Can Macs Dominate the Personal Computer Market?
Have you ever gotten the impression that Macs at one time were quite a major player in the personal computer market? Maybe way back in the dark old ages of command lines and the days of IBM as Big Brother. And then the shining light came from Apple and everyone jumped on board because its GUI was so appealing.
Kind of didn’t happen that way. In fact, the Mac has never ever been in the game for serious computer market-share. Not only has it not been in the ball-park, it has not even been in the same state. Yet quite a few people believe that Apple (with the Mac) could have and can still become the dominant player in the overall personal computer market. And I have to admit, I was on the fringes of thinking so too until I saw some market-share history.
Ars Technica late last year published an excellent piece on thehistory of personal computer market-share. Although I originally missed the article, our own esteemed colleague, Mr Seibold, used an eye-opening graph from it of those twenty years in his This Day in Apple History of 28 May.
Recently I read an article from across the Tasman in New Zealand, on the Tech Remarks Blog titled Apple Deja Vue: will they pull it off this time?
The “it” Tech Remarks refer to, is Apple achieving market dominance. The opening paragraph explains:
During the early PC era—when MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were hot—I was an avid Apple Mac user. Apple was miles ahead of Microsoft in all areas, but of course especially from a user interface perspective. They had superior technology and the opportunity to become the dominant market player… Apple missed the “mass market” train…
Apple missed the mass market train before it even got the Mac to the station.
The Tech Remarks article is worth reading, but that opening paragraph is somewhat fanciful. As the Ars Technica graph shows, Apple had Buckley’s1 of ever being the dominant personal computer market player. And that is still the case today.
On a glance you might think the massive white spike around 1984 shows it happened once. Nope, it’s not the Mac as we’d like to hope. It’s the Commodore 64. The lowly pink line is the Mac. On it’s release the Mac commanded only 8% or so of of the computer market, only a third of what the IBM-PC clone market had, and a fifth of the Commodore C64’s market. Here was a time when, relative to the PCs, Apple had its best ever chance of dominating, yet it quickly spiraled to also-ran. By the time it recovered in the early 90s, PCs were so dominant that Macs were out of the race. (If you want to be really mischievous you could point out that the Mac’s market-share has gone backwards under both of SJ’s reigns. But that wouldn’t really be fair, as other factors contributed more so.)
Secondly notice 1990/91. A large drop in PC market share was followed soon after by a corresponding leap in Mac market-share. But the PC market quickly got back on track. Apple’s retention of the market it gained would have mostly come from decline of Commodore and Atari.
Why the PC decline though? One thing that happened in 1990 was the release of Windows 3.0. It was a giant leap forward on Windows 2 and it did signal the real beginning of the GUI desktop on PCs. So why the slump? One reason might have been that people then, for the first time, were choosing between Windows and Macs and so a lot seeing the Mac OS being significantly better, chose Macs. Also it’s possible PC buyers put off buying new PCs until Windows had stabilized, which occurred with Windows 3.1 in 1992.
Also, in 1992 Apple released the first PowerBook. This was the machine credited with kicking off the modern era in laptops, and at one time had 40% of the laptop market-share. That more than anything would account for Apple’s sudden upturn. 1991 was also the year of the introduction of the widely acclaimed new Mac OS, System 7, which would also have boosted Mac sales—especially if buyers compared the Windows 3.0 offering (which really was still a glorified menuing system).
Even though those fluctuations again highlight how poorly the Mac was selling compared to PCs, it does bode well for Apple today. If Vista 1.0 is seriously flawed in any way, whether it’s price, performance, requirements or functionality—people may look at the Mac as an alternative. But as the graph shows, Apple could triple its market-share, which would be fantastic for Apple—but it would still be just a blip on the Windows PC market-share. Of course, if many of those “switchers” ran Windows with Bootcamp, it would affect Windows market-share even less. Should Macs be counted in the PC’s market-share now?
It also appears that the Mac’s market-share really took a dive around the time Windows ‘98 came out. Other factors would have been at play there, but the regular correlation in market-share changes between Microsoft and Apple OS releases does appear to be a factor. With Vista on the horizon, Apple could be about to experience another market-share leap.
But market dominance? Buckley’s.
Next week I’ll discuss the home market, whether Apple can make inroads there and why the Mac is a genuine option for buyers in that market.
1 From the Online Macquarie Dictionary of Australian Slang:
Buckley’s: phrase 1. to have Buckley’s (chance), to have no chance at all. 2. to have two chances - Buckley’s and none, (Jocular) to have no chance at all. [def 1 possibly referring to a famous escaped convict William Buckley; def 2 a pun on Buckley and Nunn, a Melbourne store]
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Comments
tundraboy,
The example I used was my mother, and no, I didn’t interpret your remarks as an attack on her. I brought her up because it isn’t uncommon for low-end users to be entirely savvy (my mom works with InDesign at work every day) and yet not have the kind of money to buy a mac (in her case, because she’s sending four kids through college as we speak). So no, it is not a given that the majority of low-end users are as un-savvy as you claim (“clicking on every pop-up”).
But even if it was true, the choice is then between artificially restricting the growth of your platform to avoid security problems, or letting your platform thrive, making huge profits, and perhaps having to spend a bit more on security. Not only is the latter in Apple’s self-interest, it is in your self-interest, as there would be more software for the mac and prices would be lower (due to greater mass-production and the cost of software being spread among a larger pool of buyers).
The only thing you’d lose is the exclusivity - i.e., the ability to walk into an outrageously expensive coffee shop and flaunt your superiority to all the Dell folks.
It should be noted that what is being described here as the “bottom,” the “dregs” and the “tech hicks” is about 90% of the home computer market. In other words, they aren’t the “bottom” so much as they are the average norm.
And it is interesting to see the touted myth of OS X’s robustness and security so quickly fall by the wayside in the face of an actual challenge.
Beeblebrox,
I’ve been a PC user since 1983 to 2003 when I bought a Mac and started using it as my primary machine. Two of the 3 machines I have at home are Wintels so as far as I am concerned, OS-X’s robustness vis-a-vis all the versions of Windows I’ve used up to XP Pro is not a myth. Based on my experience, OSX is also more secure. And yes the security advantage is in all likelihood partly, but I suspect not mostly, due to the low market share footprint.
But that’s not just my experience. It’s pretty much the concensus among all the major tech writers and commentators. It is not a myth touted by self-delusional fanboys.
The very least we could do to have an intelligent conversation then is for you to stop throwing out these Karl Rovian off-the-cuff lies that you make up from whole cloth. There are enough facts out there that you can use to flummox your hated Macbots, no need to make up your own. Hyperbole spices up the repartee; pure fabrication hinders it.
Oskar,
I agree. It is not a given that the majority of low end users are unsavvy. What I am saying though is that a disproportionately high number of the unsavvy are low end users.
Yes, a greater market share for OSX will in all likelihood benefit me as a Mac user. But between a 30% share covering the whole market or a 25% share that foregoes the bottom 20-30% demographic, I think I’ll settle for the 25%.
Forget even the malware susceptibility arguments. Let’s just go with the customer support nightmare argument. I think that’s reason enough for Apple to be wary of selling $300 dollar machines.
Note I do not think that Apple supplanting Windows as the dominant OS is a good thing. I’m not a monoculture kind of guy. I actually want Vista to succeed (but not too much) and for Linux to be more popular. We’re all better off if Linux, WinXP/Vista and OSX have roughly equal shares.
What I do want is for the feds to ban Win98, Me and other legacy versions of Windows. That’s a joke.
The very least we could do to have an intelligent conversation
This from the guy who refers to most PC users as “dregs” and “tech hicks.” Now you suddenly want an “intelligent conversation”? I think what you want is for ME to stop calling YOU a Macbot while you retain the freedom to say whatever YOU want about anyone you want. Sorry. You’ve set the tone of the conversation you want, and I’m following it.
OS-X’s robustness vis-a-vis all the versions of Windows I’ve used up to XP Pro is not a myth. Based on my experience, OSX is also more secure.
“In fact, I’d dare say that reaching down to the nether levels would trigger negative network effects as you would now be attracting the malware set.”
Well will it or won’t it? Remember what I said about Macbots trying to have it both ways? This is what I mean.
tundraboy,
I don’t think any of us can say whether Apple could scale to fit the customer support needs of a greater userbase. Theoretically, it would go like this:
1. Reach the low end with lower prices & court developers better.
2. The initial cost of lower profit margins, more customer support centers, and more security precautions leads to short-term loss in profit. Wall Street complains.
2. Marketshare rises.
3. Developer support rises.
4. Repeat step 2 & 3 continuously.
5. With a large userbase, increase profit margins again. Wall Street dances.
So I see you’re okay with this process as long as they don’t go past 25%. I still don’t get the whole fear of having inexperienced users on your platform, but we can stop beating a dead horse.
Sorry, I write my posts too fast. That list actually has six items, not five.
Well said, tundraboy!
Gabe H, that’s a valid point. Apple does look much better when you compare them to the individual PC vendors, but unfortunately that’s not who they’re competing against. It’s OS X vs Windows, so that’s why I look at the whole PC market.
That said, markets within that whole should be looked at, which I plan to do next week.
Well said sydneystephen.
Spot on about price Beeb. To most Joes, a computer is a computer so they almost always shop with price as their priority. I know I do - that’s why I have so many secondhand Macs. People compare price stickers, not motherboards or hard drives. And then they compare features eg 80GB HD vs 120GB HD. That’s their comprehension of value. They don’t care who amkes the hard drives, or even the RPM
Old_guy - totally agree on the leverage of software piracy. Having wiotked in IT for 20 years *soooo* many ppl would ask if they could borrow the organization’s Office disks to install at home. Eventually I think MS made it legal to do so in cetain circumstances.
Macs running XP is a big furphy. It doesn’t come *free*. It drops a couple of hundred dollars on the bottom line. So you’ve spent ages convincing your mate that all up the Mac is by comparison, reasonably priced, and then you think the clincher will be “It runs XP”. Bzzzzt. Sorry, he’s gunna say “So you want me to spend a couple of hundred dollars more?!! When it’s already more expensive than a PC? I think I’ll just get a Windows PC.”
Hey RoboTech - don’t say too much about what Apple needs to do in the home market otherwise I won’t have anything to write next week!
No prob C.H. Be waitin’ on your follow on. This stuff’s good…:)
oops! I was just kiddin, Robo! I was gunna nick all the stuff you wrote and post it next week under my name!
So go for it! lol