Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus: Grim Macintosh Market Share Forebodes Crisis

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus: Grim Macintosh Market Share Forebodes Crisis Paul Thurrott comments on John Dvorak's latest provocative rant -- quoting Dvorak:
"The Mac platform is essentially stagnant. That becomes obvious when you look at the declining market share numbers—not from research firms, but from the W3C, which monitors online activity. As of December 2004, the Mac share as measured by online activity is 2.7 percent (Linux is 3.1), with all the rest going to various flavors of Windows. I'm now convinced that this stems mostly from Apple's inability to make the Mac a commodity computer by pricing it to compete with PCs made inexpensively in China and selling with razor-thin margins."

Thurrott adds:
"What's really happening here, and this is the point that Dvorak is alluding to, is that Apple (Jobs, really) is choosing form over function. No bit of functionality will marr the PowerBook's smooth case, no matter how useful it would be. Hard drive light? Never! SD slot? Heresy! Switches to turn off the trackpad and wireless? No way!"

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