Re: Mac Market Share: Reading those numbers

In article <qhddu39jcki9lrpcvf5i7f6ba4b1heglk1@xxxxxxx>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rlyeh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:24:54 -0400, ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <tladu393jlle6oll6sc3sfp43q4e4ob0jq@xxxxxxx>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rlyeh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:46:40 -0400, ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <jg8du35fej2bhst1d9571leis10lcf3lvf@xxxxxxx>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rlyeh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:37:44 -0400, ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I like; 91 out of 100 computers are Windows machines - but
only seven out of 100 are macs.

Could someone explain to me precisely why market share is
supposed to be such an important factor in consumer purchasing
decisions in the personal computer industry?

If you've ever tried to buy parts for a Yugo you'd understand. 8)

The Mac has everything the average consumer needs, though, and apps
are often better.

So long as by 'better' you mean 'has an Apple logo'. This has been
made abundantly clear by all the orgasmic proclamations by Maccies
that the new version of Safari is 'superior to all other browsers'
when its merely on par with them.

It's about on par with Firefox for standards compliance, and a bit
faster. There's a huge gap between Firefox/Safari and IE.

I've been using it for two days. There's no noticeable difference in
speed. I've never had the rendering problems with IE that everyone
keeps harping about.

You don't have rendering problems with IE because it has sufficiently
high market share that web developers spend untold hours working around
its rendering bugs. Believe me, you don't want to see what happens when
a site developed for standards-compliant browsers is first tested in IE,
before the painstaking processes of working around IE's bugs begins.

This state of affairs is, by the way, pretty much a direct result of the
fact that Microsoft allowed IE to stagnate for six years because they
figured since it was tied to Windows, it could stay on top without
actually being any good.

The fonts in Safari seem to be a bit fuzzier but not to the level
that would make me quit using it.

It uses OS X's font rendering, which favors letterform accuracy over
snapping everything into the screen's pixel grid.

There's no obvious way to add search engines to the search window. I
do like the look of it. It shows Safari's KDE roots. KDE is my
favorite GUI.

Err... huh? None of Safari's GUI shell code is derived from KDE. The UI
in the Windows version of Safari is basically the Unified window
appearance from Leopard, with in-window menus and a couple of other
visual tweaks to better match Windows standards.

[snip]

Sure, there are specific markets where the Mac doesn't have
compelling (or even any) offerings. But most people aren't in those
markets. And there are other markets where the Mac is far and away
the best choice.

Behind the RDF anyway.

Video production,

All of the professionals offering testimonials on Adobe's website
would disagree with you.
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/customers/

I'm in the industry, so I have a fair idea of what the lay of the land
looks like. After Effects has a decent following in the visual effects
market, much of it Mac-based. But Premiere Pro, Adobe's non-linear
editing app, isn't all that popular among pros. Final Cut Pro (which is,
of course, Mac-only) seems to dominate, with some Avid mixed in as you
move up-market. A fair bit of the Avid installations are Mac-based as
well, of course.

Windows in general is found more in visual effects than editing, though
I'm not sure it's in the majority even there, except perhaps for 3D. But
the visual effects market is fairly small compared with the non-linear
editing market.

pro audio,

Which explians all of the pro audio apps for Windows.

I come into regular contact with the pro audio world. I've been in
probably a half-dozen facilities in the last year. Haven't seen a
Windows-based audio workstation yet.

desktop publishing,

See above. Or are you going to repeat George's assertion that
companies are spending $1500 for softwatre to announce the company
picnic when their PCs come with software capable of doing that?

You might have some sort of point, if I'd claimed nobody ever did DTP on
Windows. I didn't claim that, of course. I merely claimed the Mac
dominated. Which it does.

and certain branches of web development.

Which explains why all of the guys I know who do web development do it
on Linux boxes.

It depends what sort of development, which is why I said "certain
branches". Enterprise Java development is fairly likely to be Windows or
Linux based. On the other hand, the Ruby on Rails community is
overwhelmingly Mac-based.

This is not particularly arguable.

To a Maccie living behind the RDF. In the real, world not so much.

You might try the real world of creative professionals, rather than of
accountants.

--
"More than two decades later, it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming
out any other way."
--George W. Bush in Martinsburg, W. Va., July 4, 2007
.

Relevant Pages

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