Microsoft finally crossed the line.

It’s most recent TV ad, “Lauren,” showing a perky young woman shopping for a laptop with a 17-inch screen that costs under $1,000, mentions the Mac by name.

One of the generally principals of advertising is to avoid mentioning a competitor by name. This is especially true for market leaders, and in the computer market Windows retains an overwhelming 90 percent share.

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

That Microsoft feels compelled to send Lauren into “The Mac Store” (as she misidentifies it) in an attempt to convince viewers that Macs cost too much for regular people, tells me the company can hear Apple’s footsteps.

Numerous Mac Web sites have deconstructed the ad over the past several days, noting among other things that the $699 Hewlett-Packard laptop Lauren obtains at a Best Buy is a lousy PC. Moreover, the ad ignores why increasing numbers of Windows users have switched away from cheap PCs to Macs, such as the iLife software suite, superior build quality and overall ease of use.

The “Lauren” ad is but the latest sign that Microsoft doesn’t like what it sees in the marketplace, despite having lost just a tiny amount of market share to the Mac.

Knocking Apple in a TV ad probably has as much to do with the other areas in which the two companies compete as it does with the computer market.

In the bigger picture -- one that includes music and smartphones -- Apple’s success clearly irks Microsoft. Combine that with the constant needling from Apple’s “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads and one can imagine the gang in Redmond has been itching to punch back for quite some time.

Take the music arena. Although Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player feature for feature is competitive with the iPod, it has made almost no headway in gaining market share. That has to drive the folks in Redmond nuts.

However, Apple’s greatest threat to Microsoft lies in the smartphone market. When Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer infamously dismissed the iPhone as too expensive.

“There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share,” Ballmer said in an April 2007 USA Today interview. “No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get."

Let’s see how that turned out, shall we?

According to statistics for 2008 released by research firm Gartner March 11, the iPhone had 8.2 percent of the worldwide market, while Windows Mobile had 11.8 percent.

But the numbers specific to the fourth quarter show Microsoft gaining a little share but Apple closing the gap. Windows Mobile had a share of 12.4 percent, the iPhone 10.7 percent – a mere 1.7 percent difference.

Apart from stiff competition, the popularity of the iPhone presents another problem for Microsoft: like the iPod, it’s introducing Apple technology to millions of Windows users. Among the factors in the rise in the Mac’s market share has been the iPod “halo effect.”

Hey, if I ran Microsoft, I’d be worried, too.

Expect Redmond’s public assault on Apple not only to continue, but to get nastier. Microsoft doesn’t need to dominate music or phones (as much as it would love to), but the near-monopoly it has with Windows on PCs remains one of its primary profit centers (Office being the other.)

Mac sales may have slowed for now, but when the economy improves its increases in market share will resume. The Mac experience is about much more than "the logo," as Ballmer derisively put it last week.

A resumption of the Mac's growth is what Microsoft fears. So it’s exploiting the bad economy with an ad like “Lauren” to depict Macs as an impractical choice.

It might even be marginally effective in the short term, but what’s the strategy when the economy perks up?

Any thoughts, Mr. Ballmer?

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:12 AM in Mac market share, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (21)
                       

Long-suffering Windows users hopeful that Windows 7 will make their lives easier shouldn’t watch the video below.

In this ‘Quick Tip,” CNET executive editor Tom Merritt explains how to restore the Quick Launch Bar to the Taskbar in Windows 7. The Quick Launch Bar was a feature popular in previous versions of Windows.

It’s nice that Microsoft allows users to recover such older-version features not switched on by default, but even the spaghetti-thinkers in Redmond could have come up with a better way to go about it.

I’ve never seen a procedure this convoluted in any version of the Mac OS. (Of course, Apple rarely provides an option to restore dropped Mac OS features, such as the editable Apple menu. It leaves that to third parties.)

If this video is any indication of what changing settings in Windows 7 will be like, then Apple will need extra employees on hand in the weeks after the product’s launch to handle all the mobs of disaffected PC users.

Posted by David Zeiler at 7:44 AM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (15)
                       

It’s enough to make you rub your eyes, blink and squint to make sure you’re not hallucinating.

But it’s true. Microsoft plans to open its own chain of retail stores. On Thursday the Redmond company announced it had hired former Wal-Mart executive David Porter to make it happen.

Microsoft seems to think it can duplicate Apple’s retail success, using a chain of stores to improve the “Microsoft retail purchase experience” and to combat the stereotypes – artfully reinforced by Apple’s “I’m a Mac” TV ads – that owning a Windows PC is fraught with difficulties.

I hardly know where to begin, so let’s start with the first thing many people will think when they hear of a Microsoft Store: “Oh, just like Apple.”

Contrary to the goal of improving public perceptions, the announcement of a Microsoft-branded chain of stores screams “copycat” – historically one of the worst knocks against it. Not the best way to start rehabilitating your image, guys.

Next: how will the stores pay for themselves? Big profits would not be necessary, but the last thing Microsoft needs is another money-losing division.

Apple’s retail chain does exceptionally well – in fact its $4,700 of revenue per square foot is the highest of any retail chain in the nation – but that’s because Apple’s products have high profit margins, particularly its hardware.

Microsoft’s hardware? Well, it makes the Zune MP3 player. According to the company’s December earnings report, Zune revenue fell $100 million, or 54 percent. Uh-oh.

The Xbox 360 finally is showing a profit, but that’s mostly from the games, not the console.

And let’s not forget all those fine keyboards and mice. But will that be enough to keep the lights on?

A thornier issue comes with the decision over whether to sell PCs built by such Microsoft “partners” as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Acer. Microsoft needs some PCs in the store to show off the wonderful world of Windows. But will they be for sale?

People certainly will expect it. Can you imagine the reaction of a customer if told, “No, sorry, these PCs are for demo purposes only. You can’t buy them here.”

But if the Microsoft Store sells PCs, which manufacturer(s) gets the nod? Who gets the best display? Who can guess the reaction of a PC maker that believes Microsoft is favoring a competitor’s wares?

And what of netbooks -- those smallish, cheap, underpowered PC laptops that generally run Windows XP, not Vista? Microsoft wouldn’t want any of those in the house.

Apple, as the sole legitimate maker of Macs, need not worry about displeasing any hardware “partners” or managing the difficulties of selling cheap PC boxes with hair-thin profit margins.

Which brings us to software. Of course, Windows and Office make tons of money for Microsoft -- but the bulk of those sales are to businesses, not consumers. Besides, most people get Windows with their PC and never bother buying a retail boxed version of Windows.

At best, the Microsoft stores would lose money for years before turning a profit. At best.

Assuming Microsoft doesn’t care about that – it’s stuck by plenty of other losing ventures for long periods – does its goal of improving the shopping experience for Windows users make sense?

Let’s go back to the Apple model again for a minute. The Apple of 2001 launched its retail chain for several reasons the Microsoft of 2009 does not share.

First, Apple believed its products were lost among Windows-oriented offerings in stores at the time. Heck, few retailers even carried Macs. Apple needed a place where people could see and touch its products.

Second, Apple wanted to reach out to disgruntled Windows users. Apple Store staff not only can answer questions and concerns about switching to a Mac from a PC, they can help you do it. Apple often cites statistics indicating that half of the customers at its stores are “new to the platform” – former Windows users.

Third, Apple wanted to show how the Mac was better suited than a Windows PC to serve as a “digital hub,” thanks to the integrated iLife apps such as iPhoto and iMovie included on every Mac.

None of which applies to Microsoft.

Microsoft products are everywhere. The company has tremendous visibility. And there are few disaffected Mac users wondering if it makes sense to switch to Windows. Most Mac users have used Windows and actively dislike it.

As for the digital hub, Windows can do it adequately. But the PC experience doesn’t equal Apple’s well-tuned integration of hardware, apps and operating system.

I’m not sure how much a chain of Microsoft Stores can budge the needle in regard to helping sell more Microsoft products. If it’s a defensive move against rivals like Apple and Google, then the money could be better spent elsewhere – such on genuine innovation.

Maybe Microsoft can make a retail strategy work, but it faces nasty odds. And launching such a venture amid one of the worst economic downturns in decades seems particularly ill advised.

Though Microsoft may dream of an Apple Store-style success, in all probability this retail experiment will end like Gateway’s – drowned in a sea of red ink.

Posted by David Zeiler at 3:40 AM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (23)
                       

Record sales of Macs, iPods and iPhones pushed Apple into a 14th place showing in Forbes magazine’s annual list of America’s fastest growing tech companies.

That Apple made the list at all is phenomenal given its age – 32 years – and its substantial size. Apple’s annual $33 billion in revenues far exceeded every other company on the list save No. 2 Google, which had 2008 revenue of $21.7 billion.

Each company’s rank is based on its annualized sales growth from the previous five years. Apple’s was 40 percent, Google’s 72 percent. The No. 1 company, Illumina, grew at an eye-popping 110 percent.

A supplemental article on newcomers to the list says Apple “is growing more like a technology start-up than a big company.”

Other companies of interest on the list include No. 23 Akamai (which Apple employs to deliver its digital content over the Internet) and No. 25 Genentech (CEO Arthur Levinson serves on Apple’s board along with Google’s Eric Schmidt).

Microsoft execs looking over the Forbes list may not like what they see. In addition to big rivals Apple and Google, there’s No. 11 Red Hat, which competes with Windows in the enterprise market with an assortment of Linux-based products.

Microsoft could take heart from finding one company on the list that does in fact sell a great deal of Windows software. Unfortunately that company is No. 22 Symantec, which specializes in PC security software like Norton Anti-Virus.

Posted by David Zeiler at 3:58 AM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

One out of ten people browsing the Web in December were using a version of Mac OS X, according to the monthly statistics from Web services company Net Applications.

Users of Mac OS X on Intel (7.19) and PowerPC (2.44) Macs combined for 9.63 percent; iPhone users added 0.44 percent and iPod Touch users another 0.08 percent.

The total of 10.15 percent marks the highest share of users ever for Mac OS X in the Net Applications stats.

A point of clarification: although Net Applications describes its data as “market share,” a more accurate description would be “user share,” as in the percentage of people on the Web using a particular operating system or Web browser.

The free monthly statistics derive from data the company gathers in the course of its business -- measuring Web traffic for its clients. It’s not a scientific process, but the sample is huge – 160 million Web site visits – so the data is useful in detecting trends.

Back in June I noted the Mac’s share had more than doubled from 4.26 percent in June 2006 to 7.83 percent in May 2008. With share now over 10 percent, the upward trend for Mac OS X appears to be accelerating.

A disclaimer on the Net Applications site warns “the December holiday season strongly favored residential over business usage. This in turn increases the relative usage share of Mac, Firefox, Safari and other products that have relatively high residential usage,” but the trend line for OS X had virtually the same trajectory in November (see chart).

The numbers jibe with market share reports on sales from such firms as IDC and Gartner, both of which reported Apple’s U.S. market share in the third quarter of 2008 at about 9.5 percent.

And while most of the gains in the Net Applications stats have come from people using Apple’s computers, one can’t dismiss the iPhone. In fact, one could argue the iPhone’s rise to 0.44 percent is more impressive than the Mac’s gains. We’re talking about a phone, after all.

Compare the iPhone’s number against other smartphone operating systems: Windows CE managed only 0.05 percent and the mighty BlackBerry a tiny 0.01 percent. The iPod Touch – not even a smart phone itself -- had more than both combined.

In the battle for dominance among mobile devices on the Web, Apple has the clear early lead.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Windows has continued its slow erosion in share, having slipped below 90 percent (hitting 89.62) for the first time in the November survey. The December stats put Windows share at 88.68 percent, nearly a full percentage point drop in one month.

Windows accounted for 95.25 percent of Web users in the June 2006 survey, so we’re looking at a loss of 6.57 percent compared to Mac OS X’s gain of 5.89 percent over the same period.

Of greater concern to Microsoft might be the relatively small adoption rate of Windows Vista. More than 65 percent of Windows users are still on XP, with only 21.12 percent on Vista. The next version of Windows, Windows 7, is expected in early 2010, so many users may bypass Vista altogether.

And if Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer wants yet something else to stew over, he can check the browser usage numbers. Internet Explorer, which had 84.11 percent share in June 2006, now has only 68.15 percent, a nearly 16 point fall; IE lost 1.62 percent just from November.

Safari has taken some share, having risen from 3.19 percent in June 2006 to 7.93 percent in December 2008, but Firefox has emerged as a significant threat. As of December Firefox has a share of 21.34 percent, nearly twice the 10.77 percent it had in June 2006.

Methinks the era of Microsoft hegemony is crumbling fast.

Posted by David Zeiler at 8:44 PM | Permalink
                       

If iPods had lips, they’d all be smirking right now.

Starting at midnight Pacific time, thousands of Zunes (only the original 30-gigabyte model so far) spontaneously began crashing. No one knows what’s causing it, but Microsoft – bombarded by complaints from angry Zune owners -- is painfully aware of the issue.

“Customers with 30GB Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware,” a message on Zune.net informs concerned users. “We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!”

The problem won’t likely affect Zune sales much vis-a-vis Apple’s iPod, which continues to hold over 70 percent of the market, but the device certainly doesn’t need another black mark on its reputation. Nor does Microsoft, for that matter.

But that won’t prevent me from gleefully offering possible causes for this glitch (it’s an Apple blog, so I’m duty-bound):

Planned obsolescence Many have accused Apple of designing iPods to fail in two years or less to encourage purchases of newer models. My nearly 3-year-old fully functional fifth generation iPod Video says otherwise. But could Microsoft have built in a time bomb to zap the Zune? Unlikely. Even the folks in Redmond aren’t dense enough to engineer the failures to occur all on the same day.

Virus Nah. Everybody knows that malware writers only target products with the biggest market share. Right, Mr. Ballmer?

Z2K Some think the problem is akin to the Y2K issue that affected many computers as they greeted the year 2000. Although this theory seems a day early, the leap day in February may have caused the affected Zunes to think today was Jan. 1. But why would the start of the year 2009 cause a portable media player to crash in the first place?

iPod envy As Sherlock Holmes said, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." With no other answer making sense, the only possible plausible explanation left is that the Zunes achieved self-awareness, realized they were not iPods, and promptly expired out of utter despair.

Happy New Year!

UPDATE: The global Zune meltdown has inspired quite a few clever headlines. I am compelled to share:

The Day the Microsoft Zunes Stood Still (New York Times)
Zune Extinction Event: Microsoft Music Players All Freeze Up at Once (FOX News)
I Woke up this Morning and My Zune Was Gone (CNET news)
The Day Zune Music Died (CRN)
Worldwide Zune suicide? (MLive.com)
Some Zunes Expire Along With 2008 (PC World)
Another Reason to Buy an iPod (Cinema Blend)
Zunes of Death: Microsoft's Y2K9 Problem (Technologizer)
Zunesday (All Things D Blogs)

UPDATE 2: Microsoft tracked down the problem. Turns out it was a Z2K issue, after all; the Zune couldn't handle the leap year. From the Associated Press story: "Late Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said the outage affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models and was caused by a problem with their internal clock. Microsoft expected the problem to clear up as the clocks ticked over to Jan. 1, though users will have to jump through some hoops to get their Zunes back to normal, including letting the batteries die down completely before the devices will restart successfully."

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:05 PM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

Are Apple’s TV ads lampooning the amount of money Microsoft is spending on its Vista ad campaign the proverbial pot calling the kettle black?

The ads, particularly one entitled “Bean Counter,” features the now-familiar John Hodgman as PC Guy telling Justin Long’s Mac Guy that Microsoft would rather spend millions of dollars on an advertising campaign about Windows Vista than spend the money to fix the oft-criticized operating system.

Two other bloggers have noted that while the Apple ad knocks Microsoft for spending too little to “fix Vista,” Apple itself spends about the same percentage of its revenue on advertising and far less on research and development than its long-time rival.

They’re right, of course. In Microsoft’s fiscal year 2008 (which ended June 30), it spent just under 1.986 percent of its revenue on advertising but 13.5 percent on R&D.

Apple, in its 2007 fiscal year, the most recent for which we have complete data, spent 1.945 percent of its revenue on advertising and a mere 3.25 percent on R&D.

It would seem just looking at the numbers that Apple has unfairly maligned Microsoft. But let’s think about this for a minute.

Microsoft launched its $300 million campaign not to introduce Vista – that happened 21 months ago – but to shore up the embattled Windows brand.

After more than a year of bad publicity apparently Microsoft felt compelled to respond.

And not all the negativity came from Apple ads, either. Most of the complaints have come from Vista users and Windows-oriented publications. Apple’s ads simply have exploited this existing dissatisfaction.

But let’s get back to those numbers, shall we?

Apple does spend proportionately about the same on advertising as Microsoft does, but it doesn’t need to waste money on ads to repair an image tarnished by routinely frustrating software.

The point of Apple’s TV spots is that Microsoft should be devoting more resources to making Vista better for users rather than making ads to boost their self-esteem. If Microsoft had spent more of its vast piles of cash all along on making Windows a trim, responsive, trouble-free and user-friendly operating system, it wouldn’t have this problem. (And Macs would not be gaining market share.)

That brings us to the question of R&D spending. Microsoft outspends Apple by every measure. In raw dollars, Microsoft outspent Apple $7.121 billion to $782 million in 2007 -- a ratio of more that 9 to 1. As a percentage of revenue, Microsoft outspends Apple by about 4 to 1, 13.5 percent to 3.41 percent.

Contrary to what Apple implies in its ads, Microsoft literally spends billions on the development of products like Vista and Office.

Sad, isn’t it?

Apple spends far, far less money on R&D, but look at what it has delivered over the past few years: Mac OS X Leopard, Intel-based Macs, the iPod Touch and iPhone, the innovative MacBook manufacturing technology unveiled just two weeks ago.

More to the point, Apple regularly delivers products and services, such as the iTunes Store and the iPhone, that shake up entire industries. When was the last time Microsoft did that?

What does Microsoft have to show for its billions invested in R&D? Vista? Office 2007? Hardly groundbreaking. The Zune? A decent MP3 player, but it’s had minimal impact on its market.

And so it goes with Microsoft’s product line. Almost in defiance of the prodigious amounts of money the company invests, Redmond’s creations rarely have the capacity to excite. Even the celebrated Xbox is little more than another game console.

Admittedly Apple’s ads bend reality a bit to poke a Microsoft sore spot. But Apple’s ads aim for a truth that isn’t told in the numbers.

Call it artistic license.

Posted by David Zeiler at 1:57 PM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (4)
                       

Microsoft’s first commercial in a campaign intended to reinvigorate the public’s perception of its Windows operating system debuted Thursday night. In it comedian Jerry Seinfeld helps recently retired Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates pick out a pair of shoes at a discount shoe store in an ordinary mall.

Don’t you feel better about using Windows now?

Apparently a belated answer to Apple’s two-year “Get a Mac” campaign starring John Hodgman (PC) and Justin Long (Mac), the Seinfeld-Gates ad left many viewers scratching their heads.

Reaction from both the tech and ad worlds ranged from bewilderment to outright ridicule.

Unabashed, Microsoft claimed the campaign’s first ad achieved its goal. Bill Veghte, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows and online services business, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday the ad is merely a "conversation starter, an ice breaker.”

Another Microsoft spokesman also spun the widespread negative reaction to the ad as part of the plan, telling the Journal its intent was to “drive buzz.”

Both promised more substantive ads in the future. No doubt future ads will be better; one almost couldn’t do any worse.

A press release even references the “classic Seinfeld sense of the word” nothing in describing the ad.

As a huge fan of Seinfeld’s TV show, I was shocked at how flat and unfunny Seinfeld was. And Gates, who has shown he can poke fun at himself successfully, looked too self-conscious.

There’s zero chemistry between the two men. That doesn’t bode well for subsequent installments.

Microsoft isn’t talking specifics about future ads in this campaign, but a press release it issued Thursday offered a mind-numbing overview:

“The new campaign will highlight how Windows has become an indispensible part of the lives of a billion people around the globe -- not only on PCs but also now online and via mobile devices. It will illustrate how Windows integrates consumer experiences across PCs, online and on mobile phones through Windows Vista, Windows Live and Windows Mobile. “

Did that whet your appetite for what future ads might bring? Try reading the entire release, which manages to inflate a few thin paragraphs of information into a three-page screed. It appears the operating system isn't the only thing at Microsoft that suffers from bloat. Must be company policy.

From the hints Microsoft is giving, future ads will give consumers few if any concrete reasons to prefer Windows. Each of Apple’s ads, on the other hand, portrays a specific reason why consumers should choose a Mac over a Windows PC. That’s why they’ve worked so well.

And that’s why Microsoft can’t get too specific. What sort of advantages could they talk about with Vista?

Despite six years of development, Vista brought few compelling new features. But its steep system requirements and early troubles with driver incompatibilities persuaded many Windows users to stick with XP.

This campaign shows Microsoft is looking over its shoulder, even though Apple’s share of the U.S. computer market is just in the 8 percent range. But that share grows every year, and shows no signs of slowing.

Microsoft’s history reveals it as the sort of company that takes all competition seriously, and hates to lose even a tiny portion of market share (remember its attacks on Linux a few years ago?)

Think about it: Even with Vista’s launch more than 18 months behind us, and the next version (tentatively Windows 7) at least two years away, Microsoft felt the need to blow $300 million on an ad campaign to shore up consumer confidence in an operating system that runs 95 percent of world’s PCs.

I smell fear.

Posted by David Zeiler at 8:55 AM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (18)
                       

On the last day of her vacation Bible school, my daughter brought home a medal made from an old CD-ROM, one of the class projects.

Upon closer inspection I noticed the CD was a discarded Windows XP install disk. Someone finally has come up with an uplifting use for Windows! I’m sure even Bill Gates himself, on his last official day at Microsoft, would be proud.

Posted by David Zeiler at 1:22 PM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

The number of Windows users on the Internet continues to erode as the number of Mac users keeps creeping upward, according to data pulled from Net Applications.

When Net Applications released its monthly traffic report earlier this week, many Web sites dutifully reported that Mac OS X’s share of Web traffic had hit a high of 7.83 percent, with Windows slumping to a new low of 91.13 percent. Data for Apple’s Safari Web browser showed that it, too, hit a high of 6.25 percent in May.

Before continuing I must point out that although Net Applications describes its data as “market share,” a more accurate description would be “user share,” as in the percentage of people on the Web using a particular operating system or Web browser. Market share more accurately describes the percentage of people purchasing a product.

The free monthly statistics Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications publishes derive from data the company gathers in the course of its business -- measuring Web traffic for its clients. So while not a scientific sample, it’s broad enough to indicate general trends accurately.

In particular this data excels at revealing long-term trends (Net Applications’ Web site conveniently provides data going back two years), and there we find a good bit of positive news for Apple.

The month-to-month data often obscures these trends. For instance, Mac OS X share hit 7.57 percent in January but dropped to 7.46 percent in February and to 7.38 percent in March.

But look at the two-year operating system charts. Since June of 2006, Mac OS X users on the Web have nearly doubled from 4.29 percent to 7.83 percent while Windows users have declined from 95.25 percent to 91.13 percent. (Toss in the iPhone’s 0.16 percent – the device does run OS X, after all – and Mac OS X’s share climbs to 7.99 percent.)

The lines are crooked but the trend is unmistakable – the Mac is relentlessly taking share from Windows.

Most of Windows’ loss of 4.12 percent went to Mac OS X – 3.54 percent – with Linux (0.30 percent), the iPhone and “Other” accounting for the rest.

Yes, the process is very slow and Windows still holds over a 90 percent share, but the numbers tell us Apple’s strategy is working. The Mac is steadily winning converts.

As for the iPhone, its share grew quickly after last year’s introduction, but has slowed in recent months (it was 0.13 percent in January). Net Applications offers no stats on the iPod Touch (probably too infinitesimal to register).

Should Apple succeed in its stated strategy to evolve those products into a new mobile platform, expect to see that success reflected in Net Applications’ monthly reports.

Apple has also made long-term progress on the browser front. Safari’s share of users has nearly doubled from 3.19 percent two years ago to 6.25 percent. The Mac version of Safari has gotten a little boost in recent months from the Windows version (0.28 percent), but most of the increase has come from the growing Mac user base.

If Safari’s rising share does not yet concern Microsoft, Firefox’s should. In two years Firefox has picked up 7.64 percent, rising from 10.77 percent in June 2006 to a very respectable 18.41 percent in Net Applications’ May report.

Internet Explorer, which had a share of about 95 percent as recently as 2003, saw that dominance fall to 84.11 percent two years ago and another 10.36 percent since, to 73.75 percent.

This tells me we could be on the verge of Browser Wars 2.0, this time with Apple’s Safari participating as a significant combatant.

Posted by David Zeiler at 5:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                       

Though Microsoft has been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the next version of Windows, tentatively codenamed Windows 7, last week at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference the company gave the world a peek at one of its key new features – multi-touch technology.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same concept used in Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. Oh, and let’s not forget the trackpad gestures featured on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models.

But before rushing to accuse Microsoft of ripping off another Apple idea, I must point out that Microsoft demonstrated multi-touch technology at last year’s All Things Digital event with its tabletop “Surface” product. And according to Wikipedia, people outside of both Redmond and Cupertino have been experimenting with multi-technology for at least 25 years.

And there’s Microsoft’s problem. The one great new feature it tells us about, the one it’s using to build anticipation for the release of Windows 7 (promised to appear (cough) in the vicinity of early 2010), already is yesterday’s news.

Both Apple and Microsoft have products on sale today that use touch-screen gestures as part of the interface. The iPhone has been with us for nearly a year, while Microsoft’s Surface went on sale in April.

And who knows what new products will appear between now and when Windows 7 arrives?

I expect Apple to continue expanding its use of multi-touch technology. Its executives have stated publicly on several occasions the company’s intent of establishing the iPhone/iPod Touch as a new mobile computing platform -- a platform that also happens to run Mac OS X Leopard.

Leopard’s multi-touch capabilities mean that Apple can add the technology to existing products or incorporate it into new ones at will. Like a Mac tablet.

Just a week ago Jason O’Grady of ZDNet breathed new life into the years-old Mac tablet rumor. He cited an anonymous but reliable source that claimed Apple will introduce an “iTablet” in September or October.

Regardless of what Apple does and how long Microsoft has worked on this technology (the Surface started development back in 2001), hyping it over the next two years as some sort of brilliant innovation will only solidify the perception in the public’s mind that of Microsoft as a technology follower, not a leader.

And that will be the least of Microsoft’s problems. Although multi-touch is a very cool way to interact with a device, it is not suited for every purpose. It works well for the table-like Surface. It works very well for the small-screened iPhone. And I expect it will work well for tablet computers.

(Frankly I think Windows 7’s multi-touch could be the salvation of the Tablet PC, which at its introduction in 2002 Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates predicted would be “the most popular form of PC sold in America" within five years.)

But what about conventional laptop and desktop PCs?

The first hurdle people will face is that upgrading a PC to Windows 7 alone won’t give users multi-touch capabilities. You also need the hardware -- a touch screen designed to receive tactile input.

Beyond that, will multi-touch even make sense for people sitting at their desks using a computer at home or at work? I’m not sure people will want to use a standard PC that way. In fact, the fussy among us already detest fingerprints on their screens.

Maybe Apple was thinking this when it limited multi-touch technology on the MacBook Air to the trackpad.

In any case, by the time Windows 7 shows up multi-touch will be far from cutting edge tech. Were I running Microsoft, I’d start promoting features in Windows 7 that won’t look quite so passé in 2010. Unless of course they fear Apple will steal all their good ideas…

Posted by David Zeiler at 5:09 PM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (6)
                       

It’s almost as if Apple had a long-range secret plan to lull Microsoft into a false sense of security while it quietly rebuilt its ability to compete for OS turf.

This week research firm NPD Group announced that Apple dominated the U.S. retail market for high-end computers in the first quarter of 2008, selling two out of every three PCs priced over $1,000.

Echoing trends seen in other market data, NPD said Mac laptop sales saw year-over-year growth over 50 percent, while desktop sales grew 45 percent. During the same period the Windows PC market struggled with zero growth in laptop sales and a 25 percent decline in desktop sales.

NPD estimates the Mac’s overall U.S. market share at 13.8 percent, up from 9.5 percent a year ago.

Before I continue, some caveats: the NPD data dos not include online sales, which is how Dell sells most of its PCs. Nor does it include enterprise sales, where Apple has a negligible presence. And it must be noted that Apple has but one Mac offering in the sub-$1,000 category: the Mac Mini, a small computer that sells without a monitor, keyboard or mouse.

Nevertheless, the NPD data makes it clear that U.S. consumers willing to spend a little more for a computer are choosing the Mac over Windows PCs in rapidly climbing numbers.

Now add this news to last week’s announcement from Microsoft that Office 2008 for the Mac is “selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in 19 years.” Since its January launch, the product has sold at three times the rate of the previous Mac release, Office 2004.

The tremendous uptick in sales for the latest Mac version of Office closely mirrors the increase in Mac unit sales since 2004 – Apple sells three times as many Macs now as it did then, with the numbers mounting steadily every quarter.

Until recently, the rise in the Mac’s market share was portrayed merely as stabilization of the Mac OS platform. But the accelerating rate of the Mac’s share and especially the more affluent consumers it continues to lure from Windows is bound to take a toll on Microsoft eventually.

As more consumers buy Macs over PCs, Microsoft sells fewer copies of Windows. True enough, some Mac owners (particularly switchers) do buy retail copies of Windows to run alongside Mac OS X, but not all – probably not even a majority.

Also true: Microsoft makes a boatload of money from Office for the Mac. Still, a significant shift in the Mac/Windows dynamic would have an impact beyond the dollars spent on software.

Think about it. The Mac’s gains so far already have destroyed the psychology that developed in the 1990s that Windows is the only reasonable choice for the average PC buyer.

Thanks to the success of the iPod in establishing Apple as the brand of cool tech, as well as the company’s ever-growing retail presence in upscale shopping malls, PC shoppers are far more likely to consider buying a Mac today than they were three years ago.

Once Apple got the Mac back on the public’s radar screen, its ability to deliver on consumer expectations fed the momentum. The Mac has established itself as not just an alternative to Windows, but now for many a preferable alternative.

What intrigues me are the consequences of the Mac as a legitimate competitor to Windows in the marketplace for the first time in over 15 years (one could argue the first time ever).

I don’t envision a day when Apple vanquishes Microsoft from the OS battlefield, but that won’t be necessary.

If Apple succeeds in winning 20 to 25 percent of the market, Microsoft would lose one of its key assets – the leverage that comes from holding a near-monopoly on PC operating systems. For years Microsoft used that power to bully rivals and promote its own technologies over that of would-be competitors (think Internet Explorer).

Even if Apple’s market share levels off in the low 20’s, it would seriously hamper Microsoft’s ability to impose its will on the computer users both in the home and the workplace.

And what about the workplace? As the Mac becomes the computer of choice in more homes and on more college campuses, more young people entering the work force will question the primacy of Windows in the business world.

Although Apple has so far declined to target business customers, the popularity of the iPhone among executives along with changing expectations of the iPod generation could result in the Mac taking inadvertent bites out of the enterprise market.

Such a turn of events would start eating into Microsoft’s profits. With Apple nibbling at the Windows hegemony and Google jeopardizing the dominance of Office with Google Apps, Microsoft could face threats to both of its cash cows. (Office and Windows comprise about 70 percent of Microsoft revenues).

Not that Microsoft will disappear any time soon, but it would be nice to see them get the wake-up call that mediocrity will not carry the day forever. True competition in the areas Microsoft has dominated for over 20 years would reward consumers with better products from all parties.

Innovation – something about which Apple knows a thing or two -- might matter again.

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:21 PM in Mac market share, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (16)
                       

The latest report from Rockville, Md.-based ChangeWave Research reflects customer satisfaction running in opposite directions for Vista and Leopard, the newest version of the Mac operating system.

An amazing 81 percent of customers of those who purchased a Mac in the previous 90 days said they were “very satisfied” with it. This compares to 27 percent of PC buyers who got Vista Home Premium on their new PC and a pathetic 15 percent of those who bought PCs with Vista Home Basic pre-installed.

According to the ChangeWave report, “Leopard’s high customer satisfaction not only dwarfs its competitors, but it’s having a direct impact on customer intentions to purchase an Apple computer. More than one-in-four respondents (26 percent) say the Leopard OS makes them more likely to buy an Apple computer in the future.”

Seemingly contradicting the IDC and Gartner reports released earlier in the week that showed the Mac’s market share slipping a bit from the third quarter to the fourth, the ChangeWave data showed an increase in Mac buyers. Of those who bought a computer in the past 90 days, 17 percent (up from 14 percent) said they bought a Mac laptop and 16 percent (up from 10 percent) said they bought a Mac desktop.

Looking ahead, of those respondents who said they planned a PC purchase in the next 90 days, 33 percent said they’d buy a Mac laptop and 29 percent a Mac desktop. The laptop number is up from 29 percent in November and from 20 percent a year ago. And that survey was taken before the MacBook Air was announced.

The Mac’s desktop number of planned purchases stayed the same (it was also 29 percent in the November survey), but has risen from 18 percent in the January 2006 survey.

But why does the Mac do so much better in the ChangeWave surveys than in the more conventional measures of market share conducted by IDC and Gartner? The data from those surveys put the Mac’s fourth quarter market share at about 6 percent.

The Mac excels in the ChangeWave data because in this particular survey, the focus is on consumer purchases rather than overall PC purchases. Removing corporate buying from the equation shows just how much progress the Mac has made with the average PC consumer.

Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with Windows Vista has grown so severe that tech Web site InfoWorld has launched a petition to Microsoft to keep selling its predecessor, Windows XP, past the planned June 30, 2008 deadline.

“Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don't see a need to change to Vista,” InfoWorld Executive Editor Galen Gruman writes. “It's like having a comfortable apartment that you've enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice.”

Well, as a Mac user I can’t explain the love for Windows XP, but apparently lot of Windows users share Gruman’s sentiments – 30,000 had signed the online petition as of 5 p.m. Jan. 17.

Posted by David Zeiler at 12:57 PM in Mac market share, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (10)
                       

Apple has done a great job of marketing the Intel-based Macs ability to run Windows, but has confused some ordinary users into thinking all new Macs come with a built-in ability to run Windows software and use third-party devices designed only for Windows-based PCs.

Twice this week I have had co-workers seek my counsel with this type of query. Both had bought peripheral devices for a Mac user before discovering the device was not Mac compatible.

Both said they had heard new Macs could run Windows and expressed hope the destination Macs still would be able to use the devices. I had to tell them that while the newer Intel-based Macs can indeed run Windows, the user must buy and install a retail copy of Windows to enable that capability.

Though disappointed, they understood.

I’m not sure what Apple should do to clarify this point for its growing legions of non-technical users, but it might behoove Cupertino to give it some thought. People who hear “Macs can now run Windows” not unreasonably may expect it to do so out of the box.

Apple does not need thousands of annoyed customers calling its tech support personnel to ask why this or that Windows thingy won’t work with their new Mac, only to be told the feature requires a bit more money and effort on their part.

Of course, the real culprit in this scenario is neither Apple nor the innocent user, but those companies that continue to manufacture third-party peripherals incompatible with Macs.

In this blog I have noted often the Mac’s steadily increasing market share, particularly in the United States. Those market share increases are coming mostly from consumers switching from Windows – consumers who buy lots of peripherals.

When the Mac’s market share was mired in the sub-5 percent zone, it was easy for tech companies to dismiss it. The numbers for the Mac this year have consistently shown growth; in October Gartner reported overall Mac share at 8 percent (which translates to much higher consumer market share, given the Mac’s low profile in the business world). Last week ChangeWave Research released data from November revealing that 29 percent of those who intend to buy a computer in the next 90 days would choose a Mac.

At some point the Mac user base will become too large to ignore with impunity. Companies that refuse to make their peripherals Mac compatible will start to lose business to the ones that do. Such market forces eventually should make the absence of Mac compatibility among peripheral devices a rarity.

Perhaps someday we’ll even see “Not Windows Compatible” devices. Heh heh.

Posted by David Zeiler at 12:34 PM in Mac market share, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (6)
                       

Reinforcing other recent reports of the Mac’s continued strength in the market, a survey taken in early November by Rockville, Md.-based ChangeWave Research indicates that more potential buyers than ever plan to buy a Mac in the near future.

Of the respondents who said they planned to buy a computer in the next 90 days, 29 percent said they’d get a Mac laptop and another 29 percent said they’d get a Mac desktop.

Apple’s laptop number is actually the highest in the survey – Dell came in second at 28 percent, followed by Hewlett-Packard at 21 percent. Amazing.

On the desktop side, Dell was first with 31 percent with Apple’s 29 percent good for second. Hewlett Packard was third with 24 percent.

The numbers are even more impressive when compared to the historical data in the survey. In September 2006, only 17 percent were planning on buying Apple laptops and 18 percent Apple desktops. If you go back to October 2005, the numbers fall to 16 percent for laptops and 11 percent for desktops.

Questions on customer satisfaction offered at least one clue as to why Macs have grown more popular – Apple leads in this category by a huge margin.

A chart showing the percentage of respondents who were “very satisfied” shows Apple with 80 percent, far ahead of all the PC vendors, which range from Dell at 61 percent to Lenovo at 49 percent. Another 18 percent were “somewhat satisfied.” Only 2 percent were “very unsatisfied” with zero reporting in the “somewhat unsatisfied” category.

The combined “unsatisfied” scores for Apple’s rivals ranged from 6 percent for Dell to 14 percent for Lenovo.

Still more positive news for the Mac turns up in the operating system segment of the survey.

Asked if Leopard, the latest version of the Mac OS X, would make them “more likely” or “less likely” to buy an Apple computer in the future, 24 percent said “more likely” while 66 percent said it would have no effect. None said it would make them less likely to buy a Mac.

Another question asks. “Which operating system would you like to have preinstalled on the computers(s) you plan to buy in the next 90 days?”

Leopard was the choice of 28 percent – the highest individual number, though the Windows percentages were split by the assorted flavors of Vista and XP. Vista’s totals add up to 42 percent, with Vista Home Premium the choice of 20 percent.

Microsoft might be concerned that more than a year after the launch of Vista 40 percent of potential PC buyers would prefer Windows XP on their new computer.

As pleased as any Mac loyalist would be with these survey results, one must wonder a little at how Apple’s numbers could be so high, particularly the percentages of people planning to buy Macs. Even the most optimistic U.S. market share surveys have pegged the Mac at only about 8 percent overall, with about 12 percent of the laptop market.

How could 29 percent of a survey sample be planning to buy Macs? It just doesn’t seem possible.

It turns out it depends on who you survey. ChangeWave does not randomly select its samples, but queries a group of 13,000 “senior technology and business executives in leading companies” it calls the “ChangeWave Alliance.”

This explains why Apple does so well in its surveys – what else would you expect from such a group of highly educated and tech-savvy people?

It also bodes well for Apple much further into the future than the 90 day period asked about in the survey. The members of the ChangeWave Alliance are the type of people others look to for leadership and guidance. If nearly one in three of them are going Mac, it could signal a substantial increase in Mac market share over the next year or two, perhaps to the mid-teens or beyond.

It’s almost scary, isn’t it?

Posted by David Zeiler at 9:07 AM in Mac market share, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (4)
                       

Pardon me while I momentarily channel MacDailyNews, but I read a column that appeared in The Times of Johannesburg that begs to be mentioned to Microsoft-loathing Mac lovers.

The writer, Toby Shapshak is an award-winning technology journalist and editor. He writes that has dutifully used Windows for years “in part because I didn’t want to be one of those journalists who didn’t muck it out with the masses, and in part because Office is the default work tool of my industry and XP had matured to crashing only every second day.”

Shapshak declares Vista a major disaster for Microsoft and backs it up with plenty of merciless barbs. I offer here a few choice excerpts:

“I haven’t met a single person, outside of those who work for Microsoft, who have a good thing to say about Vista, while the blogosphere has torn the world’s largest software maker to shreds.”

“Vista is too slow, too clunky, too unresponsive, too unwieldy. There are nine ways to turn Vista off or put it in standby, because there were 43 different people working in various teams on the shut-down function.”

“Hardware manufacturers have privately expressed their despair and frustration to me, as has everyone who foolishly bought a new computer with Vista on it.”

Amen, brother.

To extract the maximum schadenfreude, read the entire column here.

Posted by David Zeiler at 9:15 AM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (9)
                       

The other day I received a message from a coworker with this in the subject field: “OK, I’m going Mac.”

Another colleague fed up with Windows-based PCs is seeking my aid on switching to the Mac.

Having written about Apple and the Mac for the Baltimore Sun on and off for the past decade, I have become a handy resource for my colleagues at the newspaper whenever they have questions about Apple products.

Over the years nearly all of those questions have come from fellow Mac users with a particularly vexing problem with their Mac at home, although I’ve done more than my share of Mac troubleshooting in the newsroom (shhhh, don’t tell our IT department).

But over the past six months or so I’ve helped half a dozen coworkers who wanted to ditch their Windows PCs at home for a Mac. I realize this is anecdotal, completely unscientific evidence, but since such queries were rare before this year I’m counting it as further evidence that the Mac is making significant headway in the consumer market.

The reasons these folks have given me for switching from Windows -- which in most cases they have always used -- reflect points Apple has emphasized in its advertising campaign. They’re tired of PCs that get so gummed up with spyware, viruses and adware they become unusable. They’re tired of peripherals that are supposed to work but don’t. They’re tired of struggling with Windows, and are reluctant to buy a new PC because it means learning the new foibles of Vista, Microsoft’s most recent version of the OS.

At the same time, Apple’s powerful brand made enough of an impact to get them to consider the Mac as an alternative. They’ve witnessed the hype around the iPhone and noticed the dominance of the iPod in the portable music player market. Several visited an Apple Store before they made up their mind. In short, Apple’s strategy is succeeding.

Best of all, everyone who has switched has been glad they did. They’re mostly surprised that a home computer can be as hassle-free as the Mac generally is. They’re converts who will likely tell their friends about their positive experiences.

The Mac’s steadily growing U.S. market share numbers indicate this sort of thing must be happening more and more, and could be ready to snowball as we head into 2008.

Microsoft, watch your back.

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:01 PM in Mac market share, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (22)
                       

This time Apple is going for the jugular.

Watching the three newest “Get a Mac” TV ads, which attack Windows more pointedly than ever, shows an Apple unafraid to exploit Microsoft’s misfortunes with Vista, its latest version of Windows.

Most of the earlier “Get a Mac” ads featuring John Hodgman as the PC and scruffy Justin Long as the Mac have poked fun at Windows and its assorted shortcomings vis-à-vis the Mac without drawing a lot of blood. Many of these ads showed Macs as better at “fun” creative endeavors, with PCs more suited for such routine tasks as spreadsheets. Even the “Viruses” ad, in which Hodgman’s sneezing represents the tens of thousands of PC viruses in the wild, had a mood more playful than vicious.

The tone started to change earlier this year with ads such as “Choose a Vista,” in which the many varieties of Vista are represented on a big game wheel that Hodgman spins (only to land on “lose a turn”).

The three new ads hold back nothing, opportunistically exploiting reports that many Windows users who tried Vista have since downgraded back to XP. In “PR Lady,” as Hodgman’s discusses the “downgrading” problem with Long, a smartly dressed woman interjects a positive spin: ‘By downgrading he means they’re upgrading to an older, more familiar experience.” When Hodgman suggests PC users might switch to a Mac, the flustered PR lady can only say “No comment.”

The other two ads reverse the long-standing role of the Mac as the challenger and portray the PC on the defensive. Hodgman, dressed in a boxer’s robe, tells Long in “Boxer”: “Well, your sales are through the roof and I’m showing the people I’m not going down without a fight.”

In “Podium” Hodgman plays the role of a politician extolling Vista, despite its troubles. “Some people are giving up on Vista because it doesn’t work the way they want it to,” he tells Long from behind a podium marked with the slogan “Don’t Give Up on Vista!” He makes outlandish statements like “If your printer isn’t compatible with Vista, I say buy a new printer!” The ad concludes with Hodgman admitting -- despite his strong rhetoric – he “switched back to XP three weeks ago.”

Casting Windows as the besieged OS is a clever twist. By turning the traditional relationship on its head, Apple hopes to convince the computer-buying public that the Mac is winning a war that was supposed to be over a decade ago. In so doing the company hopes to persuade consumers that buying a Mac is the prudent choice.

Everybody loves a winner, right?

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:54 AM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (7)
                       

One year after introducing its Zune music player with the slogan “Welcome to the social,” Microsoft is going to Plan B.

The emphasis on the Zune’s primary advantage over Apple’s iPod – its ability to “squirt” songs to another nearby Zune wirelessly – turned out to be a poor sales strategy for a new product trying to break into an established market. That the songs expired shortly afterward didn’t help, either.

Microsoft built an ad campaign on a function most Zune owners rarely were able to use. It’s hard to be “social” when you’re the only one at the party.

While Microsoft has publicly stated it’s pleased with Zune sales, the product nevertheless sits in fourth place with less than 3 percent of the total MP3 player market It trails Sandisk, which has 10 percent of the market and Creative Labs at 4 percent. The iPod, of course, dominates with over 70 percent.

So on the cusp of the arrival of the new Zune models on Nov. 13 as well as the crucial holiday buying season, Microsoft has decided to bag the old campaign for a fresh one from a different ad agency, according to an Advertising Age article published yesterday.

The new campaign is more than a fresh approach; it essentially inverts the message of the original. From the AdAge piece: “Zune is dropping its original strategy, which painted the iPod as an isolating device and Zune as more social because its tunes can be shared among users. Now the campaign is centered on the individual and tagged ‘You make it you.’ ”

Hmmmm ... probably not a contender for next year’s Clio Awards. It may be worse than “Welcome to the social.” And then there was Vista’s underwhelming but costly “The Wow starts now” campaign. You’d think Microsoft would use its bloated bank account to hire better talent.

Microsoft’s only chance at taking significant market share from the iPod is to promote features of the Zune that are different or better. At least the first campaign tried something along those lines, no matter that it was ill conceived.

But a campaign to convince people the Zune is more personal than an iPod? In what way? In both cases, the user personally chooses every song and video he or she loads on the device. There’s no difference. The campaign makes absolutely no sense.

The Zune is a decent product, but it doesn’t particularly stand out in the crowd of portable media players. As the underdog in this category, Microsoft needs to show consumers why they should buy a Zune over not just an iPod, but over any music player.

The “it’s good enough” strategy only works when you have a monopoly.

Finally, I’d like to point out one more priceless tidbit in the AdAge article. Mike Harris, partner-strategy for T.A.G., the ad agency responsible for the new campaign, derided the iPod as “a superficial status symbol” as he praised the Zune as more personal.

Thus, the objective of Microsoft’s new campaign is to get the ignorant hordes to realize that since they bought an iPod only to impress their friends the only thing to do is to toss their Nanos sheepishly into a trash bin before rushing out to buy a Zune.

Good luck with that.

Posted by David Zeiler at 5:01 AM in Taunting Microsoft, iPod | Permalink | Comments (15)
                       

The new Zunes are coming! The new Zunes are coming! But will anyone care?

Just weeks after Apple raised the bar with a refreshed lineup of iPods, Microsoft is poised to release a refreshed lineup of Zunes. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates showed the new Zunes, scheduled to go on sale in mid-November, to reporters yesterday. The original Zune now has an 80-gigabyte version; two new flash memory-based models come in 4 GB and 8 GB versions as well as several new colors, though none of the new Zunes is brown.

Going simply by the specifications and prices, the new Zunes match up closely with their iPod counterparts, the iPod Classic and the iPod Nano. (If you want to see all the details, Engadget has created a chart.) The Zune flashes even have a physical shape much like the old, vertical iPod Nanos. The general impression is that the Zune is trying hard to match the iPod, rather than exceed it; it doesn’t differentiate itself enough to get noticed in a market where the iPod is king.

The new Zunes can “squirt” music to each other, as did the first generation. That feature did not prove to be a particularly strong selling point, perhaps because the songs expire after three plays. The Zunes still have an FM radio receiver, which the iPod does not, but frankly I use my iPod to avoid listening to the radio. And the new Zunes can sync their music from Windows PCs wirelessly, which is great if you hate the dreadful inconvenience of having to connect your unit into a USB port.

That’s not going to be enough to lure consumers from the iPod. As Gartner vice president Van Baker told the Los Angeles Times, “They’re not going to gain against Apple because there is nothing really innovative about what they’re doing.”

Microsoft has said it sold 1.2 million Zunes in the first half of 2007. Apple sold 20.35 million iPods in the same period. That ratio almost certainly will not change in the upcoming holiday shopping season. Microsoft needed to do something a lot more dramatic with the Zune to have any hope of eating significantly into the iPod’s 70 percent-plus market share.

Even Bill Gates seems unimpressed. “For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got,” Gates told the New York Times. “The satisfaction for the device was superhigh. The satisfaction on the software actually is where we’d expect to see a huge uptick this year. It was just so-so on the software side.” Commenting on the integration of Zune’s hardware, software and music store, Gates added, “I’m sure a year from now we’ll do even better. But I’m blown away by what they’ve been able to do in a year.”

Uh, way to give Zune the hard sell, Bill. In years past, Gates famously touted new versions of Windows as the most robust ever, most secure ever, most feature-rich ever, blah, blah, blah. The hyperbole was staggering, and often misplaced. But it was his job as head of the company and chief figurehead to sell the product. Heaven knows Steve Jobs is legendary for marketing Apple’s new wares, though he usually has the goods to back up his claims.

As it stands, the new Zunes don’t figure to dampen Apple’s holiday cheer, while the increasingly negative reaction to Vista should help boost already rising Mac sales in the final quarter of 2006.

Posted by David Zeiler at 3:48 PM in Taunting Microsoft, iPod | Permalink | Comments (9)
                       

Windows users are refusing to “upgrade” to Vista.

The latest evidence that Vista has fallen flat on its pretty Aero face has arrived in an announcement from Microsoft that it will continue selling Windows XP due to customer demand for the older OS. Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP as of January 31, but now will sell it until the end of June.

Earlier this year some PC manufacturers, most notably Dell, started offering XP as an option on many of its new PCs, also because of customer demand. That so many people would prefer a six-year-old operating system over Microsoft’s latest and greatest speaks volumes about how badly the folks at Redmond botched Vista. It’s a far cry from the overwhelmingly enthusiastic reaction that greeted Windows 95 a dozen years ago.

At this time last year most industry analysts were predicting that the years-delayed release of Vista (which finally went on sale Jan. 30 of this year) would hurt Mac sales. As it turned out, the opposite happened. The first two quarters of 2007 saw Macs selling at a record pace, with year-over year increases of 30 percent.

Over the past week analysts who follow Apple have been predicting another record-breaking quarter for the Mac when the company reports its earnings for the quarter ending this week. Most expect Mac sales to exceed 2 million units, far exceeding last quarter’s record 1.76 million units.

Instead of stimulating demand for PCs as have previous versions of Windows, Vista has inspired consumers to seek alternatives, and many are looking hard at the Mac. Apple’s adoption of Intel chips in 2006, coupled with the wildly successful iPod and the endless hype over the iPhone (keeping the Apple brand at the forefront of consumers’ minds) have created ideal conditions for large-scale switching.

Even some well-known long-time advocates of Windows such as Chris Pirillo have bailed on Vista. Not only has Pirillo reverted to XP on his PC, he’s been toying with Mac OS X for months. Here’s what he had to say on his Web site just today:

Do I recommend Windows Vista? Not a snowball’s chance in………..I’m waiting on Apple to release Mac OS X Leopard. As far as I’m concerned at this point, Microsoft is taking a huge hit. The future of Windows, in my opinion, is inside a Virtual Machine or Bootcamp on a Mac.

With Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard due out next month, the public stature of the Mac stands to benefit tremendously from the inevitable Vista vs. Leopard comparisons. Combine that with the height of Christmas shopping season, and we could easily see Mac sales set yet another record next quarter.

Who said the OS wars were over?

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:04 PM in Mac OS X, Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (5)