Microsoft Says It Is Winning Its New War Against Macs (cultofmac.com)

Windows PCs are starting to chip away at Apple's strong grip of the high-end computer market, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said on an earnings call Thursday. From a report: Microsofts licensing business, which sells Windows to third-party PC makers, was up 5 percent last quarter, confirmed CFO Amy Hood during an earnings call on Thursday. The "non-pro" (consumer) market grew 5 percent, beating the overall decline of the PC industry. "Our partner ecosystem continued to see growth and share gains in the Windows premium device category," Hood continued. Those gains would have eaten into Apple's share of that market, which has been dominated by Macs until recently. There are other things that could have contributed to this, of course. Many long-time Mac users have been somewhat disappointed with Apple's most recent releases, which come with big changes that not everyone is willing to embrace.

Comments

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is self destructing. Minor difference, but it makes it sound like Microsoft is all of a sudden making better products. That would be a first, and probably not far off.

Had a mac since '84 and I think my current macbook is the last I'll buy.

Re:Nope

[apoc.famine]

From my point of view or from Microsoft's?
 
From their point of view, I'm going to Windows, because I'll probably go with a Dell XPS 13. From my point of view, it will be Linux. The "problem" is that Microsoft still gets my money, and they still add it to their stats, despite me not wanting their product and not wanting to pay for it.
 
I have been a MBP user for a decade. My MBPs have been my main workhorses, and I loved them. I've been waiting 2-3 years for a refresh worth replacing my 2012 MBP with, and it's clear that it's not going to happen.
 
Apple has now merged the MBP and the Air, which I don't understand. I don't want an Air. I want a fucking MBP. 3/4" thick, a battery that goes a day, all my ports, and hardware that's not 5 years behind. 256gb solid state drive, 8gb of ram, and an i5 is the base configuration? Really? For $1500? Really? $1800 on the XPS 13 gives you double everything and an i7 in an aluminum body and all the ports.
 
I used to love OS X, but even that's starting to wear on me. For example, I'm required to sign into iCloud with the latest OS X update. I have not figured out how to turn this off. I have disabled everything syncing to iCloud, but every hour or so I get a popup telling me to log in. No way to turn it off. Why? See the tiny little hard drives that Apple now ships with, and the inability to upgrade them or add another. (I've got a 1Tb drive in my 2012 MBP for comparison.)
 
Two or three years ago, the alternatives were definitely shit. Now, I don't think so. The alternatives are better, and the current line of MBPs (and OS X) are so fucking terrible that I'm inclined to say that the pendulum has shifted to the alternatives.

Re:Keeping up with the Macs

[Grishnakh]

What kind of trouble do *you* think they're in? I sure don't see it. For sure, I don't see them growing much any time soon, because the PC market is so mature, but I sure don't see them as being in any kind of "trouble" either.

PCs aren't going anywhere. You need them to do real work, which can't be done on phones or with phone OSes which are horribly limited (by design). Obviously, you (and many others) believe that Apple seems to be dropping the ball here, and sales numbers do seem to support that currently. However, there's no evidence that people are flocking to anything else either, in sufficient numbers to matter. As much as I'd like everyone to switch to desktop Linux, and have been hoping for that for 15+ years now, I've given up on it because I just don't see it happening. Luckily, desktop Linux is IMO completely usable and in fact superior, but that doesn't equate to mass adoption. People (and companies) are just too married to the Windows platform and its "ecosystem".

So AFAICT, MS can just sit back and milk the Windows/Office cash cow indefinitely. Again, this is not a company you should invest in if you're looking for a "growth" stock, but it absolutely should have reliable revenues.

I suppose

[wickerprints]

If your enemy shoots themselves in the foot, that doesn't mean your aim has improved. Microsoft products still suck; they just suck a lot less relative to how much worse Apple products have become.

It Is Impressive!

[HannethCom]

While Apple has decided to roll over and die, Microsoft shoved a fork in their eye (Windows 8), shoved a fork in their other eye (Windows 8.1), then tried falling on their own sword (Windows 10) and finally are wiggling around the sword trying to hit a major organ, vein, or artery. (Anniversary Update)

Yes, I think Microsoft's OS is better, but they both seem to be trying to get the golden raspberry.

Re:It Is Impressive!

[TechyImmigrant]

MacOS is better. It's a unix derivative. I have my programs (in python & C mostly) on a network drive and they compile and run the same on Linux and MacOS. I use Latex and gnuplot a lot. They both run the same on Linux and MacOS.

Windows is not like that. It's it's own thing and I have to jump through hoops to make programs and documents work across all three. So I don't. I use a Mac and I use Linux. Work give me a windows laptop and I use it to ssh into Linux to do work.

Other people's priorities are generally very different to mine, but I don't give a crap about the minutiae of UI elements (unless it's truly horrible like Gnome). I care about the programming environment.