Posted on 06/12/2008 1:36:26 AM PDT by Swordmaker
With the intense media focus this week on Apple's new and improved iPhone, another important product announcement -- a planned upgrade of the company's Mac OS X computer operating system, dubbed Snow Leopard -- got short shrift.
Apple (NasdaqGS:AAPL - News) gets the bulk of its sales, 59% in the quarter ended March 29, from its Macintosh computer business. Mac sales have been outpacing the overall PC market for some time, benefiting from a halo effect from Apple's popular iPod portable media players and iTunes online store, as well as the iPhone.
Apple has been relentlessly hammering rival Microsoft's (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) Windows Vista operating system to great effect in ads since Vista debuted in January 2007.
Critics, and Apple, say Vista is bloated and slow. Some corporate and enterprise buyers have been reluctant to upgrade from Windows XP because of performance issues and the rich hardware requirements needed to run Vista.
In response to the criticism, Microsoft executives have been publicly discussing Vista's successor, Windows 7, due out in 2010. And considering that many Windows buyers wait until Microsoft issues its first set of bug fixes to get a new operating system, Apple could have a two- or three-year runway to aggressively push its Macs before Windows 7 PC sales gain steam, says Morningstar analyst Rick Hanna.
"They're turning up the heat on Microsoft," Hanna said. Apple sees an opportunity to take market share away from makers of Windows-based PCs, such as Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News) and Dell (NasdaqGS:DELL - News), he says.
Apple previewed the Snow Leopard operating system Monday at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The new OS was a footnote on a day dominated by the iPhone 3G, a low-priced smart phone with fast wireless data access.
Snow Leopard will build on the success of Mac OS X Leopard, which Apple released in October. The new OS is scheduled to ship "in about a year," the company said.
Apple typically releases a new version of its operating system every 18 to 24 months. By contrast, Microsoft took more than five years to release Windows Vista after coming out with Windows XP.
Snow Leopard will target computer performance, a perceived weak spot for Vista. Apple says Snow Leopard will be optimized for multicore processors -- the new wave of computer chips -- and tap into the vast computing power of graphic processing units.
Snow Leopard will use a new technology code-named Grand Central to make it easier for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of the Intel (NasdaqGS:INTC - News) multicore processors that run the machines.
Apple also wants to lead in 64-bit technology with Snow Leopard by raising the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16 terabytes of random access memory, or RAM.
The hype around the iPhone 3G, set for release on July 11, also should help Mac sales, says Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research.
"It will be successful and will have a more extensive halo effect (than the iPod) because it has a lot more computing in it," Gottheil said.
The iPhone has the same underlying operating system as the Mac and shares applications such as the Safari Web browser, he says.
Mac sales are hot also because of Apple's retail stores, Gottheil says. Apple stores are known for helpful staff and a relaxed environment for testing out new products, he says.
Apple had 7.1% of the U.S. PC market in the first quarter, up from 4.9% a year earlier, says market researcher IDC. Its worldwide share rose to 3.3% from 2.5%.
Its growth rate has been trouncing the competition. Apple's personal computer unit shipments were up 51.2% in the U.S. and 51.9% worldwide in the first quarter. The industry growth rates were 4.6% in the U.S. and 14.9% worldwide compared with the year-ago quarter, IDC says.
Even more interesting is that Apple's Mac sales are accelerating, Gottheil says. The year-over-year growth rates for Mac unit sales the last four quarters were 33%, 34%, 44% and 51%.
Apple has seen an "explosion" of Mac sales since it made the transition to Intel processors from PowerPC processors supplied by IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) and Freescale Semiconductor. Apple announced the transition in June 2005 and completed it in August 2006.
Apple shares rose 2.2% Tuesday to close at 185.64.
Who’s Saint TOLDEO?
***Who’s Saint TOLDEO?***
You don’t know about Saint Toldeo? Hmmm...shame on you! Oh, okay, he’s a product of my overtired mind. LOL! Now I’m about to go get some sleep and tomorrow I’ll go buy a new mind.
If it were any other company, I’d be interested. But Apple permanently lost my business over 20 years ago with their extreme politics and their Mac “evangelist” movement later cemented my decision forever.
I’ll stick with a PC and Microsoft - plus I won’t be shut out of beta testing software in genres I prefer which is just icing on the cake.
Nice specs though. The competition will benefit the market.
Actually, I'm over to the east somewhat, in very UNHOLY Ithaca NY, the City of Evil.
> Now that I know it can be done, I’ll contact the president of the local Mac Users Group.
Great idea!
> THANK you for taking the time to help.
My pleasure.
As it happens, I'm setting up a Mac Mini with Boot Camp for my wife (actually my ex, never mind, it's complicated) because she needs both Mac and Windows and wants only one computer.
BTW, in the interest of completeness: Boot Camp is not the only way to combine Mac and Windows on the same computer.
There is a way to run a copy of Windows WITHIN Mac OS X, such that they are both running at the same time. That's called "virtualization"; products by VMware and Parallels make it possible. It's more complex and more costly than Boot Camp, but has some advantages for the technically advanced.
If after you've done the Boot Camp thing for a while, you decide you'd like to try running Windows INSIDE of Mac OS X, give me a holler and I'll send you some pointers. You can use the same Windows license in a VM (virtual machine) that you use in Boot Camp, so the only additional cost would be the VMware software, which is about $75.
But for the time being, given your application, I recommend you take the more straightforward (i.e. simpler) path of trying out Boot Camp.
Good luck!
There is no software availability issue with Intel based OS X Macs.
They can run all of the OS X software and all of Windows software as well... natively. In addition, OS X is fully certified UNIX, tapping into the thousands of UNIX applications—and it can run Linux as well. With the use of Parallels Workstation or VMWare's Fusion, all of these can run at the same time within windows in the Mac's OS X environment.
Boot Camp Assistant is in the Utility Folder inside the Applications Folder on every Leopard install on an Intel Mac. Yours should have it. You will need a Windows full install disk (not an upgrade) to use it.
I can't say whether your computer would like it, but you might IF you needed to run some Windows application for which there is no Apple analogue.
Swordmakeer
Re: Boot Camp
RECEIVED, ACKNOWLEDGED, AND MUCH APPRECIATED.
I would not use boot camp. It requires you to well BOOT.
Parallels and VMWare let you run windows in a window (which can actually bethe how screen). They also have the functionality to run just the windows app in a window. The stuff is not perfect but pretty cool. You can switch from windows to make by moving you mouse!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN9jNNeEd98&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjVZt-G2qC8&feature=related
VMWare is similar. Horses for courses which is better, I use both.
One more reason to use Parallels or VMware for running windows. Backup and restore. When you install VMware or Parallels one of the steps is to install the “guest OS”. For most people this is WinXP. But you can install other windows versions or linux. What the install process does is create a virtual machine. But the virtual machine is in just a file. Sooo, you can very easily just duplicate the file and you have a back up of Windows all nice and pretty in case you get a corrupted windows. The only thing that would be missing when you restore (i.e. access the duplicate) are your documents and any other software you installed since you duplicated last. The trick is to every once in a while duplicate the virtual machine (i.e. file). Also it is extremely easy to store the windows documents in a Mac folder which can be accessed as any other Mac OR Windows application. This makes the duplication process even more sensible.
VMWare and Parallels are amazing.
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