News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

October 2, 2006

business

Internet data speaks to the prosperity of the Mac

Posted Oct. 2, ’06, 12:16 PM PT by Scott Silverman
Category | Business

StatsBlogger “Anil” received a very large amount of traffic to one of his sites recently, thanks to the fact that it was dugg. Using Google analytics Anil examined the platforms and browsers of the visitors to his site. And here’s what he concluded: that Apple and Linux are slowly but surely cutting into Microsoft’s massive market share.

According to none other than Steve Jobs himself last year, Apple had a 5% market share of all PCs. Anil’s site determined that now that figure is up to 11%. And Linux—despite its non-commercial nature—was up to about 10% market share. This leaves poor little Windows at a mere 80%.

In a similar “study” Anil found that about 70% of internet users browse with FireFox, 18% use Internet Explorer (why, lord, why??), and 5.5% use Safari. Opera comes in a close fourth at 4.5%. The Mac market is slowly growing, and along with a little help from Linux, we may see the playing field start to level off in the next five years. So much of that, though, depends on the direction both Apple and Microsoft take with new operating systems, hardware, and software. (And don’t forget about the long-forgotten halo effect.)


6 Comments

Tawky Tawny said:

"And here’s what he concluded: that Apple and Linux are slowly but surely cutting into Microsoft’s massive market share."

Such a statement is a gross overgeneralization. Let's not forget the context: a lot of people coming from digg to visit Anil's site are using a Mac and/or Firefox.

October 2, 2006 12:53 PM
Scott Silverman Author Profile Page said:

I don't see the relevance of the quote you used from my post to the statement you made about FireFox and Mac users. Please clarify your point.

October 2, 2006 12:56 PM
Nick Ragaz said:

I think the point is that to conclude that the people who use Digg are reflective of the general population is false. In fact, people who use Digg are likely early-adopters, and Macs/Linux are well-represented in that crowd. I'd tend to agree -- with the caveat that it's good to have the early adopters on your side.

October 2, 2006 1:41 PM
Tawky Tawny said:

The title of Anil's post is "Market share of Operating Systems & Browsers for diggers." It's very clear, right from the start.

His conclusion is a gross overgeneralization if we don't keep in mind that he's not talking about the whole Internet, only diggers visiting his site.

He states that "Apple now has 10% of market share!" It may be true amongst diggers (0.0001% of the online population) but not in the overall market. The Mac is far from 10% in terms of market share or installed base and is not significantly cutting into MS.

The next two quarters will be interesting, now that the Intel transition is over I'm sure the Mac will grow faster than the market (like it did last year) and for the first time Apple could reach 1.5 million units per quarter. Great, but we don't need to inflate the significance of those gains. :)

October 2, 2006 1:48 PM
Richard Neal said:

The point is that the people who are using Digg and would visit his site are probably tech-savvy, and, in general, Mac users and Firefox users are more likely to be tech-savvy than the people who use Internet Explorer. Also, I'd be willing to bet that a larger percentage of Mac users use the internet than Windows users, even if you just look at who the Mac is marketed towards, rather than usage in countries lacking the Internet or other matters.

October 2, 2006 2:41 PM
Tawky Tawny said:

Here is Anil's follow-up article, How I fooled Digg and made it to the frontpage: "I decided to present the results of my traffic analysis in a wrong way to Digg.com, and see if the story still makes it to the frontpage. […] Many people who dugg the story did not read it thoroughly. They just "liked the idea" of my story that Apple and Linux are eating Microsoft away, and dugg this in its face value. […] I logged on to blogger.com and silently made two "little" changes to my story. I appended "for diggers" to the title and "by diggers" to the first paragraph. This makes the the story's first few lines look more authentic. However, I did not make any changes to the rest of the story, so the rest of it was still biased and misleading. Now, we have a story of "mosaic quality" where some parts say the truth, and some do not."

October 3, 2006 12:17 AM

Leave a comment

 



Visit other IDG sites: