Can Macs Dominate the Personal Computer Market?
Have you ever gotten the impression that Macs at one time were quite a major player in the personal computer market? Maybe way back in the dark old ages of command lines and the days of IBM as Big Brother. And then the shining light came from Apple and everyone jumped on board because its GUI was so appealing.
Kind of didn’t happen that way. In fact, the Mac has never ever been in the game for serious computer market-share. Not only has it not been in the ball-park, it has not even been in the same state. Yet quite a few people believe that Apple (with the Mac) could have and can still become the dominant player in the overall personal computer market. And I have to admit, I was on the fringes of thinking so too until I saw some market-share history.
Ars Technica late last year published an excellent piece on thehistory of personal computer market-share. Although I originally missed the article, our own esteemed colleague, Mr Seibold, used an eye-opening graph from it of those twenty years in his This Day in Apple History of 28 May.
Recently I read an article from across the Tasman in New Zealand, on the Tech Remarks Blog titled Apple Deja Vue: will they pull it off this time?
The “it” Tech Remarks refer to, is Apple achieving market dominance. The opening paragraph explains:
During the early PC era—when MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were hot—I was an avid Apple Mac user. Apple was miles ahead of Microsoft in all areas, but of course especially from a user interface perspective. They had superior technology and the opportunity to become the dominant market player… Apple missed the “mass market” train…
Apple missed the mass market train before it even got the Mac to the station.
The Tech Remarks article is worth reading, but that opening paragraph is somewhat fanciful. As the Ars Technica graph shows, Apple had Buckley’s1 of ever being the dominant personal computer market player. And that is still the case today.
On a glance you might think the massive white spike around 1984 shows it happened once. Nope, it’s not the Mac as we’d like to hope. It’s the Commodore 64. The lowly pink line is the Mac. On it’s release the Mac commanded only 8% or so of of the computer market, only a third of what the IBM-PC clone market had, and a fifth of the Commodore C64’s market. Here was a time when, relative to the PCs, Apple had its best ever chance of dominating, yet it quickly spiraled to also-ran. By the time it recovered in the early 90s, PCs were so dominant that Macs were out of the race. (If you want to be really mischievous you could point out that the Mac’s market-share has gone backwards under both of SJ’s reigns. But that wouldn’t really be fair, as other factors contributed more so.)
Secondly notice 1990/91. A large drop in PC market share was followed soon after by a corresponding leap in Mac market-share. But the PC market quickly got back on track. Apple’s retention of the market it gained would have mostly come from decline of Commodore and Atari.
Why the PC decline though? One thing that happened in 1990 was the release of Windows 3.0. It was a giant leap forward on Windows 2 and it did signal the real beginning of the GUI desktop on PCs. So why the slump? One reason might have been that people then, for the first time, were choosing between Windows and Macs and so a lot seeing the Mac OS being significantly better, chose Macs. Also it’s possible PC buyers put off buying new PCs until Windows had stabilized, which occurred with Windows 3.1 in 1992.
Also, in 1992 Apple released the first PowerBook. This was the machine credited with kicking off the modern era in laptops, and at one time had 40% of the laptop market-share. That more than anything would account for Apple’s sudden upturn. 1991 was also the year of the introduction of the widely acclaimed new Mac OS, System 7, which would also have boosted Mac sales—especially if buyers compared the Windows 3.0 offering (which really was still a glorified menuing system).
Even though those fluctuations again highlight how poorly the Mac was selling compared to PCs, it does bode well for Apple today. If Vista 1.0 is seriously flawed in any way, whether it’s price, performance, requirements or functionality—people may look at the Mac as an alternative. But as the graph shows, Apple could triple its market-share, which would be fantastic for Apple—but it would still be just a blip on the Windows PC market-share. Of course, if many of those “switchers” ran Windows with Bootcamp, it would affect Windows market-share even less. Should Macs be counted in the PC’s market-share now?
It also appears that the Mac’s market-share really took a dive around the time Windows ‘98 came out. Other factors would have been at play there, but the regular correlation in market-share changes between Microsoft and Apple OS releases does appear to be a factor. With Vista on the horizon, Apple could be about to experience another market-share leap.
But market dominance? Buckley’s.
Next week I’ll discuss the home market, whether Apple can make inroads there and why the Mac is a genuine option for buyers in that market.
1 From the Online Macquarie Dictionary of Australian Slang:
Buckley’s: phrase 1. to have Buckley’s (chance), to have no chance at all. 2. to have two chances - Buckley’s and none, (Jocular) to have no chance at all. [def 1 possibly referring to a famous escaped convict William Buckley; def 2 a pun on Buckley and Nunn, a Melbourne store]
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Comments
Oskar,
There is no need for Apple to reach down to the very dregs of the PC market. What demographic are we talking about? These are the people who click on every pop-up that shows up on their screens. These are the people who open every e-mail they receive. These are the people who the Nigerians write for assistance with their wire-transfer needs.
You are overstating network effects. There is such a thing as diminishing returns. Apple can very well forego this segment of the PC market and still have enough left for a significant positive network effect. In fact, I’d dare say that reaching down to the nether levels would trigger negative network effects as you would now be attracting the malware set.
No, leave the tech hicks out of my OS network, thank you.
Oh and I forgot the most detrimental characteristic of the bottom end of the PC market:
These are the people whose PCs populate the botfarms that send out all the wonderful e-mail and malware that pollute the internet.
tundraboy,
My mom doesn’t click every pop-up, doesn’t open every email, and doesn’t have her computer hijacked for botfarms. She isn’t stupid. You know why she doesn’t want to buy a few mac minis? She doesn’t have the money.
To paint less-wealthy computer users as fumbling idiots who will only attract malware to the mac platform is offensive, unbearably elitist, and typical for a mac fan in my experience. If macs are immune to malware for technical reasons (superior architecture), as so many mac fans state, you should have no worry attracting such “undesirable elements” - unless you simply enjoy the exclusivity of owning a mac, which is my current hypothesis.
It’s true enough that the network effect is strongest when you attract high-end users, because these are the ones developers love the most. However, the fact that the lower end shows diminishing returns is not a reason to ignore it. The goal here is to maximize developer attraction to your platform, and to do so, you must spread your platform as far as possible.
I agree somewhat. But, Oskar, it is broadly (statistically) true that people who care less about their computers will spend a smaller fraction of their money on them. Most of the people i know who aren’t technologically orientated and are, broadly, statistically, more likely to act in an uninformed way with regard to popups or whatever (and certainly less able to clear the crap off), just want the cheapest computer they can get that does the basic things they want. (Which is any computer on the market today.)
Point is, people who care about and understand the state of their computer with regards to warez are arguably more likely to buy a more expensive computer anyway.
For me, this presents a real catch 22. Right now I have a family asking me to recommend them a couple of laptops for their basic internet requirements. I really, really want to recommend a Macbook, particularly because they are immune from all the blasted tracking cookies etc etc. But i can’t, because they’re too expensive. So I have to recommend something that breaks my wittle heart to do so, because I know that, though they’re not blithering idiots, they just don’t have the know-how to properly look after a PC and all the mac notebooks are out of their price range.
Feel free to make side-by-side comparisons of the new Macbook with any Core Duo notebooks out there. The price difference is not what it was a generation ago with the iBook.
I actually mentioned the iBook/Macbook as the only really price-competitive Mac. This is NOT true of the desktop line, however, particularly on the low-end.
There is no need for Apple to reach down to the very dregs of the PC market.
You Macbots can’t have it both ways. You talk about how great the Mac is for grandmas and how it should be the front-runner in mass market home computers, but grandmas don’t buy $1800 desktops. They want cheap. And Apple doesn’t do cheap.
To paint less-wealthy computer users as fumbling idiots who will only attract malware to the mac platform is offensive, unbearably elitist, and typical for a mac fan in my experience. If macs are immune to malware for technical reasons (superior architecture), as so many mac fans state, you should have no worry attracting such “undesirable elements” - unless you simply enjoy the exclusivity of owning a mac, which is my current hypothesis.
You go, boy! Absolutely, spot-effing-on, Oskar.
Ben,
I’m sure you have a general “feeling” that low-end buyers tend to be uninformed, but to use the word “statistically” assumes you are citing statistics, which I doubt. Some people simply are spending their money on more important things, like sending their kids through college (I’m 19 and this is the case with my mother) or gasoline (an even greater expense…).
Assuming it’s true, however, my point remains: If the mac’s security truly is because of architectural superiority rather than because mac users are oh-so-smart, why be afraid of an influx of less-savvy users?
Remember: Apple is a publicly traded company with an obligation to maximize long-term profit. That profit will only come when the mac platform spreads as far as possible, pushing developers to code for it and thus bringing more mac sales. Charging inflated prices and crippling the spread of the platform out of an unfounded fear that a hoard of stupid people will carry “warez lice” into the pristine mac world is irrational.
BTW, you say you can’t recommend a mac to your non-savvy family members because they’re too expensive. Doesn’t this prove my point? You’re not hesitating to recommend a mac because you don’t want to bring non-savvy people into the mac fold; you’re hesitating because they’re too expensive.
1. I have not claimed and do not think that apple’s malware-free situation is largely architectural although I suspect that may play a role.
Nor am I especially “afraid of an influx of less-savvy users”. I do not think I have indicated so? Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else.
2. You’re not hesitating to recommend a mac because you don’t want to bring non-savvy people into the mac fold; you’re hesitating because they’re too expensive.
Yes, that’s what I said. I didn’t think agreeing with you would cause such hard feelings.
Ben,
Sorry, I figured you were defending tundraboy’s position, because you were affirming that low-end users are less informed. If you were simply making that point in a vacuum, and not implying that it meant Apple should avoid the low-end, then you can disregard my previous post
I think I should clarify: right now, macs are free of warez, trackers etc that even our carefully-monitored (by me) PC does accrue and which have to be periodically got rid of.
I suspend judgement on whether the security architecture of OS X will ensure this is the case for very much longer. But for now, in that regard, Macs have the upper hand. That’s all.
——————————-
I’m sure you have a general “feeling” that low-end buyers tend to be uninformed, but to use the word “statistically” assumes you are citing statistics, which I doubt.
Well [deletes all pseudo philosophical causation crap i was writing] my experience is that the friends i have (they’re not MY family btw!) are really quite well off, like they have several houses, but they don’t want to spend a vast amount on computers because computers just aren’t important to them. I’d be very surprised if this was an unusual attitude for most low-savv computer users.
The Mac Pros are coming and if we can extrapolate from the Macbook pricing (shiny black editions notwithstanding) we should expect price-competitiveness in this sector. We shall then see where Apple is going with Intel architecture price-wise vis-a-vis to other hw vendors.
The Mac Pros will target the mid- to high-end of the PC spectrum meaning creative pros and SMB (small-to-medium-size biz). In this regard, they might as well bundle XP/Vista along with Tiger/Leopard to quell any lingering questions as to their viability as business machines.
And what of the XServe line? It will be interesting to see the incarnation of that - a quad-core version of Yonah? Sweet…
As for current state of market share doo-dahs, Appleinsider states: “According to research firm Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 57 million units in the first quarter of 2006, representing a 13.1 percent increase over the same period last year. But in that time, Apple’s share of the worldwide market slipped from 2.2 percent to a mere 2.0 percent.”
The reason is that Mac sales growth is slower than the overall PC growth curve. Therefore, if this continues, Mac share will never really change much from today.
We can go on speculating Apple’s moves at the low-end all day but until they come out with a device targeting this area, it’s all smoke at this point. It sure is interesting to talk about it, ain’t it?
Ah sorry sorry. I will try not to be so vaccuumly in future.
Ben,
Good, because being vacuumly sucks
Oskar,
I am sorry that you felt my post was a direct personal attack on your grandmother. Every generalization has its exceptions and if every exception takes deep offense at every generalization then we can only talk of anecdotal events which is kind of limiting if our topic is about general trends and movements in the PC industry.
Anyway, the bottom end of the market is where the less sophisticated users are and that’s where all the scammers, malware trollers and botfarmers hunt for prey successfully. You cannot deny that.
Not all of the bottom end are tech hicks but most tech hicks are at the bottom end. I am sorry I did not raise this fine distinction, but here it is now.
Why don’t I want the tech hicks to be on OSX?
Pure selfish interest I’m afraid. I am not of the crowd who proclaims that OSX is malware immune, in fact I find that claim to be the most precarious of all Macfan claims. The more unsophisticated users there are on OSX, the more attractive it becomes to net scammers, virus writers and malware spreaders. And the more OSX gets targeted, which would directly degrade my computing experience.