Microsoft, Apple and Market Share

This time the story is hardly the one you would expect.

Mac sales growth continues to surge ahead of PCs 3 to 1:

The single biggest jump in sales has come from the business market, which is up by 66.3%. Among large and very large businesses, sales spiked 146% and 202% respectively, which is an excellent sign for Apple. Those large businesses tend to be controlled by large IT departments, which are typically very conservative when it comes to computer system upgrades and replacements. The popularity of iOS devices among executives and the more tech savvy is probably playing a big part in convincing these companies to take another look at Apple on the desktop.”

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Wow!  Of course, Apple has had a lot of room to grow in terms of the business market, but at this economic time?  That is pretty remarkable.

Apple is right to stay out of the high-end server market if the results keep coming in like this.  They want to sell metal not software so this strategy of strong user centricity is clearly working.  As long as the Mac can play nice in “corporate environments,” i.e. Windows environments, it can compete well.  Microsoft has recognized this by finally, after nearly a decade, opting to bring full Outlook back the Mac version of Office.  With the recent rehabilitation of Excel, Microsoft is still in a position to print money from it’s cash cow (to mix metaphors): Microsoft Office and it’s attendant servers.  Yes, Windows on the client end suffers a bit of market share loss, but Microsoft keep the servers and basic corporate technology on their platform.  And while Microsoft is doing its level best to answer the iOS, the trend right now suggests we should expect to see “Pocket” versions of the Office apps in the not too distant future.

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