Delusional Mac Users Need Microsoft

Spend any amount of time in the Deep South and sooner or later you’ll hear a Jack Daniels fueled cry of “the South shall rise again!” Usually the drunkard’s yell is followed by the sound of screeching tires and a not completely unfortunate meeting of a large tree (or other immovable object) with a domestic pickup truck. This behavior seems laughable when viewed by people who are not congenitally stupid (and most people in the south aren’t) but, surprisingly, the Mac has plenty fans that are just as delusional.

In the Mac universe the cry that is analogous to the drunken whoop is: “It’s finally happening.” The “It’s” the Apple fans are referring to is the market share nirvana that will suddenly happen when the average Joe starts thinking of a Mac as his first option instead of that cheap Wintel from Best Buy and IT managers all across the globe realize the Mac’s T.C.O. (total cost of ownership) is much less than that of a Windows Machine. Why are the Mac fans suddenly all atwitter about the Macs imminent dominance? Because lately every single thing seems to be breaking Apple’s way.

What has Apple been getting right? The sensible place to start is the outstanding success of the iPod. A halo effect was supposedly going to envelop the people who used the iPod and push them to the nearest Apple store to extend the experience with a Mac. It was slow in coming but the fourth quarter of 2004 did see a slight boost in market share. That minute bump (the Mac sales grew some 25% while PC sales grew a mere 14%) coupled with the introduction of the Mac Mini caused great excitement. The thought being that with market share already growing and with the introduction of decidedly inexpensive Mac all the stars were aligned for the Macs forthcoming domination. These are good signs but not the market busting home runs some people suppose they are. Sure the Mac Mini may sell in iPod quantities (doubtful, I note wait times on the Mini have dropped to “2-3 weeks”). Also when assessing the rise in market share it is important to realize that supplies of the G5 chip had been constrained for quite sometime. Hence the upward tick could be little more than the fulfillment of pent up demand.

So the numbers, at this point, certainly do not bear out a huge Macintosh revolution. Of course numbers offer a portrait of the past, not a window to the future. The faithful remain resolute, maintaining that there are other reasons to think that Apple may be headed down the Microsoft slaying path. The best indicator of the Macs newfound strength can be found in a recent interview conducted by Fortune Magazine with Steve Jobs. In the interview the Apple CEO reveals that he has been approached by three major PC makers to license OS X. Corporate hyperbole being what it is the value of such a statement is questionable but if only half true it could be a serious blow to Microsoft and an indicator of just how frustrated people have become with Windows.

And now we come to heart of the matter: Apple can’t beat or even take serious market share from Microsoft unless Microsoft makes huge blunders. People won’t turn to Macs in droves because they hear how great it is, they’ll come in droves when Windows becomes unusable. So all the “Mac will take over the world” folks shouldn’t be looking at Apple’s latest and greatest they should be watching for the missteps of the Redmond giant. And surely Microsoft would never make errors of such a scope as to allow Apple back into the game, would they?

Microsoft would not intentionally drive the company into the ground, no company would ever purposefully make bad choices. Be that as it may history is littered with once dominant corporations who found became marginalized. One prominent example is Apple computer. While there are a plethora of ways for powerful industry leaders to become marginalized the most apropos example is that of a powerful brewery reduced to a niche player. In this case study the board of a powerful brewery became overloaded with marketers. These people felt the beer would continue to sell even if quality was somewhat sacrificed for greater profits. To get a little more cash per keg they changed an ingredient with the unfortunate side effect that the beer now had flakes. Generally you don’t want flakes in your beer and the brewer’s market share went into a steep slide from which they never recovered. Could Microsoft make an equally large mistake, essentially ceding the market to Apple and Linux?

Not likely. While missteps seem to be the norm at Redmond lately they’ve got too much market presence to go down quickly. Sure Longhorn has been largely denuded of new features (when are they going to rename the thing XP Service Pack 3?) and Windows XP is nothing more than a gaping security according to common wisdom (for the record I like XP, I just like OS X a whole lot more) but neither of these problems are Microsoft killers. Too many people have too much invested in both dollars and time for Microsoft to be felled by a few largish mistakes. In short Microsoft could commit corporate suicide but they’re not there yet. None of this means that the best days aren’t still ahead for Apple. Could Apple treble the number of Macs sold this year? It would not surprise me. Could Apple continue to pull in record profits for the next five years? I think it is likely. Could Apple ever be more than a footnote when compared to Microsoft? That’s up to Microsoft.