Media Loves Apple and Its Army of Fans

cgriffin21 writes "Apple is getting more media attention right now than any other technology company, including Google. Microsoft, meanwhile, is languishing in the shadows like Cinderella on the night of the ball. That's the upshot of a study released Monday (PDF) by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that Apple was the focus of 15.1 percent of media coverage between June 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. Google received 11.4 percent of media coverage during the period, while Microsoft garnered just 3 percent."

Comments

MS is hurting

[grub]

Apple was the focus of 15.1 percent of media coverage [...] Google received 11.4 percent of media coverage during the period, while Microsoft garnered just 3 percent.

That 3 percent Microsoft garners is reports of bug fixes and failed projects. Look at recent Microsoft tags on /. :

Microsoft To Release Emergency Fix For ASP.NET Bug
Microsoft Migrating Live Spaces Users To WordPress
Microsoft Says IE9 Beta Demand Overwhelming (Nice but it's free)
Researchers Demo ASP.NET Crypto Attack
etc. etc.

Re:MS is hurting

[IndustrialComplex]

MSFT would be even more irrelevant than they are already becoming if it weren't for vendor lock-in.

Seriously, where would they be?

In late 90s and early 2000s I managed a university's student computer labs. These weren't some podunk labs with 2 or 3 machines but entire buildings sometimes with 100-200 Windowsmachines and another 30% of them were Macintosh machines. (There were a few linux labs and when I left, we had 2 linux machines per lab)

If you knew the troubles we had getting the students to even use the Macs just for checking email, it could be a lesson in salesmanship. As it was, even when the windows machines were at 100% usage, you would see a long line stretching PAST the Macs while people waited for the windows machines. Hell, I'd see people more likely to use the Linux machines than Macs.

Microsoft may abuse its position through vendor lockin, but to get TO that position it was doing something right. Even now... last night my wife finally convinced me to install Microsoft Office because the slide software for OpenOffice was causing her so many issues.

It's easy to blame Microsoft's dominance on lockin and unfair practices, but that alone isn't why they are the top dog.

Re:MS is hurting

[node_chomsky]

I can relate to two of things you mentioned. I also worked in a (medium in my case) 'integrated' computer lab around the same era (early 2000's), and it was absurd how much people preferred them, even though half of the windows machines hardly worked because they were choked up with 100+(not exaggerating) copies of Bonzai Buddy installed. It was horrible to look at that troop of gorillas everyday. I tried to manage the spyware garbage as well as I could, but the university consistently ignored requests for administrative software that would allow me to keep that lab in better shape. Despite the decrepid nature of the windows machines, days would pass where not a single walk in would attempt to use a mac, despite the lines for everything else. The macs were not steller machines either, 1st gen imacs, but at least the screens did not contain dancing monkeys and machine-gun style pop-up advertising when nothing (seemed) to be running.

The second thing was that I had to do the exact same thing for my sister yesterday because she was having trouble with open office. I love Open Office for many reasons, I use it, but it needs to get out of Beta testing soon*, because it's astoundingly buggy.

* Yes, I know it's not actually in the beta stage.

P.S. I learned about the nightmare that is Vista in the process.

Re:It's about the market's they serve

[Old97]

Consumers rarely buy Windows. It comes pre-installed on their computers and they don't tend to upgrade until they buy their next computer. Microsoft markets to PC manufacturers and large enterprises. A huge portion of Windows licenses are installed on business computers. Their marketing to end users is pathetic. When was the last time masses of the general public got excited about a Microsoft product?

Re:It will pass

[jedidiah]

We need Apple around to steal good ideas from. However, it would be a disaster if they were the predominant force in the industry.

it's like M$ circa 1995

[alen]

i remember when Windows 95 was released and the geeks not only lined up to buy it but they spent hundreds of $$$ buying RAM, hard drives and other upgrades to run it. This is back in the days when $150 per MEGABYTE of RAM was a killer deal. MS freed geeks from the tyranny of overpriced IBM and Sun hardware. in a few years Windows became boring and something you have to buy.

same thing with Apple. in a few years smartphones and maybe tablets will become something everyone buys like a computer or blu ray player and someone else will have the spotlight

Recent Events

[DarkXale]

Still, how much of this coverage was caused by the iPhone 4 antenna debacle?

Because on a lot of places there would be dozens of articles on that very issue - which would significantly push up the percentage.

Save for Windows 7, the latest Xbox, and the Kinekt - nothing much has really happened from Microsofts end - and Apple I expect should be able to match those articles with various product revisions of their own.

As for Google - they tend to be on the forefront a lot in general - search update here, mail changes there, new service here - and so on, not to mention its somewhat different compared to physical product businesses as well.