Linux now surpasses Mac OS in terms of market-share...

Doesn't mean anything major really? A good thing? Well... I think it's quite a sad day for Apple to see their market share at 1.8% while linux is taking over the sweet spot of being the growing one... Sad, sad, sad...
 
LINUX has many flavours. The UNIX world is a world with many variations, a world where many systems live side-by-side. A world without monopoly. Like the automotive market ! Isn't that what we want ?

I don't want MacOS to have a monopoly "à la" Microsoft. I want a world with many different systems that live together, many different office packages, many different web browsers,... and much more difficult for viruses to attack.
 
fryke said:
Well... I think it's quite a sad day for Apple to see their market share at 1.8%...
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Where did you see that figure? Last I checked, total PC sales had been holding steady and Apple had better year over year unit sales (which is really all that market share actually is). For Apple to drop to 1.8%, total PC sales would need to more than double.

As pointed out in another thread on this subject, Linux is fighting with Windows for the same number of PC hardware units sold... not Apple hardware. Linux going up can only take Windows down... which doesn't effect Apple, And with people accepting Linux, they would be open to the idea of Apple more than if they were only thinking of Windows. The real barrier is thinking in terms of alternatives at all, this moves people past it.

I have often said that there really should be four or five major operating systems. As long as Apple produces one of them, what do I care what the others are... as long as Windows is knocked down below 50% market share.
 
Here's a comment I made on OSNews. I'll just copy it over, as it sums up what I have to say(not like it matters) about the issue.

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Market share doesn't really mean anything. While Linux is may have a larger marketshare/user base, how many Linux users actually *pay* for their software?

I've had a Linux box as my primary machine for 3 years, and I never actually paid for any software. The whole selling point of Linux is that it is cheap, you get software for free (with source code).

When I moved to OS X in 2003, I actually bought software. I bought games, applications like MS Office, REALBasic, and the like.

The point I'm trying to make is that the Linux users mentality is vastly different from that of OS X users. With Linux, users generally expect to get things for free, or they would demand that software be Open Source[1], and some even feel 'deep seated guilt' for not using Open Source software[2]. While they do not necessarily reflect the attitude of *all* Linux users, you can bet that's the reason quite a lot of people go to Linux.

OS X users, accustomed to being gutted by Apple prices, have no qualms about paying for software :)

With tools like Qt and Java, developers can actually target more than just 1 platform so this isn't really that much of an issue anyway.

[1] http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6007
[2] http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5832
 
RacerX: "According to Gartner's preliminary market-share data, Apple held just 1.8% of the worldwide PC market in the fourth quarter of 2003." (from osNews: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5802 ... They link to this http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2004/tc20040126_9608_tc055.htm BusinessWeek article, where it says: "According to Gartner's preliminary market-share data, Apple held just 1.8% of the worldwide PC market in the fourth quarter of 2003. And some think Apple's share will fall further, if it can't keep pace with surging overall PC demand. Salomon Smith Barney analyst Rich Gardner expects Apple to post PC unit growth of 6% in 2004 this year, vs. 11% for the entire PC industry. One reason is price. Gardner says the average price of a Mac is $900, although half of PC buyers now spend less than $600.")

I don't say their numbers are more correct than anything else, I just post this because you've asked where I had the number from. I guess we'll here more when the overtaking of linux is actually news and not a rumoured future announcement.

And now for something different: I think it's _great_ that linux makes progress fighting Windows. I'm all for linux' success and hope that it'll take even more from the cake. However, I'd love Apple to turn around the falling market share. The Mac once had 10% in its golden days. It went down to 5% before Steve Jobs came back. And the astonishing thing for a Steve Jobs loving Mac fan: It went _further_ down in the time since Steve's been back. And while the marketing (as well as the products) has been good ever since "The second coming of Steve Jobs", the turnaround of market share numbers has not been visible in actual numbers. Steve one said publicly that Apple has 5% and goes for the other 95%. But the truth is: Apple & Linux _together_ have about 5% and linux is growing while Apple is shrinking (yes, I'm only talking market share, and whether that's important at all is another discussion).

How long will Steve Jobs be able to say things like "stop talking about market share, it's not important"? Apple's history of late sounds good if you look at Apple separately. But if you look at 'the market', it doesn't. The iPod's success is very, very good for Apple, but it hasn't turned around the Mac's fall in market share.
 
I think as Mac users, we are going to have to let the Market Share thing die. For our own sanity, if nothing else. Macs are simply not ever gong to show considerable market share. For all the obvious reasons...price, familiarity, big corporations not willing to replace hundreds of PCs with Macs, so-called lack of software (not true, but perceived to be), performance perceptions and realities, etc.

I think what is important is that there are a few millions of us who are die-hards. That's enough numerically to sustain Apple, as we have shown for many years now. I don't have numbers, but I've got to believe that the actual number of Mac users is higher than ever. Percentage-wise, obviously not, but so what?

Unfortunately for Steve, he's kind of put himself in a corner since he is on record as having market share goals, which are now looking to be unattainable.

It kind of anoys me that Linux has passed in market share, but what do we expect when the OS is essentially free and can be run on $100 hardware? Now if the big apps go Linux, then I'll be nervous.
 
I have two copies of Linux, bought and paid for, sitting my shelf. I also have a Windows laptop...almost never in use...an old HP Pavillion PC...scrapped in the basement...and an iBook on which I compose this post.
 
Well, it helps if we stick to one measurement or another and not bounce back and forth. When the article talks about Linux over taking Apple at 3.2%, that is in US market share where Apple is reported to be at 3.2% also.

Apple's figures for their US market share are at about 5% which is what Jobs refers to.

It went down to 5% before Steve Jobs came back.
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According to what numbers? World wide or US? Apple's unit sales increased every year until 2001 as I recall, and then stayed stagnant until 2003 when things started picking up again (for the computer industry as a whole).

Apple is one of only a few companies in the tech sector that was hurt the least during the tech recession.

And the astonishing thing for a Steve Jobs loving Mac fan: It went _further_ down in the time since Steve's been back.
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Between 1997 and 2000 there was a greater increase in the total numbers of PCs sold than Apple increased their total sales over the same period. The total unit sales of both Apple and the PC market in general have been stagnant (at least in the US) since 2001. Apple sells more units today than at any other point in it's history... unfortunately more PCs are being sold today than at any point in history also.

I would point out that things could have been worse. Gateway, which was trading at $85US in 2000 is today at about $4.5US (up from a low of around $2US a year ago). They pulled out of the Asia market in 2001 (which includes Japan and Australia) and then out of the European market in 2002. Apple dropped from about $65US in 2000 to a low of about $13US and was as high as $24US this week. And Apple hasn't pulled out of any markets during the last 4 years.

And as has been pointed out, Linux isn't one operating system any more than Unix (System V) or BSD are. Like I said before, four or five operating systems would be nice... Linux is made up of more than that. And like with Unix, not all Linux distros are the same, and not all software can run on all distros (specially if it is commercially made software without source code). The Mac OS is still more widely used than all Linux and Unix versions combined (last estimates I read had total Apple systems at around 10% of world wide systems in use), mainly because of a longer life span than other hardware (PC are made to be replaced every 18 to 24 months, most Mac users keep their system from 3 to 5 years).

I for one find market share data to be hard to justify. First, it is totally based on what system are being sold, not used. Second, it completely disregards people who buy a PC and then remove what ever came on it (replacing it with something else). I, for one, haven't been counted as part of Apple's market share since fourth quarter 2000... and I currently own 11 Apple computers.

I would think more research would put your fears to rest (or at least keep them at bay). Apple is a healthy company, the platform is easier to make software for than Linux (no matter what the market share) and will stay that way until some distro like Red Hat passes the Mac OS (not likely to happen as Red Hat has been pulling back from the desktop market lately).
 
Thanks, RacerX. I needed that. :)

But one thing should be considered. However many linux distros there are, that's part of a distribution concept that just is wholly different from MS' or Apple's. Linux is still linux - just with many, many customisations. ;-) Of course 'sales' is a bad term if you want to compare to linux, as most linux installations have probably never been sold or paid for.
 
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