Excellent comments Mark. I have somewhat of a different focus... The computer business has been driven primarily from two fronts. One is the rapid expansion of computer sales to new users and the other is upgrades. Unfortunately, both of these are coming to a head at the same time. I predicted in an article in 1999 that Moore's law would no longer be a consumer factor by the end of 2001 (it would continue, but home users wouldn't care). I was a little long in that projection. Computer sales are taking a remarkable nose dive based on the fact that no one cares to upgrade anymore because things are fast enough. By this I mean fast enough for the majority of the market place. At about the same time, computers have pretty much saturated the first world. Their penetration is not going to get much higher at the profitable end of the scale (non commodity +500$ machines). Computers are still selling well world wide. But, they are not expanding in sales like they used to. There is going to be a massive shrinking of the marketplace over the next year or so and then it will level off with relatively steady growth for the long term. This has been the trend of EVERY new consumer technology in history (refrigerator, television, vacumn cleaner, etc.). This is the reason that , in spite of negative press coverage, something like the HP/Compaq merger was necessary. The market would no longer be able to sustain both companies.
When the computer market exploded and was at its zenith of growth PC's won the day because of low cost and the fact that a majority of expansion was in business which generally does not like to differentiate on that kind of product (they often all buy the same brand of staplers and dividers too). Apple's marketshare dropped significantly because it did not expand at the same rate as the rest of the industry. The opposite will happen in the coming months as the industry shrinks. Apple's share will expand significantly because they will shrink slower than the rest of the industry as well. Remember that marketshare is a relative concept. So, given that the computer market in 10 years is going to much more closely resemble other markets, where will Apple be? If they don't have a major screw up! They will be well positioned and much more publicly respected as the company we have come to know. They are the innovator and vertical integrator. They are the only place you can buy a computer and have the warrantee survive OS upgrades because they support both. They are the only place you can get 100% of your computer service and support from because they make the whole widget. This will count big time in a world where computers are bought to last, not until next year when they are upgraded. Probably the most important factor for Apple is that they dominate in markets outside of my statements about Moore's Law. Professional graphics and video markets will not be satisfied with computer speeds for a number of years to come - neither will scientists. Apple has very large shares of those markets. Apple's market share will grow because it has a very high share of the biggest markets that will continue to upgrade. In no way does this mean that Apple will stay on a growth path. It is just that the rest of the market will implode around them. On the other end home users will no longer be buying on speed or price as much as other factors. Reputation, reliability, style and design will become more important. People with little money pay extra for Maytag for a reason. Apple will fall into the realm of computer makers. They are already there for those in the know. Another important factor will be the maturity of the market. Many many people who buy computers today or bought in the past either know little about them or are geeks. There are few people in the middle ground. As the consumers who know little learn more they will learn about the reputation, quality and design of Apple computers much faster than the tradeoffs between long pipelines and instruction parallelism. This is similar to the automotive industry where people have turned from buying their car on the recommendations of their local mechanic or "car guy" to buying on brand, design, and features. As hardware no longer needs to be tinkered with and the cutthroat commodity market disappears the geeks will turn primarily to software. This will reduce the appeal of the commodity PC. Will this mean that Apple will have a majority share of the market? This is unlikely. But, 20% is not unreasonable at all. One of the key factors is business. Businesses are focused on the bottom line. Dell is the number one innovator at reducing prices. And, most businesses have massive investments in PC's. I don't know how it will play out but Apple is unlikely to break this block (Linux or BSD really has a better shot here for many reasons). Therefore, businesses will still buy focused on the short term bottom line (how many fleet sales of neons are there versus Corollas?) while consumers will focus on fashion and value, and professionals will focus on performance and ROI. Apple will likely only be able to win share in the last two. In response to bob... You seem to be one of the many Mac fans who is embittered toward Apple. I believe there is good reason to feel what way about the "between Jobs" Apple. However, I do not feel that way now. The clone market had to be destroyed so that we could have Macintosh's. Apple was in no position to strip down to a software manufacturer. Furthermore, having the discount clone makers carry the Macintosh banner would have been folly. I have worked with a number of clones and Apple Macintosh's. The difference in quality is astronomical. One of the main reasons to buy a Mac would be gone if Apple wasn't making them anymore. IBM survived cloning because it has so many other things it was doing (and they fought it tooth and nail, contrary to popular belief, it was not in the least visionary on their part). Apple could not do the same thing unless the cloners grew the market. They didn't, so the experiment had to be scrapped. Macs do read third party drives just fine. Sometimes initial releases don't have this capability (take iDisk for example). But, that is so that the majority of their loyal customers can begin to enjoy the software and not have to wait for every possible product configuration to be supported. Jobs has brought some very important things back to Apple. One of the key things is reiterated in press conference after press conference. When pressed about projections Apple says that their goal is only to make the best computers they can. They are following an old business philosophy that was pushed by the Americans onto the Japanese after WWII during the rebuild. It is the philosophy that was responsible for the rise of Japan as a business power. If you just make the best product you can you will eventually win (OK, that's REALLY simplified). Jobs has a vested interest in seeing Apple make great stuff to a larger degree than any other leader they have ever had. I have no doubt he will continue to do the same. PS: The idea that the PC insustry would turn to Gass�e as the saviour from MS with Be has always struck me as hilarious since he was the one primarily responsible for driving up Apple's prices in the late 80's and early 90's. rambling off... -- Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca> Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
