Great news for Apple.

I have a question: What exactly would a MSFT brick-and-mortar sell with enthusiasm--other than mice, keyboards, and 360?

Most MSFT products are business oriented, those that aren't are still boring and uninteresting.

You aren't going to make a lot of walk-in retail sales of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, sexy product that it is. :)

For consumers, despite the marketing and ad budget of MSFT fully behind it, sales of non-subsidized Zunes (and thus the "Zune Experience") are--at best--a pathetic and dismal failure.

Joe, have your sources told you how many boxed copies of Vista is MSFT actually selling at retail? How many copies of XP?

Thanks Joe, those numbers are an eye opener!

Its still hard seeing Apple achieving 140 million users anytime soon. But the flatness of the Windows PC growth is probably a factor of the PC refresh cycle not in gear right now. It will pick up more towards summer/back to school and once again by winter.

@dev:

Its interesting you say all of that. Apple retails four core products, Apples Desktops, notebooks, iPod and iPhone. Microsoft meets these four core product categories also. I am sure if the Company were to start a retail store, they would have partner with some of the top OEMs to achieve the Desktop and notebook categories. In fact there would be more choice and price points which would make it more palatable for the consumer. Next you have the Zune in addition to various Smartphone devices like the recently released HTC Touch.

So Microsoft does equal Apple in SKU and even beats them.

Apple's 8-core Xserve gets my vote in the sexy server department.

A Microsoft flagship that largely sells mostly or only OEM products from some PC manufacturing products would be of questionable value. You would get a whole chaotic display of various brands, designs, specs that would do little to push Microsoft as a brand.

In fact, it would be more like a Best Buy computer section than an Apple store. Why would anyone think that Microsoft could do computer and electronics retailing better than Best Buy. It would be just another marketing sinkhole that would blow another chunk of Microsoft earnings that any of Microsoft's recent ventures have been.

Microsoft's problem is the underlying quality of their products. The problems of Vista have already been widely reported and even highlighted in Apple ads. The Zune has been laughable as a product. The X-box has had some success but has not ever reached profitability. At least no one has ever been able to prove profitability, nor has Microsoft ever claimed profitability. In fact, X-box is reported as part of an entertainment products division that reports Billions of dollars of losses each year.

Like they say, "you can put lipstick on a pig..."

I question that value of building showcase flagship stores, when the products to be showcased are not up to the task. Microsoft would be much better off to spend time, energy, and resources to improve their products.

With the kind of distribution that Microsoft products already has; if the products were any good, they would have better sell through. We wouldn't be having this discussion.

the iPod/iPhone halo coupled with Vista's poor performance and other drawbacks could be the reason...

Microsoft can't copy Apple's stores, because they don't control the whole chain.

Windows PCs are made by umpteen different vendors. Windows Mobile smartphones are controlled by the wireless providers. Even Microsoft-branded accessories, like keyboards and webcams, are manufactured by Logitech IIRC. Aside from 360's and Zunes, what would they have to sell there?

I think it's interesting how it seems like all the huge variety of PC's and MP3 players running Windows and PlaysForSure just sort of blend together, while the iPod and iMacs stand out. But I could be mistaken.

"...(PC's) will pick up more towards summer/back to school and once again by winter."

In past years, I would agree with you, but now I am not so sure. It could be an even larger share for Apple this fall. I am sensing a profound sea-change that MSFT better be paying attention to. MSFT still owns the business space, but they rapidly losing the high ground in the home/personal market.

I asked my nephew to do a little informal study in his HS senior class on laptop ownership. The ratio in class was 70/30 in favor of Macs. For those who didn't already have one, nobody's first choice was a PC. All said Macbook.

Sure, the above is completely anecdotal. But seriously, can you imagine any high-schooler--after trying their friends Vista and OSX laptops side by side--honestly deciding that their first choice is Vista?

Few young people "dream" about owning a laptop running Vista. A Macbook Pro running iChat, iTunes, iLife, Office 2008, FCP, and Garage Band on OSX? You bet.

That is the next generation of potential customers. And MSFT had better start worrying.

As a senior IT person with 27 years of experience (and ardent MSFT supporter for most of them), I now own a MacBook as my primary mobile PC. Windows (read Vista) was not enjoyable to use on my personal machines anymore. (All my domain support tools now run inside Vista and XP Fusion VMs).

I've switched 75% of my outside clients to purchase Macs for personal machines after demoing Mac's capabilities, ease of use, and performance for them.

If MSFT has lost me, there really is trouble ahead.

Interesting stats, Joe.

MS opening up stores would be great. When they open with unimaginitively drab stores (with spiral stairs) and colored PCs running uncreative software with chatty dialog boxes, it will only reinforce the mindshare that Apple innovates and takes risks, and MS follows the leader. (Notice how Mac-like the Xbox UI animation is...?)

Closed-source OS with open-source building blocks. Closed-source browser with open-source engine. Closed-source iTunes with open-source music and video file formats. (More so, as the content cartel lets Apple take off DRM for the remaining portion of the store, as they allowed for Amazon.)

See a pattern?

By then, whatever comes after Leopard will be out, and iPhone v3, and you'll see the cycle repeat itself, unless MS doesn't let its engineers innovate without marketing & monopoly considerations. They should split themselves up and liberate Office for Windows/Mac/Linux/web with open file formats and watch what happens.

Btw, NPD's site has a MacBook with the Apple logo photoshopped out. HAHA.

I take it this is US-only? Because world-wide Apple seem unable to lift their share above 3%.

Ok

Please you should say allways when you give numbers, if you are talkin about "The USA" or you are talkin about the "World"

The grown is happening in both sides but since the market out of the usa was nearly zero before....the relative numbers are allways smaller.

The only thing Microsoft could ever produce -- that doesn't suck -- would be a vacuum cleaner !

"Microsoft can't copy Apple's stores, because they don't control the whole chain.
Windows PCs are made by umpteen different vendors."

Funny that this was touted as a "feature" for many years!. Your choice: Any of a 1000 different ugly gray configs with only semi-compatible drivers! Line right up; get yours today!

I'd like to add one reason for MS holding onto the Business cycle is because even in this age there are companies, associations forcing their members to use MSIE.

I work in Real Estate, and that industry is controlled by MSFT. I work in San Diego, and am "forced" to use Internet Explorer by the Real Estate Association that I'm also forced to pay a fee for RE information.

The vendor here is called Marketlinx, using Tempo as the name of their program. They are going to upgrade to Tempo 5 and it is 100% IE only.

The Real Estate hacks who run the business may as well call themselves Microsoft's San Diego Board of Realtors. They talk about being on the cutting edge. Well they are going to NOT use multiple browsers, multiple OS's, but only MSIE. Does that make sense to you.

CAR (car.org) is working on a hybrid MLS and anyone out there that has a standard platform should add themselves to their list of possible vendors.

Whatever happens though, Apple is growing and the implementation of a fully functioning web browser in Apples iPhone might make these people turn to standards MLS, and not proprietary.

I guess eePC type laptops are taking the low road with Linux as Microsoft trys to strong arm them to bundle XP, but as smart phone/netpad-type devices continue to improve, there will be little need or Microsoft's buggy virus and spyware laden OS's. Perhaps they will stream down and speed up their Office applications before Google and other alternatives, prove more cost effective. My suggestion is to cash in on your Microsoft profits and apply some of those profits to the hungrier more customer driven enterprises out there. The new dot com is mobile and web 2.0 so get in while you can.

Peter, you are dealing with your office PC, but what about your choice with a home desk or laptop ?
Second, using XP on a MacIntel is even faster (at booting) as it is on another Dell laptop; so why not chose both systems, one you can use for your work, the other for everything else ?

> I have a question: What exactly would a MSFT brick-and-mortar sell with enthusiasm--other than mice, keyboards, and 360?

Microsoft could showcase PC manufacturers that highlight the innovation in Microsoft's software.

Oh, wait a minute, you're right. There would be nothing to show.....

The real differentiator between Microsoft and Apple is that Microsoft makes products for partners, while Apple makes products for users.

Microsoft used to do it right, and that is how they got people to stand in line at MIDNIGHT to buy Windows 95. After the anti-monopoly scare, they began their partner program to make friends with their adversaries. Now the sale of the product comes first, and the actual product comes second. The Zune, for instance, was designed for suppliers, not users.

Apple, on the other hand, still makes products for users and emphasizes customer service. So now the people are standing in line for Macs. They are demanding Macs in the enterprise, and they are getting them. In June, Apple will begin a full assault on the enterprise market.

Since Microsoft's problem is their nearly exclusive focus on sales, a focus on sales can't solve it. A brick-and-mortar store is not the answer, neither is any other sales technique. The answer is making higher quality products that are designed as a tool for the people who actually use them, not as a demo for ten-thumbed partners.

bwaje,

Yep, I know I can. I own intel Macs. But the point is I shouldn't have to use my Mac as a Windows box.

If there are 100 browsers out there and 99 work with one another and to use only 1 browser that doesn't, doesn't make sense.

I don't know anyone who uses IE by choice.

But to your point, what if I walk out the door picking up the wrong computer, or go to a clients home and I forgot my computer and they use Macs, or I go to a friends house for a dinner party and someone is interested in RE and they only have Macs. With no VMware, then I'm stuck and it shows how inflexible the RE Industry is. My view, use standards so I can sit at any computer/any browser/anytime.

I'm going to do VMware, but I shouldn't have to, especially to use IE. Actually, I can do quite a bit of work NOW using FF & Safari but they have coded that out in the upgrade.

Just so you know, I can login, go to the search I want, enter all the criteria I want, then hit "SEARCH", and nothing happens. They have protected MSIE that way to force the use of Windows & IE. In the upgrade, I get popups saying, sorry but we are only using IE.

That to me is wrong. I hope that clarified the situation a bit.

Peter

Microsoft fans such as Andre above failed to notice that as a consumer brand, Microsoft is simply a low-tier brand. Nothing wrong with that but it is what it is. Microsoft is the brand of PC OS you get included/is foisted upon you (depending on your perspective) when you can only afford $499 or less - you just have to look at retail sales of Vista to see that - what % of Vista sales are actual retail sales versus OEM sales (where MS makes about $50). Not many versus Apple's Leopard sales when compared to it base of users. MIcrosoft also contributed to that position through the 6 years of virus, trojan neglect to finally offer a solution to fix holes in their system by asking you for $100 a year.

And that's why MS has failed in EVERY consumer endeavor whether it's MSN the ISP taking on AOL, MS watches, MS home networking gear, MSN search (how hard to switch from Google, 2 seconds?) yet a colossal failure (remember the $2 billion of R&D & marketing from 2006 and 2007?) and of course, the Zune is the 100% perfect example of why marketing a low tier brand as a high tier brand will fail every time. They have now shipped (or as MS calls it - sold) 2 million Zunes after 18 months, that is about the number of iPods Apple sells EVERY WEEK. 18 months versus 1 week. That is the power of a bad brand versus a power brand. And even their stength? in video games? $15 BILLION in the red to buy them a presumed third in the marketplace in the next 9 months. The 30% fail rate does nothing to help build consumer confidence.

The confusing thing is MS is fine as a corporate brand for every reason from nefarious to sales reps who do their jobs - they are clearly a powerhouse there and and that's all fine but for some reason, MS can't concentrate on their strengths and insists on trying to be cool but like WM, they can make money, they just can't be cool (and of course, achieve higher or the hghest margins).

@Lawrence

Don't be fooled by the numbers that include Enterprise. Yes, the 3% of World sales is accurate but remember that Enterprise is 70% of sales and that 3% translates into 10% of Home Users around the world are Mac Users and since they are not popular (yet) in Asia and Africa. In the UK the BBC has put Mac Users at about 10% of the population and I reckon that sales are closer to 20% at retail. We have 3 monthly Mac magazines and that includes MacWorld UK which is the best selling Mac magazine on the planet, another MacUser appears every two weeks. The situation is similar in much of Western Europe.

We have 4 Macs in our house and number 5 will be the new gen MacBook that is supposed to come next month.

For Apple to move forward in the corporate space, it's not a word processor or spreadsheet that will deliver that result; it's a business accounting system with considerable power. If you could actually run a good sized company with staff using a Mac, then you'll see some real growth in the corporate space for Apple. I'm not talking about Quickbooks either. I'm talking about something like Foundation 3000 from Softrend Systems Inc. http://www.softrend.com/ It's not yet available for the Mac, but Steve Jobs should be looking at a company like Softrend and helping them port over to the Mac.

If these numbers are true, it is going to be a difficult situation to get out of. Case in point, my mother purchased a Mac (peer pressure!) even though technical support from family might be harder to come by since none of the rest of the family has Macs. Myself, I recently needed a drop in replacement for my old desktop and got a $499 quad-core Dell Inspiron 530 with XP. How many of those types of systems does Dell need to sell at $499 to make the same amount of profit Apple made on one system?

Apple appears to be targeting the segment of the market they want and (for the most part) ignoring the part they don't want. Steve Jobs must be laughing all the way to the bank!

@Peter:

You can get around your problem with sites that say 'you must use IE' by changing your browser user agent string. In Firefox, you can do this manually or load an add-on to do it:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

@Sandy

I have an SAP client (SAPGUI) running on my MacBook Pro at the office. I don't think you could question that as an accounting system (and much more) SAP has 'considerable power'. It's also notable they're currently working on an SaaS offering for small businesses that will work 'out of the box' without configuration...but you're right there are still some applications that do not run on OS X. For me it's the business modeling applications that I use occasionally but they're built on Eclipse so I imagine it's only a matter of time.

None of this really matters though as the problem is not really software availability but rather the psychological momentum MS has with their products. Few senior business people can imagine anything else or even care. It's the employees who use Macs at home that will change what corporations use. Talent is getting harder to find and providing a different platform is a small added expense that many companies will find is a fare price to pay if it helps attract the right people.

Just copying another company is not a long term plan for success. Steve Jobs said it best when he said that people need to let go of the idea that in order for Apple to succeed Microsoft needs to fail - Apple needs to do a good job being Apple and it will succeed. Same goes for Microsoft. They need to figure out what made Microsoft great in the first place and do a great job of continuing in that tradition. And the answer is that the thing that made Microsoft great was that they had a high level of compatibility with hardware and with their installed base. They made their platform very attractive to developers and to OEMs. They made it very attractive to businesses. Why are they not doing as well now? They have sacrificed the backward compatibility in order to do new initiatives like .net that have very dubious and limited value. With Vista they have taken the focus off of creating a great version of WIndows and instead are trying to do an imitation of MacOS X and they are sacrificing the things that made Windows useful to their customers in order to do it. That's why they have problems. What they need to do is work on creating a great version of Windows that is more true to what Windows is - something highly compatible with their installed base.

They can be successful by being great at doing what they do. Not by blindly trying to copy Apple.

140 million Vista licenses shipped, yeah, whatever. How many of those are running? Microsoft knows this number precisely, because they have the information from Windows Update. Could journalists please ask them and keep asking them until they give a straight answer?

so when is it time to sue apple to the point of pure fear as a monopoly?

If MS made an MS pc, with Windows, that only worked on MS PC's, the DOJ, EU, and others would rip them a new one.

Apple is able to both bundle tons of programs with OSX, and make the software work only on Apple hardware...

hmmm what company has more 'monopoly' like traits.

Michael,

To answer your question, Never. Here's the difference. Microsoft owns 90-95% of the PC market. They make the OS that is needed to run a PC. Vendors are forced to only use MS OSes or they lose the right to install it on any of their systems. Extortion, I think it's called. This of course, prevents other OSes like BeOS and Linux from thriving. (R.I.P. BeOS. Miss ya lots.)

Apple has had 5%-12% of the PC Market. Mac OS X only runs on Macs. They don't force anyone to use the Mac and they don't make software break because it's competition and because you are forced to run Mac OS X.

This was revealed in the anti-trust case. You know, where Microsoft was charged by the US Government. Quicktime and Realplayer had to run on Windows. They were broken by MS deliberately. Hence, they could not compete effectively.

"so when is it time to sue apple to the point of pure fear as a monopoly?"

Michael,

Tell us how Apple can be a monopoly and only own 10% or less of the PC market?

""so when is it time to sue apple to the point of pure fear as a monopoly?""

@ Stephen:

Respectfully, I had purchased Codeweavers/Crossover just for IE and it works for Tempo3. The upgrade to Tempo5 has killed it. I contacted Codeweavers and they said the company Marketlinx wouldn't work with them.

Safari, also has the "User Agent", for IE but it still doesn't work.

Me, I'll probably buy VMware but I shouldn't have to. Someone above mentioned Monopoly. I don't think there is anything wrong with a monopoly until you start to abuse that power, and force your stuff (whatever it be) on people who don't want it. But it's a fine line.

@ Stephen:

Thanks for your FF User Agent link.

Peter

@ David Gerard:

What I think would be interesting to know is how many Windows OS's are being used on Mac's.

People like me who would use it (IE) for ten minutes doing a "search", get my info, print it, then move back to OS X.....

I don't think you can say MS holds 90-95% of the market, can you. I would dump as many app's as I could and just keep IE. Pretty stupid, but that's what I do now with Crossover.

I don't do games, and the app's/files I use on the Mac get saved as a pdf anyway. Even ALL the RE contracts are saved in pdf. Stupid again.

@Peter

The reason the modified user-agent string trick in Firefox didn't work is that your MLS requires ActiveX controls to function, and these are unique and proprietary to IE.

I have a Real Estate office in Ventura County as a client, and the MLS used there (like yours in San Diego) has written their listing search interface using ActiveX.

It is VERY frustrating especially when you are trying to make users run as non-admins, and make agents use Firefox as their default browser for security reasons.

@Joe Wilcox

Joe, looks like the NPD numbers you posted in this article have caused a minor earthquake in the halls of Redmond the last two days. An acquaintance up there said there is serious unhappiness over the staggering weakness being demonstrated in the premium consumer space--and little near-term hope of significantly reversing it.

So much for that Vista Ultimate SKU. ;)

It'll be interesting what develops over the next few months. I have a feeling that after Jobs delivers the iPhone v2, MacBook, OSX, and Enterprise announcements at WWDC, there are going to be a lot more tense meetings in Redmond. What does MSFT have to counter with? More Vista 'Ultimate Extras'?? Wiki support on SharePoint? More "leaked" Mobile7 vaporware screenshot FUD?

Let the Product Manager floggings begin!

All this proves is that Macs are still overpriced and that Mac fans are still going to buy them regardless of that fact and then look down their noses at PC owners as if they somehow made a better decision.

One big point this article also misses is that overall market share is no small thing. Market share is why software developers often create programs for the Mac as an afterthought. Every new gadget, game, or application that comes out is pretty much always developed for the PC first and then ported to the Mac later, if at all.

@ Dev:

Yep, I guess I should've mentioned the ActiveX, but yes your right. And to continue (paying) for a proprietary browser over a standards browser is just plain stupid.
Hopefully with the expansion of the iPhone, Agent/Brokers might (big word) start to understand that Tempo is written for Microsoft not the Agent/Broker who pays for a professional service.

I'm also hoping that CAR.org, who are developing a hybrid MLS for all of CA., do the right thing and create a standards program.
Probably wishful thinking on my part and not enough complaining on the Agents.

Raven Lee

Is in't playing unfare. So then why does Microsoft allow Windows to run on a Mac but OS-X not run on Windows enabled Intel based Hardware?

Raven Lee

If Apple is playing fare, then why does Microsoft allow Windows to run on a Mac but OS-X doesn't run on Windows enabled Intel based Hardware? The hardware is for the most part identical.

@James,

Oh sure you're absolutely right. It is of course of no significance whatsoever that Windows notebooks had zero percent growth year over year, while Apple notebooks had 50 to 60 percent growth, or that on the desktop Apple is up 45 percent while the [overall] market is down 20 percent and Windows desktops are down 25 percent.

JFC. I just fervently hope James is one Windows user who never switches.

I have always had windows based PC's and Laptops. Then last August one of my laptops died. So I replaced it with a high end Sony. The laptop was fantastic, but it came preinstalled with vista. The frustration this OS has caused me cannot be described in polite company. This January whilst I was traveling I was trying to finish some work and couldn't due to the system repeatedly hanging. A friend lent me his macbook to finish the work. I finished the work and went out and bought a macbook as a result of it's flawless performance. Since then I have replaced every windows based pc and cut down on our IT support requirements by 93%. As far as I am concerned the figures speak for themselves. My business is saving money by ditching windows. I am now starting to realise just how much time and money we wasted with MS operating systems over the years that needed so much looking after.

As a business person the end result of anything I do is the customer experience. Apple has got it right and MS got it horribly wrong.

Dave

I say use what you want. Who cares what the other person is using.
When it comes to these Mac vs. PC wars, It's usually those who have some insecurities or just too much time on their hands, that get involved in these wars.

In regards to this article, I work at a large retail chain in So. Cal. where we focus on cheap.
In the past year, I've seen the computer sales people scrambling to learn a little about Macs. We can't keep Macs in stock. Go figure, a cheapie store selling a lot of Macs.
Software sales for the Mac are slowly but very steadily increasing. When you think iLife, iWork and Leopard would have leveled off, they keep on going. Now if we could just get our PC oriented buyers to stock more of what we have and start bringing in other Mac software, software sales could equal and surpass the PCs.

There's a lot of PC die hards, out there, who are in positions that allow them to put up all kinds of obstacles to the growth of the Mac communities.
But, the Mac still moves forward.
Over the years, Apple has done a lot of stupid things. There are no companies out there who have done 1/10th the stupid things that Apple has, and still be in business. This is a testament to what Apple has done right and how well they've done it.

As you can tell, I use Macs. I started with PCs and even built several for family and friends. But I had Mac envy.
I do design, animation and dabble in various types of art.
I'm on my 7th Mac now. I use my Mac Pro for my work and am currently setting up several Refurbished Mac Mini's for my family and myself. I plan to do family video conferences and of course, support for my parents using Leopards built-in ability let me control their system and show them how to do a few things, and to do any sys. maint., all without having to drive an hour to their place. My mom may not think this part is a good thing.

All I can say is: I'm happy and I get my work done with no fuss.
Thanks Apple!
JustGeorge

I disagree that Macs are overpriced. Like the adage says.. you get what you pay for. Consumer Reports has recommended the Apple systems as their top pick in personal computers for several years running.

You want a better tool then you pay for the better made product. Has this built a fan base? Sure. Same goes for the ipod and iphone. The iphone 2.0 software will prove to be of far more use than 1.0 and will really give blackberry a run.

As for market share importance, yes you can't argue the bottom dollar in quantity of sales. Microsoft plays dirty pool and we all know it. They have bought out most fledgling products and ported them to windows. Take x-box's flagship game Halo. Bungie was a mac only company before Microsoft bought them and shut the game down for Macintosh. So X-box would not even be on the map if it was not for a Macintosh software developer. How many other countless products has Microsoft done this to?!?

Bigger certainly does not mean better. And personally I hope apple does not get too big in the next several years. Otherwise it will begin to be plagued by many of the problems Microsoft does and become a worthless paperweight that will sit unused on the floor next to my old compaq cpu.

just one real question to make the 'qualifier' in the article worth while.

66% of all Brick and Mortar store sales.

Anyone? what percentage of all laptops that sell for over 1k sell in stores Vs online & via contract sales & via telephone?

brick and mortar sales of laptops is a FRACTION of the total laptop sales.

@ way2trival:

I don't know what the % is, but if there are a lot of people like me who have gone to the Apple Store, and played with all the computers and finished up buying an Apple product then Apple has done very well.

I bought my 1st mac from a friend Macintosh SE, next from the store 8500 tower, next again from the store iMac, now checked it out online-went to the store and played with it-then purchased it online first time.

Classic Joe garbage

Too bad these numbers don't include an awful lot of sales--such as corporate PCs that account for about half the market, and online-heavy sellers such as Dell--but tend to illustrate trends in the U.S. PC market over time. Apple only had about 18 percent of the same category in January 2006.

Oh you didn't know that did you?

This discussion seems to be quite balanced and therefore I would like to add my comment. I have been using mac since 87 so most people would consider me a die hard mac user. However there has been times (on time more than 1,5 years) when I did not touch a mac since I felt like I was turning into a relic. However I still kept coming back. Having lived in this "war" for 20 years, I´m no longer obsessed. What I would like to point out - in all those years I have never had to reinstall the OS at ay time. Actually, when I have to stop work, copying files from my old to my new mac, I feel like it is wasting my time and getting me annoyed. Currently I have 2 mac pro 17" powerbooks just in case the unthinkable should happen - my mac brakes down. Lets stop preach - just tell people objectively of the times the mac has given you grief. Tell them that you never had problem with virus or havint to reinstall software. Tell them how you do not have any clue of where the original CD´s are because you never (hardly ever) had to resort to them. How many mac user ever run around with a set of OS CDs? Peope will either listen or not. About mac being overpriced - I bill my customers 120 USD/hour.

Never having had a day or 2 in 20 years wasted of work having to reinstall operating system has probably payed for whatever price difference you might be able to stack up between the macs and the PCs I could have been using.

(Sorry for any bad spelling - bet your norwegian would be somewhat worse)

Espen Løkken - Norway.

It makes no more sense for Microsoft to have flagship retail stores than it would for, e.g., Raytheon to have flagship stores. Sure, Raytheon makes consumer products, but that's not their core competency.

Consumer products aren't even in the same area code as Microsoft's core competency.

Apple is in an enviable position. With a relatively low market share compared with Windows products, they have a huge growth opportunity. A relatively small increase in market share, say from 3% to 6% is DOUBLE for Apple.

Can you see what that will do for their stock price especially with their profit margins?

I got my wife who is not tech savvy a iPhone. Although her previous phone could do everything the iPhone could do all she used it was to make and receive calls. With no help from me or reading the instructions she uses her iPhone to browse the web, her contact manager, MP3 and photo player etc. etc.

Apple products may not have the wealth of features of other products, but they are innovative and provide a stress free and enjoyable experience. People will pay a premium for that.

Steve Jobs has captured the hearts of its customers and that is brilliant!

People who spend a lot on their PCs don't buy them from brick and mortar stores. For many (most?) PC enthusiasts, their computer is more than a computer, it's a Gaming Rig(tm) and they pimp their ride to make it scream and look pretty.

For people who walk into the brick and mortar stores, they want a packaged deal that works with no fiddling. The Mac wins in that category and so the numbers are showing.

The problem with the Gaming Rig(tm) market is that the profits are split two ways for processors, and fifteen ways or so for all the other parts. How do you compare Apple vs. Gaming Rig?

Now let me gripe about Macs... I have set up many people with Macs and taught them how to use them and I have one big problem with them. The mouse sucks. Explaining the stupid mouse to people is a pain.

Of course that's the only major problem but... it sucks!

I'm a Cisco network consultant and the small company I work for supports networks in around 100 enterprises ranging from 2 user to 5,000 user environments.

Vista is very disappointing in the networking arena. Here are some examples:

Enterprise wireless:
To get XP to properly support enterprise-grade wireless authentication (EAP, PEAP), you had to load software made by the wireless card manufacturer (like Intel) to get it to work properly. This was annoying enough, but at least you could get it to work.

On Vista, the NDIS layer has been changed substantially. In addition, Microsoft no longer allows vendor programs to take control of the wireless network. Basically, it broken and now Microsoft has prevented the wireless manufacturers from being able to correct the problems. This is a big step backwards for businesses that are using wireless networks and is one of the primary reasons many of my customers are avoiding Vista.

Macs with a recent OS work without issue and most Linux distros can be made to work.

TCO (Total Cost of Ownership):
The new licensing and additional product tiers has made the new versions of Windows much more expensive. Not only are the licenses more expensive, but the product is more complicated to support. This is translating into a much higher overall TCO.

Training:
A big part of the TCO is training. Many of my customers are faced with serious training issues, if they pursue Vista or even the new version of Office that is drastically different from previous versions they will have to provide quite substantial training to their large employee base. This cost is so high that it opens the door to change products. Some of our very large customers are evaluating Open Office and Word Perfect to replace Office and are considering bringing Macs into the mix.

One reason that Mac is carrying an advantage in this area is that many folks are switching to Mac at home. Much of the training that would be needed to switch a user to Mac has already happened for a reasonable number of users. For the rest, it's no more expensive to train on that Vista and is probably easier.

Some companies have gone as far as to give their professional staff the option of an allotment to purchase a computer of their own that they are responsible to maintain. Many of these folks have already gone to Mac.

Support:
This is another part of TCO that is significant. Some of our very large customers are researching the support costs of Mac vs Windows vs Linux. They are finding that companies that run Macs incur the lowest support costs of all PC platforms. You can wonder why, but folks are finding this to be the case.

These are just my observations within my experience.

Recently, I've spoken to a friend of mine who manages at Best Buy. He explained that about 60% of the folks that purchase PCs at their location pay about $350 for Windows XP and the service of wiping Vista off the PC and loading XP. For many of these PCs, this cost is over 50% of the cost of the PC. It seems that the Vista sales are a bit skewed and Microsoft may actually be making more money because folks are paying for both products.

In the eyes of the consumers, this can't be attractive. If things with Microsoft don't get better, I can't see this trend slowing down.

I was an Apple guy back in the Apple II days. Here is what happened:
1) Apple IIgs came out and they started to charge for the SDK
2) Nobody wrote IIgs software
3) The Apple III was out for 2 weeks and it was taken off the market because it was terrible
4) Apple didn't give the Apple III folks their money back
5) Mac came out and the funky floppy drive would catch fire and Mac wouldn't fix it
6) I sold my IIgs at Trenton Computer Fest and swore on a stack of Bibles that I'd never go back to Apple
7) I bought pieces for my first PC at the same show and had money left over

Apple had become a pain in the @#$ and no fun, so I left them.

Over the past few years, I've become less and less happy with Windows. My experience with my Vista laptop at work has brought this to a head. The product just has so many support issues, even though it's a brand new laptop that's made for Vista. My boss is having just as many issues.

When I researched a PC for my home replacement, I looked at the iMacs. When I did the research, I accounted for working, pre-loaded software or features and not just hardware.

What I found was that many of the software features built into the Mac OS cost a substantial amount of money to provide on the Windows platform. One example that was significant is the Time Machine backup. To be able to boot to the install CD and pull the whole system off a backup within 30 minutes is not a cheap feature on a PC. This comes standard with Mac. All I did was plug in the drive and it asked if I wanted to back it up.

Additionally, the media related software (Camcorder, DVD, picture, movie, music) on Mac OS X would cost at least a couple of hundred dollars to supply on the Windows platform. I'm not claiming it's the best, but it good enough for what my family does at home.

It's just coming down to the fact that Windows is becoming a real pain to deal with and Mac is not. Also, most out of the box Windows PCs don't come with great software for media. Most of the supplied software products are just teasers that require you purchase an upgrade to do anything great.

Being a techie, I certainly evaluated Linux. It was great, but too many of the games I like didn't work. 90% of the games I like worked on my Mac and of the ones that worked, all of them came with dual install CDs, so I didn't need to repurchase the games. Additionally, most of the utilities that I liked on Linux were on the Mac (I thought "Duh, it's Unix-based, you goof"). Any that weren't pre-loaded could be found somewhere on that massive ocean called the World Wide Web.

I'm also very impressed by the performance I'm getting out of a relatively meager hardware set. The iMac is not a power-house by gaming PC standards, but I'm actually able to crank the graphics levels on my games much higher than I'd thought possible. It only has 1GB of RAM and I'm not really feeling the necessity to upgrade (even though my techie instinct wants to).

For folks that have not recently tried Mac, I suggest you just drive to one of the stores and play around with one. Think of it as an educational field trip. If your mind isn't changed when you start to research them; at least you gave it a whirl... it's a free country, so use what you like.

I hope you all find some value in my experiences. Please forgive any grammar or spelling errors, as I'm about to fall asleep.

Happy computing!