GrumpyOldGuy:
Ok guys, I really don't want to get into a hot and heavy PC vs Apple debate, this is not the place and I don't have the interest. Maybe the new Mac's are everything for everyone and we will all convert in the next few years. Forgive me if I am skeptical, I have been hearing this for 20+ years. They still have less than 3% of the market share, so something does not add up.
Apple's objective has historically been to focus on the higher-end creative / film / graphics sector with higher margins and lower sales. Wintel machines have always been about volume and razor thin margins. The insinuation that something "does not add up" because of apple's market share does not jive with Apple's quarterly earnings for the last few years.
Now, obviously I'm an apple fanboy... but:
Historically, it is a case of path dependence and lock-in, as well as a conscious choice for Apple to appeal to a high-end market share up until recently. When Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to run on ANY x86 compatible processor, they basically licensed the ability to manufacture the hardware. No monopoly on the hardware meant that the hardware was cheaper, and therefore business and government bought x86 / dos at a much greater rate than apple machines with motorola's chips. It is analogous to the VHS vs. Betamax war.
Had apple licensed the ability to make hardware and made the decision to go with x86 as opposed to motorola earlier in the life cycle, Macs would have a much larger market share with smaller margins. For a brief time, Apple licensed the ability to make mac-compatible hardware, but by then the PC architecture had really become locked-in.
Now that apple is on the x86 platform, their market share has grown more than a little bit:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/10/19/marketshare/index.php
(admittiedly the article is from macworld, but as long as you understand that all media have bias, take it for what you will.)
Also keep in mind that when people go to an apple store and buy an iPod or other device, they generally get a chance to play with OS-X and like it. I can't find the article right now, but there was a story recently about apple's market share in the computer market being helped a lot by bounce traffic from iPod sales in the stores.
Up until the iMac, the last real attempt to build a low-end mac was the powermac 5300-ish series - absolute garbage. I personally agree that the price of a Mac Pro quad is about $500-600 too high, but because of the x86 architecture, I'm building myself one out of PC parts and paying apple strictly for OS-X. However, Apple's business model has and will be to sell high end, high quality products to an almost evangelically fanatical user base. It seems to work for them, and every time I go to a PC user's home to fix yet another hijacked zombie machine, I remember the old axiom:
There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.
- John Ruskin
Except of course that a copy of XP or Vista costs more than a copy of OS-X.
