Rocksaurus said:
You can boot Windows/Virtualize it, no need to rebuy! Get used to the Mac, fall in love with it, cave and rebuy software.
If your switchers aren't using OS X, what's the point? If they choose to switch back to Windows after buying their first Mac, then there goes your OS X development and Apple transforms into just another Windows OEM.
Oh, so businesses and personal users who needed compatibility and saw that all their partners, competitors, co-workers, friends and family etc. were using Windows, which was incompatible with Mac decided to buy Windows for... It's look and feel? I'm glad you covered your bases - there IS nothing wrong with being wrong!
You're using the most lopsided arguments in the world! You said that OS X would gain market share the same way Windows did--and here you're saying that that method is that people will need OS X because everyone else will be running it? That's not how OS X is going to increase its market share. Furthermore, Windows market share only grew in the method you described once it had PASSED the 50% mark, which OS X is nowhere near. Believe it or not, people did CHOOSE Windows over MacOS when they bought their first computers (and had no compatibility worries as first-time buyers).
The boxes we're talking about are for web browsing and e-mail only. Apple will still offer the same high quality, high priced options they do now! It would be silly to leave that market!
Not to mention, why would everyone jump ship if their computers were devalued (which they wouldn't be if they owned the high-end models)?
Wow. The low-priced boxes would have the same specs and performance as year-old Macs. No one's "high priced option" would be worth anything a year out, because a NEW "low end" box with similar specs would be available for $300, making their $1200 computer worthless and their $2000 computer worth at best a few hundred bucks. Apples would come to have the same value as other PCs a year out.
Why would you jump ship when your resale value is low? That doesn't seem very logical.
Because lots of people only stick with higher-priced Mac hardware because they know they can sell their older Macs to reduce the financial impact of buying a new Mac. If they can't do that, they might as well (and will) just buy PCs.
Why do Windows users have a plethora of applications and games? Because of Windows' outstanding functionality? I argue that choice in software is a good thing, and without economic incentive (aka marketshare) where's the incentive to develop for Mac?
Believe it or not, yes, people develop for Windows because of its practicality (there is a lot of documentation, lots of prepared API libraries, lots of flexibility in design standards) and because it's what they themselves use (think of how much more free software is available for Windows--they're not doing it for the money, they're doing it for other reasons. Market share is NOT economic incentive at small levels. Even if Apple triples its market share in the next five years, it won't be providing the necessary incentives and cost recovery paths for middle-size software firms. These companies can't afford to do things twice unless the market share is relatively close to 50/50. 80/20 isn't going to do it--and that's far, far, far off for Apple.
And what's with QC and compatibility problems?
The more hardware they have to support and develop for, the greater the workload on their programmers. Part of the reason that Apple only makes a few systems is because they can focus on software support for that narrow range. Obviously, increasing the number of hardware systems makes for greater complexity and stretches Apple more thinly (over-reaching...).
Plenty of people here would jump ship. The ones who need high resale values to continue their upgrade plans would likely go, the ones who were upset about Apple's catering to the low end would go, and if Apple doubled the number of $300 Mac switchers (because of the aesthetic look of the machine), Apple would find that many, if not most, of them were buying the low-end Macs to run Windows, which does absolutely nothing for OS X market share.
The loss of part of the OS X upper market and the growth in the Windows-using low-end Mac market wouldn't produce a hugely beneficial net effect for Apple--in fact, it would force them to choose between catering to the larger low-end customer base or sticking to its guns and preferring their high end core customers. If it alienates the cheap customers, that sales increase is just temporary and Apple eventually settles right back where it is now, and if it alienates the high end, that's a slippery slope to Apple becoming a miniature version of Dell and ruining its image.
