Will apple ever have larger market share than microsoft?

[Melrose]

Nope, not until major organizations adopt different technology ... ie: move away from MS. And fact is, many servers are MS servers and they're very efficient.

MS has done well in the business market. Imagine if MS Servers were as unstable as Vista.

Apple won't come close to Microsoft for many a year yet to come. I'm glad actually, it means Apple will work harder to keep up.

 

[LethalWolfe]

But it wasn't because they licensed their OS. They were in bad financial shape before then. Currently they are in great financial shape and have more than just the Mac as a revenue stream. Since they have iPods and iPhones and possibly new iTablets they have greater flexibility.

The clones made a bad situation worse for Apple which is the reason they killed it off as quickly as they could.

I think they should have the balls to license OSX and let "the Mac experience" sell itself. If Apple's hardware truly is superior, and Macs really provide a "smooth integration of software and hardware" then people will still buy Mac because they are worth the extra, right? Or are they afraid to discover that people only buy Macs for OSX and are secretly dying for more powerful/cheaper hardware?

Or Apple just has higher standards for itself and the user experience it wants to create. Buy a Mac, buy an iPhone, buy TV, sign-up for MobileMe, etc... Apple isn't trying to sell products they are trying to sell a lifestyle. This seems to confuse people but Apple isn't interested in selling the cheapest products it can to the widest audience it can. Apple is a very healthy company w/a solid business model so why would they change to a business model that has been unsuccessful for them in the past and continues to be unsuccessful for most other computer makers not named Dell? IBM, the company that used to dominate the PC market got out of it completely because they couldn't compete w/the "race to the bottom". If Apple licensed OS X they'd have to raise their software prices (which are basically loss leaders) and their low cost, high quality first party Apps are a big feather in their cap.

Also, Apple knows that people, by and large, are cheap and lazy. Low-fi MP3s are more popular than SACDs or DVD-As. YouTube has all the buzz as broadcast/cable TV struggles to find itself in a changing market place. BitTorrent can be a crap shoot yet the rental store down the street is closing up shop. Speaking in generalities, quality is not at the top of the list for most people.


Lethal

 

[pdjudd]

My point is that Microsoft isn't some Godly invulnerable company. I agree what you listed are some strong reasons why they are so dominant, but the main reason they are is because there aren't any serious competitors.

Which is true. However I fail to see why you brought that up in the first place when I was addressing a different issue. Apple's decisions on how they sell their OS are not the same thing as addressing Microsoft's dominance - they are two separate issues. Yes, they lead to discussions of market share, but my replay was about business choices, not market share or dominance by Microsoft.

I don't question that Microsoft lacks serious competition given their dominance. I was addressing the question "why doesn't Apple sell their OS like Microsoft does" where your question was addressing a "why is Microsoft so successful and why can't Apple be that".

Market share arguments are different from simple business models. The question of market share dominance may involve business decisions, but they can also be because of other factors. Microsoft got lucky due to a market fluke ensureing that nobody can compete using the same business strategy. Apple knows that. Apple's business strategy though is not about market share and there's where my confusion lies. Who cares why Microsoft is dominant? Apple isn;t interested in a pure market race. Their strategy is elsewhere.

 

[kate-willbury]

The clones made a bad situation worse for Apple which is the reason they killed it off as quickly as they could.


Or Apple just has higher standards for itself and the user experience it wants to create. Buy a Mac, buy an iPhone, buy TV, sign-up for MobileMe, etc... Apple isn't trying to sell products they are trying to sell a lifestyle. This seems to confuse people but Apple isn't interested in selling the cheapest products it can to the widest audience it can. Apple is a very healthy company w/a solid business model so why would they change to a business model that has been unsuccessful for them in the past and continues to be unsuccessful for most other computer makers not named Dell? IBM, the company that used to dominate the PC market got out of it completely because they couldn't compete w/the "race to the bottom". If Apple licensed OS X they'd have to raise their software prices (which are basically loss leaders) and their low cost, high quality first party Apps are a big feather in their cap.

Also, Apple knows that people, by and large, are cheap and lazy. Low-fi MP3s are more popular than SACDs or DVD-As. YouTube has all the buzz as broadcast/cable TV struggles to find itself in a changing market place. BitTorrent can be a crap shoot yet the rental store down the street is closing up shop. Speaking in generalities, quality is not at the top of the list for most people.


Lethal

lol successful business model? if the ipod had never come around, apple would have died out years ago.