Re: [NTLK] [OT] Market share.

From: Joel M. Sciamma (joel_at_inventors-emporium.co.uk)
Date: Mon Apr 19 2004 - 12:05:32 PDT


David,

>> So, the installed base we are addressing for Mac OS is effectively 12M
>> users, a handy potential market where you can be a bigger fish in a
>> smaller pond, but growth will be harder to sustain.

> Where do you get this number you keep citing?

If the estimate is that there are 30M Mac users in total and, by Apple
figures, only 40% are on X (what they interpret as a big success), your
installed base is 12M. From a developer's point of view, this is the market,
the other 60% who can't or wont run OS X are invisible.

How many of these will move to XP or OS X is anybody's guess. Mac OS X does
have the effect of forcing the decision because it's no longer as automatic
as a previous Mac OS release would have been.

If you dislike OS X but dislike XP or MS even more you will probably buy a
new Mac and another one of those 60% is added to the installed base. I
suspect I will be one of them eventually whether I like it or not. If, as a
lot of people are, you are subject to pressures to "conform" by work/kids/
special interest, then you may well go Windows.

---
Tying up all the various points of discussion I would say this; Here in the
UK the situation may different to the one you are experiencing in the US. My
reality is that I have not a single sighting of a Mac installation in my
line of business or even in others. Perhaps I'll come across one eventually
- yipee!
Though I use a Mac and always have done, prefer it and regard it as
superior, I am, in effect a Windows developer. From a point 10 years ago
there has been a steady decline in the number of businesses that use the Mac
here so that now I no longer see any. Those I knew that had Macs have
swapped them out for PCs. One firm in London whose 120 Mac network I set up
in 1991 and which was liked and trusted, was changed to PCs in 1998.
Even in enclaves like DTP, Macs are no longer the automatic choice.
Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, VectorWorks etc. all run very well under
XP. Perhaps G5s will reverse the trend, but I personally doubt it.
My business is partly a bespoke one, development time is precious and has a
cost. Developing Mac specific features has to be paid for by Mac customers
but I have none. I see packages being dropped from the Mac, and even little
things like screenshots for cross-platform packages now coming from Windows
instead of the Mac etc.
I am going by what I see, not what I read. YMMV.
It's a great game to talk up the benefits of the Mac (though for me under OS
X they are somewhat blunted) and optimistically cite trends, numbers of
developers etc. I have been doing it for 20 years, I know this music so
well,  but frankly I'm no longer particularly optimistic or ready to believe
the stories as meaningful.
If there were a great buzz about Macs I would have expected it to have some
kind of tangible effect but I can't see it over here. Perhaps it will happen
later.
Lets look at it again in a couple of years and see where we are.
Regards,
Joel.
-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 19 2004 - 17:00:02 PDT