66% Apple Market Share For Sales of High-End PCs
An anonymous reader lets us know about a recent analysis of retail computer sales numbers that shines a spotlight on Apple's sales growth as the PC market has flattened. In the lucrative >$1,000 PC segment, in the first quarter of 2008, Apple's retail market share was 66%. This includes a 64% market share for laptops and a market share for desktops of 70%. The article attributes the bulk of this success to Apple's stores. Fortune picked up this report and pointed out the somewhat obvious fact that the >$1,000 PC segment is Apple's by default, since Dell, HP, and Lenovo sell the bulk of their machines in the $500-$750 range, and Apple has only one model selling for less than $1,000. As the analyst said, "If you don't give people a choice [in the Apple stores], people will spend more."
Apple makes computers that sell for less than a thousand?
I jest... I jest...
Price does not equal high-end. Considering you can't even buy a Mac or Macbook with what is the current technology high-end, this is more than a bit misleading.
Show me a Macbook with a 7950GTX let alone a 8800M video Card, or god forbid, an SLI video notebook. We still have OLD 2005 notebooks with 1920x1200 17" displays that runs circles around Macbooks, and even most Mac Desktops. And this is really sad... (Our graphic designers run from Mac Hardware for these reasons alone)
Even the desktop models are medium range technology, and to get high-end performance, you have to replace Video at the minimum as well.
(And this doesn't even touch the horrid Apple LCDs in notebooks, especially the newly beloved OLED notbooks that tests show lose 20% of their color fidelity within six months of usage (1000 hours).)
For overpriced computers, Apple has more suckers... As for 'high-end' computing Apple doesn't even make a high end computer.
It has been my experience that people that exclaim how Mac OS X is a "true UNIX" are often the type that never touch the command-line and haven't experienced the level of crap that is apple glomming-on all their filesystem meta-data to the things that resemble unix the most.
Keep in mind that the Mach microkernel is not unix, it came from CMU. Some userland stuff came from the *BSD lineage, but calling OS X a "true UNIX" rings about as true as calling windows + cygwin the same.
It's not just the CPU in question here, and you know it. Let's see...get a good motherboard from, say, Intel or Asus. Then get a shit mobo from Elitegroup, aka PC Chips. Put two identical Core 2 Duo chips in them. Put Crucial RAM in the Intel board and crap no-name RAM from Fried Electronics in the Elitegroup. Get good peripherals for the Intel or Asus, and buy no-name crud for the Elitegroup. Load both with Ubuntu. Boot. Run a "burn-in" utility that will EXERCISE that machine for days on end. See which one fails first. Hint: it won't be the one with the top-drawer parts. It will be the one with the Hacked-by-Chinese, bargain-basement stuff surrounding the perfectly identical Core 2 Duo chips.
Q. E. D.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
This threadjack was supposed to move this conversation AWAY from masturbation. Please quit telling us about your favorite Slashdot user's exploits. Your obsession is disturbing. I'd rather you just bought Vista and vanished in a cloud of DRM induced logic.
See this is what I really don't understand. $1000 is approximately £500. I earn that in one day. From here it looks like the US economy must be really going down the pan if $1000 is too much for a high end computer.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Dell doesn't include the 3 year mis-splaced sense of superiority package which the fan boys use oh so much.
Indeed, what those business idiots call "high-end" is just "high-price-end". And we all know Apple's products are grossly, obscenely overpriced. That doesn't mean you're getting a better system though. And it includes the license for their Defective by Design operating system, which you wouldn't pay for if you were using a free OS that is free. Another very expensive thing included in Apple products is "style" (the popular intangible feature that serves no use other than making you feel better than others). Apple's metrosexual-appeal is as expensive as gold coating.
I suppose Mac people will never want to buy cheap, even if Apple decided to sell something at fair prices for once. They need to feel superior, stylish and trendy, and for that, they need to be paying for something more expensive than their neighbour's, regardless of the actual performance or quality.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
I take it from your posts like this...that you do not have very much disposable income. You just sound jealous, or are trolling.
Obviously, Apple is not marketing to you....
There are LOT of people out there that have a lot of money. They like to spend it on nice things, which often (surprise) cost money. There's a reason there are Porsches, Vettes, $2M homes, fur coats, diamonds, etc. There is a market for this, and if you have the means, there is nothing wrong with treating yourself to the luxuries of life. Can you afford to drop a grand on one dinner? $300 bottle of champagne? If so...more power to you, enjoy. That's why people work hard, to get money to buy the things they enjoy and make life more fun.
If you can't...and are happy with it, that's cool too. But, when you bitch about it, it just makes you sound jealous.
If you want these things...work harder, or do what it takes to make more money. If you don't desire it..fine, but quit bitching about people that do and can.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........