The latest PC sales reports from Gartner Group and IDC find that the recent spate of very cheap Windows personal computers may have slowed sales of the Apple line of computers during the last quarter of 2009.
Retailers around the nation have reported brisk Thanksgiving Weekend sales largely on the back steep discounts and heavy promotion. However, our favorite countercyclical fruit company apparently has done very well indeed without heavy advertising or deep price cutting.
Parents arguing in public “” it’s just embarrassing and it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for their kids. In this case, it’s the word of a corporate sales guy who made an off-the-cuff remark about Windows 7′s origins and the operating system’s designers now saying those remarks were “inaccurate and uniformed.”
You’ve really gotta give Apple and its marketing people credit for always being on message and keeping tight control of what’s said “” you just don’t hear faux pas like this from them. Granted, they get caught lying from time to time, but never plumping other companies’ products, especially not Microsoft’s.
Geez Louise this has gotta sting and more than a little. To date, two of the more prominent Web metrics firms have pegged Microsoft’s operating system launch somewhere between good for Apple and the Mac, to better than Vista. So much for a holiday home run for Redmond this Christmas shopping season.
The good news for Microsoft over the last week or so is that Windows 7 has seen its share of Web traffic rise by nearly three-quarters from just under 2 percent to around 3.5 percent. The bad news is that the company, at least by this same overall measure, is still losing market share to Apple and its category defining Mac OS X.
And they went ahead and did it anyway. At least three hours after new product hit the streets on Tuesday morning, the company has “” better late than never “” released updated iMacs, MacBooks, Mac minis (including a server edition, baby!) and a multi-touch mouse.
The world beyond the 1 Infinite Loop woke this morning with visions of ultra-thin iMacs dancing in their heads, but Apple has left us guessing once again. Thereupon, with Microsoft to set begin its Vista SP4 Windows 7 assault, Steve Jobs and his merry band of deviants have already disrupted Redmond’s best laid plans by doing nothing.
Of course the Windows fan boys will whimper and whinge that one or another aspect of these tests aren’t “fair” or otherwise inaccurate. Nevertheless, this is just the latest in a string of many comparisons, going back over four or five years that show the Mac is just plain faster, better and longer lasting.
It’s earnings season and evident joy is emanating from 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California. Moreover, the stars and planets are aligning to both humiliate Microsoft on the eve of the Windows 7 launch and deliver another stunning holiday quarter for the Mac, iPod and iPhone maker.
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