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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."

9 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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  7. 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.

  8. 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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  9. 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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