I got a comment from Leigh ---
Now this whole thing reflects the misbegotten dogma of the Enderles and Dvoraks of the world that Macs are somehow "Simple Computers" for "non-computer people".
And while it's true to a degree that the Macs user friendlyness and intuitive user interface certainly make them accessible to non-technical audience, I would assert that this is no longer the Mac's high growth market.
Indeedy. There's more to the comment, and it's worth a read. But just to build on that part...
The last people to figure out that the trick to competing with Mac is to build something world class – Dell, HP. et al, – are going to continue to try to compete by building boxes that cosmetically look like Macs, without ever figuring out the real problem they're up against until it's WAY too late.
Steve Jobs has at least three things going for him:
1. Apple controls the whole widget, hence the entire user experience: hardware, software, interface – everything. Apple can innovate hardware and software in a completely integrated way, all in house, all at once. For just that reason, nobody in the computer industry is as flexible as Apple.
2. Apple takes great care to ensure that the total user experience is as free of problems as possible. Apple tries to polish every possible boo-boo out of every product before it goes home with Joe Consumer.
3. Nobody else understands the value of the first two advantages; even if they did there isn't much they can do about it. They have to rush their new products out the door to keep the shareholders happy. The more Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo and such hurry to catch Apple, the farther behind they'll get.
The (non-Mac) tech press is just now catching on. Apple has a ten-year head start; the last seven with OS X.
I'm not a real geek, but I know real geeks like Unix. Apple is going to continue to gain market share because geeks like Unix. And eventually, the computer market will follow the geeks. Geek likes Mac. Boss hired geek because geek is smart about computers. Boss buys Mac for home. Boss's wife likes Mac. Boss orders Macs for office. Other employees like Macs. And so it goes.
Non-geeks are already buying Macs because OS X doesn't need a geek. Linux still needs at least a nerd, although I've heard that's changing. Still, though Linux probably won't go away for servers, it's never going to be a mass-market OS of any significance. It comes in too many flavors, and requires too much computer savvy to be useable by Joe Schoolbusdriver.
As the momentum builds, Apple's market share will grow faster each quarter.
That will leave the Windows Box makers stuck with an ever narrower market segment: The low end users and the government. Of course, since the Government has many transactions with business; eventually Windoze will lose that too.
His Steveness is keenly aware of his advantage. If you pay close attention it's like watching the end of a fight scene in a movie. The guy who is going to win is pacing around his opponent who's lying on the floor bleeding. Every once in a while the loser twitches and the winner kicks him in the ribs. The latest kick in the ribs was last Tuesday.
Tea time.
