Daily Tech mentions a Business Insider article that talks about Apple dominating the >$1000 computer market with a whopping 91% market share. I have to say that that percentage is impressive no matter what, but upon further thought it may not be as big a deal as some are making it out to be.
The first thing to note is that it says other makers are "stuck" in the sub-$500 range. In June the average computer price was $701 with PCs averaging $515 and Macs $1400. Because the average of these numbers is nowhere near the given average I'm not sure what they are including in those categories.
Anyway, I would say there are only a few types of PC buyers. Tech people (who could go either way), Mac lovers, and everyone else. "Everyone else" largely buys those cheap PCs for various reasons and Mac people try to steer them into Macland. Thanks largely to the success of the ipod-itunes combo along with the iphone Apple has been gaining a lot of users. But do these people have a choice? Apple doesn't exactly offer a cheap computer, so this for one skews their numbers. Side note to Apple: if OS X is so efficient and stable why not release a cheaper computer with toned down specs and try to gain even more market share? Might as well ride the "Apple is hip" wave while you can. I have a feeling they don't do it because it would cannibalize their high-price (and high-margin) hardware.
The second skewing point is the (probably larger) portion of the "tech people" crowd that opt for a regular PC, which include the gaming crowd. These people generally know their way around inside the computer and, as a result, are more likely to build a computer from scratch and then might upgrade rather than purchase a new one. They can even do this for the "everyone else" category. These numbers don't show up as a PC sale and I believe could make a significant impact on market share percentages, especially because few Apple users upgrade and Apple itself doesn't exactly make it easy.
A little food for thought when considering the market share. But, as I said, impressive for Apple nonetheless, who is on quite a run even in these dark economic times.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Minimalist's Assertions
The other day, Linux Today had a news item linking to this site. Yet another blog link of someone shouting at the ether that somehow made the news. Maybe I'm just jealous I don't make the news; that's good though, that means I'm still undiscovered and real. I'm not sure this particular piece should have because the points given are so hackneyed it's not even annoying anymore. It did make me think about the overall philosophy though. Why do the supporters of the minimal distros keep beating the same drum over and over?
The points this guys presents:
1. A slower release cycle.
2. Speed.
3. Stability.
4. Minimalist install.
I'll skip his last point about the brown color scheme because that's too much of a personal opinion thing.
I think his points are valid from a narrow point of view of a technology enthusiast, but my argument is that for the everyday user or even the lazy technologist like myself, these aren't all that important. We want an easy-to-use box that gets out of the way to let us do more important things, like waste time on Gmail.
These are obviously important to the community because, as I said, these points get reiterated every so often, but why? I have to wonder if it is because the new users coming into Linux are not interested in the "hardcore" distros and the people who love them are feeling threatened. Ubuntu, SUSE, PCLinuxOS, and others are all expanding the Linux audience and I am extremely excited about this. I think that the nerd market already knows about Linux and has been using it, so these new users will more and more become, by a large percentage, casual or non-tech people. And this means that Slackware and the like will continue to be pushed to the fringes, which always brings up the problem of irrelevancy over the horizon and exodus of developers/users. Yes, these casual people could eventually desire to learn more and try something like Slack, but let's be honest in the fact that this probably will not happen. Ease of use is number one for a lot of people and I think that's truly the divide between Slack and Ubuntu (and others that fall in each category).
To give a personal anecdote, I've been using Linux for many years now, have a graduate degree in computer science, and generally am patient enough with misbehaving technology to root out the problem and fix it. Twice now I've gotten the gumption to install Arch because I'll be in control. I'll make the decisions. It'll be MY computer. I'll "learn Linux" instead of "learn Ubuntu." But what happens is I get tired of messing with the OS instead of messing with whatever I'm trying to accomplish. I will admit my second go at Arch was much quicker and seemed to have a little more automagical configuration than I remembered from the first install. There is a fine line that Arch (Slack, etc.) take a small step over in pushing things onto the user that should happen automagically because it just doesn't matter. Setting up hardware is the best example I can give here: I don't care how my sound card is configured, just do it so I don't have to figure out that I have to unmute some channel in the command-line alsamixer.
But that's the beauty of Linux distros, there's something for everyone.
The points this guys presents:
1. A slower release cycle.
2. Speed.
3. Stability.
4. Minimalist install.
I'll skip his last point about the brown color scheme because that's too much of a personal opinion thing.
I think his points are valid from a narrow point of view of a technology enthusiast, but my argument is that for the everyday user or even the lazy technologist like myself, these aren't all that important. We want an easy-to-use box that gets out of the way to let us do more important things, like waste time on Gmail.
These are obviously important to the community because, as I said, these points get reiterated every so often, but why? I have to wonder if it is because the new users coming into Linux are not interested in the "hardcore" distros and the people who love them are feeling threatened. Ubuntu, SUSE, PCLinuxOS, and others are all expanding the Linux audience and I am extremely excited about this. I think that the nerd market already knows about Linux and has been using it, so these new users will more and more become, by a large percentage, casual or non-tech people. And this means that Slackware and the like will continue to be pushed to the fringes, which always brings up the problem of irrelevancy over the horizon and exodus of developers/users. Yes, these casual people could eventually desire to learn more and try something like Slack, but let's be honest in the fact that this probably will not happen. Ease of use is number one for a lot of people and I think that's truly the divide between Slack and Ubuntu (and others that fall in each category).
To give a personal anecdote, I've been using Linux for many years now, have a graduate degree in computer science, and generally am patient enough with misbehaving technology to root out the problem and fix it. Twice now I've gotten the gumption to install Arch because I'll be in control. I'll make the decisions. It'll be MY computer. I'll "learn Linux" instead of "learn Ubuntu." But what happens is I get tired of messing with the OS instead of messing with whatever I'm trying to accomplish. I will admit my second go at Arch was much quicker and seemed to have a little more automagical configuration than I remembered from the first install. There is a fine line that Arch (Slack, etc.) take a small step over in pushing things onto the user that should happen automagically because it just doesn't matter. Setting up hardware is the best example I can give here: I don't care how my sound card is configured, just do it so I don't have to figure out that I have to unmute some channel in the command-line alsamixer.
But that's the beauty of Linux distros, there's something for everyone.
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