Being forced to do business with a leftie company is unfortunate, but unavoidable for me and many others who need to work in/on their hardware/network infrastructure. However, to actively go and PROMOTE their products is quite another.
I’ll content myself with the fact that Apple’s marketshare worldwide is still only 10%, even after they’ve been in business for 31 years; their 1/3 of 1% a year anemic marketshare growth always puts a smile on my face.
Fine. But I'm not promoting them, I merely find them the best fit for some of the tasks I do each day. Windows, Linux, and NetBSD are likewise daily tools for me. Why your concern? It's not like there's a pure-bred rightwing computer company out there, is there? (If there is, you could shill for them here with a clear conscience.)
> I’ll content myself with the fact that Apple’s marketshare worldwide is still only 10%, even after they’ve been in business for 31 years; their 1/3 of 1% a year anemic marketshare growth always puts a smile on my face.
Now really, THC, you -can't- be that ignorant of the history of small computers, can you?
The Apple II had a very large marketshare prior to 1983 (when the IBM-PC and MSDOS started to take off) -- it was the leader in most respects. The IBM-PC swamped it for business and some home use through the mid-80's, but the Macintosh caught on and owned the creative and educational markets they went for. What the IBM-PC really did was wipe out every -other- competing computer commpany, save Apple. Once the clones started (mainly with Compaq), what actually happened was a huge expansion of the pie. Apple didn't lose customers, but the pie expanded much faster than they could possibly respond.
Since 1984, Apple hasn't sought a large share of that huge market again -- they were content to own the creative and educational markets, and they sure did. Or don't you read history and know these things? I lived and worked in those times, and remember.
Windows couldn't and didn't challenge the Mac's chosen market segments until Win95 -- a decade after the Macintosh. Unfortunately for Apple, that was during a time when they were unwisely trying to compete with beige boxes, and they were stupid and nearly lost it all. Recovery was tough.
The important thing Apple did was change their operating system to one based on Unix, and in 2002 OS-X started taking off. It's now growing at a very high rate -- not your average-over-31-years rate of 1/3 of 1%, but more like 20-30% per year. While the rest of the PC/Windows market is stagnant.
So before you get too enamored of that smile on your face, reflect on the fact that your cheerfully low number is meaningless. First, because it neglects the fact that Apple has not competed for marketshare across the board until the past year, and second, because the current rate of growth is phenomenal, literally two orders of magnitude higher than what you claim with your average.
I'm really hoping you just forgot to add a "/sarc" tag at the end of your comment. Otherwise, I have to conclude that your overt hatred of Apple has clouded your thinking to an unfortunate degree.
Hatred is not healthy, THC. I suggest that you ease up a little.