[geeks] RE: Reevaluating Macintosh (was Dual Xeon vs Dual G4)

[Chris Byrne]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org 
> [mailto:geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
> 
> 
>    1) That's year-old data.  The explosive growth started 1.5 
> years ago.
>    2) How do you reconcile this with the fact that the Apple 
> Stores are 
> packed with people, they're selling them faster than they can make 
> them, and everyone I know is moving to them?
> 
>    There's that clue phone again.
> 
>         -Dave
> 

I think the biggest problem in comparing numbers is that people compare
the results of one company, Apple, to the results of the rest of the
industry combined.

Sure they have (according to various articles I've read over the past
few weeks) between 2 and 4% total marketshare but it's a HUGE market and
they're one company. Most companies would be thrilled to have 4% of a
multi hundred billion dollar industry. 

The PC industry has consolidated to such a degree that there are two
companies with a huge market share of 20% or more, Dell and HP/Compaq, a
few second tier companies with anything from 1% on up (Apple, IBM,
Gateway, NEC, Acer etc), and a whole bunch of little companies with well
under 1% market share.

Any one of those smaller companies would KILL to be in Apples position.


Yeah it's not the 12-14% market share of 15 years ago but then the
market itself is probably five times larger as well. 

Not only that bu Apple is almost universally recognized as the market
leader in innovation, especially in their industrial design. This puts
them in a position to lead trands rather than follow them. This allows
apple to have MUCH higher gross margins on their products (as much as
five times the average according to several recent articles).

Any one of those bigger companies would kill to have Apples margins. 

Chris Byrne