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Mac OS-X / Vista Gain Share

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by TimBikes, Jul 14, 2008.

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  1. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    "Net Applications reports that the Mac had 7.94% market share in June, up from 6.03% a year ago." That's pretty impressive 130%+ growth.

    Vista did even better, "In June, 2007, it had 4.54% market share. In June, 2008, it had reached 16.14% --- more than a 355% gain."

    As a mostly XP user I've been using Vista for months now and have to say I'm quite pleased. All of the "issues" critics are talking about seem ridiculously overblown. My XP machine is starting to feel a bit dated by comparison.

    The Macs are nice, but in my case there was a 70% price premium for a comparably configured MacBook pro vs. my Vista laptop. Just didn't seem worth it for me. Seems that the bulk of the marketplace agrees.
     
    #1 TimBikes, Jul 14, 2008
  2. mingoglia

    mingoglia Member

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    I'd say that's not really an apple to apple comparison (pun not intended). Those with Mac's of course use a version of the Mac OS. Those with a PC mostly use Windows (the exception are those running an OS such as Linux, FreeBSD, etc). To say that the market share increased 355% for Vista just means that folks are buying new PC's that are loaded with Vista instead of XP.... just as people that buy a new Mac are going to be running OSX, rather than say 9.x....
     
    #2 mingoglia, Jul 14, 2008
  3. Fibb222

    Fibb222 New Member

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    As with climate change, your interpretation seems a little odd, no offence.

    A jump from 6 to 8% is not 130% it's 33%.

    Also, as of June, XP is no longer available but is on 90% of PCs. So of course Vista's market share is going to jump more quickly than OS X's. No surprise there. Doesn't mean that Macs aren't great.

    But you're right about the added expense of Macs and issues with Vista being overblown.
     
    #3 Fibb222, Jul 14, 2008
  4. Godiva

    Godiva AmeriKan Citizen

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    So. Is the increase in Mac OSX due to people switching from windoze to mac because they can't stand Vista?
     
    #4 Godiva, Jul 14, 2008
  5. tleonhar

    tleonhar Senior Member

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    For my $.02 worth, (in the PC world) I think it's a combination of new machines coming with Vista and people are starting to find out that it (Vista) is not the big evil monster that many have portrayed. I have been running it for about four months now and am quite pleased with it.
     
    #5 tleonhar, Jul 14, 2008
  6. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    You're right...doh! I stand corrected! 33%. Actually, "almost 32%", per the article.

    Seems the article author made the error too - picked up by an astute commentator in the comments that followed the article:

    "... going from 4.54 to 16.14 is an increase of 255% (actually slightly closer to
    256%), not 355%. Yes, 16.14 is 3.555 times 4.54 but that's not the
    same as a 355% increase.
    That's a frustratingly common mistake and a professional writer should
    know better."

    Good thing I'm not a professional writer! ;)

    Regardless, a simple math error hardly disqualifies my position on climate change. If it did, the AGW cheerleaders such as Hansen at NASA, would really be in trouble... no offense.
     
    #6 TimBikes, Jul 14, 2008
  7. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    Since Vista's only been out about 18 months, I doubt many people have bought both a Vista machine and then a Mac in that timeframe.

    I suspect there are some XP -> Mac switchers who contemplated Vista but got scared off by bad press and good, albeit inaccurate marketing from Apple's Mac / Windows guy campaign. But probably relatively few Vista->Mac switchers.

    But it's really hard to say much beyond that without better understanding the survey methodology. Here's the link.
     
    #7 TimBikes, Jul 14, 2008
  8. Danny Hamilton

    Danny Hamilton Active Member

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    Vista is an Operating System, Mac is a whole lot more. The comparison doesn't hold up.

    If you are going to compare market share, compare Vista to Leopard, not to Mac.

    If you want to compare to the entire Mac family of operating systems, then you need to compare Microsoft's market share, not just Vista. As Vista Market share rises, XP, 2000, ME, 98, etc, all plummet.

    The question is: Does the increase in Vista market share keep up with the loss in the rest of the Microsoft operating systems. Unless Linux is dropping off Market share significantly, the math doesn't work out. The increase in Mac market share has to come from somewhere. I'll bet dimes to dollars it's coming from Microsoft.
     
    #8 Danny Hamilton, Jul 14, 2008
  9. Danny Hamilton

    Danny Hamilton Active Member

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    Been a Microsoft user since MS DOS in the late 80's. Finally got over my fear and bought my first ever Mac a month ago after dealing with Vista for a bit more than 6 months. Mark me down in the Vista->Mac switcher list.
     
    #9 Danny Hamilton, Jul 14, 2008
  10. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    I agree the comparison is not perfect and there will always be a flaw in some way. But to your point if you want to compare Vista to Leopard: MS has sold well over 100 million Vista licenses and Mac maybe what, 2 or 3 million of Leopard. Mac seems like a good OS, but it is getting smoked by Vista.

    Sorry if you've had a bad Vista experience. Mine has been very positive. And last time I used a Mac (4 months ago), I frankly thought it sucked. But hey, Mac definitely has its merits, so YMMV.
     
    #10 TimBikes, Jul 14, 2008
  11. rfruth

    rfruth Member

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    in order of bang-for-the-buck

    1. gnu / Linux
    2. Leopard / Tiger
    3. XP / Vista


    Can you guess what my daily driver is ? (Ubuntu)
     
    #11 rfruth, Jul 14, 2008
  12. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    I've been using Vista since beta, over 2 years ago. If you upgrade, you're selling yourself short. You simply won't get the same experience as what the latest & greatest hardware can take advantage of.

    Having to use XP at work, I can tell you there's a night & day difference with Vista at home. Once you grow familar with Vista, you'll be frustrated having to still deal with XP. The improvements definitely prove their worth over time.

    .
     
    #12 john1701a, Jul 14, 2008
  13. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    And people say I have a one track mind. Haven't we got enough climate change threads already?
     
    #13 hyo silver, Jul 14, 2008
  14. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    If you re-read the comment from Fibb222, you will see it read "As with climate change, your interpretation seems a little odd, no offence." So I was simply replying to that off-thread comment. It was never my intent to start a thread on climate change here.

    Just trying to start a discussion on Mac and Windows. :)
     
    #14 TimBikes, Jul 14, 2008
  15. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    Yeah, that's likely to be acrimonious enough by itself. ;)
     
    #15 hyo silver, Jul 14, 2008
  16. Sheepdog

    Sheepdog C'Mere Sheepie!

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    Ok you closet dwellers. I will say it!

    Mac Leopard rules! iMac rules! MicroSoft sux!!!

    " GOT BlueScreen?"
     
    #16 Sheepdog, Jul 14, 2008
  17. rfruth

    rfruth Member

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    #17 rfruth, Jul 14, 2008
  18. tleonhar

    tleonhar Senior Member

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    Nope, no bluescreen, I use Vista :fish: And I can upgrade any of my hardware whenever I want, do it myself, no need to take to a shop.

    Agree with you there, when I went to Vista, I upgraded my hardware as well, I had an old P4 based machine. So I opted for a
    quad core pentium on a new Gigabyte motherboard, kept my same case & optical drives, plan to slap in a blue-ray drive as soon as the price comes down a little :)
     
    #18 tleonhar, Jul 14, 2008
  19. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    I know...I figured the most interesting threads are those that are acrimonious! :D
     
    #19 TimBikes, Jul 15, 2008
  20. Fibb222

    Fibb222 New Member

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    I didn't say that your math error disqualified your position on climate change. I was saying that your logic/interpretation (again) doesn't seem sound. Your comparison of the Vista and Mac market share increases, and conclusion that the "marketplace" has spoken i.e. that Vista is trumping Mac, doesn't make sense to me.

    Vista has a huge advantage in that it's predecessor, XP, is almost ubiquitous and therefore it's market share gain is of course going to be much larger than leopard's. If both OSs had no predecessors, ran on the exact same equipment, and started off with zero market share then the comparison would be valid. Would Vista win? Maybe not, not at home anyway. Although I use it and like it fine.
     
    #20 Fibb222, Jul 15, 2008
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