Why Apple isn't selling more Macs
There is an interesting article in the New York Times today (September 16th) that anyone involved with personal computers should read. It's called "A Window of Opportunity for Macs, Soon to Close" and it was written by Randall Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State University.
The main point of the article is that Apple should be selling many more Macintosh computers than it is. I agree completely.
The author points out that the release of an obviously half-baked version of Vista provided Apple with a golden opportunity to sell computers to people who don't want Vista. In my opinion, no one should buy a new computer with Vista until 2.5 years after its release. For more, see my September 2nd posting "I pity the fool (Windows XP good, Vista bad)."
Leading up to the release of Vista, which anyone in the field knew would suffer bumps in the road, Apple's marketing team blew a golden opportunity. The article describes a whole host of mistakes that Apple has made to get this point. Huge mistakes and many of them.
Macs account for only 3 percent of personal computers. My Mac experience is very limited, but I'm sure that judged on merits, it deserves a much larger market share. If nothing else, just being (mostly) immune to viruses, spyware and other forms of malicious software should get it 10 percent market share without a single employee at Apple working on marketing.
The fallout from miserable Mac sales is not limited to Apple. Windows users suffer too, because without increasingly popular Macs, Microsoft can continue doing things the way it always has. Thus Windows users suffer from poor quality work done by an organization that doesn't have it's feet to the fire.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has benefited from the brutal marketing mistakes of competitors. Anyone remember OS/2?
Michael Horowitz is an independent computer consultant and the author of several classes on Defensive Computing. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
wouldnt Exactly call these numbers miserable.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/07/25results.html
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/08/apple-now-third.html
I think Mac user disagree
What could've been useful is for Michael to have become conversant with Mac. Then, if it remained his opinion, explain why Windows with all of its faults should still be preferred over Mac. If fluent in Mac, he could've compared OSes and show how OS X is in fact no better or far better than XP or Vista. No one can deny the brute fact that there are more Windows users than Mac users; and so, for businesses to be profitable, conversions from Mac to Windows are simply not cost-effective. This not to say Michael couldn't have escaped the herd and led the charge to a new and better world...Mac. But what would you expect from a blogger who lacks the intelligence to flee a sinking ship, any sense of logic, and a comprehensive view of computers?
The cost would be $75 a unit including parallels and XP -= a computer which natively is safer than a windows unit. Better built. Better customer service with a better machine and the choice of operating systems right out of the box.
What would people do if they did not have to spend hours setting up their computers and peripherals when they bought a new computer? What would they do if they could simply transfer their old data and apps right to their new system in an hour, by running a program and plugging in a cable? How would they react to joining a network and printing to a printer attached to the network or even a new computer immediately?
Nah, the marketplace has spoken - nobody wants that. . . .
- No, the marketplace hasn't spoken...
- by tenc21 October 9, 2007 7:16 PM PDT
- Only the obdurate and unenlightened persist in following the lesser path
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