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After a Decade, Mac Sales Again Top 10%

GMGruman writes "The last time Apple's Mac sales accounted for more than 10 percent of the U.S. PC market was 1991. This spring, Apple finally returned to that market share high, with 10.7 percent of all U.S. PC sales, according to both IDC and Gartner. That's a major reversal from its 2004 share of under 2 percent. The sales report comes after some other good news this week for Apple: A third of big businesses now let employees choose a Mac as their PC — and more than half choose the Mac."

13 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. 2011 - 1991 = 20. by YodasEvilTwin · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's TWO decades.

  2. babylonians not impressed by decora · · Score: 4, Funny

    let me know when you pass 12 percent. silly moderns.

  3. Re:Wait what? A Decade? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since when does 20 years = 1 decade?

    The title should read "After a Baker's Decade, ...".

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  4. Re:Clueless by LordNimon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it simply is not OK for a person or computer company to dictate that it can't be changed, what apps are OK or not OK, or how to use YOUR device. Get a clue people.

    Fortunately, Apple does not do any of these things with Mac desktops or servers. I'm free to change anything I want, I can run any app I want, and I can use my Mac desktop any way I want. So I'm not really sure what your point is.

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  5. Re:Wait what? A Decade? by alta · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's measured in some odd recursive binary.

    10 in binary is 2
    and so it's' recursive like PHP, 10 *2 = 20.

    So 20 this is a recursive binary decade.

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  6. Re:Clueless by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yep, nothing says "locked down" more than bundling an IDE with your OS, along with GCC, LLVM, Perl, Java, Python, Ruby...

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    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  7. Re:Clueless by thestudio_bob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It annoys me how clueless people are to choice.

    Just because people are making a choice you don't like, doesn't make everyone else is clueless.

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  8. Re:Of course, back in the early 90s by perpenso · · Score: 5, Informative

    They were marketing some of their Macs/Powerbooks as if they could run MS-DOS programs. This somewhat helped. That was false.

    You are mistaken. In the 90s some Macs came with a x86 coprocessor card, it was basically a PC in a slot. So yes, Apple did have Macs that could run MS-DOS and Windows just fine back in the 90s.

    Fast forward to now, since the x86 macs, they can finally actually run MS-DOS programs. (boot disk of course)

    That is also mistaken. You can dual boot or use a virtual machine. As a matter of fact the virtual machine software on the Mac can run Windows from that dual boot partition or a more typical VM filesystem file(s). So if you want to conveniently run some office type app on the Mac desktop you can do so, and when you want to run a game and get full performance you can dual boot rather than emulate.

  9. Re:When you don't have as much, buy for durability by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know its purely anecdotal but I have Apple computers that are PowerPCs and they are still running well without problems. I have several first generation Intel models and I haven't had a problem. During that same period, I've had 1 dead Sony laptop, 3 dead Dell Desktops, and 2 operational but basically worthless Dell laptops due to their cases breaking at key mechanical points (eg hinges, latches, keyboard).

    I also haven't had any problems with last year's model of the iMac 27 i7 or the previous year iMac 24 core2 duo. We pretty much went all Mac for all new purchases because of the great experience we have with Apple computers and their excellent customer support. Apple sent us a notice last year to come by the store and fix one of our white macbook chasis for free because they considered some cracking to be a manufacturing defect. I have 2 completely broken Dell laptops that are around the same age, so we didn't consider a crack on a macbook to be that big of a deal.

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  10. Re:interesting results by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But considering a modern Mac is just a PC running a different OS, you can still buy a pretty good PC for less than what you would pay for a Mac.

    You can build a "pretty good" PC for less than a mac if you only compare the specs. Once you throw in things like service, build quality, noise level, footprint and intangibles like style, macs own their category. But sometimes pretty good is good enough.

    Now, someone who *wants* a Mac won't hesitate to pay the premium, but what we were talking about here (I think) is previous PC customers who have decided to make the switch.

    You've got that exactly backward. People who are prepared to pay a premium when buying a PC don't hesitate to chose a mac. There are no "nice" PC's anymore, all I see are half assed attempts by the likes of HP and ricer monstrocities while the rest are in a race to the bottom.

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  11. Re:Clueless by onefineline · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, I spent a total of 5 seconds and found this software:

    http://unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter

    I haven't actually used it, but from its description, it sounds like, yeah, actually you *can* change where your window controls are located. And I can only assume that there are other pieces of similar software out there.

    And before you say something along the lines of that software not being included with the normal OS, then you're missing the point of OS X entirely, where things aren't a mish-mash disaster of ppl's desktops looking like ugly WinAmp skins, and actually function (gasp!) consistently.

  12. Re:It's not as impressive as it seems... by Graff · · Score: 3, Informative

    It would be interesting to see how Apple stacks up in Asia, where the PC market is still growing at 12% per year..

    They are selling like hotcakes:

    Overseas growth driving Mac sales as US consumers hold out for new models

    In the March quarter, Apple reported 28 percent growth in Mac sales for a total of 3.76 million units. In the Asia Pacific region, Mac sales grew 76 percent year over year.

    Asia becomes fastest-growing Mac market

    The company reported a 160% year-on-year jump in Asian Mac sales after selling a record-breaking 3.47 million computers in its third quarter ended June 26.

  13. Re:When you don't have as much, buy for durability by Graff · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know its purely anecdotal but I have Apple computers that are PowerPCs and they are still running well without problems. I have several first generation Intel models and I haven't had a problem. During that same period, I've had 1 dead Sony laptop, 3 dead Dell Desktops, and 2 operational but basically worthless Dell laptops due to their cases breaking at key mechanical points (eg hinges, latches, keyboard).

    I'm the main tech support for my extended family who all used Windows computers. Pretty much every weekend I was cleaning up one computer or another, fixing both hardware and software issues.

    I finally got fed up with it and convinced each one to convert over to Mac as their computers died out. Now they all run Macs and I rarely have to do anything. It's pure heaven!

    Yes, the Macs do have the occasional issue but they are much easier to use and they rarely break down. Even when they do break down it usually a quick fix and the machine is back in action.

    I'm sure that there are plenty of Windows users out there who have very few problems with their machines but for the ordinary person a Windows machine can be very fragile.