Comments on: We’re All PC Users Now http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/ Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology Fri, 25 May 2012 13:24:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Tim http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48057 Tim Fri, 07 Apr 2006 00:11:37 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48057 <p><i>I'm a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?</i><br><br>Ha! That would be me being unable to do math. It's more like $1000/computer. Which obviously isn't right, because a lot of the profit comes from Apple's other products, notably its iPods, but I don't what the right number would be. So never mind.<br><br>Anyway, opening up their OS to PCs would be something of a gamble. There's a chance that they'd simply lose a lot of customers to cheaper hardware. But it's a gamble with an enormous potential upside. If Mac OS X is superior to Windows (which I think it is) then it can only benefit them to make switching between the two easier. Once users can make side-to-side comparisons with minimal switching costs, a lot of them might decide they're tired of Microsoft's ugly, spyware-ridden bloatware. It would only take a small slice of Microsoft's Windows revenue to make up for lost hardware profits.</p> I’m a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?

Ha! That would be me being unable to do math. It’s more like $1000/computer. Which obviously isn’t right, because a lot of the profit comes from Apple’s other products, notably its iPods, but I don’t what the right number would be. So never mind.

Anyway, opening up their OS to PCs would be something of a gamble. There’s a chance that they’d simply lose a lot of customers to cheaper hardware. But it’s a gamble with an enormous potential upside. If Mac OS X is superior to Windows (which I think it is) then it can only benefit them to make switching between the two easier. Once users can make side-to-side comparisons with minimal switching costs, a lot of them might decide they’re tired of Microsoft’s ugly, spyware-ridden bloatware. It would only take a small slice of Microsoft’s Windows revenue to make up for lost hardware profits.

]]> By: Tom Dunstan http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48056 Tom Dunstan Thu, 06 Apr 2006 23:21:26 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48056 <p>Tim: With less revenue, yes, but a lot more actual unit sales. And to get those extra unit sales they've got to convert an awful lot of people from Windows, and there are structural factors (the availability of software for each platform) which make that difficult.</p> <p><br></p> <p>I'm a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?</p> <p><br></p> <p>Yes they could go with some blessed hardware configuration from certain manufacturers, but what do they get for it? They still aren't as widespread as Windows and they aren't making money on hardware anymore either.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see them do it so that I could run OSX on my Dell laptop here, but I just don't think it would be in their interest.</p> Tim: With less revenue, yes, but a lot more actual unit sales. And to get those extra unit sales they’ve got to convert an awful lot of people from Windows, and there are structural factors (the availability of software for each platform) which make that difficult.


I’m a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?


Yes they could go with some blessed hardware configuration from certain manufacturers, but what do they get for it? They still aren’t as widespread as Windows and they aren’t making money on hardware anymore either.


Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see them do it so that I could run OSX on my Dell laptop here, but I just don’t think it would be in their interest.

]]> By: Tim http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33075 Tim Thu, 06 Apr 2006 23:11:37 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33075 <p><i>I'm a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?</i></p> <p>Ha! That would be me being unable to do math. It's more like $1000/computer. Which obviously isn't right, because a lot of the profit comes from Apple's other products, notably its iPods, but I don't what the right number would be. So never mind.</p> <p>Anyway, opening up their OS to PCs would be something of a gamble. There's a chance that they'd simply lose a lot of customers to cheaper hardware. But it's a gamble with an enormous potential upside. If Mac OS X is superior to Windows (which I think it is) then it can only benefit them to make switching between the two easier. Once users can make side-to-side comparisons with minimal switching costs, a lot of them might decide they're tired of Microsoft's ugly, spyware-ridden bloatware. It would only take a small slice of Microsoft's Windows revenue to make up for lost hardware profits.</p> I’m a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?

Ha! That would be me being unable to do math. It’s more like $1000/computer. Which obviously isn’t right, because a lot of the profit comes from Apple’s other products, notably its iPods, but I don’t what the right number would be. So never mind.

Anyway, opening up their OS to PCs would be something of a gamble. There’s a chance that they’d simply lose a lot of customers to cheaper hardware. But it’s a gamble with an enormous potential upside. If Mac OS X is superior to Windows (which I think it is) then it can only benefit them to make switching between the two easier. Once users can make side-to-side comparisons with minimal switching costs, a lot of them might decide they’re tired of Microsoft’s ugly, spyware-ridden bloatware. It would only take a small slice of Microsoft’s Windows revenue to make up for lost hardware profits.

]]> By: Tom Dunstan http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33074 Tom Dunstan Thu, 06 Apr 2006 22:21:26 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33074 <p>Tim: With less revenue, yes, but a lot more actual unit sales. And to get those extra unit sales they've got to convert an awful lot of people from Windows, and there are structural factors (the availability of software for each platform) which make that difficult.</p> <p>I'm a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?</p> <p>Yes they could go with some blessed hardware configuration from certain manufacturers, but what do they get for it? They still aren't as widespread as Windows and they aren't making money on hardware anymore either.</p> <p>Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see them do it so that I could run OSX on my Dell laptop here, but I just don't think it would be in their interest.</p> Tim: With less revenue, yes, but a lot more actual unit sales. And to get those extra unit sales they’ve got to convert an awful lot of people from Windows, and there are structural factors (the availability of software for each platform) which make that difficult.

I’m a little confused as to how $1.3b profit and 1.2m sales got $100 profit per unit, perhaps I misunderstood?

Yes they could go with some blessed hardware configuration from certain manufacturers, but what do they get for it? They still aren’t as widespread as Windows and they aren’t making money on hardware anymore either.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see them do it so that I could run OSX on my Dell laptop here, but I just don’t think it would be in their interest.

]]> By: MikeT http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48055 MikeT Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:20:53 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48055 <p>Matt: I know that it's a bootloader. What I was saying is that Apple seems to be moving toward the virtualization route that everyone else is and being able to hot Windows natively inside of OSX would be a benefit for them. I'm not sure why they didn't just focus on the virtualization aspect, like how VMWare lets you boot an OS you have installed on a partition inside of VMWare on your currently running OS. What I was getting at is it's not really in their interests to make it easy to turn a Mac into a pure Windows PC so that people can just forget about OSX.</p> Matt: I know that it’s a bootloader. What I was saying is that Apple seems to be moving toward the virtualization route that everyone else is and being able to hot Windows natively inside of OSX would be a benefit for them. I’m not sure why they didn’t just focus on the virtualization aspect, like how VMWare lets you boot an OS you have installed on a partition inside of VMWare on your currently running OS. What I was getting at is it’s not really in their interests to make it easy to turn a Mac into a pure Windows PC so that people can just forget about OSX.

]]> By: MikeT http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33073 MikeT Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:20:53 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33073 <p>Matt: I know that it's a bootloader. What I was saying is that Apple seems to be moving toward the virtualization route that everyone else is and being able to hot Windows natively inside of OSX would be a benefit for them. I'm not sure why they didn't just focus on the virtualization aspect, like how VMWare lets you boot an OS you have installed on a partition inside of VMWare on your currently running OS. What I was getting at is it's not really in their interests to make it easy to turn a Mac into a pure Windows PC so that people can just forget about OSX.</p> Matt: I know that it’s a bootloader. What I was saying is that Apple seems to be moving toward the virtualization route that everyone else is and being able to hot Windows natively inside of OSX would be a benefit for them. I’m not sure why they didn’t just focus on the virtualization aspect, like how VMWare lets you boot an OS you have installed on a partition inside of VMWare on your currently running OS. What I was getting at is it’s not really in their interests to make it easy to turn a Mac into a pure Windows PC so that people can just forget about OSX.

]]> By: Matt Cline http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48054 Matt Cline Thu, 06 Apr 2006 16:00:18 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48054 <p>MikeT:<br>Actually, BootCamp is not "hosting" Windows at all. BootCamp sets up Intel Macs to dual-boot. You can hold down a key on the keyboard to choose between Windows and Mac OS.<br><br>By "hosting", you seem to be thinking about something like Virtual PC. That's another valid approach to running Windows on a Mac, but it's not what BootCamp does.<br><br>Developing an API compatibility layer is a <em>huge</em> job. (Among many other reasons, the Windows APIs are moving targets.) And it's not at all clear to me that it's in Apple's interests anyway.</p> MikeT:
Actually, BootCamp is not “hosting” Windows at all. BootCamp sets up Intel Macs to dual-boot. You can hold down a key on the keyboard to choose between Windows and Mac OS.

By “hosting”, you seem to be thinking about something like Virtual PC. That’s another valid approach to running Windows on a Mac, but it’s not what BootCamp does.

Developing an API compatibility layer is a huge job. (Among many other reasons, the Windows APIs are moving targets.) And it’s not at all clear to me that it’s in Apple’s interests anyway.

]]> By: Tim http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48053 Tim Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:54:19 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48053 <p>Tom: I don't buy it. Margins on software are far better than margins on hardware, which means that they could generate the same profit with a lot less revenue.<br><br>And yes, supporting every conceivable PC in the universe is a headache. But there is a variety of ways Apple could deal with it. Probably the easiest would be to be choosy about which PCs they'll support. They might work with folks like Dell and HP to develop one or two PCs each that have well-supported hardware.<br><br>The market for Macs is never going to go away completely, because Apple has far and away the best industrial design in the industry. PCs are ugly and clumsy. I'll gladly continue paying an extra $100 or $200 for a sturdy, elegant, and beautiful laptop.<br><br>But even if they ended up cannibalizing their Mac sales, that would hardly be the end of the world. Last year--their best year ever--they sold 1.2 million Macs and earned $1.3 billion. Even if all of those profits are on Mac sales, that's only about $100 per Mac. Given the high margins on software, they wouldn't have to sell very many additional $129 copies of Mac OS X to make up those profits.</p> Tom: I don’t buy it. Margins on software are far better than margins on hardware, which means that they could generate the same profit with a lot less revenue.

And yes, supporting every conceivable PC in the universe is a headache. But there is a variety of ways Apple could deal with it. Probably the easiest would be to be choosy about which PCs they’ll support. They might work with folks like Dell and HP to develop one or two PCs each that have well-supported hardware.

The market for Macs is never going to go away completely, because Apple has far and away the best industrial design in the industry. PCs are ugly and clumsy. I’ll gladly continue paying an extra $100 or $200 for a sturdy, elegant, and beautiful laptop.

But even if they ended up cannibalizing their Mac sales, that would hardly be the end of the world. Last year–their best year ever–they sold 1.2 million Macs and earned $1.3 billion. Even if all of those profits are on Mac sales, that’s only about $100 per Mac. Given the high margins on software, they wouldn’t have to sell very many additional $129 copies of Mac OS X to make up those profits.

]]> By: MikeT http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48052 MikeT Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:14:45 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48052 <p>There really is no reason to use a Mac if all you want is Windows. It's typically cheaper to just by a low end or mid range Dell. The ability to run Windows is a boon, but only because it will be able to be hosted like MacOS Classic. What Apple really should be focusing on instead is creating a slick Win32 API clone that they can use as a compatibility layer to prevent people from having a reason to leave the OSX environment in the first place.</p> There really is no reason to use a Mac if all you want is Windows. It’s typically cheaper to just by a low end or mid range Dell. The ability to run Windows is a boon, but only because it will be able to be hosted like MacOS Classic. What Apple really should be focusing on instead is creating a slick Win32 API clone that they can use as a compatibility layer to prevent people from having a reason to leave the OSX environment in the first place.

]]> By: Matt Cline http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33072 Matt Cline Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:00:18 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33072 <p>MikeT: Actually, BootCamp is not "hosting" Windows at all. BootCamp sets up Intel Macs to dual-boot. You can hold down a key on the keyboard to choose between Windows and Mac OS.</p> <p>By "hosting", you seem to be thinking about something like Virtual PC. That's another valid approach to running Windows on a Mac, but it's not what BootCamp does.</p> <p>Developing an API compatibility layer is a <em>huge</em> job. (Among many other reasons, the Windows APIs are moving targets.) And it's not at all clear to me that it's in Apple's interests anyway.</p> MikeT: Actually, BootCamp is not “hosting” Windows at all. BootCamp sets up Intel Macs to dual-boot. You can hold down a key on the keyboard to choose between Windows and Mac OS.

By “hosting”, you seem to be thinking about something like Virtual PC. That’s another valid approach to running Windows on a Mac, but it’s not what BootCamp does.

Developing an API compatibility layer is a huge job. (Among many other reasons, the Windows APIs are moving targets.) And it’s not at all clear to me that it’s in Apple’s interests anyway.

]]> By: Tim http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33071 Tim Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:54:19 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33071 <p>Tom: I don't buy it. Margins on software are far better than margins on hardware, which means that they could generate the same profit with a lot less revenue.</p> <p>And yes, supporting every conceivable PC in the universe is a headache. But there is a variety of ways Apple could deal with it. Probably the easiest would be to be choosy about which PCs they'll support. They might work with folks like Dell and HP to develop one or two PCs each that have well-supported hardware.</p> <p>The market for Macs is never going to go away completely, because Apple has far and away the best industrial design in the industry. PCs are ugly and clumsy. I'll gladly continue paying an extra $100 or $200 for a sturdy, elegant, and beautiful laptop.</p> <p>But even if they ended up cannibalizing their Mac sales, that would hardly be the end of the world. Last year--their best year ever--they sold 1.2 million Macs and earned $1.3 billion. Even if all of those profits are on Mac sales, that's only about $100 per Mac. Given the high margins on software, they wouldn't have to sell very many additional $129 copies of Mac OS X to make up those profits.</p> Tom: I don’t buy it. Margins on software are far better than margins on hardware, which means that they could generate the same profit with a lot less revenue.

And yes, supporting every conceivable PC in the universe is a headache. But there is a variety of ways Apple could deal with it. Probably the easiest would be to be choosy about which PCs they’ll support. They might work with folks like Dell and HP to develop one or two PCs each that have well-supported hardware.

The market for Macs is never going to go away completely, because Apple has far and away the best industrial design in the industry. PCs are ugly and clumsy. I’ll gladly continue paying an extra $100 or $200 for a sturdy, elegant, and beautiful laptop.

But even if they ended up cannibalizing their Mac sales, that would hardly be the end of the world. Last year–their best year ever–they sold 1.2 million Macs and earned $1.3 billion. Even if all of those profits are on Mac sales, that’s only about $100 per Mac. Given the high margins on software, they wouldn’t have to sell very many additional $129 copies of Mac OS X to make up those profits.

]]> By: Tom Dunstan http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-48051 Tom Dunstan Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:33:15 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-48051 <p>Apple is still very much a hardware company, and OSX is a way to sell Apple hardware (as were the iPods originally, as you pointed out). Getting Windows to run on Mac hardware increases the value of that hardware for people who need certain Windows programs, and so is a win for Apple, but it's hard to see how opening up OSX to run on generic PC hardware helps them. Yes, they'll sell more OSX licenses, but their hardware market will disappear as people flock to cheaper Dells or whatever. It would make it easy for their loyal fanbase to desert them without offering enough of a compelling move to switch to all the Windows users out there.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Also note that one of the benefits to a closed platform for the vendor is that they don't have to deal with weird and wonderful hardware, just their own. Many of the stability problems in earlier versions of Windows were due to buggy hardware and/or drivers. While I hate Microsoft's business practices, the ability of Windows to run on every PC device is a major achievement (one probably shared by Linux as well, to be fair), and it might take years for Apple to get OSX to such a point, assuming that they were even interested.</p> Apple is still very much a hardware company, and OSX is a way to sell Apple hardware (as were the iPods originally, as you pointed out). Getting Windows to run on Mac hardware increases the value of that hardware for people who need certain Windows programs, and so is a win for Apple, but it’s hard to see how opening up OSX to run on generic PC hardware helps them. Yes, they’ll sell more OSX licenses, but their hardware market will disappear as people flock to cheaper Dells or whatever. It would make it easy for their loyal fanbase to desert them without offering enough of a compelling move to switch to all the Windows users out there.


Also note that one of the benefits to a closed platform for the vendor is that they don’t have to deal with weird and wonderful hardware, just their own. Many of the stability problems in earlier versions of Windows were due to buggy hardware and/or drivers. While I hate Microsoft’s business practices, the ability of Windows to run on every PC device is a major achievement (one probably shared by Linux as well, to be fair), and it might take years for Apple to get OSX to such a point, assuming that they were even interested.

]]> By: MikeT http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33070 MikeT Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:14:45 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33070 <p>There really is no reason to use a Mac if all you want is Windows. It's typically cheaper to just by a low end or mid range Dell. The ability to run Windows is a boon, but only because it will be able to be hosted like MacOS Classic. What Apple really should be focusing on instead is creating a slick Win32 API clone that they can use as a compatibility layer to prevent people from having a reason to leave the OSX environment in the first place.</p> There really is no reason to use a Mac if all you want is Windows. It’s typically cheaper to just by a low end or mid range Dell. The ability to run Windows is a boon, but only because it will be able to be hosted like MacOS Classic. What Apple really should be focusing on instead is creating a slick Win32 API clone that they can use as a compatibility layer to prevent people from having a reason to leave the OSX environment in the first place.

]]> By: Tom Dunstan http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/comment-page-1/#comment-33069 Tom Dunstan Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:33:15 +0000 http://techliberation.com/2006/04/06/were-all-pc-users-now/#comment-33069 <p>Apple is still very much a hardware company, and OSX is a way to sell Apple hardware (as were the iPods originally, as you pointed out). Getting Windows to run on Mac hardware increases the value of that hardware for people who need certain Windows programs, and so is a win for Apple, but it's hard to see how opening up OSX to run on generic PC hardware helps them. Yes, they'll sell more OSX licenses, but their hardware market will disappear as people flock to cheaper Dells or whatever. It would make it easy for their loyal fanbase to desert them without offering enough of a compelling move to switch to all the Windows users out there.</p> <p>Also note that one of the benefits to a closed platform for the vendor is that they don't have to deal with weird and wonderful hardware, just their own. Many of the stability problems in earlier versions of Windows were due to buggy hardware and/or drivers. While I hate Microsoft's business practices, the ability of Windows to run on every PC device is a major achievement (one probably shared by Linux as well, to be fair), and it might take years for Apple to get OSX to such a point, assuming that they were even interested.</p> Apple is still very much a hardware company, and OSX is a way to sell Apple hardware (as were the iPods originally, as you pointed out). Getting Windows to run on Mac hardware increases the value of that hardware for people who need certain Windows programs, and so is a win for Apple, but it’s hard to see how opening up OSX to run on generic PC hardware helps them. Yes, they’ll sell more OSX licenses, but their hardware market will disappear as people flock to cheaper Dells or whatever. It would make it easy for their loyal fanbase to desert them without offering enough of a compelling move to switch to all the Windows users out there.

Also note that one of the benefits to a closed platform for the vendor is that they don’t have to deal with weird and wonderful hardware, just their own. Many of the stability problems in earlier versions of Windows were due to buggy hardware and/or drivers. While I hate Microsoft’s business practices, the ability of Windows to run on every PC device is a major achievement (one probably shared by Linux as well, to be fair), and it might take years for Apple to get OSX to such a point, assuming that they were even interested.

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