Does The Mac’s Market Share Really Matter Anymore?

Yet another New York Times article on the sad state of the Mac’s market share hit the news stands.

Sadly, the Times has become the Grit of important news sources. Big circulation outside, mostly fluff inside. How much longer before they pay people to read it?

The latest installment of poor argumentation disguised as an article comes from Randall Stross, and his piece “A Window of Opportunity for Macs, Soon to Close.”

Stross regurgitates the myth and misconceptions that average people have about the Mac, about Windows, and the importance of market share.

For example, Stross writes to the average everyday PC user looking for a replacement PC and says the “choices are grim.” Windows Vista or Windows XP. Oh, yes. There’s the Mac but if you want to test drive a Mac you’ll have to look far and wide for a store that sells Macs.

Uh, except that for most people in the US, the Mac is available at Apple Stores, Best Buy stores, CompUSA stores, and many others. Apple even claims that about 85-percent of all US residents are within an hour of an Apple Store. That’s a lot of people. Maybe Stross was thinking of someone else.

“The Mac’s presence in the retail world remains limited,” Stross writes. He then quotes the tired line of worldwide market share of around 3 percent, though in the US, it’s over 6-percent and growing rapidly, and among notebook users, the average Joe PC buyer, it’s nearly 20-percent. Limited? Yes. But substantial. Name four PC makers who sell more PCs. Now name 3 PC makers who make more profit than Apple.

These sad little articles from sad little people make me sad—until I realize that I’m using a Mac. Stross says Apple CEO Steve Jobs can’t be satisfied with a 3-percent worldwide market share after selling Macs for over 20 years.

Except that Jobs has only been selling Macs for about half that time. And the Mac’s market share has tripled in the US since Jobs’ return in 1997. Stross forgot that.

It’s very difficult to compare and contrast Apples to apples when you’re writing an entertaining hit piece, so often the bulk of the Sunday fish wrapper once known as the New York Times. Stross’ focus is market share, market share, more market share, and how Apple isn’t taking advantage of Microsoft’s stumbling and bumbling of Vista.

The problem is in his comparison. He compares Windows, an operating system, to a Mac, which is a computer. Just as BMW or Lexus will not compete in the under $30,000 automobile segment, so Apple chooses not to lose money hawking computers for the sake of extra market share. Dell and HP and IBM and others have banged heads in the market for a decade, cutting prices, selling cheap trash. What’s the end result?

IBM no longer makes PCs, Gateway has gone south (or, to the far east). Dell is on the ropes. HP’s PC products sell, but in big numbers, only the low end, low profit machines. Meanwhile, Apple’s Mac grows and remains highly profitable. In those market segments where Apple competes, it does very well, as the 20-percent notebook market share attests. Even better when you consider that half the PC market is made up of cheap, no-profit boxes under $1,000. That effectively doubles the Mac’s market share in the more lucrative segments.

I laughed out loud when I read some of Stross’ comments. He’s a professor of business at San Jose State University. Obviously, one of his projects assigned to students after summer vacation was to do research on an Apple vs. Microsoft article. The students did the work, hence a single quote from a lone consultant who pulls facts and figures from his… uh, dark sticky places, and a full on regurgitation of antiquated arguments about what somebody else should be doing.

If I’ve learned anything from reading Professor Stross’ ghost written article, it’s that those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Steve Jobs is doing (again). And Stross is teaching.

Does the Mac’s market share matter anymore? No. Get over it, Windows apologists. The Mac is doing fine, just like BMW, Lexus, Infinit and others with a tiny market share, but great mind share and huge profits.