For tommie: Behind the Apple press releases and SJ's RDF 1080
Tom. People have been making that dire prediction for 30 years now. Even in the middle nineties, before Jobs returned...
This is a pretty moronic claim, Elam. Though Adobe doesn't given specific breakdowns, it's a pretty safe bet that the Mac accounts for 40-50% of Creative Suite revenue. And this is exactly what your analysis misses: individual developers couldn't care less about what Apple's overall market share is. They only care how many units *they* can ship to Mac users and how much money they can get for it.
Overall market share is an extremely poor predictor of this number. It ignores that:
- Any given product is sold into a specific market, and in some markets, the Mac has much larger market share than the overall figures suggest. In some markets, it's even the dominant platform.
- Mac users will on average probably be willing to pay you more money, if for no other reason than that they're a self-selected group of people who've already demonstrated their willingness to pay a little more for their computers.
Lets see: It's fast, no doubt about that. Much faster than my PPC Macs. That's about all its got going for it, though. :( -The hard drive is...
- Development costs on the Mac can be lower, primarily because there's just a lot less testing that has to be done. Hardware and software is more standardized.
- There's less compebreastion in the Mac market. Particularly if you're an individual developer or a small company, you'll probably have a much better shot at gaining visibility in the Mac market.
-- "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law." -- George W. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005