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Noise Over Mac OS Market Share "Slip"
OakDragon writes, "Mac OS market share actually slipped since last September. This reverses a trend in the winter and spring months that showed some slight growth. The actual percentage loss is small: 0.02%. But it may be significant since it follows a solid growth trend. It must be disappointing to Apple and Mac fans to see what is basically a flat line in desktop market share." Mac-oriented sites are pointing out the unreliability of the metrics from Net Applications, which are based on users of the HitsLink service.
Of course these numbers and not at all scientfic. The change is also completely insignificant. I agree on all of that. However, I have a feeling many who will denounce these statistics would be singing thier praises if they showed a significant gain ;-)
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Another explanation is that the potential Macintosh customer now realizes that the Mac is little different from a Dell PC or a HP PC. The principal difference is the price.
Well, I just priced out a new workstation comparing the top of the line MacPro and an equivalently configured Dell. I ended up buying the 3.0Ghz version of the MacPro for $1000 cheaper than an equivalent Dell.
Once Steve "I have a big ego" Jobs switched the Macintosh from the PowerPC to the Intel processor, the Macintosh lost its mystique.
Au contraire. Have you ever unboxed a new Mac? Have you ever really spent time with a Mac? While the OS is most of the experience, it goes beyond the OS.
Using some simple patches/tools, you can run Windows XP on the Mac. With a little effort, you can run the x86 MacOS on a Dell PC or an HP PC.
And with some simple tools, I can run Windows on my Mac. So?
Since the Mac is now essentially a PC clone, why would you pay a premium for Mac hardware?
See my above comment. It turns out that for the high end at least, the Macintosh is MUCH less expensive than a Dell or HP.
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Quite frankly I don't want to see OS X have some huge marketshare. I'd prefer the platform to have enough marketshare that developers can make money and Apple to make a profit, but not big enough for Virus writers and spyware authors to care (the way it is now).
Why does OS X have to have an increasing marketshare to remain successful?
But why would a nerd buy a Dell or HP when you can build a clone for half the price?
Ummmmm, perhaps because I am not a nerd? Geek perhaps, yes. But not a nerd. Furthermore, it is not my job to build computers. Rather it is my job to do other things like generate and analyze data, teach, write grants and papers. I would much rather spend my time doing these things than building boxes, installing drivers, dealing with conflicts and such. I want my computers to work when I pull them out of the box. I want my computers to simply work when plugging in a peripheral without launching a wizard that says "I see you are trying to add new hardware". I want my computers to not constantly notify me in the middle of a presentation that my anti-virus software is out of date or than the computer suddenly discovered a new wireless network. (I've seen people who, for kicks when someone is making a presentation with a Windows laptop at a big conference, start creating new wireless networks).
When your time reaches a certain value/minute, you start to look for ways to optimize your life and for me at least, the Macintosh allows me to get work done without getting in the way.
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