Slashdot Mirror
Can Apple Take Microsoft on the Desktop?
An anonymous reader writes "RDM asks Can Apple Take Microsoft on the Desktop?, a comparison of recent sales and profits and the future outlook for Macs and PCs. It's the opinion of the article's author that Apple doesn't have to take a majority share of the desktop market to win. The key is to take the most valuable segments of the market. They show via a few quick financial numbers that even though Apple is selling fewer machines, they're making more money per machine than your Dells or your Gateways. Not being beholden to Microsoft gives them a big advantage when competing with traditional PC sellers. Once Apple is positioned, Microsoft will be forced to choose whether it wants to battle Mac OS X for control of the slick consumer desktop, or repurpose Windows as a cheaper, mass market alternative to Linux in corporate sales. If it doesn't make a choice, the company will face difficult battles on two fronts.""
We have these PC vs Mac Spoof videos
all have some humor, and some have a point.
nicely done.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
From TFA:
Apple is competing against Microsoft's offerings, but it's not a retail software battle. Apple is using its integrated software to eat up the prime portions of the PC hardware market.
Nonsense. If they are chasing the corporate market, the key is MS Office, not one OS or the other. The minute that Office for the Mac starts to slip significantly behind in compatibility with the Windows version there will be few corporations that will chose Macs over PCs.
Regardless of what the fanboys believe there's nothing in the Mac's "integrated software" that's a make or break Corporate feature.
(ps - comment written on a G4 Powerbook)
Three Squirrels
While I agree that Apple doesn't necessarily fit the generic corp desktop, I wonder if it might just be a matter of grabbing the executives who are always in the market for premium computing hardware. A decked out MacBook Pro is nothing to scoff at and it may just be a matter of getting execs to try them. It coudl cause a push for some companies to adopt cheap Macs on the desktop. Maybe if Apple can bring the price of the Mini back down. Ultimately, I think it simply comes down to breaking the Windows addiction. Paralells is great and all, but does it really make sense for companies to run BOTH OS X and Windows on each desktop? Because you know they're still going to be using some Windows/DOS app that they just can't get rid of..
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
For the past 12 years or so I work for a company providing IT support for Macs. For 11 and a half years the Mac world of our customer base this: Mac users bought more Macs and in some unfortunate cases switched to PC's (mostly because of corporate decisions high up in the company's hierarchy).
Lately something strange is happening.
Firstly for the first time in these 12 years I have to help customers switch over from PC's to Macs.
Secondly I've had PC customers buy Macs for their looks and running Windows XP natively as if they were PC's.
The first is happening mostly with small companies and home users, the latter also in bigger companies.
So, Apple in the latter case does seem to gain on the desktop but not necessarily taking on Microsoft.
Very strange.
>The I-macs have laptop parts
We have about 40 of them, 17" and 20" mixed and they are more than fast enough for office use. MS Office for macs is not however...
>and don't work that well for people that have good screens.
The iMac screens are good enough for office use. I agree the 17" is a bit small but the 20" is great. My exprience is that in an office environment you need screen real state and speed not effects or calibrated colors. If you work with graphics (in an office) and need better precision, simply get a Mac Pro.
>Also they force you to get a bigger screen if you want a better video, faster cpu, or bigger HD.
I fully agree. This old and still very strange policy is one thing I don't like with Apple.
Apples problem getting in to the office market has less to do with hw and more with sw and more importantly Apple own lack of interest in getting into this market.
Bikers.....The only people that understand why a dog hangs his head out a car window.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
and while I saw a lot of people in the store checking out the wares, one thing that I noticed was that on the line for the cash register was that most people had iPod related products and accessories. And as I was walking around the store looking at the prices, it made me realize that Apple has way too much of a premium for their products, except for their high end stuff which can actually be a good deal.
What Apple needs is a desktop system that is in between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. The so called xMac would be something I can see a lot of corporations adopting if they needed something that offers more flexibility than the Mac Mini, and as well as regular end users who wish to use beefier graphic cards to play their favorite games. The same goes for their laptop lines, they need Mac Books with larger screens without the speed range of the Mac Book Pro. And if they price it right, even with a small premium, many people will buy these middle of the road systems.
This year I am going to switch to a Mac Pro system cause, frankly I am tired of Windows and its potential security problems like IE exploits and Vista's attempt to lock you into Microsoft further, and Linux feels too kludgy on the desktop for me to bother with. Plus I always have the option of running Windows when I feel like it with Parallels/BootCamp.
There is one advantage to Apple products that PCs don't have. Because you pay a premium for their products, they depreciate a lot slower. You will find on eBay and other marketplaces that old Powerbooks and G5s still sell for about 60-80% of the original price. Some stores like PowerMax let you trade in old systems as well.
If Apple really wants to gain marketshare, they need to do two things:
Otherwise, Apple will continue to be stuck with their current demographic, which is largely based on creative-type users and a halo effect from them and the iPod. Mac sales will jump again in the next few months all due to Adobe finally releasing CS3.
"Being cool" will only get Apple so far. They have to play the game and get the work done, and allow their users to do the same.
Absolutely. It's the lack of Exchange integration that keeps Macs out of most offices. Apple's upcoming open source calendar server might change that. If Apple can make a compelling case for replacing Exchange with iCal Server in an all-Windows environment, then the door starts to open for Macs on the corporate desktop.
Well, there is the potential for Apple to take over the home market.
According to Intel and IDC, the HOME pc market is only 10% of the total PC market... if apple has 3-4% marketshare and we know they dont sell much to the business market.... they might have at least a 1/3 or more right now of the home market.
If they get to the 5% range, then they could start to approach even being the #1 home computer.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Having three machines may be rather rare, but even with one machine it is really nice if it has a low noise level and a small footprint. It is indeed much more of an issue at home, but in the office it's definitely relevant too.
Apple have the potential to take on Microsoft in the consumer space. In many ways they have an advantage here in that Apple customers (currently) don't have to worry about security problems like viruses. That may change in the future but right now it's not an issue. There's very little your average Apple consumer can't do on OS X that they explicitly need a Windows PC for.
Leopard server (when it ships) offers a lot more to the SMB crowd that Tiger currently doesn't, and Apple will be able to leverage some of this new strength to gain further traction into the SMB space.
Where Apple stands no chance at all is in the Enterprise. The majority of Enterprise desktops have too much invested in MS workstations, plus Apple is not producing products targeting the Enterprise that would allow them to mass deploy OS X on the desktop with any advantage over MS Windows. Quite the opposite in fact. I'll give you an example. I was at a VMware presentation/seminar very recently and one products I saw demoed was HP's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. This allows you to have Active Directory controlled logins, a set of application servers and a suite of VMware servers virtualising the desktop OS with HP thin clients at the front end. The thin client selects a virtual desktop OS to connect to based on load balanced availability, which is then personalised at login time with the (served) apps and data that match the users profile. It's pretty impressive stuff.
I'm not under any kind of NDA so I can quote a specific usage case given (in production today) as Prudential, who in the UK have moved their call center ops to somewhere in India. Only the thin client exists in the Indian call centers, all the virtual desktops, data and applications are in datacentres in the UK. Access to data and applications is centrally controlled on a per account basis and can be updated and (forcibly) refreshed at any time.
The benefits to the Pru are obvious. The security of their data (SAN storage) virtual operating system instances, user accounts and app servers remain in their protected UK datacentres. And the thin remote client architecture means that implementing a remote desktop pretty much any where in the world is cheap, quick and flexible. If in future they want to move their call center ops to somewhere else in india, or eastern europe, or China or even back to the UK, they have the flexibility to do this cheaply, without disrupting their datacentres at all.
Is this possible with Apple desktops? No! Hell, you can't even do it with any of the Linux desktop solutions. The only technology in Unix history that could have matched this solution was Project Athena from MIT, and that was officially retired 16 years ago in 1991 !!
My point is that current *ix desktops (including Apple) are all about glitz and glamor and capturing the hearts and minds of the consumer, and the small footprint of academia. In the mean time, MS and its partners are listening to the Enterprise and building innovative solutions like virtualising desktops for remote, cheap, flexible access.
I'm curious if you've tried it? I find most people that dislike Macs and OSX haven't used them much. Most people that have find them addictive. The primary advantage is fewer hassles. It takes little or no configuring and updating and upgrading are painless. If you feel the need to fiddle then you are stuck with Windows and Linux but if you are into computers to use software with the fewest hassles then Mac wins hands down. There are also a lot of handy utilities built into the OS. I'm a sucker for widgets and I have dozens I can call up with one mouse click. Leopard looks amazing and has some intensely cool functions built in. For pure productivity there's no comparing the two. For hardware Mac is stunning. Yes you can't build your own system but I find with PCs it takes a while to settle them in. With a Mac it's called an "on" button. I upgraded the memory on mine and I didn't have to crack the case to do it. The pro towers are even more stunning. You can install secondary hard drives by opening the case and sliding them in. There are three words for Mac simple, painless and fun. For Windows I'd say complicated, annoying and a hassle. I've got three machines on my desk. Two are PCs and one is a Mac. The Mac is just more fun to use and far less stressful. If you approach Macs as a Mac hater you'll have a bad experience but if you sit down at one for an hour and just have some fun I think you'll be shocked. No one is trying to make you change religions here it's just a computer. The hardest thing I find is when I switch back to the PCs is remembering to be paranoid about viruses and spyware. I have a whole ritual involving Spybot and taking deep breathes when I down load files. Not to mention running defrag on a regular basis. The hard part is I do none of that with the Mac so I have to remind myself I'm on a PC now so I have to be careful and remember to do my maintainence.