Funny thing is, I'm not sure if the windows market is where mac's are really making a dent. (yet)<p>From what I can tell, it seems more that users who would be ready to make the jump from windows to linux are opting for macs instead. <p>A rails conference I was at last year was 99% mac. I'd assume most of the web languages are the same. This is especially true in the laptop segment, which seems to be growing as well. <p>If I were apple, I'd stay the course. Looking at market shares when a vast majority of people aren't even replacing their xp boxes is kinda useless. Give it a year and those boxes will be a year older. Most of them won't be moving to vista.
He believes that Apple is not growing <i>even faster</i> because they do not sell as much in retail. He mentions HP. But not DELL, who is #1 and also sells (mostly) through their web site and have very limited in-store presence.<p>Am I missing something? What's the point of an article like that if his only argument is so weak? I, personally, see exponential growth of apple hardware among my friends and peers.<p>And I just did not get his "flywheel" paragraph about Vista. Is it going to suck less because of... of what?
I'm not sure that I agree with the article. Perhaps Apple would have higher market share if the Macs were sold in more retail locations but I think this might drive customer satisfaction down. IMO Apple wants to control the distribution channel in order to create the right customer experience. I was amazed for example at how easy it was to purchase an iPhone and sign up for the service compared to the usual hassle of buying and activating a phone.<p>What I'd like to see (if anyone has any links, please do share) is the percent market share between licensed copies of Windows and licensed copies of OS X.
I need a new laptop, I really don't want a Vista, but it is hard for me to justify spending $2500 on a MacBook Pro.
Apple needs to do something about their pricing if they want a bigger market share.