Mac OS Share rises to 33% share in '97.
via MacOS Rumors via USA Today.
>The Mac OS makes market share inroads in 1997
Often, when journalists talk about "market
share," the mistake "sales share" with
"installed user base share," making their
varying reports of Apple's situation confusing
and misleading. While "sales share" of new
Mac systems is currently just under 9% of
the market, Apple still retains well over 20%
of the Installed User Base (IUB) of all
personal computers. For once, however,
statistics presented about Apple's market
share, specifically in how large a percentage
of OS sales the Mac OS accounted for this
year, USA Today appears to have presented
them in an accurate and fair manner
(although still with a couple of possible
innacuracies, including a lack of statistics for
WindowsNT), as one reader notes:
In case you haven't seen it yet,
[yesterday's] USAToday Money section
"Snapshot" (the graph that appears in the
bottom left of every cover page) has the
headline "Apple takes a bite": Third quarter
sales of MacOS 8 increased Apple's U.S.
market share for operating systems sharply
from the same period last year. Third-
quarter share of systems sold:
OS '96 '97
Win 95: 77% 63%
MacOS: 5% 33%
DOS: 10% 2%
Win 3.1: 7% 2%
OS/2: 2% <1%
While this doesn't tell the whole story (Mac
OS8 is a new operating system, while
Windows '95 has been out for a while), it's
great to see some positive factual
information in a national newspaper like this.
It is indeed; it really drives the point home
that it's ridiculous when people dismiss the
Mac offhand because it isn't the "biggest";
since when is 33% of new product sales
indicative of a product that's no longer
viable? Doom-and-gloomers, eat your hearts
out! =)<
-----------------
This appeared in OS Rumors today and I
thought it was worth re-posting.
Also, IMO, I think the judge's order today
banning MSFT from mandating Explorer is
very important. OS control is critical to MSFT
*if* they can leverage that dominance into
app sales. If they can't it's a drain.
This creates a situation where a cross/open
platform (convergence) paradigm makes
sense. Ie; Macs running '95/NT apps/
Pentiums running Mac apps.
soup |
