I am not a zealot. Really. I recognize there’s such a thing as personal preference. There was even one time when I recommended a Windows PC (over a Mac) to someone. As it happens, that person has regretted taking my advice ever since, but I digress. Trapped in an office filled with Michael Dell’s evil spawn, I kid with my office mates about our choice of computers, but it’s all good natured. The guy next door threatened to stick an apple sticker on my (office) door, and I excitedly asked him if he had two (one for my car). To this day I’ve got that same, tacky red apple sticker on my door… my badge of honor.
I don’t want to convert the world to the Mac OS, but sometimes I buy into a little of the doom and gloom… the stories of Apple’s demise. I wouldn’t mind if more people shared my affinity for Apple and their wares, if for no other reason that it makes it more likely they’ll stay in business, and keep making the products I like. As I’ve noted before, my dad had one of the original Macs, and still has that first issue of Macworld magazine (he was a subscriber until the mid 90’s, when the internet became a better source). I only mention this because I’ve been around during times of feast and famine. And yes, I owned a Performa.
Even though Apple has put those dark days far behind them, the news I read on my feed reader still took me by surprise:
Apple laptops grab 17.6% share – Mac – Macworld UK
According to NPD, Apple’s retail laptop market share for June 2007 was 17.6 per cent, a 2.2 per cent increase over the same period last year when Apple posted a 15.4 per cent market share.
I spent my impressionable years during that time when Apple’s market share (in terms of sales, not installed user base) was doing really well to be above 3 percent. Seventeen percent of the laptop market blows my mind.