Market Share?

Rate of growth is always greater when you start from nothing. Besides, what "market" are you speaking of when you mention "market share"? Most of Apple's revenue growth is from selling iPods not Macs. It will be much easier for Microsoft to cut into Apple's dominance in personal music than it will be for Apple to cut into Microsoft's dominance in the PC market.

'Twas really just a tongue-in-cheek post in reference to all the disparaging comments one hears about Apple's low market share on the desktop.

But to your point.  As Microsoft's percentage of the PC market is greater than Apple's percentage of the portable music player market, why do the "cut into" odds favor the former?  As you said:


I remember a young upstart company that once went head-to-head with IBM on the desktop and bloody well hammered them.  Never say never.

Please note that neither I nor the article suggests Apple is going to beat the crap out of Microsoft on the desktop.  Clearly it was just extrapolating recent earnings data which isn't scientific at all.

However...

If Apple grows from 5% to 10% of the desktop market they double their presence and, for for the sake of simplicity, let's say double their revenues.  As they already have very nice profit margins built into their business model that translates to big earnings.

Microsoft will no way, no how increase their market share by 5%.  They will likely lose that much or more.  Not saying Apple gets it, but Microsoft will lose it to someone.  But for argument's sake let's say they increase their market share by 5%.  I'm not sure where they are now but it's 80% on the high side I should think.  So taking it up to 85% is 6.25% growth.  Not quite the same impact.

The iPod is a cultural icon.  It's not going away.  It remains to be seen if the Zune is even worth a *feces* never mind the "iPod killer" we all heard about.  Apple is a sure bet to keep it rolling in that arena.

iPhone, no matter what you think of it, is going to dump revenue into Apple like there's no tomorrow.

In my opinion Apple is getting better, has a healthy glow about it, while Microsoft is a bit pale and smells of vomit.  If Vista isn't the home run they want it to be they're in trouble.  If it is, well, business as usual.

That reminds me, how is old uncle Ernie these days?

Old bugger never would listen.

He was warned that game was ghey.

steve jobs is a pimple on bill gates ass. i'm just sayin. 

Whether a Mac or a PC increases productivity depends upon what business you are running.  Businesses that rely heavily on graphics are already using Macs almost exclusively because they are better in this respect.  You could certainly also make a cogent argument that security is better on Macs, as well.