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Apple Reaches 12% Market Share In U.S. Notebooks
bonch writes "Apple's U.S. notebook market share has doubled to 12% after shipping 1.33 million Macs in the quarter. Apple also shipped 8.11 million iPods, topping analyst estimates, for a net income of $472 million. Remember when Apple was dying?" From the article: "The iPod shipments appeared to calm investors worried that growth in that red-hot business was slowing and Apple's results topped what analysts had said was a conservative forecast. Shares of Apple were down some 24 percent since early May. 'Apple looked good,' said Jane Snorek, technology analyst with First American Funds. 'The PC numbers were great, too.'"
From TFA:
"Based on Tuesday's closing prices, Apple shares this year had declined 26 percent, compared with a 12 percent decline in the Morgan Stanley High Technology Index , of which Apple is a component. Apple stock more than doubled in 2005, after tripling in 2004, largely on booming sales of the iPod."
That a sharp drop in share prices after 2 years of huge growth. Altho their revenu and profits are good, why is their share price going down?
I think its the fact that people realize:
a) You can only sell so many ipods, as more products come out, and more people already have them, they will sell less and less ipods
b) Intel Macs are over prices, and i belive that sales will slow once the "newness" passes.
Profits are good, but when your stock starts to fall after 2 years of going up sharply, that has to be a sign of something t come?
-EL
This is great news for Apple and all, and I want to see their market share increase as much as the next guy, but this estimate of marketshare is based on units *shipped*. Doesn't Sony use the same kind of logic when talking about PSP market share? Shouldn't we be looking at units *sold*?
Apple does a great job of making products people want to buy.
With the iPods, they seem to be unstoppable. No matter what other companies offer, people want the iPod + iTunes more. With laptops, they make a sexier product than almost anyone else. Even the die-hard Windows folks I know are buying Apple laptops, running OS X + Windows via BootCamp or via Parallels.
To top it off, they do all this with higher profit margins than any other company. It's no surprise that their market share, and their stock, are both on the rise.
If you think about it, Apple's laptops really are the top 12%. I've gone through two laptops in twice as many years, and having worked on/with a ridiculous variety of brands & models, I've finally come to realize that all laptops are crap. Not only that, all laptop manufacturers are crap, too.
Except, of course, Apple, and possibly IBM/Lenovo. Apple makes decent machines, only slightly overpriced, and when they break (as practically every laptop I've ever encountered has done within two years of use, some spectacularly so) Apple has a history of going to great lengths to fix their mistakes. Remember the iBooks with faulty motherboards? How many of those did Apple replace with newer models (models with double the RAM and disk space)?
They have their faults, and their mistakes, but by-and-large I'd say Apple is one of the few laptop manufacturers whom I'd trust well enough to buy from.
Oh, and those spectacular failures?Its vaunted security comes at the price of ease of use, and I think we'll be seeing a lot of people wondering why they can't do on their Mac what they could do on their Dell...
Could you provide an example of something, here? Because this really makes no sense. Give an example of something people can do on a Dell that they can't on a Mac, that is unavailable because of security restrictions in Mac OS (as opposed to the appropriate application simply not being ported yet).
What ease of use has OS X given up for security? I can't think of anything. Have you ever used Mac OS, or are you just saying that because you think it sounds plausible?
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Last time I checked, Microsoft was convicted of being an illegal monopoly, Apple wasn't. Different rules apply to each category.
The difference here being that Microsoft Internet explorer is an integrated part of Windows, and is inseparable from the operating system, while Safari (if you want to compare apples to apples) is "just another app" within OS X. As far as I know, you can remove Safari from OS X with no adverse affects on the operating system as a whole.
If you want to talk about bundling the OS with the hardware, there's a big difference there, in that Apple makes both the hardware and the software (I know that Apple doesn't actually manufacture CPU's etc, but they sell an assembled product with the Apple name on it), and Microsoft is not in the hardware business - for the most part (I say as I'm typing on a Microsoft branded keyboard).
Anyway, with bundling the OS with the hardware is the Microsoft is throwing their weight around and blackmailing PC manufacturers to bundle EVERY computer they sell with Microsoft's operating system, where Apple is not involved is such blackmail with other hardware manufacturers.
Retail does NOT include corporate or contract sales.
12% of Retail sales is impressive, but Apple also had the advantage of all new products.
Lets see what it looks like this time next year.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You know...I feel bad for those in those conditions, but, if it weren't Apple they were working for, it would be for someone else. The 'sweat' isn't going to go away...if no one employed them...they'd have no money coming in and NO jobs...
Would that actually be better? If we all just stopped buying products that were made it places like this...I doubt that would spawn better working conditions...actually probably worse, since they would have no source of income...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Linux for the Macbook is fairly easy if you are distribution agnostic.
It is drop dead easy if you use the Mactel-Linux Ubuntu Live CD.
I haven't had many problems using OpenSuSE 10.1, but I did have to recompile my kernel at one point.
The FGLRX drivers finally work properly. They aren't as fast as their Windows or OS X counterparts, but they are fairly easy to install and get the job done. I expect significant performance improvements in the future. The X1600 256 MB (which is the Macbook Pro) graphics isn't bad at all.
The standard MacBooks come with Intel's Extreme Graphics, which suck; however, the Linux drivers are opensource and directly built into X.org (installation is drop dead easy).
Why would you consider a Dell? Get a MacBook Pro, install Linux, Windows, and OS X. It's fast, light, and easy to use. Plus, it looks good.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Right now I see people on just about every tech site that will tear into Microsoft for packaging a browser with Windows, but praise Apple for packaging an OS with every PC, and dozens of applications with every OS. If Apple takes a large chunk of the market, we're going to have to hold them to the same standard we do Microsoft, meaning that we should be demanding an end to their anticompetitive practices of bundling their own software.
I never understood this. What is wrong with bundling software? Here's a hint for you, if windows didn't come with IE or [Other Bundled Browser] people would find it awfuly hard to go dowload the latest version of firefox. Budling software is not wrong, evil or bad. Making the bundled software hard or impossible to remove IS. And please note there is a distiction between the bundled software, and the actual back end technologies (i.e. Safari != WebKit)
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Well, I don't know about racism. While some may have racist reasons for protectionism, I don't think the majority do. I tend to think these kinds of things are more based on a shortsightedness of the situation. Sure, jobs may go overseas, but at the same time, your cost of living has decreased because you can now get Product X cheaper. And if you really wanted that job so badly, why weren't you willing to be paid less to do it (of course that's a whole 'nother issue)? Not only that, but let the living standards increase in other countries, and they'll be able to afford to buy all of our luxuries Made in the USA. And if somebody can do it better than us, well then we'll just have all the more reason to apply some American creativity to do it cheaper, better, or faster. Protectionism is actually sort of the reverse of racism, because if you support protectionism, you're actually saying that your country is weak and useless without help.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
He can't, because he's talking out of his ass. It's amazing how many PC users can't understand what good engineering really is. They can understand that an OS can be powerful because of Linux, or it can be easy to use because of Windows. The dichotomy of OSs to run makes them think that power & usability also form a dichotomy.
They can't get how an OS can be easier to use than Windows and still at least as powerful as Linux (I'll argue moreso, because you don't spend 2 weeks setting up your OS for your hardware (wireless cards, 3D cards, I'm looking at you)). Or that having to know how to deal with mundane setup & maintenence tasks on computers is a fault of the _OS_ vendor. Computers are supposed to simplify our lives, not give us more shit to worry about.
Seriously, why can't people understand this? Why can't they understand that whatever 'overpricedness' they feel macs have doesn't matter compared to the hours & days they save not putting up with the bullshit of Windows & Linux? Yes, I said & Linux.
Hell, most Linux users still bitch about which 20 year old text editor's better: vi or emacs. Here's a hint: neither, they're both antiquidated pieces of shit. Mice are useful, _especially_ when text editing. They're response: write your own! Linux comes with dev tools and the shitty apps are open source! My response: fuck you! I've got real work to do, and I'm not wasting my time fixing brain-dead software that 'scratched the itch' of some jackass who jerks off on Lisp macros.
People, including me, love macs because they leave you the fuck alone and let you get your work done. You don't have to make sacrifices. How hard is this for people to understand? It's my fault, really. Lots of people come to slashdot to jerk off on how much computer knowledge they have, and the idea that a computer doesn't need them to be experts destroys their purpose in life. I guess I should understand that.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
There's a difference between being it being LEGAL to do something and it being RIGHT to do something.
When someone goes to court and testifies that Apple intentionally made tweaks to their OS specifically to break Adobe Photoshop so they can sell more copies of Aperature, then we'll talk.
I'm referring to the "DOS isn't done until 1..2..3 won't run." saying that came out during the Microsoft anti-trust trial.
Also, when Apple steals some else's code to put in their own product we'll talk.
I'm referring to the incident where a consultant who had access to QuickTime For Windows was caught giving that source code to Microsoft where it ended up as part of their "Video for Windows" product. The related lawsuit was only dropped when Microsoft threatened to cancel Office for Mac.
I can't think of any incident where Apple has mis-treated third party vendors. The closest one I can think of is the guy who created Frontier(I think I'm remebering it right) which was a thing that was similar to AppleScript in some ways. He released it right before Apple introduced AppleScript which of course killed his potential market and he crief foul. The thing was that obviously Apple had spent years on AppleScript and it was a superior solution to Frontier, so despite his claim I don't think they stole his idea. It was just bad timing (for him).
Even when they were starting iTunes, Apple approached the various small 3rd party vendors who were doing stuff with MP3 and offered to buy them and given them jobs at Apple. The ones who didn't accept the offer got steamrolled by iTunes, but how is that Apple's fault?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Well, in the case of Mexico, we actively work to fuck up their politics so that they never recover, and we can keep exploiting them.
But the most significant aspect in many cases is pollution. A big part of the cost savings is that these companies can go someplace they can pollute all they want. When the country becomes more wealthy and the laws change, they pull out, sell most of their equipment for scrap and ship it out of the country so no one can use it, and leave behind a big dirty smoking hole full of pollutants.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That Dell has an X1600? And OS X? And all the niceties of Apple's design? And the same quality display? And keyboard? And I'd like it just as much? And it'll hold its value just as well for when I want to sell it in two years? And it has the same quality support? And I can just take it down to the local Dell store two blocks away if it breaks (yeah right)?
What is the point of all these comparisons? There are so many variables that such things are completely useless. You don't compare a BMW and a Chevy on horsepower, torque, size, and weight alone. I'm not making any value judgments here -- the Dell can be the BMW for all I care -- But my point is there are dozens of issues to make comparisons on, not just the four or five biggest numbers.
Maintenance:
The above easily makes up the price difference.
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