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Vista Taking a Nibble Out of Apple in OS Wars?
PetManimal writes "Despite all of the positive buzz about the Mac operating system and the 'halo effect' of iPod sales, Mac OS X market share actually dropped last month, reports Computerworld: 'The share of PowerPC-based Macs fell ... from 4.29% in February to 3.94% in March. That dip was not fully offset by an increase in Intel-based Mac hardware, leading to a overall net decline in Mac share of 0.3%, to 6.08% in March.' Meanwhile, Vista is rising, the article says, with just over 2% of computers connected to the Internet using the new Windows OS. The figures are from a company called Net Applications, which collects its data from the browsers of visitors to its network of 40,000+ Web sites."
Maybe it's because a lot of people knew that the iMac, mini, and Mac Pros were due for a refresh.
I use both Macs and PCs and it seems like I buy and upgrade PCs a lot more often. My latest Mac is a Powerbook G4 from early 2004 and I'm just now starting to think about a replacement. Over those last 3 years I've bought 2 PCs and will probably buy a 3rd long before I replace the Mac. The PC's just feel dated after less than a year while the Macs take about 3 years to feel the same way. At least to me.
If PCs have a much shorter useful life, their percentage of sales will be higher than their actual percentage of machines in use.
This chart on browser trend is interesting too. IE's market share is slipping like the Big-3 autos. Slow and steady.
I can't wait until IE dips under 50%. That should drive off the last of the 'IE only' websites, which seem to be decreasing in number (of course, I support one at work, though for a limited corporate audience- gack! I am lobbying heavily with the vendor to support Firefox!!).
But I hope Firefox doesn't get too dominant (fortunately, it won't). Competition and the adherence to open standards (at least for more mature technologies) are good things.
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Meanwhile, Vista is rising, the article says, with just over 2% of computers connected to the Internet using the new Windows OS.
I wonder how many of these are just virtual images... Realistically it's probably a negligible number, but of the more than 20 people in my department here at work that I just polled, 1 of them uses Vista as their production environment, and 8 of them said they've dabbled with it in a virtual image. Granted I work in the tech industry so my percentages are probably a bit skewed...
Microsoft not having proprietary hardware lock-in is exactly my point; the need to cater to every conceivable chuck of hardware along with permitting copious permission between drivers and the kernel is not an advantage. It's a major contributor to instability and only when it was no longer advantageous to gaining marketshare did Microsoft make any overtures to changing that.
The attraction of OS X is that you have it before you, on a piece of hardware on which you know it will run. You don't have a situation where Microsoft points to the OEM, the OEM points to some Taiwanese chip maker's web site for an "updated" driver, unsigned by Microsoft to fix what should have been working the second you pulled the computer from the box.
God bless Linux, but I have to tell you, it has its moments. Is it superior to Microsoft? You bet your sweet bippy. Am I going to run it on my primary notebook machine? I have. Why don't I now? Because I deal with computers and electronics all day and the last thing I want to do when I'm on my own time is maintain a computer in typical PC fashion.
Or, to put it another way; having the hardware and OS lock-in was an attraction to me because I was pretty certain that I wouldn't have to endure the torture of Microsoft in the workplace. And I was right.
As you said, it's always slow before Macworld or WWDC, and this last MacWorld was totally lame for actual Mac owners since it was only about the damn phone and tv. No Leopard, no replacement for the long-absent iSights, no Blu-Ray DVD. The actual "Macintosh" is far more stagnant than I ever remember seeing it in the last five years.
Murray Todd Williams