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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.
IIRC even Steve Jobs said something early this year about being surprised at sales being stronger than expected. The PPC to Intel transition is a major one and is an excellent long term move. But it did cause some people to hold off on buying waiting for more native software, and allowing time for the shaking out of any minor glitches in the first products. A few probably also held off on buying when they heard that the Core 2 chips were coming.
It is pretty obvious that the move was a wise choice and that both Macintosh users and Apple will be better off long term. The appeal of the new generation of machines can be expected to increase over time. In addition to new features in the OS, it is reasonable to expect that 10.5 will bring even better performance. It'll likely make better use of multiple CPU cores, use the GPU horsepower for other tasks, use the Core 2 supplemental SSE3 instructions (I've heard them called both SSSE3 and SSE4), and use of the 64-bit capabilities. The software for Windows support will also be more mature (Apple's utility is currently beta).
The release of Vista will likely bring an increase in the number of people pondering new machines instead of just an OS upgrade. With Apple being more visible than in the past some of those people will opt for getting Macs instead (either solely for the Apple experience, or to run Windows too). Some may also be playing wait and see with Vista. If it isn't really, really, wonderful, it'll help Apple.
Home users are not desktop system builders in the numbers that matter. Fewer still even want to think about customizing a laptop.
Dual boot and virtualization are not (yet) mass market. They are for the enthusiasts who simply must be able to work in both the PC and the Mac environments.
OSX for the generic PC would require drivers for every random combination of PC hardware.
I'll tell you what the post means. It means that somebody has paid a press agent to put stories in the media pushing an anti-Apple agenda.
Let me explain a bit about HitsLink. Their reason for existence is to be a paid "hit"-man for publicity pros. Are you CBS-Viacom or the Radio Industry? Do you need to make it seem to the business community that Howard Stern is tanking on Sirius Satellite Radio? Have Hitslink provide a story saying that the number of Lycos searches for "Howard Stern" are down by X %. Forget the fact that everybody knows that you'd go to Sirius.com if you want to read about Stern. Forget that nobody uses Lycos any more.
Let's say you are Salem Radio Network and you want it to seem like conservative commentator, former Sec'y of Education and degenerate gambler Bill Bennett's morning show is really happening. Get HitsLink to create a story saying that he's "Number 9 in the nation". Forget that he's just been dumped from the third biggest market in America (Chicago). Forget that the actual listings show that there are 24 talk shows ahead of Bennett's. Let's just round the figures out so that there are 2 or 3 talk shows tied for Number 1, Number 2, etc. So you can say that Bennett is in the Number 9 slot when in reality he is number 24 out of 30.
It pays to know that nearly every story that you see or hear in the media has been placed there by a press agent or public relations department in the form of a press release, which gets reworked (sometimes) by a "reporter" (really a stenographer) into a "story" which is presented as "news". It pays to know that outfits like HitsLink exist just to spread manure.
You have to ask yourself if a story like this passes your own "smell test".
You are welcome on my lawn.
I want my computers to work when I pull them out of the box.
Having just bought my first "pre-made" computer in years (a new laptop from Compaq), I find this statement *hilarious*.
After taking this thing "out of the box", I spent no less than 30 minutes weaving my way through pre-setup wizards and registration dialogs. I then spent no less than *two hours* uninstyalling tosns of pre-loaded crap software I did not wan ton this machine - stupid toy games, trial versions of anti virus, trial versions of DVD burning software, trial this and trial that, all cluttering up my tray with 15+ icons.
In comparison, last time I built a computer, it took me about 30 minutes to put the pieces together, and 30 minutes to install the OS. Net savings of 1.5 hours and god knows how many hundred dollars.
Of course building your own laptop is not really an option, hence why I bought this one. But god, I buy pre-made PC's as little as humanly possible.
Macs on the other hand - I have not had any real experience with yet. From what I hear they funciton much better "out of box" - no pre-configuring, no trial craptastic software pre-installed.