Nearly half the money spent at US retail on desktop PCs goes to Apple

Beta News ^ | Published November 25, 2009, | by Joe Wilcox

[Swordmaker]

According to NPD research, Apple gets 48% of all dollars spent on Desktop computers in the US in October... PING!

NPD: US Mac Sales Kicked Butt in Ocotober Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Ingtar]

Key words seem to be “on so few...” It appears that units sold tells a different story.

[WVKayaker]

It appears that units sold tells a different story.

You can't spend "units"...

[wiseone]

apple spends more on parts,research than PC makers,hence they last longer..but soon become obsolete,you cannot install newer software on PPC from 5 years ago

the PC is becoming expendable,check out Microcenter prices,emachines with Win 7 for $250

[WVKayaker]

.but soon become obsolete,

That depends on your definition of "is".

I have Mac computers going back to 1984 that still function as they were designed. I have PPC's with G4's starting at 400mhz, which function fine under OSX 10.4. I blend OSX 10.4,5,6 on a local network with the 400 G4 as the server running 10.4 server...

Just because it doesn't boot the latest version does not mean it doesn't work. I also own six cars over 20 years old. Obsolete? No, lovingly used!

[Swordmaker]

apple spends more on parts,research than PC makers,hence they last longer..but soon become obsolete,you cannot install newer software on PPC from 5 years ago

Currently, the only software you cannot install on the PowerPC Macs is OS X.6 Snow Leopard. Almost all of the third party software will run on it so far. That WILL change in the future as more and more is written for Intel Macs only. In addition, there are some that are working on a virtual PPC machine for the Intel that will keep the older stuff alive on the newer Macs. The Intel Macs represent about 70% of the Macs in the Wild right now because Apple has been selling around 9 million a year since the switch to intel... and in another year that will be over 85%. Also, the older software will still work fine on the older machines.

[ReignOfError]

the PC is becoming expendable,check out Microcenter prices,emachines with Win 7 for $250

I think the word you're looking for is "disposable."

[RayChuang88]

I think Apple sales have remained strong because users of older PowerPC Macs switched over to Intel Macs in a big way to prevent finding themselves useless due to future MacOS X versions going Intel-only support. I've read that MacOS X 10.7--of which early alpha builds probably exist inside Apple's development labs--may run on Intel CPU's only for maximum code optimization reasons.

Hardware-wise, Apple iMacs and Mac Pros are excellent machines, though I wish Apple would provide more ergonomic keyboards and mouse pointers (I hope Logitech develops an Apple-specific version of the Desktop Wave Pro keyboard/mouse combination).

[Star Traveler]

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is the co-founder and CEO of Apple and Pixar.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” - Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs regularly makes most rosters of the rich and powerful. It is surprising for a guy who takes home an annual salary of U.S. $1. The reasons why he is on all power lists are; Apple, Next, iPod and Pixar. Jobs is also known as the one man who could have upstaged Bill Gates. But Jobs was as excited about innovation as Bill Gates was interested in making money.

Steve Jobs was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin to Joanne Simpson and an Egyptian Arab father. Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California then adopted him. The writer Mona Simpson is Jobs’ biological sister. In 1972, Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. One semester later he had dropped out. But instead of going back home he hung around college and took up the study of philosophy and foreign cultures.

Steve Jobs had a deep-seated interest in technology so he took up a job at Atari Inc. which was a leading manufacturer of video games. He struck a friendship with fellow designer Steve Wozniak and attended meetings of the “Homebrew Computer Club” with him. Wozniak and Jobs developed a system with a toy whistle available in the Cap’n Crunch cereal box to make it possible to make free long distance telephone calls. They called off the amateur venture after someone told them of the possible legal consequences.

After saving up some money Steve Jobs took off for India in the search of enlightenment with his friend Dan Kottke. Once he returned he convinced Wozniak to quit his job at Hewlett Packard and join him in his venture that concerned personal computers. They sold items like a scientific calculator to raise the seed capital.

In 1976, Jobs, then 21, and Wozniak, 26, founded Apple Computer Co. in the Jobs family garage. The first personal computer was sold for $666.66. By 1980, Apple had already released three improved versions of the personal computer. It had a wildly successful IPO, which made both founders millionaires many times over. Steve Jobs had managed to rope in John Scully of Pepsi to head the marketing function in Apple.

A tiff with the Apple board and John Scully led to the resignation of Steve Jobs. As soon as he resigned he immersed himself in his brand new venture. Steve Jobs decided that he wanted to change the hardware industry. The company was called NeXTStep and the new machine was called NeXT Computer. He ploughed in more than U.S. $250 million into the company. The machine was a commercial washout but it did help in object-oriented programming, PostScript, and magneto-optical devices. Tim Berners-Lee developed the original World Wide Web system at CERN on a NeXT machine. Bitterly disappointed with NeXTStep, Jobs accepted the offer that Apple made him.

Steve Jobs also started Pixar Inc., which has gone on to produce animated movies such as Toy Story (1995); A Bug’s Life (1998); Toy Story 2 (1999); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); and The Incredibles (2004). This venture has made him one of the most sought after men in Hollywood.

Post Pixar, Steve Jobs wanted another round of revolutionizing to do. This time it was the music industry. He introduced the iPod in 2003. Later he came up with iTunes, which was a digital jukebox. A million and a half iPods later, the music industry still does not know whether this invention will save it or destroy it. Apple has a great advertising track record and its ‘Rip, Mix, Burn’ campaign was another feather in its cap. Now the industry uses a Mac to make the music and an iPod to store it.

Steve Jobs lives with his wife, Laurene Powell and their three children in Silicon Valley. He also has a daughter, Lisa Jobs from a previous relationship. In 2004, there was a cancerous tumor in his pancreas, which was successfully operated upon.

Milestones

• Steve Jobs — Named one of Time Magazine's top 25 most influential people on the web (2008) (4/30/09) 1
  Posted 9/30/08 at 11:38am

• Steve Jobs added a position as Founder at Pixar.
  Posted 7/7/08 at 4:11pm

• Steve Jobs added a position as CEO at Apple.
  Posted 12/22/07 at 12:42am

• Steve Jobs added a position as Founder at NeXT.
  Posted 7/7/08 at 4:11pm

Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Above:

Steve Jobs delivering his commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University in 2005
Added: 1/15/09

Sources

1. The 25 Most Influential People on the Web

[dennisw]

Apple had the first good deal I ever saw. At Best Buy they had their 13.3 inch Apple laptop for the usual high price of $999. But with the purchase you got a $150 BB gift card. That’s as good as it gets with the Jesse Jobs Gang.

Now if you had half a brain and you wanted in on this bonanza you went to BB a few days ago and bought one for $999. Then today you would go back to BB and return it then immediately buy it back and get the $150 gift card.

I passed on this and got a new LCD and laser printer instead

[McGruff]

See. Monopolies usually are profitable.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

See. Monopolies usually are profitable.

Kinda difficult to be a monopoly when you only have about 10% of the market in this country... LOL...

[Mr. Blonde]

I have read the transcript of his commencement speech. It is really good. Much better than the one I got that is for sure.

[Mr. Blonde]

I wonder if all of the people who say Apple is dumb for not lowering their prices and competing in the entire market will show up to this thread.

[B Knotts]

I think part of what we’re seeing here is the decline of the desktop computer.

People just don’t buy them as much anymore. Laptops and netbooks is where the market is moving.

[mysterio]

I wonder if all of the people who say Apple is dumb for not lowering their prices

Apple was dumb for not lowering their prices during the Vista debacle. Now it doesn't matter nearly as much, since Windows 7 appears to be a pretty good operating system.

Apple and its fanboys are ok with 10 percent market share. I doubt it will drop much below that unless the economy gets a whole lot worse. My suggestion was to move beyond a niche market of fanboys, but if you're happy with a perpetual ten percent, more power to you.

[Mr. Blonde]

I would imagine they are happy with ever increasing profit regardless of market share. That would seem to be what the company is most interested in. Why try to slug it out to sell 7 cheap computers when you can just try to sell one?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"the PC is becoming expendable,check out Microcenter prices,emachines with Win 7 for $250"

Interesting punctuation there.

There is no comparison between the $250 low-end eMachines and any Mac. Apple chooses not to play in the commodity basement, and chooses not to subsidize its prices with gigabytes of performance-sapping preloaded crapware. Profitability, for some silly reason, is important to them. It funds R&D, for example, and lets them expand into new markets and new ways of doing business. Look at competitors like HP-- round after round after round of layoffs, leaving them with a sickly product line composed of me-too products, and no company left.

By the way, the Mac Mini at around $600 is a really nice desktop machine, not at all stripper in functionality, performance or reliability, and with no crapware. The new iMacs are fantastic, too, and very well priced considering their benchmarks. But down at the bloody bottom of the marketplace, down in layoff land, Apple is wisely leaving it to others to decimate themselves.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"I think Apple sales have remained strong because users of older PowerPC Macs switched over to Intel Macs in a big way to prevent finding themselves useless due to future MacOS X versions going Intel-only support."

That's an interesting thought but does not compare at all with my own observations or experience. Here in RightOnTheLeftCoast Manor, for my family and work we have (let's see...) three PowerPC Macs, two Intel Macs, two Win 7 PCs, three Win XP machines, four Linux PCs, two 68k Macs, and a Sun Sparcstation 2. All are running and doing their jobs, some (can you guess which?) with more hassle than others due to malware infestations, despite all precautions. Our older Macs are running flawlessly, and we have had no sense of urgency to upgrade. And such is the case with my Mac-using friends and colleagues.

Near as I can tell, your contention of Mac sales propelled by upgrades has no basis in reality. If you have a citation to support your notion, please post it.