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.""

Comments

Re:incorrect title

[misleb]

The flip side of that is that as commodity beigeboxes, Dell and Gateway do great in the corporate world, which is a space Apple has yet to penetrate to any large degree, because the customer doesn't fit their product space.

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

People are switching

[ernst_mulder]

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.

Re:incorrect title

[Coryoth]

The flip side of that is that as commodity beigeboxes, Dell and Gateway do great in the corporate world, which is a space Apple has yet to penetrate to any large degree, because the customer doesn't fit their product space. It gets scant mention in the article, but a valid point is made that, as far as the corporate world is concerned Linux is increasingly looking like a good option. When you don't have to worry about the latest webcams working, and have an IT staff to manage everything Linux on the desktop is very feasible. Indeed Novell and Redhat are making inroads in this area. What this means is that Microsoft could find itself getting squeezed if Dell and Gateway start co-operating with Novell, Redhat, and/or Canonical on desktop Linux for the corporate world and MacOS X takes over the home user market. The fact that, relatively speaking, Mac and Linux play nicely with each other (compared to Windows and Mac, or Windows and Linux) only makes such a scenario more interesting. In practice, of course, MS still has quite the stranglehold on the corporate desktop. Linux is, these days, good enough to take on MS toe to toe in market, but MS started with a massive advantage and aren't about to give an inch. It will take a long time before Linux makes enough of a dent in the corporate desktop market for ny of this to really matter.

Re:incorrect title

[CryBaby]

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.

Re:Yes - THE HOME DESKTOP MARKET

[furry_wookie]

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.

Design is also relevant in corporate setting

[jackjansen]

I disagree that the design is "completely irrelevant" for developers. I have three machines in my workspace: 2 macs (PPC and Intel) and one generic PC (for Linux and Windows). The two macs together make less noise than the one PC. Moreover, with two towers under my desk the room there is getting rather limited, so if the third machine hadn't been an iMac I would have had to throw one machine out.

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.