What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
Take Advantage of Ridiculously Low Holiday Airfares view!
travelzoo.com - Flights $52 and up for Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. But move on it now.
127 Comments
- miles01110, on 10/12/2007, -42/+129The only place for Apple to go is up....because they're at the bottom. Digg me down, but you know it's true.
- ray901, on 10/12/2007, -5/+55@jcsaint
"Isn't Linux lower as far as number of users?"
Linux isn't a PC maker. - rolf, on 10/12/2007, -24/+58Wow, lots of misinformation here, lots of FUD.
Apple still had billions of dollars back when Microsoft invested $150 in Apple stock, which was nowhere near 20% of the company. Give me a break. And Microsoft had next to nothing to do with Apple's resurgence - the one positive of that deal was that MS promised to suppost the Mac version of Office for years to come.
And no, 5% marketshare is not bad nor the bottom. Even if Linux is on par with Apple in terms of Marketshare, it is free in price and Apple isn't - everybody using Apple is paying for the experience while everybody using Linux isn't. (I run Ubuntu, Gentoo, and several other distros - please don't call me an Apple fanboy). - taxali, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30You can't compare Apple to Micrososft. Last time I checked, Microsoft wasn't a PC maker.
- srodolff, on 10/12/2007, -12/+37And HP's GROWTH last year was more than the TOTAL shipments for Apple.
Perspective is everything. - ripstuntz, on 10/12/2007, -12/+37My professor told me yesterday that one day Apple will take over Microsoft. I laughed in her face and told her that is the exact reason why she is an English teacher.
- hater2win, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31@boomshakalaka
I am actually. I am probably one of not too many people on digg who actually has all 3 Mac certifications and sees the pricing on their parts everyday. Especially when lots of them go bad so easily.
I don't understand why people are digging me down on my other comments. It is all true. I know you guys can't see the prices on Mac logic boards, but they really are 600 dollars and up. A G5 power supply is 350 dollars. And beyond that, the damn things are so hard to take apart that if one of the processors in the G5s goes bad, they don't just replace the 1, they make you replace em both AND the liquid cooling system, which together are over a thousand dollars.
I actually made a good suggestion about gettng apple care and people digg me down. They don't even know the half of it. Why do you think Apple only allows certified techs to order parts? Because if everyone else could, nobody would buy them, AND you would see how many things go wrong. you mac fanbois are out of control.
And yeah... I own a mac and 2 windows based computers. At least on my windows based ones I can order whichever damn part I want whenever I want to. People got all up in arms the other day when a company released a Vista ONLY motherboard. Give me a break, if that justified getting all up in arms, we could have a riot with apple. They make EVERYTHING apple only. - flag564, on 10/12/2007, -17/+33"And no, 5% marketshare is not bad nor the bottom."
So the 10% Zune has is good then?
It's funny how you define "not bad" for Apple at a level they would scream "flop" "failure" and "disaster" for anyone else. - Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21 by keyboardduder 1 hour ago
"Yeah, in the the 90s, they died quicker too. If Gates didnt buy %20 of their stock, there might not be ipods or so much DRM. I used to be a fan back in system 7 and 8."
-------------------------------------------
Your position is so fraught with errors and silliness. Gates did not buy 20% of the stock. Microsft bought "some" stock in exchange for an agreement on patents. It was largely symbolic. In terms of the bottom line to Apple it made very little difference. System 7 and 8 are dark ages compared to os x, and so long ago as to be 100 irrelevant.
Welcome to the 90's. - AirRaven, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Connect an unfirewalled Windows ME machine to the internet and you'll automatically have a full HTTP/FTP/SSH/Telnet server running in under five seconds- along with all the free porn you could ever want.
- goldenoryx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15You know its amazing. Yeah Apple has a pretty low market share and it would seem they are doing bad. But last time I checked they had gone past Dell in yearly profits. I think as a corporation Apple is doing really well. Most people may not understand this here as they measure it in percentages. But Apple is churning out impressive profits off-late.
Also many people point out how expensive Apple's hardware is, but forget to see how expensive most of Microsoft's products are too. MS Windows is not a cheap operating system, Zune is equivalent in price to iPod's 30 GB model. XBox 360 when beefed up is as expensive (if not more) as an equivalent PS3. MS Office is more expensive than any Office suite out there. If you expect any decent build quality with good software design you are looking at a price point that most people feel is high. I am not trying to say anything against any company here. What I want to convey is that in the real world when you expect quality in a product you have to pay for that too.
From what I believe Dell and HP are not selling more number of $1500-2500 PC's and making huge profits on them. Instead what they are selling are $500-600 laptops that can be got at the local Best-Buy's and all. I don't think Apple is even competing with them in this range. I know for many people here, Apple's market share seems laughable but off-late I have seen the people who have been working in the industry (I work in Signal-Image Processing field) for some amount of time have seriously started considering Apple's computers. So there is a noticeable mind-share that's going across to the Apple camp.
In the long run this will be very interesting. Changing to *nix based system might just be one of the best decisions Apple has made. I really do hope Linux and Mac OS X do well in the long run. They are both fantastic OS's and real pleasure to use. - IEatHamburgers, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16@xkrwlng:
Bad joke, no cookie! - jamesey, on 10/12/2007, -9/+20Ross Perot once said, "if all you have is a penny, and then you find another penny, you've doubled your wealth, but you're still poor."
- klawz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Yes, believe it or not, Macs are Personal Computers, no matter how much you'd like to "think different".
- klawz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Excellent point, but since 99% of Diggers never RTFA, I'm sure no one will understand what you've said.
- xkrwlng, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15lol, I had a Construction Science professor who thought he knew something about Open Source software
"what do you mean, it's free? why do you think they're making it free?"
- he was implying that Open Source software is bad quality, or that its creators have ulterior motives
LOL - drph1l, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"You'll get (almost) free tech support"
No I will not fix your computer. - Bleeblaow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Digg up this article for mentioning Apple in the subject when Apple's appearance is very brief in the actual article, which is TITLED "Dell Still Losing Market Share to Hewlett and Others, Data Shows". (Everything about Apple in this article can be found in the description, wow.)
- cambrown99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Someone please explain how it is that Apple has a 5% marketshare, yet, at just about any coffeeshop 1/3 to 1/2 of the laptops out are Apple. This never makes any sense to me.
- mikepictor, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12if you had an OS that you sold (didn't give away) that had 1% of the market share, you would be drunk with how rich you were, and would think it's pretty damn great.
- egrefen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Flag sort of reminds me of the french far-right candidate JM Le Pen. When people don't vote for him, it's because there's a vast conspiracy involving the media and the mainstream parties to sideline him and strangle democracy, and not because people simply think he's still living in the early 20th century.
Flag, while there are certainly people modding you down simply because you are not a follower of the cult of mac (whatever that is...), have you ever considered that people may be modding you down simply because you come across a complete dickwad in most of your posts? - flashboy131, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/04/18/apple.share.grows.by.30/
charts shows, from 570 units in 1Q06 to 740 units in 1Q07 (thousands of units.) for Apple. Big percentage increase but still nowhere near what others are doing as far as volume.
it's like losing in a race by an hour or 40 minutes, yeah you caught up, but you're still behind. - jwrezz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This entire thread is like partisan politics. Mac fans touting the victory, MSW fans proving how small the victory is, Linux fans... well I don't know. Why the hell can't you all leave well enough alone? If you like your Mac OS, ***** great! If you love your Win machine, ***** great! If you love Linux/Ubuntu, ***** great! Just shut up, and argue over something worth while.
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10"The only place for Apple to go is up....because they're at the bottom"
You seem to have Apple confused with Gateway.
-jcr - colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11"LOL!! It goes up 1% and everyone thinks that is great. Silly MAC people!!"
Ummm... Apple's market share went up 25%. 4% -> 5% is a 25% gain. That's why it's kinda big deal for the Mac market.
Higher market share = more software sales. More software sales = more people interested in making Mac software. - eangel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@fag564:
Zune DOES NOT have 10% market share. In Dec' 06 Zune sold 10% in the HD DAP category, which discludes flash-based players. In Jan' 07 Zune had 3.2% share of the MP3 category, and their share is falling (NPD group).
Furthermore, you are a worthless fanboy and your opinion does not matter. - geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"5% of the total market is quite honestly *massive*. Remember also that the 5% they enjoy represents both software and hardware sales. MS 90%+ still only earned them software sales, so in terms of a revenue base, apple did even better."
Personally I'd prefer the software sales. What's the profit margin on hardware vs. software? - Altotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@BrainInAJar
Mac OS X is BSD running on top of the Mach microkernel. FWIW - There were, at one time, several Linux distributions that also ran on top of the Mach microkernel. Today, the BSD distribution called FreeBSD runs atop the Mach microkernel as well (as well as several other BSD UNIXes). Also, DEC's old Tru64 UNIX ran on top of Mach as is UNICOS for Cray Supercomputers. - miniboss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9"And Microsoft had next to nothing to do with Apple's resurgence - the one positive of that deal was that MS promised to suppost the Mac version of Office for years to come."
Nice job at contradicting yourself there. MS had next to nothing to do with Apple's resurgence yet Office is the biggest selling Mac software? Look, you can blindly hate MS all you want but to pretend Apple wasn't on its way down when Microsoft stepped in is ridiculous. MS did what it did in order to save itself from being a complete monopoly and to make money. Apple took it because they needed it. - ray901, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@ boondoggle
"Isn't Linux lower as far as number of users?"
Linux isn't a PC maker."
Linux is an OS. OSes have market shares too. You may have heard of Microsoft. They don't make PCs either. You may have heard of OS X. It is not a PC."
-------------------------------
and you may have actually read the article which is about PC Makers and their market share. But thanks for implying that I am an idiot and have never heard of the different major OS's, but at least I can read. - NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Let us know when you're worth around 80 billion dollars on the NASDAQ, sunshine.
-jcr - BLACKEAGLE, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4damn ur so right!
- rickcarson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually, Windows ME has 0.7%
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
XP and 2000 are the largest for Microsoft. I think Vista will replace 2000 fairly quickly (by the end of the year). And along the way it will pass both versions of OS X (power pc and intel). Vista should hit the #4 spot either this month or in May. Check back in a couple of weeks time.
@GoldenOryx.
Dude dude dude. Where do I begin?
Firstly comparing the prices of Apple's _hardware_ to Microsoft's _software_ is silly at best. Why don't you compare hardware with hardware, and software with software?
It isn't hard.
Tiger costs $129
XP (with bells and whistles) costs $400
Is XP (with bells and whistles) three times as good as Tiger? Not even close. Did they discount XP when they released Vista? Nope.
Vista with bells and whistles costs $400 too. Is Vista then three times as good as Tiger? No not even close. Is it _as good_ as Tiger? No, I don't think so.
Secondly, this old saw about Apple hardware being more expensive. Look, this is 2007 not 1997. Go out and do a price comparison. Apple wins. Apple is the cheaper option on hardware as well as software.
People used to point at Dell as cheaper than Apple. Never mind that it is silly to do that if Dell is also cheaper than everybody else... but they don't do that anymore for some strange reason (something to do with their beautiful theory being ruined by ugly facts).
I've looked for Core 2 Duos on Newegg... and found none as cheap as the Mac Books. Someone on digg said the other week that Sony Vaios were the cheapest laptops. So I went and compared Mac Books to Vaios. And the result was a lot closer, but the Mac Book still won.
Something no one else seems to have noticed is that Apple's financing terms are way better than anyone else's. If you're renting or leasing a decent computer (eg at least Core Duo or Core 2 Duo), from anyone except Apple, you may be paying 40% _more_ than the exact same hardware would cost you to lease from Apple. Ouch.
------------
So here's a metaphor.
There is this restaurant that has a bit of a cult following. They sell burgers, sandwiches and subs. The presentation is great, they taste excellent, they are filling and are nutritionally balanced. Their premium burger with everything costs a couple of dollars less than the equivalent (triple whopper or whatever the best one is you have locally). Their menu is cheaper than the equivalents elsewhere, and tastes better.
Some people don't eat there. The Subway fanboys don't eat there because even though it is cheaper and better than Subway, at Subway they get more options. (Which is true).
Other people don't eat there, because they prefer to drive to all the different markets and buy the ingredients and make it themselves. They thump their chest and claim to be the most cost effective (never mind the time it takes, or the petrol from all the driving around, nor that the restaurant in question has a deal with the farmers to get all the good stuff first).
Some people have a kind of racial memory that McDonalds was once cheaper so will always be cheaper, even though that is no longer true. They point out that a single hash brown is cheaper (slightly) than the cheapest item on this restaurant's menu. - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Apple will never be a "player"? What does that even mean? You have to provide more definition around that.
HP was a player, it is true. But they are a shell of the former HP, and I don't know that they are really a "player" in much of what they do anymore - Epson and Canon are hitting them hard on the printing front, Dell is outpacing them in terms of computers. I used to use MPE and HPUX boxes but where are those systems today? Overcome mostly by IBM boxes or Linux variants. Carly steered them into irrelevance and many of the key people at HP that made them a player have left or been forced out because smart people cost money to keep.
Meanwhile Apple has dictated the look and feel of Microsoft's whole operating system, and leads the way in the music industry in terms of showing other companies how online sales and consumer electronics are done. How is Apple not a "player"?
You sound like some bad ganster simulation. "They'll never be a playah!". - Szandor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3As if flag understands what "sardonically" means.
- FrankBattaglia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4BrainInaJar: The OS is more than just the kernel (as RMS fanbois never cease to tell us). OSX uses the Mach microkernel AND it is BSD-based.
- hockey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Exactly.
FYI folks:
As mentioned above the actual article is titled:
"Dell Still Losing Market Share to Hewlett and Others, Data Shows"
And the actual text about Apple is:
"Apple also picked up market share in the United States, growing to 5 percent, from 4 percent, as its shipments increased 30 percent, according to Gartner. Apple grew faster than any other PC maker in the United States, Gartner said."
That's it. Out of the entire article (which is about dell more than anything) that is literally all that is said about Apple (which as bleeblaow said is in the description)
Someone takes a quote from Gartner and puts it as a headline out of context and BOOM massive diggs and fanboi wars.
You gotta love it. - klawz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5So the Zune has far less market share than the iPod, does that make it a crappy MP3 player? Beta max vs VHS, far less popular model was better, but VHS eventually won. Will the Apple computer suffer the same demise? Probably not, but you get the gist. People are not slamming Apple for only having 5%, they are slamming the 30% increase in sales for Apple, only increased it's Market share from 4 to 5%. Like it was said above, it's all about perception. Some see it as a great thing, and some see it as a not-so-great-thing in comparison. Using your analogy, it's like saying BMW increased their sales by 80%, but yet are still only 1.6% of the US Market share---ya for BMW, meh for the rest of the market.
- NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"So the Zune has far less market share than the iPod, does that make it a crappy MP3 player? "
That's a reversal of cause and effect. Zune has far less market share than iPod, and will never change that, *because* it's a crappy product.
-jcr - Homunculiheaded, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5toutim, as far as home users go I don't think there will be a huge switch from the linux crowd over to OSX. For my next machine I was strongly considering getting a Mac, but then I realized all the things that I love about linux/building own computer is all of the customization and tweaking. I think this is true of most linux home users, and Macs simply don't let the user have this level of control. Yes I think *nix is just a much more pleasant environment to work in then Windows, so OSX with BSD is awesome, and I do think Mac makes very sleek machines (both software and hardware).
However in the business world (specifically technology/research) I currently see Macs becoming the standard for people that are used to working in a strong *nix environment. They make it easy to do all the standard office things, as well as giving you a solid programming/development environment. Desktop linux just doesn't seem to be quite ready for the business laptop world (I have yet to see anyone give a presentation on a linux laptop, but see about 50/50 between PC and Mac). - BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"as far as home users go I don't think there will be a huge switch from the linux crowd over to OSX"
depends which Linux people.
Gentoo people aren't going to abandon their tweakophilia, for example, but the fedora/ubuntu/suse crowd that runs on prebuilts as it is ( and there's a lot of those type ) but don't like microsoft, they might jump ship to something a little better integrated ( I'm not insulting anything here ), since neither GNOME nor KDE are "just right" yet, as much as I hate to admit it, or with a little more certainty of hardware support, or whatever
I know a lot of former Linux, now OSX people, and a handful of "OSX hooked up to a Solaris server" people as well. OSX ( as opposed to OS 7 - 9 ) did a lot to attract old UNIX hands - jwrezz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3macparrot, I guess we were posting at the same time. You were much less profane tho! Good job saying what I wanted to, & much more tastefully!
- davidgolding, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The comments on this post prove you are all techies with no real marketing experience.
An analogy: if the U.S. were to grow by 100 million people next year, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to India and China combined. But it would be a big deal and you all would start griping up a storm about prices climbing through the roof and all the infrastructure problems associated with population growth here in the U.S.
Market share growth is a big deal no matter what company you're in. - colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6The numbers just take into account computers.
- BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6it's not BSD based, it's Mach-microkernel based.
And precisely because it plays so well with *NIX, I know a good number of Solaris sysads. that use OSX on one or more machines - Churnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A little off tangent...
I'm just waiting for the day Apple releases OS X for install on any PC. They could limit it to specific hardware even, and it would still do wonders for their market share. - axle, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7A lot of people are here slamming apple for "only" having 5% of market share.
Who cares what their market share is, they make great software and great hardware.
Look at it this way.. BMW holds 1.5% of the US market. Does that make it a crappy car? - MacParrot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Not since the heyday of Apple IIs has Apple had an overwhelming marketshare. And yet here they still are 30 years later still making computers that many people prefer. Sure, it isn't MS numbers, so what? If you don't use it, why would you care? Yet apple post after post, here are the same old idiots saying the same old things.
Is Apple misleading in its ads? Sure. If you don't use an Apple, again, why do you care? Ads are what they are. Saying how great your product is over someone else's product. Welcome to reality, Madison Avenue style.
As far as going from 4 to 5%. Take it in context. We are talking about the US market, which is one of the most lucrative. Considering that they were down to probably less than 2% 5-7 years ago, this is good news for that prefer the Mac. Marketshare isn't won or lost in a single quarter or even 1 year. Will they ever be the marketshare leader? Doubtful and I don't think many Mac users will care one way or another. - hockey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2double comment bury
- MacParrot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Thanks! These constant stupid Mac vs Windows vs Linux flamefests are moronic. Can anyone point to single instance where someone switched from one OS to another based on Digg comments? I do admit I love to give WinFans a hard time based on idiotic comments, but what I never do (anymore) is say anything bad about Windows or Linux in comparison.
Use the damn OS and computer that works best for you and does what you want it to do -
Show 51 - 100 of 127 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is