us just want less Windows domination. That wretched pile of crap has wasted more time and money on reboots, endless "configuration wizards," registry cleanings, spyware cleanings, resource-sucking antivirus software, and so on. It's so bad that a lot of normal people are afraid of computers and their difficulty--they don't realize it's Windows that is difficult. Computers don't have to be.

Re:As a Mac user

[wiggles]

Be careful what you wish for. The larger the marketshare that Apple has, the bigger the target their platform becomes. You'll not only see ports of your favorite apps, but crapware as well.

Re:As a Mac user

[Overly Critical Guy]

Thankfully, there's a culture of excellence in software design on the Mac (and a thriving shareware market you can actually make money in, unlike on Windows). If by crapware, though, you're referring to spyware, I dispute the claim that Windows' saturation is the cause of its woes. For instance, OS X has no open ports by default and doesn't even enable the root account. However, Windows users got to suffer through, for instance, Blaster as it took advantage of full access to RPC. Windows is a poorly designed system that everyone was hoping would get a rewrite with Longhorn. Unfortunately, that did not happen. It looks like the registry is never, ever going to die. That's too bad, because the consumers suffer because of it.

It's just that spyware and trojans just don't have anywhere to go on OS X, due mostly to built-in UNIX security measures. You can't even install something or have an app modify system settings without a quick password prompt.

Re:As a Mac user

[klubar]

Dell revenues are not growing as fast on a much larger base. Dell sales are $52.7 Billion. Apple sales are just shy of $14 billion.

It's a lot easier to have high growth on a smaller base.

Re:As a Mac user

[ComputerizedYoga]

on the other hand, if an app wants to write to your homedir/dotfiles instead of sticking itself in system locations, it can do it. How many of the "it just works, I like it" crowd have EVER looked at what dotfiles live in their home directory?

Most spyware comes from one of two places: renegade ActiveX or piggyback installations.

While the mac and *nix platforms don't have activeX to worry about, nothing's preventing people from bundling mac spyware with otherwise useful apps, and if the app brings something that people want, they'll ignore the stuff that comes with it. How do you think Gator operates?

It's just that nobody's decided to go after the mac market trying to turn shareware into adware or negotiating bundle deals, or even learning to write mac malware yet. Maybe that's the "excellence" you're talking about. But there's a big emphasis to be put on the "yet" part of that.

The mac platform is not without its security holes, and those things that compromise a high privilege process don't NEED to prompt you to install themselves everywhere.

Re:As a Mac user

[Decameron81]

"It's just that nobody's decided to go after the mac market trying to turn shareware into adware or negotiating bundle deals, or even learning to write mac malware yet. Maybe that's the "excellence" you're talking about. But there's a big emphasis to be put on the "yet" part of that.

The mac platform is not without its security holes, and those things that compromise a high privilege process don't NEED to prompt you to install themselves everywhere."

Maybe. But if people were to make their decisions based on "maybes" then everyone would keep running Windows with a ton of spyware and viruses since it's theoretically just as safe as any other system.

But, whatever the reason, running OS X right now is safer that running Windows.

Re:As a Mac user

[SideshowBob]

Not as developer friendly? You've got to be kidding, being developer friendly was NeXTStep's raison d'etre. If you think that you can't do what .Net does on a Mac, you haven't seen WebObjects, which has been doing the web based app server stuff for a decade or so.

Re:As a Mac user

[eakthecat]

It's not just games that need Admin credentials to run. Lots of software companies ignore LUA and require their Windows software to run as Admin. The two examples that come to mind are Quickbooks and the ATI DVD player. Now, there is a registry hack that lets Quickbooks run LUA, but it is a) unsupported and b) virtually impossible for non-geeks to understand how to implement. As for the ATI DVD player, well... I discovered this when I set up a LUA user 'Public' on my living room PC, so that guests could surf the web, play music and DVDs without having Admin rights on the computer. Everything worked except the DVD player, I called ATI tech support, explained the problem and was told (by a very snotty frenchman) that ATI only supported their software when running as an Administrator. He further 'explained' to me that the DVD player not working was a) my fault for trying to run it using restricted permissions and b) Microsoft's fault for offering users the choice to use a computer without administrative permissions.

Needless to say, my next video card will not be from ATI.

Ranting aside, it seems to me that Microsoft shot itself in the foot with this one. Yes, it is possible to run LUA on Windows and Microsoft best practices whitepapers do advocate writing for restricted permissions. Then they turn around and give all new users administrative bits*, combine that with all users always having administrative bits in previous versions of Windows (95, 98, ME), and you get developers who have been forced into the mindset of writing applications for Admin only. Don't believe me? Look at Apple. like the one-button mouse forcing good UI design, new users not being root by default and having to sudo every time you need root bits forces application designers to plan for LUA. In turn, the majority of applications for the Mac (including those that play DVDs or are written by Intuit) run with restricted credentials.

So the thirty second summary: Granted, both Windows and OSX allow LUA. The design of Windows, however, has trained designers to ignore security best practices and write for Administrative users only. Because fo this, LUA effectively does not exist for Windows home users. That, and it's not just brain-dead game makers - in order to use useful/worthwhile/important** software on Windows, you often need to be Admin. This, in turn, makes it so that Windows computers effectively are only useful if you're Admin.

Just my two cents.
-eak

* I say Home Uesrs because this really only applies to stand-alone machines. Once you get to SBS domains, your user templates encourage LUA, and if you're setting up an enterprise domain... Well, if you don't understand/implement LUA, you're not qualified to implement said domain. Then again, I would argue that the majority of compromised Windows machines are those of Joe Home User.

** Anyone who thinks games are as useful/worthwhile/important as, say, financial software really needs to get out of Mommy's basement more often.

Re:As a Mac user

[RedBear]

While the mac and *nix platforms don't have activeX to worry about, nothing's preventing people from bundling mac spyware with otherwise useful apps, and if the app brings something that people want, they'll ignore the stuff that comes with it. How do you think Gator operates?

(Emphasis mine.)

This is the main problem on the Windows platform. Not that the system is inherently less secure (which it is), but that the market consists of a ton of users who are willing to tolerate having their machine infected with crap just to get some worthless "goodies". Of course it isn't impossible to make spyware/adware/malware for OS X (or Linux), but here is what happens in those communities, as opposed to the glutted-with-crapware Windows community: If there is any inkling of spyware, adware or any sort of malware in a piece of software, either it never appears for download on the sites where people go to download new software or it gets removed very quickly due to the huge community outcry, and that software author will never be trusted again. If a Mac software site consistently allows bad software to be listed and available for download, the users will quickly go elsewhere, permanently. Until the Mac community gets much larger and contains a lot more of the braindead general population, they simply will not tolerate their expensive and wonderful machines getting hijacked by bad software.

Secondly, and perhaps even more important, if you do get infected with something it is ABSURDLY easy to do a clean reinstallation of Mac OS X WITHOUT hosing all of your preferences and important installed software. In comparison in the Windows world it is an absolute nightmare to have to reinstall the OS because you know you will have to reinstall every piece of software that uses the Registry, which is darn near everything. So your average Windows user limps along trying to fix things piece by piece, maintaining a broken, infected system that just keeps getting slower and more broken. The Mac user, on the other hand, does a quick backup of Home and Applications and nukes the thing and starts over. An experienced Mac user can be back up and running as if nothing happened within a couple of hours.

So, wake me up when Apple has 25%+ market share and the malware/spyware writers are "targetting" the Mac platform as enthusiastically as they target Windows. My bet is that even with that much market share the malware will have little effect on Macs as a whole because the community they spring from is just too different and won't put up with it. Even the idiots among them will have their hands held and be constantly led away from doing what they might have done had they still been using Windows and downloading crap from just anywhere without thinking about it.

Portable data Vs Portable programs

[systems]

I think, as time pass by, and more developer and systems makers realize that as long as the data is portable (.pdf, .html, .jpg, .mp3, .ogg) the system used to access the data becomes less and less relevant, I think more ppl may switch to alternative platform as they learn that their data will move with them.

Re:"switched" or "also bought"?

[nunchux]

He's right... Just an an example I have a Powermac desktop (mostly for Final Cut) and a cheapo Acer laptop for Office and a specialized application I need for work. I know at least two guys with tricked-out Windows rigs for gaming and Power or iBooks for everything else. I know a few couples who have one Mac and PC in the house-- in fact I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of households and businesses with both systems, mixed and matched for need or personal taste.

We're well past the era where having a couple of systems at your disposal is a novelty, and this whole notion that an OS requires a pledge of allegiance is ridiculous. But I guess the Mac press would wither and die without endless self congratulation, and the PC trolls would do likewise if there was noone to hear their cries of why Macs are Teh Sux.

Re:"switched" or "also bought"?

[conJunk]

Outside of geek circles and people who have a dedicated work machine at home, I don't know one single household with multiple operating systems.

I sat here trying to think of counter examples, and failed. I haven't been in a house that *hasn't* had multiple operating systems in memory... but every single one of those falls in to your "dedicated for work or geek circle" categories.

would you say its fair to say that the number (or relative percentage of the peoplation) of people who travel in "geek circles" is significantly higher than it was 5 or 10 years ago?

Re:Ah, but how many Linux to MacOS converts?

[bcrowell]

If TFA's speculation about the reasons for the switching are correct, then it's very bad news for Linux on the desktop:
their transition is fueled by the epidemic of viruses and malware on the Windows platform.
In other words, these are people who are finding that maintaining an internet-connected Windows computer properly requires too high a level of geekdom -- geekdom being defined as technical skill plus interest in spending time applying that skill. The level of geekdom (skill+time) required to use Linux is still much higher than the level required to use Windows or MacOS X, so we should expect Linux's share of the desktop to suffer for the same reason that MacOS's is apparently increasing.

(Of course, the reasons why Linux requires high geekdom are different from the reasons why Windows requires it. On Windows, you're using a system that's designed to be insecure, and lots of your geek points are spent on fighting that. On Linux, it's issues like not being able to install it successfully on a laptop, or not being able to figure out how to get a printer working, or not understanding that X-Windows cut and paste doesn't work the same way as control-X/control-V cut and paste. But it doesn't matter that geekdom is required for different reasons -- Linux still requires higher geekdom.)

why don't you..

[ilf]

put linux on your laptop?

Re:why don't you..

[CRC'99]

put linux on your laptop?

I was waiting for someone to ask this - and the reason is very simple. As a desktop OS, Linux sucks. If you look at what Windows and OSX has going for it, you'll quickly note that it's simple and easy to do just about anything.

I think WiFi on my Dell notebook is about the best example that I can come up with off the top of my head. it's a dual band 802.11a/b/g card for which Linux drivers just don't exist. So I have to wrap them in an NDIS wrapper, and hope that they work that way. Then there's the annoyance of having X not like using 1920x1200 straight away as a desktop res (the LCD's native res). Then I have issues with sound (alsa isn't the be all and end all), then there's always something else to fix.

Bottom line? You spend more time getting things to work than using the actual system. This might be fine if you want to do this kind of stuff as a technical challenge, but personally, I just want to be able to use my system for what I need to get done, and not have to worry about half of the crap I mentioned above.

I did some work quite a while ago getting newer ALSA drivers working on the xbox-linux project, and it's not as pretty as it could be. I'm no newbie to linux, but damn, I wish sometimes I didn't have to do half the crap I had to just to get a decent, working system. Enter OSX.

Re:why don't you..

[Trelane]

So what you're saying is that we need a reliable Linux hardware vendor?

I agree totally.

Re:why don't you..

[xrobertcmx]

I've done that on a Dell 5150 and let me tell you it isn't the easiest way of doing things. Up until SuSE 9.3 no big deal, drop the DVD in and all was well, but with 10 there was a major issue with ReisersFS and ACPI for some reason. With Fedora Core 3 the tools never showed up that allowed for anything other then it running at 100% until 4 came out. Kubuntu works kind of, for some reason on the 5th or 6th boot admin controls just stop working. And you can forget hardware accelleration and hybernate. SuSE 9.3 is still on mine and as a desktop it is great, but it doesn't have a hope of competeing with a ibook or powerbook.

Re:why don't you..

[NixLuver]

I've been a Linux user since 1995, and have been various kinds of a linux zealot for years. I love KDE, and Gnome is OK. I have come to despise windows, but I have been using windows on a PC because of the audio utilities; and it's too much trouble to reboot into linux to do other stuff, then boot back into windows to fire up Tracktion or Ableton Live. And before anyone gets excited, yes, I have Agnula/Demudi installed, yes, it's cool, but it's NOT Tracktion or Ableton live.

And anyone that tells you that Linux is a great desktop OS in a thread about Mac OS X simply hasn't had enough experience with OSX. I'm a convert, and as soon as I can sell my m-audio Delta 1010LT and my 3Ghz HT P4, I'll buy a firewire audio interface and be done with it. I have tracktion and Ableton Live on Mac, and they both work approximately the same interface wise on the Mac. On Mac I can also use lightwave - and blender isn't close; I can use Adobe CS 2 - and the Gimp is cool, but not cool enough to compete with CS (Illustrator - no comparable vector package for linux). NVU is available for linux, and I use it there, but it's also available for Mac, and so is Macromedia Studio MX, Fireworks, etc. And all with a *nix underbelly that is only one click away, without any of the annoying split-personality disorder of cygwin - which I *LOVE* on my x86 work-supplied laptop, where it's my only reprieve from windows hell, but doesn't come close to the overall functionality of OSX. Unison (the newsreader) beats the living daylight out of ANY other newsreader - and I own licenses to NBPro and NewsLeecher; Keynote stands head and shoulders above any other presentation software package I've seen - and to bring a mac to a staff meeting for a presentation is a joy. While the other presenters are noodling with their video configurations and trying to get things to work, I plug in the projector, the mac recognizes it and brings it up, and keynote presents me with the control console on the powerbook's screen while the actual presentation appears on the projector. Add to that the fact that I have yet to have OS X crash on me, and you've got the stability of Linux with the operational latitude and software choice (nearly) of Windows.

Servers? Give me Linux. Desktop? OS X all the way.

What's not reported in TFA...

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Is the number of Mac users who have switched to Windows, Linux, or BSD in the same time period. Since Intel or AMD based machines are considerable cheaper, there may be a significant number of Apple users who switch when it is time to replace. Or not, but the article certainly ignores that.

Also, for those rare types who read TFA, this is one of those nice sites that doesn't let you return to /. with your back button, at least in Firefox.

Re:Analyze this!

[mforbes]

I like the idea, but it seems to me this would work better as a community-driven organization.

I.e., draft the requirements for certification of a product (i.e., 'it works when called from csh, GNOME, and KDE!), get Mandrake, Redhat, Novell/SuSE, and a couple of the other big names in the distro world to each contribute the use of their names by the licensing organization, and get hardware vendors interested in certification.

By having a meta-organization certify a device as compliant with the major distros and the most popular desktop(s), and being completely inflexible on the certification requirements (so that the cert org can acquire a decent reputation), we'd be able to enforce standards on hardware vendors who want to do business with us-- and just as importantly, we'd avoid the balkanization of hardware certifications that might otherwise occur, as each distro vendor offers its own sticker ("It works with distro!" slapped all over the box.. bleagh!)

On a side note, wasn't that a beautiful run-on sentence?

Re:Why people switch?

[revscat]

I have heard this over and over again. "Macs don't have viruses because they don't have marketshare." I have seen people saying that for years, and it's starting to grow extremely stale. Macs are inherently more secure machines. They are not susceptible to viruses. Until proven otherwise, this remains a truism.

I have had a PowerMac for almost two years now. I have done nothing special in regards to security other than the Security Updates. I have never had a single problem, nor have I see any reported. Until shown otherwise, the belief that OS X is susceptible to viruses is a matter of faith, not fact.

Re:Security is a poor reason to switch...

[phillymjs]

I guess some people just cant handle the minimal amount of work involved in staying secure...

Yes, we call those people "average users," and they are legion.

Everyone loves dishonestly, but analyst is a fool

[gordo3000]

you know, it is only 5 years after the internet bubble burst. don't go forgetting about that great example of how revenues are not linked to stock prices already. I can't handle another run up and crash.

Anyways, none of you are being honest about the situation. Yes, apple has had growing revenues over the last few years which have really helped it grow its stock price. But the major run up in prices has nothing to do with the Personal computer market that the arguments seem to center on. almost every analyst attributes the run-up to record profits due mainly to the Ipod, not sales of computers. It has seen over the last two years an increase from 6.2 to 13.9 billion in revenue.

Needed in any honest discussion is where apple is coming from. 4 years ago they posted a net loss. Since then, they have seen incredible earnings grown, especially in the past year(from 276 million to 1.335 billion).

Dell has increased it's revenues from 35 to 49 billion in just 2 years. That is phenomenal growth for a company of its type and size. unlike apple, it does not try to sell goods that are priced at an incredible premium based on name and popularity. It also is not riding a wave of a new comsumer product so it has not seen a windfall in profits(and it probably never will). It sits at just over 3 billion in earnings.

Yes, the ggp was incredibly dishonest trying to say apple is dying and is frankly, an idiot. Every analyst in the world thinks they are looking at financial health for a long while to come.

Of course, I claim this analyst is an idiot. He gives these headline predictions assuming all macs that are selling this year beyond last year are windows converts. He is completely ignoring the highly probably activity of many mac users of holding off on mac purchases in expectance of the G5 and lower prices for it. This would imply that many users would not buy last year and buy this year to get access to a modern CPU.

Now, I'm not arguing there weren't a lot of windows to mac switches, but this analyst lacks a basic control over logic.

Re:Time Value of Money

[JulesLt]

It's also much like comparing Ford with BMW and going 'well this Ford's got the same engine size and same dimensions so why is the BMW more expensive'.
(And before you ask, we have a Ford car, because it does the job - to go 14 miles a day to and from work. If I drove on a motorway all day, I'd invest in something better. This may be the main reason many consumers go for the cheapest computer they can get).

The focus on cost and cost alone is the main thing that keeps Dell in corporates and many schools (schools should know better as they could actually USE the bundled Mac software more effectively, but then they also get steep site-licence discounts on Office, et al). For corporates even reliability isn't a massive issue - I don't know many places where people are allowed to use their C drives any more - desktops are effectively fat clients for running heavy software.

After stepping out of the Windows speed-race, I've been perfectly happy with a Mac Mini. Again, I've been told I could get a Windows PC for half the price, even a small factor one, but - duh - that wasn't the reason why I got one. I do think it's telling that price, rather than compatibility, is now becoming the main factor cited.
(Actually, that's a return to the mid-80s - price was what put most people off Apple then, creating room for Atari and Commodore Amiga. No one wanted a PC at home).
The main criticism that I still think is valid, are people who just don't like being locked into one hardware vendor - and it is true that PC owners have the option of going from cheap and nasty to as powerful as you want to pay. It's also true that most problems with Windows stability stem from drivers and it seems to be possible to build a stable configuration - my Evesham PC was rock-solid for years until I started adding and upgrading cards. On the other hand, we had a cheap laptop that has been nothing but trouble.

And I would concur with the posting above about the Mini's potential as an office desktop - on it's noise factor alone it could be a revolution. Someone on our helpdesk asked me, on seeing my home setup and how much they cost 'why don't we use these at work'. As our helpdesk spent 80% of the day in Unix terminal sessions and the rest in mail, it would be quite feasible.