[RYCeT]

Interesting Article for Mac OSX

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/te...=1&oref=slogin

Quote:

The Mac’s worldwide market share was 3 percent as of June 2007, according to Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a consulting firm in Wayland, Mass. That forlorn number looks even worse compared with Apple’s peak worldwide share of 14 percent in 1984, the year the Macintosh was introduced and sales of Apple II computers were the company’s mainstay. Mr. Kay noted that Apple’s share was as low as 2 percent as recently as early 2004. He said the increase to 3 percent may be a result of the “halo effect” produced by the success of the iPod. It could also just as easily be attributed to Apple’s simply offering better products at more competitive prices, he added.

Quote:

The best time for gaining market share is when your main competitor stumbles while introducing an entirely new version of its core product. Thanks to Microsoft’s lumbering pace, Mr. Jobs had six years to look forward to the moment when XP would be replaced by Vista. When the long-awaited moment arrived, Vista turned out to be in as sorry a state of semicompletion as Mr. Jobs could have hoped for. Many pieces of hardware that customers already owned, like printers, turned out to be incompatible with the new Vista models.

Quote:

The official line from Apple is that all has gone swimmingly. The company said it shipped 1.52 million Macs in the first quarter of this year, up 35 percent from the year-ago quarter. In the second quarter through June 30, it shipped 1.76 million Macs, up 32 percent from a year ago, an all-time quarterly record. Funny thing, though: based on the ratio of Windows and Macs actually in use, no gains can be seen for Apple. The Mac’s share of personal computers has actually edged a bit lower since Vista’s release in January, and the various flavors of Windows a bit higher, according to Net Applications, a firm in Aliso Viejo, Calif., that monitors the operating systems among visitors to 40,000 customer Web sites.

IMHO, as I said many times in my previous posts. This is the best time for Apple to attack MS dominance in OS wars. Open Mac OSX to be available for PC. Yes, they will sacrifice their Mac hardware line but IMHO their gain in OS will make them better off. If they truly believe on their software quality, open OSX, iLife & iWorks for pc and let them topple MS dominance. Will Jobs have the guts to do it?

Unfortunately knowing how Apple works, I don't think so.

 

[ricksome]

Agreed!

 

[jeremynwolf]

Part of the problem, it seems to me (and I'm not software engineer) is that OSX owes its stability, at least in part, to the fact that it only has to support a limited amount of hardware. If Apple opened OSX in the way you're suggesting, I wonder if it would actually be as good a product as it is when running on machines with a very limited hardware line-up.

 

[ojnihs]

meh

 

[Wodgy]

There's an interesting verbal exchange between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in the book "Accidental Empires"... it's been a long time since I've read the book, but Bill tells Steve "You know you can't win, right?" Steve responds that that's not the point.

There's more to success than just marketshare. Apple will never conquer the corporate market... some future, more usable Linux has a better chance of that, and even that is very unlikely in the next decade. But... so? As long as it continues to be a vibrant competitor, it keeps Microsoft on its feet, which is good for everyone. And there are other measures of success. Few people complaint that BMW only has a small segment of the automotive market. One major aspect of success is mindshare. Go to a tech conference, or any Computer Science graduate department these days, and often the majority of people's machines are Macs. Listen to word of mouth. Heck, you even have Jim Allchin of Microsoft praising OS X, and letting its design strongly influence Vista.

That said, to get back the original post, licensing OS X would not likely be a great idea for Apple. Microsoft would destroy them. But I propose a bit of a compromise... I'd like to see Apple license OS X just to Lenovo for use in their ThinkPad line. That's a small enough number of machines that hardware support wouldn't be a big problem, and it wouldn't dilute the idea of OS X as a premium brand. OS X ThinkPads would be a geek dream.

 

[hotsoda]

It won't happen. Apple thrives with their ecosystem, and they have no plausible reason to give it up.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremynwolf /img/forum/go_quote.gif Part of the problem, it seems to me (and I'm not software engineer) is that OSX owes its stability, at least in part, to the fact that it only has to support a limited amount of hardware. If Apple opened OSX in the way you're suggesting, I wonder if it would actually be as good a product as it is when running on machines with a very limited hardware line-up.

I'd love OS X to be less hardware dependent, but x2 on the above. Then again as more and more apps and data moves to "the cloud", hardware and even OS platforms will recede in importance. Apple has to do something (besides its current move to licensed content distribution) to prepare for the future. Doubling back, moving your OS to more machines may not be enough. Are you more optimistic about MS or Google in the future? That question isn't even close for me.

 

[ken36]

I switch to the Mac 3 years ago. Love it and have no interest in gaining market share. However all of your posts make a good case. Unfortunately, OSX, just has too few business applications. It's a problem. When my biz bought PC computers in 1985, we reluctantly decided against Apple for that same reason with the exception of Desktop publishing.

 

[krmathis]

Hopefully never going to happen!

 

[bperboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremynwolf /img/forum/go_quote.gif Part of the problem, it seems to me (and I'm not software engineer) is that OSX owes its stability, at least in part, to the fact that it only has to support a limited amount of hardware. If Apple opened OSX in the way you're suggesting, I wonder if it would actually be as good a product as it is when running on machines with a very limited hardware line-up.

I agree. Plus I'm selfish; I don't want Apple to become so dominant and widespread that hackers find it profitable to finally flood the Mac world with virus and other crap.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Apple can, and will, do what it wants. Do you think this thread will change anything? I'm glad I went to Mac, but I don't give a fig what Apple does in the corporate world.

Laz