Filed under: Apple Financial, .Mac, MobileMe
Apple To Ship 2.5 Million Macs Thanks to Vista?
With all the current hype surrounding the imminent release of both the upgrade to Apple's .Mac service, now to be forever known as MobileMe, and Friday's launch of the new, improved iPhone version 2.0, let's not forget that Apple also makes other types of hardware that seems to be selling pretty well these days. In fact, according to a recent article up over at AppleInsider, Apple is apparently poised to ship 2.5 Million Macs in the Spring -- thanks, in some measure, to the poor reception of Microsoft's Windows Vista.According to BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman, Apple's potentially strong quarter, which ends in June, can be attributed to several factors. Among them, user dissatisfaction with Vista. "Thus far, user satisfaction ratings for Vista have been weak, and startup times for Vista have been known to be much slower than the Mac OS X," Bachman said in the article. "Thus, more than 50% of recent customers buying Macs in Apple retail stores are first-time buyers."
In addition, the analyst added that this problem could help Apple's bottom line well into 2009 and could potentially improve the company's current world market share, raising it to 3.9% or higher. This is good news for those of us who remember the time, not so long ago, when most in the press and analysts like Bachman predicted Apple's certain demise. Still, even with this good news, we still need to hope Apple doesn't do something to hurt itself -- like bungle the .Mac to MobileMe transition or run out of shiny new iPhones at 8:30AM on Friday. That would not be a good thing.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mateo said 5:07PM on 7-08-2008
It is normal, Vista is certainly the worst OS ever, need to much power, has a lot of bugs and Microsoft has decided to keep XP a bit more because of this. A lor of people are downgradind to XP or simply switching.
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byatchi said 11:13AM on 7-09-2008
go back to school
Mateo said 11:23AM on 7-09-2008
Why go back to school?
I'm french and it's normal if I make some mistakes.
Brandon Martinez said 3:13PM on 7-09-2008
Don't worry about it; I think people fuss too much with grammar when it comes to *comments*. In a blog post/article, sure, we can be more particular; but not when it's just someone leaving an opinion (then again, if we can't make out what you mean, that's another story).
It's about the message the words hold, not necessarily the words themselves.
Bill said 4:36AM on 7-11-2008
Microsoft dropped the ball when they marketed Vista. Also, allowing Apple to continually 'diss' them with that smug marketing campaign has planted a negative in a few peoples minds.
However, as someone who uses, and enjoys, Vista daily I can't say that it's driven me to by a Mac. As a matter of fact, I'm very happy with it - even more so than I was with XP.
I'd only buy a Mac because it's something different, not because I was dissatisfied with Vista. And, I'd only buy a Mac Pro, as an iMac is not configurable enough for my tastes.
Andrew Abate said 5:25PM on 7-08-2008
Not for anything, what is it with using all the AppleInsider stories? it seems to be just as of late, but can we move away from regurging the stories from AppleInsider...
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Leehblanc said 5:29PM on 7-08-2008
What is happening in the computer market now is that Microsoft spent YEARS playing catchup with Apple as far as usability is concerned, and completely neglected the stability and safety of their OS. When ONE errant (or uninformed) click can take your whole system down (it happened just yesterday at work) it doesn't matter how pretty the interface is or how much software is available... the average user is out $100-$200 and a three day stay at Geek Squad for their box.
A botched Mobile Me or shortage of iPhones Friday isn't going to change that, and neither is Windows 7.
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Robert said 5:20PM on 7-08-2008
I actually predict over the next 7 years to rise to a total of about 15% market share.
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mcgoo said 5:25PM on 7-08-2008
As disappointing as Vista is, Windows ME was much worse.
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DrOrpheus said 8:07PM on 7-09-2008
Yeah, but at that time Microsoft had Win2k to fall back on - the Win ME debacle was prior to their decision to merge the NT trunk with the usability features of Win98... Once they went the route of XP, they kind of became a one-trick pony. When that pony got sick (early XP, Vista) they have to hustle to clear up problems. With XP they were successful by SP2, but Vista... this first service pack is a joke. I don't forsee much change in Vista SP2, since many of the speed problems are products of design choices and hack jobs.
hbeltran said 5:41PM on 7-08-2008
My faimly went from 4 Windows units to 4 Macs. Then from 4 Razors to 4 iphones. We helped to increase that bottom line. However it should did not help the stock at reaching that $200.00 high then droping. But we love our Macs.
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LuminousNerd said 5:55PM on 7-08-2008
"...hope Apple doesn't do something to hurt itself [like] run out of shiny new iPhones at 8:30AM on Friday."
Why would that hurt Apple? That's a good thing for the company, in every single way, even if it's unfortunate for eager consumers.
Besides that, why even say such a thing? Of course they're going to run out! :P
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Jim G said 6:19PM on 7-08-2008
iWeb on .Mac seems to be down. I just checked my website and I get a "forbidden access denied" message. This is new to me as I was just at my site 15 minutes before. Maybe in switch for some of .Mac - Mobileme.
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goobi said 6:34PM on 7-08-2008
The rate of increase is only going to rise. 5% of users can only spread so much of Mac love. Now with 8% the rate of spreaking is definitely going to be faster. God alone knows what will happen once it goes to 15%-20%.
Although, you might have not noticed, but Mac products are very similar in design rather than the varied combinations available to the PC world. So if 20% of the world goes Apple, that will mean that 1 out of 5 will potentially have almost the same machine as yours... that would suck.
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Lee said 7:15PM on 7-08-2008
I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple add some diversity to their product line, colors for instance, once their market share goes past 10%-15% for that very reason.
Ian said 8:53PM on 7-08-2008
"Apple is apparently poised to ship 2.5 Million Macs in the Spring". Are you from the southern hemisphere or is this a typo?
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Kev Orng said 10:07AM on 7-09-2008
It's a little unclear, and as usual I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I think they meant to say that the numbers from the spring quarter, when announced, will be around 2.5 million. Shipped units, not dollars.
Matt said 9:41PM on 7-08-2008
Interesting theory. Microsoft, however, claims that 70% of Vista users are "very satisfied", and it also claims that Vista is the fastest selling version of Windows ever. Hmmmm....
It also seems intuitive that Apple buyers would spring from the ranks of youth making the logical purchase after an iPod ownership experience. The preponderance of these folks would be, after all, first time buyers, whether they bought a Mac or another brand. Now, if we just had a survey that measured the position "I tried a Vista machine, but the experience brought me to Apple for a Mac"...I could buy the 'Vista drives greater Mac sales' argument. It might, but the position of this article is hardly objective.
Lord, do I feel like a spoil-sport....
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Kev Orng said 10:03AM on 7-09-2008
I tried a Windows 98 machine, and that experience drove me back to Mac in 2001.
DrOrpheus said 8:07PM on 7-09-2008
Yeah, or it could be defined as a simple product of competition - Vista's competitive value is less than Apple's at the moment, so people are choosing Apple. Vista is not "driving Apple sales" in this sense, Apple is driving Apple sales because its competitive value is higher than Vista's...
There's a fundamental difference here, I think, because if Vista were truly driving Apple sales, that would mean Vista is *literally* pointing people to the Apple store, or encouraging in some other way the business of computer sales to Apple.
The fact is, consumers have their own minds, and they make decisions. Those consumers are increasingly buying Apple products for the time being, which could be an effect of Vista's suckitude, or because, hypothetically for example, Apple's increased exposure from its slowly expanding installed base among students and hip urban types, is drawing in more of your average consumers.
I dunno. I got my mom and dad on an iMac after suffering years of Win2k support and problems. Now they send email, have a digicam, and can send photos and files. Top it off with video chat with my sister in LA, and they're extremely happy. I'm sure they've told one or two of their friends, and the word-of-mouth marketing continues...