Article:		Developer Notes from WWDC 2003
Subject:		About the masses
Date:		2003-06-25 10:17:22
From:		anonymous2
Response to: About the masses
"Also, it seems this week belongs to Apple." That's funny. I think I'd rephrase it more like... It seems this week belongs to Apple's skewed benchmarking fiasco. :P It's also great (not a reply to this comment) that this article tries to take the "Apple can't get enough market share / switch ads aren't working" and turn it into "Apple likes having a 5% market share, it shows they're making computers that the masses aren't ready for". That's a great attitude. :) Just like the benchmarks.... if you can't beat em, change the goal. :D

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• About the masses
  2003-06-25 19:33:34  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  I do not think that it is accurate to call Apple's benchmarking "skewed", and in no legitimate way could it be called a "fiasco".
  
  I remind you that these benchmarks were conducted by a third party testing facility, not be Apple itself. Did Apple "rig the deck" by using the GCC compiler? I don't know. Perhaps a little. But if you bothered to watch Job's presentation you would have seen that these benchmarks only made up part of the comparison. They also showed the dual G5 running against a dual Xeon in numerous real-world apps.
  
  And no, not just Photoshop. The also did music software, a 3D app, Mathmatica, and a couple of others. In every single instance the dual G5 bested the dual Dell Xeon by anywhere from 2.1 to 2.3 times. This is not a small difference.
  
  Also note that Jobs was very open about the fact that SINGLE chip G5's were NOT necessarily faster than top of the line P4's or Xeon's, although the G5 had better Floating Point numbers even there.
  
  Will these tests hold up once numerous third-party organizations get their hands on it in August? We'll see. I think it's worth noting that company officers of all the software above were present at the WWDC and all stated that they were blown away by the G5. A couple of them in fact said that they had never seen anything like it, and the CEO of Mathmatica said that the only real compeition for the G5 was now high-end Unix boxes which cost twice as much or more.
  
  In no way, shape or form can this objectively be called a "fiasco".
  
  As for market share, this is a horse that has been beaten to death and then some. Listen, no computer maker has more than about 18% market share (give or take), and only Dell and HP are even in double digits. The problem is that no one ever compares Apple to Dell or HP; they compare Apple to the entire Wintel world.
  
  Apple is the fifth (or sixth) largest computer maker in the world. The have over 4 billion dollars in the bank, no real debt, and stock that has risen over 30% in the last three months.
  
  I guarantee you that most PC makers that would give their left one for numbers like that. Do you think that Dell or HP give a hoot about how much share PC's have compared to Apple? Dell cares about one thing: how many computers Dell sales. Likewise, Apple only cares (and only has to care) about how many computers Apple sales.
  
  Apple does not need to dominate the market. Apple does not need to have even 20% of the market. With it's present business model and 5%-10% of the market Apple will remain a very stable, very profitable company long after many "dominant" PC makers take a dirt nap.
  
  As for whether or not the "masses get Apple"; yes statements like this do come off a bit snobish. But they are true nevertheless. Listen, for most people a computer is simply another appliance. The number of people who really care about the nature of that appliance is probably roughly equal to the number of people who really care about high-end audio equipment. Most people just want to listen to the radio.
  
  There's nothing wrong with this. For most people a low-end $500 PC is probably all that they really need, and there's nothing wrong with PC manufacturers meeting that need.
  
  Apple has no interest in this cheap-PC market, and there's also nothing wrong with that. Apple wants to make computers a certain way, with a certain operating system, and a certain type of approach/attitude.
  
  Despite the near constant proclamations of Apple's demise, millions of customers continue to purchase Apple hardware and software all of the time. Apple has the highest (by far) customer loyalty in the market, is arguably the most innovative computer company in the market today, and is making tons of money.
  
  Don't kid yourself...Apple is doing just fine.