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Where Do You Want the Mac Market Share to Be?


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Where Do You Want the Mac Market Share to Be?
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Yochanan
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2006-01-05, 04:11

Title. And why?
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Brad
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2006-01-05, 08:37

Only with the intellectually elite and people who can actually form coherent thoughts.

Because I hate trollers, script kiddies, and middle-school-dropouts.

Yes, I am fully aware that those were both sentence fragments.


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scratt
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2006-01-05, 10:13

About where it is now, but with less influence from the iPod arm of the Co.

I feel similarly to Brad, and would go so far as to say that it might not even be Apple's crap marketting that keeps their market share low. It could be that the 90(whatever) percent of people that use PeeCees will always use the dominant system, because at the end of the day people are like sheep....

I like the fact that people who use Macs, are, on the most part those who do (and I know it's a cliche) think different. There are not enough people who 'think different' to make that much of a change in the dynamic that is our industry...

If Apple had done what M$ had done from day one we would be on MicroNova right now perhaps, and be complaining about A$. How lucky we are that the company which ultimately will always be the most creative and original of the two is the purveyor of niche market equipment and software... Yay!

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2006-01-05, 10:33

I agree.

I don't think I care so much for the marketshare numbers. I'm more interested in there being a critical mass large enough for software and other 3rd party products to be developed in the same quantities (and quality!) as now. And that public institutions and other service providers recognise that they need also support, or at least be compatible with, the Mac. As long as people are nice and willing to learn the mere basics of computing and internet etiquette, they are more than welcome to use a Mac, and I welcome them.
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Brad
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2006-01-05, 10:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
because at the end of the day people are like sheep....
Ding ding ding ding!

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
I like the fact that people who use Macs, are, on the most part those who do (and I know it's a cliche) think different. There are not enough people who 'think different' to make that much of a change in the dynamic that is our industry...
Right. In following with the previous comment about people being sheep, the only reason a person would use a Mac (or Linux) to begin with is because he is a free or independent thinker. Seeing as you really have to go out of your way to even find Apple computers, that would imply that Mac users have deliberately chosen this platform for some specific, informed reason. It's hard to just buy a Mac on a whim (well, until recently with the iPod craze).

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
If Apple had done what M$ had done from day one we would be on MicroNova right now perhaps, and be complaining about A$.
Exactly. Being stuck in a niche market means Apple must innovate and produce superior products or else it will become irrelevant and vanish into the ether. The tables could very easily be turned if Microsoft was the ~5% niche.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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Yochanan
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Join Date: May 2005
 
2006-01-05, 15:00

Such a depressing lack of faith in humanity…

I suppose I don't share the views of most of the posters here (in more ways than one), but I'd like the Mac market share to be much higher. 25% at the lowest. We all know the advantages of a large market share, I don't really see very much downside to it.

At the same time I'd like to see Microsoft's share down a bit, perhaps to somewhere between 45% and 60%, Linux and others filling out the rest of the pie. Windows could certainly do with a paring down to convince them to produce, correct, and innovate.

Unlike the rest of you, I believe that if you give people the best information, tell them the truth, they'll choose what's best for them. I can't see people choosing to use Windows exclusively after having a substantive experience with Mac OS X.
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bostongeek
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2006-01-05, 15:10

I could care less what percentage of people use Macs or not. I use it for my own reasons not because it is what the majority uses or to make me a member of the 'elite' minority.

As far as why people use Windows, its probably mainly due to the fact that it is what they use at work, school, etc. -- Familiarity and comfort.

BostonGeek

Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things. - Jack Burton
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sunrain
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2006-01-05, 15:17

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yochanan
Such a depressing lack of faith in humanity…

I suppose I don't share the views of most of the posters here (in more ways than one), but I'd like the Mac market share to be much higher. 25% at the lowest. We all know the advantages of a large market share, I don't really see very much downside to it.

At the same time I'd like to see Microsoft's share down a bit, perhaps to somewhere between 45% and 60%, Linux and others filling out the rest of the pie. Windows could certainly do with a paring down to convince them to produce, correct, and innovate.

Unlike the rest of you, I believe that if you give people the best information, tell them the truth, they'll choose what's best for them. I can't see people choosing to use Windows exclusively after having a substantive experience with Mac OS X.
Nah, most people choose what is cheapest and they're used to. Most people don't think different, they think as little as possible. They're afraid of change. They get their taste in music from the Top 40 and their advice on life from Dr. Phil. For most people, the best movie is the one with the biggest box office. I'm glad Apple isn't for most people. I'd rather have a small Apple and a huge Microsoft.

10-15%, tops.

"What a computer is to me is it's the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with, and it's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds."
- Steve Jobs
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Brad
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-01-05, 15:49

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yochanan
Such a depressing lack of faith in humanity…
What can I say? I'm a realist. I look about and see that at least 90% of the people around in the world are sheep. They buy into whatever is the current pop culture following or whatever E!, Inside Edition, and the supermarket tabloids say is the hip, must-have trend. I see people standing idly by not having a single care about the current direction of American and global politics, about the abuse of powers and reduction of old personal rights. I see racists and sexists and bigots and *phobes at every turn. You're absolutely right. I don't have a lot of faith in humanity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yochanan
I suppose I don't share the views of most of the posters here (in more ways than one), but I'd like the Mac market share to be much higher. 25% at the lowest. We all know the advantages of a large market share, I don't really see very much downside to it.
I would hate for Apple to have much more than 25% of the market. You don't see the downside? Have you not seen the Microsoft hate-thread that iGrant started up? Did you miss my note about the niche market forcing Apple to innovate as it has?

When a corporation has cornered the market, two things generally happen: it gets lazy and it gets greedy.

Just look at what's happening to the iPod/iTMS side of Apple where it has a near-monopolistic domination and is a super powerhouse. Apple has slowly stripped away the former rights that users had with DRMed files: reducing the number of computers that can play them, removing access from other applications, and limiting users to only a once-per-year reset if the counter becomes fubared. Apple has removed support for the connectivity that is better supported by the majority of legacy and even current Mac users. Apple has slowly built up its iTunes software from a good media player (that was bought from a third party and stripped of great features) to an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink player that is poorly trying to accomplish too many tasks for its original design.

That looks a bit like an increase in corporate greed/laziness to me.

Further, take a look at Apple's poster-child of Mac OS X: Finder. There's a nearly unanimous consent here that the Finder sucks on many counts. Yet, this is the one app that every Mac user sees when he boots up and has to interact with regularly every day. If Apple is already so careless today, what is to motivate its developers when the Mac has a significantly larger proportion of the market and Apple doesn't "need" to entice new users to the platform with better usability/features/etc.?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yochanan
Unlike the rest of you, I believe that if you give people the best information, tell them the truth, they'll choose what's best for them. I can't see people choosing to use Windows exclusively after having a substantive experience with Mac OS X.
I generally agree with you ("that Mac users have deliberately chosen this platform for some specific, informed reason"). Have I said anything to the contrary?

Mac OS X and Windows both have great places today, though. It I was a gamer, I would be a fool to choose a Mac. Windows would be the better choice. If I ran a Fortune 100 company with hundreds of "dumb" computer terminals, I'd also be a fool to choose to go with Macs. Again, Windows or possibly Linux would be the better choice. I'm not, though. I'm a young software engineer with a flair for multimedia creation. For me, Macs are very good, but still not perfect.

As standalone operating systems, sure, Mac OS X is great! People don't just use operating systems, though. They use other third-party software that helps guide their decision in choosing an operating system.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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shatteringglass
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Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2006-01-05, 15:53

To be honest, I'm happy at where it is now. Bigger market share means a shift towards high volume commodity products, less innovation, and poorer QC. I think we've already begun to see that with the iPod. The packaging is clearly lacking, and the 5G iPods clearly aren't manufactured that well. (Though my case is far from common, the fact that I had to return 4 iPods before getting a working one speaks volumes.)

If the Mac becomes significantly more popular, who's to say that this won't happen?

I'm already seeing people around campus walking around with PowerBooks, just because they've bought iPods. (Sorority skanks who look pained when trying to think, especially.) Not because Macs are better to use, but because it's another extension of the current trend. Do you think they're going to help further Apple innovation? Are those the ones who constantly stuff Apple's feedback inbox? I don't think so.

Last edited by shatteringglass : 2006-01-05 at 16:07.
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2006-01-05, 16:12

Quote:
Originally Posted by shatteringglass
(Sorority skanks who look pained when trying to think, especially.)
Hey. At least the Apple nerds have something in common with the hip crowd now.

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shatteringglass
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Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2006-01-05, 16:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mugge
Hey. At least the Apple nerds have something in common with the hip crowd now.

Besides our good looks?
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*Joe*
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2006-01-05, 16:59

Big enough to be sustainable, but small enough to be elite
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Wickers
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2006-01-05, 18:18

Well over all I'd like to see it like this for the home desktop market:

(+ or - 3% on each brand)

Microsoft based - 50%
GNU/Linux/*BSD based - 25%
Apple - 20%*
Other - 5%*

* Well I think Apple should have less then 20 percent to be exact, trading between the 'other' category... 20 percent is just a good mark that I would not want to see them pass.

There are many things to consider when thinking about this sort of thing, and thus far you guys have pretty much nailed down the 'don't want to flood Apple's chunk of the pie with dimwits' point pretty vigorously.

I too would not want Apple's market share to be the domineering force in the home desktop market. Keeping sales high enough to afford some nifty R&D would be nice though, that's why I've put them up to 20 percent. I would rather see GNU/Linux take more market share for a few reasons, it would drive a different mind set into both Microsoft and Apple when it comes to software marketing and design.

Hands down, when it comes to polish, closed source software tends to blow away it's open source competitors. On the desktop that is. But think of what you'd have to do to win over a quarter of the market who is happy with NOT paying a dollar value for their software. It's a different angle, no longer are you trying to push a better product then your main competitor and ship it at a competitive price, but your product has to be worth paying for vs free speech software. Sure most people could cry a river of tears over their painful experience using open source apps, but these days the average user can get their daily tasks done (and done well) with the latest Linux distro. We aren't talking pro users here, or power users for that matter... a huge chunk of that pie, and remember we are talking home desktop market here, are Joe and Jane six pack.

That is the customer, someone who can be happy with software that is not only free, but fits their needs... how do you attack that? Simple, you rethink your product.

You think different.

You create a need, create something the open source movement does not have, then make is a necessity to the average Joe or Jane.

Innovation.

And it won't last long, as universities and colleges are pumping out computer science students chuck full of open source must these days... the same innovation won't be unique forever, or for even that long. So you gotta keep the blade sharp, and the sharpening stone turning.

So don't get me wrong, while I love GNU/Linux, personal admiration is not the reason I'd like to see it hit a quoter of the home desktop market. No, I'd like to see it adopted to such a degree, to in turn see the market change and adapt based on it. Currently Apple has been playing the bait and switch game, making both changes to OSX left and right to draw people to their platform from nearly any other platform out there (switch ads: grab some windows people. Changing their default shell to bash: grab some GNU people) ... and pushing the halo effect with iPods. But imagine if they had to play to more then just making up for one sides faults, and appealing to the familiarity of another's?

You can put a pretty package on a product or device that will do everything other products can do... and you will sell some pretty packages. But in an age where children are immersed with computers from day one, smoke, mirrors and packaging won't drive innovation forever.

no sig, how's that for being a rebel!
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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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2006-01-05, 18:20

I gotta go with Joe.

Seriously, I'd like it to be a little bigger than it is now, but not by much. 5-10%.

More important, however, are the types of people who buy Macs. I don't want people to start buying them just because it's "cool" and they're "rebelling against the system" or anything.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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alcimedes
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2006-01-05, 18:47

20% to 25% in order to ensure that most major software packages from a variety of publishers are available.

I'm tired of graphing, CAD, statistics software and the like not being available to the Mac, or no longer being available for the Mac.

Anything under this and the Mac platform continues to marginalize.

Google is your frenemy.
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Wraven
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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2006-01-05, 18:55

Brad,
Sorry, but I have to point out that Apple has increased, not decreased, the number of computers on which you can play your iTMS music (from 3 to 5).

Cheers,
Wraven
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AsLan^
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-01-05, 19:18

Me personally, I'd like to see many more OSes with the users spread evenly.

Obviously this isnt practical, but something like 20 operating systems with around 5% marketshare each would definately be cool. It would force open standards and interoperability, perhaps it would even have a positive effect on competition too.

I'm not sure how applications would be developed for this kind of setup, I'm sure no company would be willing to support 20 different OSes, but perhaps in the future, OS independant binaries could be created to solve that problem.
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BlueRabbit
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2006-01-05, 20:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wraven
Brad,
Sorry, but I have to point out that Apple has increased, not decreased, the number of computers on which you can play your iTMS music (from 3 to 5).
Yeah, they did that, and at the same time decreased the number of times you can burn a playlist from 10 to 7. I very fair tradeoff, IMO.

Personally, I'd like to see Apple at around 15% marketshare, which is about what they had back in the early 90's. It wouldn't be so large as to make Apple unwieldy, but would be large enough to get the major software developers t pay attention, and hopefully get the public's attention, too.
  quote
ssdd108
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2006-01-05, 20:54

Quote:
Originally Posted by shatteringglass
I'm already seeing people around campus walking around with PowerBooks, just because they've bought iPods. (Sorority skanks who look pained when trying to think, especially.) Not because Macs are better to use, but because it's another extension of the current trend.
LOL. Exactly! This girl at school was "using" her iBook but she wasn't that familiar with OS X. I noticed she looked "pained" so I offered her some assitance. I complimented the iBook and asked her a few questions. She asked me a few questions too like this gem, "why isn't there a start button like I had on my dell?" A blank stare from me. For a minute I thought she was joking. I mean EVERYBODY has used Macs in school before. Surely she knew there is a difference. I explained that the iBook doesn't use Windows it uses a different operating system. I also noticed she had an iPod. Putting two and two together she probably bought the iBook because of the iPod. Similar to my girlfriend's friend. But that is a another story for another time.

A lot of people are starting to buy Apple stuff because its........shudder......."trendy". That's why I want the market share to stay reasonably low. Besides, if OS X becomes more popular then security exploits and viruses will begin to pop up.
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
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2006-01-05, 21:14

Hopefully the self explaining nature of OS X will teach them something along the way. Once I got over the first hurdles, I found that the logical way things are laid out somewhat hints the related procedures, etc. So maybe this wonderful OS will manage to save some poor souls. Probably not the majority, but maybe there's a little "sorority skank" out there who will actually manage to learn a thing or two?

However, odds are that most of these new "iPod ensnared" Mac users, will at least be somewhat sheltered from all that c*** that floats around on the Internet. And then they'll make a statement like the one my uncle once made about his old Performa of times gone by: "A Macintosh! That was the best computer we ever had." Which he said the same day I had to nuke their PC's HD, due to guess what. Well uncle, next time you go hardware shopping I'll be sure to point you to this nice store with a big white apple on the window...

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Bunga
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2006-01-05, 21:22

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueRabbit
Personally, I'd like to see Apple at around 15% marketshare, which is about what they had back in the early 90's. It wouldn't be so large as to make Apple unwieldy, but would be large enough to get the major software developers t pay attention, and hopefully get the public's attention, too.

I agree that's enough market share to get some attention. On a fairly regular basis I get asked for advice on what PC someone should buy... not should I buy a Mac or PC but just PC - Dell/HP/WhiteBox etc. Apple needs just enough market share for people out there who actually 'think different' to realize there is a choice.

Bunga

Yep... this is me.
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shell
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Join Date: Oct 2005
 
2006-01-06, 12:30

I would rather not see the nubers reversed, as in M$ ~ 5%, Apple ~ 90%. Then my favorite company would become a true monolith, making both hardware and software *shudders*. But I would like to see them grow into the 15-20% range primarily for three reasons;

1)Economies of scale will mean lower prices for the consummer. The fact that I buy from the expensive computer vendor does not mean that I am totally insenstitive to the bottom line.

2)Larger market share will lead to better technology. At 20%, software makers could no longer afford to ignore Macintosh, as is the case today with too many companies. The boost could also be seen on the hardware side. If Mac had a significant market share right now, you know we would not be switchig to Intel; we would already have low-power G5's in our PowerBooks and the desktop version would surely have passed 3 Ghz a long time ago.

3)Perhaps we could finally shed the elitist mindset that plagues our community.
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BenRoethig
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2006-01-07, 10:41

Apple marketshare: 6-8%
Mac Marketshare ~25%
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ThunderPoit
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2006-01-07, 11:51

you talking about other people making Macs, ben?
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BenRoethig
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2006-01-07, 12:06

Unless we want Microsoft to keep ultimately profiting off Apple's innovations, yes.
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Brad
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2006-01-07, 12:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueRabbit
Yeah, they did that, and at the same time decreased the number of times you can burn a playlist from 10 to 7.
Mea cupla. I must have confused the two.
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Brad
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2006-01-07, 12:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by BenRoethig
Unless we want Microsoft to keep ultimately profiting off Apple's innovations, yes.
Uhhh, how exactly will introducing hardware clones stop this?
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BenRoethig
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2006-01-07, 13:26

By allowing people to get the real thing on the hardware they want to buy.
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Brad
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2006-01-07, 14:10

I don't understand your logic.

Just because more hardware is available to run Mac OS X doesn't mean that Microsoft will stop imitating its features/innovations and profiting from them.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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