Replies

"The Net Applications statistics show that Windows is losing their aggregate percentage of installed base, while the percentages of Macs and Linux are growing. It's that simple."

Net Applications don't measure market share or actual sales of Macs or PC's. They don't even come close to doing that. They merely measure what OS/browser etc that people use when they visit certain sites they monitor. Their browser market share figures for example have consistently overstated Firefox figures, when compared to figures from Websidestory, which have been in that business longer.
Actual unit sales and market share for PC's are measured by IDC and Dataquest. In fact PC makers and Wall Street analysts don't even quote figures from Net Applications when talking about PC sales or market share, but they regularly quote Dataquest and IDC. Net applications is irrelevant.
IDC/Dataquest have Macs at 2.5% for December, and will probably have Mac market share down for February when the figures come out, due to PC sales rising faster than Mac sales for February.

You can try to spin it any way you want to, but it won't change the fact that percentage of Windows users is shrinking. Market share doesn't measure cannibalization or PCs that are thrown into the junk pile - but usage share does, and Net Applications is showing Windows usage is in a slow, steady decline. Over time, Microsoft could easily drop another 10% or more.

One other factor to remember about market share - PCs tend to be low-quality, disposable computers that have to be replaced more frequently. Macs are more durable and have a longer useful life, which is bad news for computer salesmen.

So you like IDC... OK... here is the data from IDC for the US computers sales, 3rd quarter 2006:

Notes:
• IDC estimates for Gateway & Toshiba are prior to financial earnings reports.
• Shipments include shipments to distribution channels or end users. OEM
sales are counted under the vendor/brand under which they are sold.
• PCs include Desktop, Notebook, Ultra Portable, and x86 Servers.
• PCs do not include handhelds. Data for all vendors are reported for
calendar periods.
Source: IDC, October 18, 2006

Incidentally, that 975,000 figure for Apple's sales is only 60.1% of their worldwide sales of 1.61 Million. I don't see a US market share of 2.5% on there, do you? In fact, Apple holds 2.8% worldwide market share using Apple's stated 1.61 million Macs (Apple's fiscal Q4, calendar Q3) and IDC's 57.052 million total worldwide PC shipment 3Q numbers. IDC and Gartner's numbers vary slightly due to differing methodologies.

As I mentioned earlier, Apple's worldwide market share topped 3% in January... also according to IDC.

All apologies and retractions for posted misinformation (FUD) graciously accepted... if you make them. ;^)>