Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Dude1313 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:38:01 GMT

Waethron your childish comments are supposed to mean what exactly? You have already proven yourself the most partisan person here mac or PC. I'd take it as an insult if I respected the sender...

TCO look it up. In the time that I've had my G4, you've provided how many white boxes to your "clients" in the same time frame? I rest my case. Oh that's right having to turn over a PC every 2-4 years is a good thing "Broken window parable" and all, which is what Windows and thereby extension your premise is based on.

Please provide the name of your company so I can avoid it.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

johnpapola — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:21:29 GMT

Ah Waethorn, the numbskull enforcer of the winCabal. Always ready with a lame ad hominem attack.

It's more like this:

"Why chase after businesses selling $399, stripped-down garbage computers and make almost nothing on them like Dell when you can sell competitively priced, higher-end consumer systems by the millions and make more money than Dell while actually doing real innovation like your own operating system and R&D."

Basic math and the ability to read charts tells everyone on earth that being an Apple shareholder has been a far better position than owning Microsoft or Dell stock. It baffles the mind why, given this inalienable truth, you continually reference the shareholders when slamming Apple. Apple shareholders are doing GREAT thanks to Steve Jobs and the new Apple.

But, that's what you get from the winCabal. Delusion.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Waethorn — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:57:22 GMT

"the overprice myth perpetuated by the likes of Waethorn"

It's no myth. Search the history here, as I've proven it time and time again, even though you always seem to conveniently forget to try to prove your argument.

"In closing, market share is indeed meaningless."

If it's so meaningless, you should honestly say that at the next board or shareholder meeting.

Why sell 90,000 computers at $1000 a pop when you sell 30,000 systems exclusively to Mackie fanboi losers at 3 times the price....After all, marketshare is meaningless....

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Dude1313 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:03:14 GMT

Subzero-

I'm not in denial of anything. I simply find the metric gauge used to measure market share so skewed that its hardly a worthwhile metric IMHO. Market share? What are the parameters? What is used to equate Market share? John is absolutely right , Dell is a shinning example of a darling of Wall street, Market share was all that mattered and then they became the Wal-mart of computing.

Actually you and I are in agreement more then you would realize. However I will point out one potential flaw in your logic (which is otherwise fine with me):

Subzero Wrote:

Here the consumers both business and consumer oriented makes the decisions by their wallets. Unfortunately, some of you guys keep saying that market share is irrelevant?

It is indeed irrelevant. The Price Paradox/Windows monopoly makes it so. Its not like "Joe User" @ company X can actually <i>choose</i> which computer he wants to use at his place of employment. The IT dictatorship (of which I am a part of) makes their Stalinist decrees from on high and that's it, end of discussion. Sort of makes the whole debate of choice a rather moot one. The reasons have been flogged to death ,some (read a tiny bit have merit) most are nothing but bias and uninformed rhetoric.

Whether or not Apple chooses to compete in this market is likewise irrelevant. There is no way that IT is gonna budge in any meaningful form. Which is why Apple is smart to avoid businesses, which provide high market share numbers, but low profit per machine, which is the opposite of Apple's approach. Thats assuming that Apple would even have change to get in the door, smaller companies sure, large ones, different story all together. To which I'll also counter. Selling to business? Why do that when you can go direct to the consumer where tehy real innovation is happening.

In other words: "Nominal market share is a useless number. Profitable market share is what gives Apple just about the strongest balance sheet in the PC business" .

In short in the areas that Apple chooses to compete in they are doing a phenomenal job. In order to make that look otherwise fanboys throw out the market share argument. Or resort to the overprice myth perpetuated by the likes of Waethorn.

This doesn't even get into the question of just what is counted in market share or longevity of a given computer...

As far as Steve Jobs quotes go, I argee with one: "We have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." Macworld Expo 1997.

That is just what Apple is doing, keep creating cool products and the rest will follow. Don't get dragged down in the the question of the ad campaign(s) (anyone that is) advertising is something else entirely.

In closing, market share is indeed meaningless. If it were the opposite Apple would have closed up shop a long time ago, when in fact they are doing better then ever before.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

johnpapola — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:29:32 GMT

"Were you talking about Zune or AppleTV?

I love the Apple TV, but you could certainly call it a disappointment from a sales standpoint. Perhaps even a failure... except that the whole media extender market has been pretty slow, so I'm not sure it's underperforming competitors.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Dipsh t Admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:27:52 GMT

"It's a nice player, but to date... it's a pretty indisputable failure."

Were you talking about Zune or AppleTV? ;) ;) ;) <-- wink, wink

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

johnpapola — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:47:59 GMT

Oh, and as for Vista sales being great.... yeah... don't you think that's just a result of it shipping with new PCs. That's not a reasonable argument for it being bad or good. I'm not saying Vista is bad or good. Just that it's not a choice people are making. They're choosing to buy a new computer and it happens to have Vista. All you have to do is look at the abysmal growth rate of the PC market this year to see that there was really nobody holding off on a new PC in order to wait for Vista.

Pretty obvious logic.

If your water utility rolled out new, more fluoride-rich water to your area, they'd be able to pretty quickly claim amazing penetration of the new "product". "Look, everyone now has the new water and is paying for it! What a success!!!". That's the power of monopoly.

What I (obviously) find more interesting is that, despite the prognostications to the contrary by uber grand wizard of the winCabal, Rob Enderle, Apple's sales and marketshare have grown throughout the entire rollout of Vista. 2007 was the best year for Mac sales ever. Buying a mac is more active choice since it's not the defacto standard. That makes Mac growth far more difficult and far more amazing.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

johnpapola — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:35:36 GMT

Oh... and we need to look no further than Beta vs. VHS to prove that winning in the market does not prove that a technology is superior. It's quite irrelevant.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

johnpapola — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:33:53 GMT

@subzero,

You're not a zealot like Waethorn, so I respect your posts. First, I'm not sure what conclusion you are trying to draw or present. It appears you are saying that Windows is "better" than the Mac because of it's marketshare. Right? I guess. Or are you just trying to say that "marketshare does matter" but not actually explain HOW IT MATTERS. The HOW is the key. The HOW and WHY is what Paul has NEVER provided the thousands of times he's referred to the statistics. And by not addressing the HOW or WHY, you both fail.

So, regarding how and why marketshare matter (for the billionth time)...

#1. Get educated. Read this Wharton Business School study on marketshare:

marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/.../myth_of_market_share.pdf

To paraphrase the paper: pursuing market share at the expense of profitability has killed many businesses for no good reason other than an essentially meaningless pissing contest benchmark. Profit is the aim of business, not marketshare... unless marketshare leads to more profit. Take a look at which car makers are earning more PROFIT before you use that example again.

Just look at Dell. Apple earns more profit than Dell. Dell raced to the bottom by commodity pricing and zero differentiation and now they're hurting. Apple focused on differentiation and their stock is trading at 40 times it's price when Jobs came back in 1997. That's it. Period. Done. End of discussion regarding market share as a business objective.

Lesson #1: strictly from a business health and shareholder value standpoint, marketshare only matters if it leads to more profit. Profit trumps Marketshare. Apple has more profit then one of the top PC makers, therefore marketshare doesn't matter for Apple shareholders.

#2. In computing, marketshare can create network effects that strengthen the platform.

Microsoft understood this in the early days when Apple did not. Job understood it, but he was gone when it really mattered in the late eighties and early nineties. Network effects are the feedback loop that drives sales because there are more apps/accessories for the platform, which causes people to move to the platform, which expands the market, which leads developers to provide more solutions... etc.

There is a threshold that you cross with network effects though. To small and you go into a death spiral. But if you're big enough, getting bigger's margin benefit starts to disappear. The Mac is well past the later for most markets. The Apple platform is 100% viable for most users. It provides all the third party software and accessories most users will ever need. People can get great apps for basically any application they want in the consumer space, as well as many other markets.

Lesson #2: Apple's market share is big enough in the segments it targets to have a rich, sustainable and growing ecosystem with adequate network effects to keep things going strong.

Which leads us to #3. The most important one of all. The one that Paul and the winCabal ignore time after time after time.

#3. The only share that matters is market segment share.

Aside from the fact that a company should only be judged on the markets they target... judging marketshare across an industry as wildly diverse as "all computers" is idiocy because it lacks any useful buyer information or broad network effects.

If you are a consumer, you aren't concerned with the same third party support an architect is, or a fortune 100 enterprise is, or a major stock firm, or a hospital, or a manufacturer or a broadcast facility, or a biotech research firm.

Each of these markets exists in near isolation with their computing systems being used for very specific tasks and being supported by completely different industries of third party solutions.

Take my business: film and TV. The Mac dominates. Third party support for the Mac and Final Cut Pro actually exceeds Windows. Final Cut Pro has over 70% marketshare of the entire worldwide video editing market with over 1 million active, registered users (and likely quadruple that in pirated users).

On the flip side, in a different part of the same industry, 3D animation and to a lesser extent compositing for feature films and broadcast is largely done on PCs. Many large applications such as Softimage XSI and 3D Studio Max aren't even available on the mac.

This same reality plays out for every user segment of this massive market. Apple is believed to have up to 20% marketshare of the US consumer and 10% worldwide. That matters way more to Joe average computer buyer than Apple's 3.5% worldwide share. Why? Because it means that applications that a consumer cares about are going to be available as well as third party peripherals.

So... again for the billionth time:

LESSON #3:

Overall worldwide marketshare is an irrelevant and meaningless benchmark whose only valid use is to spot year-over-year growth trends at the macro level. Segment share, or niche market share is the only share that really matters.

I've emailed these facts back and forth with Paul and his only response has been "I just like worldwide marketshare". That's just willful ignorance. If you care about sounding educated, avoid that line of thinking.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

subzerohitman721 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:06:50 GMT

@ Dude1313

When facts don't add up, or data doesn't support the Windows/Paul fanyboy routine fall back to the following:

1) Market Share! Market Share! Market Share!

My Comments....

Last I checked at least in the United States, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and most democractic states, we have whats called a "free market economy."

Here the consumers both business and consumer oriented makes the decisions by their wallets. Unfortunately, some of you guys keep saying that marketshare is irrelavent?

Ask the guys at Toyota if marketshare is irrelavent? Toyota just dropped America's big three automakers out of the top spot. People made the choices that Toyota was making better vehicles for their currency of choice.

If you look at the U.S. banking industry, Bank of America is on top. Now I absolutely dislike BoA to the extreme. They frequently nickel and dime consumers with charges, fees, and bad service. Thats why I use Chase. They've earned my business and continue to impress me with good customer service and polite staff.

This also happens in the beverage industry and why Coca-Cola Bottling Company is the world's largest beverage company. It has a recodnize brand and tradition of great advertising, great products, and product diversity. Pepsico is right behind them in strong competition with a recodnizeable name.

To dismiss how much Marketshare is to completely ignore the one metric which gages where the public is at. The facts about Vista are pretty clear. Versus the entire Mac base, the Vista base is clearly larger. Secondly, Vista machines are offered by a broad spectrum of PC manufactuers across the globe. Unlike Apple where there is clearly no hardware diversification. AMD is a very high quality processor maker and has gained some slight marketshare against Intel.

While Apple's sales are very impressive, the bottom line is that it hasn't even make a scratch to the Windows base. You guys want to ignore marketshare because it suits the PR spin. Unfortunately the sames numbers do not equal the spin.

From Vista's launch, Microsoft sold double the amount of XP's licences from October 2001.

www.betanews.com/.../1174940745

Also there was an article by Robert McLaws from last year entitled "Why Vista is Doing Better Than You Think." In that article he points out a few statistics.

1. At that time, Vista supported over 1.9 Million devices.

(If it was such a miserable flop, how come it supports so many devices?)

2. Any device that has over 500 "driver not found" errors worldwide is put on a priority compatibility list.

3. Microsoft has seen a 21% fewer support calls than in the same 100 day period for XP.

You can find the article online with a search. This points to measured metric of an OS actively in use and going through the process of growing, evolving, and changing. Even on Apple centric websites, they are complimentary to Vista.

www.appleinsider.com/print.php

22 Million OS-X user base. Again, versus the 150 Million and counting Vista base, its still outpacing and lapping. Its very clear whats going on here. Waeth has made it clear by his posts, that it doesn't include the volume licencing. If we did, the Vista base would be much larger. So even with the handicap, the OS is selling.

I do like Vista. I liked XP. I've made that no secret. Does that make me a fanboy? I don't think so. I make my decisions on how I experience things. I have friends with Macs but we get along just fine. I get to use their machines so I can get a sense of what the experience is like. Personally, I don't care what anyone says about me.

I have plenty of Apple software on my desktop for years and plan to in the near future. Would I like an iPhone if it were on more platforms? Yes. Absolutely. I do my best to back my opinions with facts and with the comments of other PC users that I interact with. If its decidedly Microsoft because they won the users over, then I'm sorry that people wish to label me something. Apple lost our business and with the current prices, they will not win us over in the foreseeable future. I think I'm pretty fair but biased.

I do praise Jobs, some of the features of OS-X when possible. Heck, I am very excited about the SDK for iPhone 3G. I'm hoping when the exclusivity clause is up, Apple will let other phone companies have the iPhone. My brother and I watched the entire keynote speech. Infact, I try to catch as many of Steve Jobs keynotes as possible. I would love to sit down and have lunch with Jobs. I bet we'd have one hell of a conversation. I also like the fact he's a democrat, a beatles fan (in which I am one too), and a man with an open mind.

Bottom line is until we see a significant shift in the industry, we have to go with every single statistical metric that says that Windows is on top. From OEM sales, retail sales, and even the business side. If you can't accept that then, I'm sorry. You're clearly in denial of the facts.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

johnpapola — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:13:51 GMT

@Dipsht,

Ed Bott is a very good tech journalist. Gotta love him.

I was just posting that headline in the spirit of Paul's silly Apple jabs. After all, he's claiming that Leopard is "horribly broken"... a statement of sheer biased lunacy. I mean, look at this. Out of 12 headlines... 6 of them are about Apple and 5 of them are either mocking Leopard as being unstable or mocking the Mac platform for being tiny.

"Thinking Like a Cocoa Programmer - Just think, I'm going to sell 6 copies of this application!"

This is comedy? Okay... That's why Microsoft makes hundreds of millions on Office for Mac. You know, comedy usually works when it's either absurd or based on honest human interest. The former is the tool of "Family Guy" the latter is the tool of "Seinfeld". But when "comedy" is based wrong-headed stereotypes for a niche audience of fanboys... I guess you'd just call it lame in-jokes for the delusional. Often, this kind of comedy is just called bigotry.

Seriously. This is a tired, pathetic routine here people. Is there honestly nothing better to talk about at the "Supersite for Windows", the platform with 95% of the market, then to make fun of Apple and it's tiny community? Oh that's right... those PC vs. Mac ads are SO offensive. Heh. Oh yeah... and the iCabal. Someone has to stand up to them! Right?

But that's fine. This is what passes for a "joke" on the supersite for windows(cabalists). Paul thinks it's funny because he's biased. We get it. But by repeating tired BS he just sounds like an ignorant fanboy. I don't think he is... but that's how these kinds of posts play out. Paul has some weird, thin-skinned axe to grind and I just think that's childish.

Even so, Intel is the perfect example of why Apple is smart to absolutely ignore the enterprise. Innovation and the enterprise are totally in opposition with each other. If even a tech giant like Intel won't stay remotely current, why should an innovator like Apple shackle themselves with the demands of such a market?

I'm happy that Microsoft serves them and that Apple is kicking butt in the consumer space (and other small business niches) where it has always put it's focus. Success means achieving what you set out to achieve, not what other's expect you to achieve.

Zune is a failure for many reasons, none of which are technical. It gutted playsforsure and sold Microsoft's partners down the river while not making even a subtle dent in the dominance of the iPod/iPhone. That was the point of the Zune. Microsoft believed they could compete better and innovate faster than their partners. They claimed they could bring something new to the table. They haven't done any of that. That's failure. Oh... and I don't think it makes them very much money either. It's a nice player, but to date... it's a pretty indisputable failure.

But clearly, there's room for Microsoft and Apple to be wildly successful together. Obviously the hundreds of millions that Microsoft makes selling Office to Apple users is more than enough proof of that. Office is a great product. Very rich. Very powerful. And the latest versions have been bold improvements in interface. Bravo Microsoft.

But to anyone that tries to marginalize the value or success of Apple because of their worldwide market share... you are just acting like an intellectually lazy winCabal hack. Sorry. That's just the way it is.

Of course, my massive screed here will just be looked at as another rant from the iCabal. So be it. I like to debate. It's a geek outlet for me. When Paul's articles drop below 50% Apple content I ignore them.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Dipsh t Admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:32:27 GMT

"why buy a Zune when you can get an iPhone for not that much more then an 8 Gig Zune? "

Likewise, the same question can certainly be asked about the iPod Touch or any other iPod for that matter. Same argument really. However it is a stupid argument because you have to enter in to a contractual agreement when purchasing the iPhone. Not so for the iPod or Zune.

Anyway, I won't be buying an iPod or Zune anytime soon. My phone acts as a nice audio player, with stereo Bluetooth to boot, which none of the devices mentioned here have. All one device, and if I get a call, that same stereo Bluetooth headset can be used to talk on the phone.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Dude1313 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:08:25 GMT

Dipsh t Admin said:

"Xune is flying of the shelf"

First of all, what is a Xune??? ;) Paul has been very critical of the Zune.

Its a Zune running OS X of course. ;) Problem with the Zune is that it isn't making great strides. By the time MS gets their act together. If they ever do, the game in PMP will be up. MS is trying to execute where the market was 3 years ago. all the while offering nothing compelling in terms of the device itself.

I'm a reader of several Zune sites and even there people are questioning why buy a Zune when you can get an iPhone for not that much more then an 8 Gig Zune?

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Snakedoctor1 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:00:24 GMT

3 companies = 300,000 yeah that weak. Lets take the top 100 and see what is going on.

re: Fun with Headlines: 4th of July Edition

Dipsh t Admin — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:40:49 GMT

"Xune is flying of the shelf"

First of all, what is a Xune??? ;)

Paul has been very critical of the Zune. But this is an interesting dichotomy. If the Mac makes great strides in marketshare, as it has, the news is screamed from the mountaintops. However, if the Zune makes some strides, and using iMath, it has made great strides (going from nothing to something), it is considered by those same people an also ran.

And to requote what you have said:

"Suffice of to say that there are Windows users who are just plain sick and tired of listening to the same crap from the Apple camp for years"

"That is 300,000 I know of that are not in use."

That's a pretty weak argument. That's only 0.2% of the total.

John, way to bring up relatively old news vis-a-vis Intel. Proving once again why you gotta love Ed Bott, see his rebuttal, showing how the short term memory of journalists is a serious issue in the computer industry press.

blogs.zdnet.com/Bott

And for more fun:

blogs.zdnet.com/Bott