The Windows-to-Mac migration rate is currently about 3% of the total U.S. market. It was 2% last year, and 1% before that.
Vista may help Microsoft to lower the Windows abandonment rate for a while, but I've seen a lot of XP users on this forum who are saying they intend to upgrade to Macs instead.
Maybe, but I'm guessing that that slowing may be mitigated, or even halted by the segment of geeks that are savvy enough to be aware of what they're losing in Vista finally reach their personal limits with MS' increased DRM.
"...but I've seen a lot of XP users on this forum who are saying they intend to upgrade to Macs instead."
That's what they say, but what will they DO? Of the people I run across looking for a new computer I cannot interest a single one in even looking at the iMac line. I even tell them to check them out the next time they're at Fry's (i.e. readily available). All I get is a glazed over look. And no point mentioning the laptops or the Mac Pro's, they're a no sell (though admired).
This ingrained apathy is not overcome by wishful thinking. Apple needs to get their butts into Costco, and have an affordable tower/monitor setup that sits next to those ugly Gateways. And if they want to push the iMac in lieu of that they darned well better start producing one with a tasteful gray exterior, perhaps like the Cinema Displays. Every time I look at one of those things they get more ridiculous looking (especially the 24" one).
Friday, January 19, 2007
The Mac maker fell a full percentage point to 5.1 percent of the domestic market between the third and fourth quarters of the year, trading places with Toshiba, which climbed from 5.1 to 5.3 percent. Apple remained out of the top five in the world rankings, but a similar set of data released by IDC on Wednesday puts its international share at 2.4 percent.
Shipments of Macs in the U.S. also dipped significantly from 975,000 US systems to 808,000, indicating a genuine slowdown in sales for the Cupertino-based company....
Looks like the trend isn't really on the upside at this juncture.
Now that Dell has signed AMD and is ramping AMD CPU sales the 3% decline they've had may also reverse given that AMD is ramping its output with new fab lines and a 65nm process.
Don't get me wrong however, I'd jump to Apple in a minute if they had apps I couldn't get elsewhere or if they had an OS that was cheaper/superior for my purposes or if Jobs just got his liberal nose out of the air some of the time.
I'm presently dual booting Linux/XP and finding the free Ubuntu OS and the free apps almost superior to MS. Only a few apps remain that only run on MS and may never be ported, especially once the newer CPUS can run multiple OS's at the same time.