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Microsoft’s Windows monopoly beginning to erode
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 01:33 PM EDT

"Lost in the market panic last week were some critical details on Microsoft's conference call. In our opinion, these offered tangible evidence that the Windows monopoly that has carried the company since its inception is beginning to erode," Henry Blodget writes for Silicon Alley Insider.

"Of the top 10 bestselling laptops on Amazon today, 7 are netbooks (70%). The other three are Apple Macs, which also don't ship with Windows. None of the 7 net books costs more than $500. Of the 7, only 1 (one) runs Windows Vista. Another runs Windows XP Home (a cheaper, simpler operating system). And one runs Linux," Blodget writes.

Top 10 Laptops (Amazon)
3 Apple Macs (No Windows license)
5 Windows XP Home
1 has Linux (No Vista)
1 Vista

Blodget writes," Desktops, obviously, are a different story. But most of the growth in the PC market is now coming from cheaper, lower-end computers that are mostly used to go online. And those 'net books' just don't need to run fully featured versions of Windows."

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Opportun" and "james W." for the heads up.]

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Oct 28, 08 - 01:42 pm Comment from: ericdano

This doesn't mean anything at all. Windows is still there, it is just not Vista.

Oct 28, 08 - 01:48 pm Comment from: Powder

Windows is just software,if people compare apple products and windows products,apple wins.Why?Because a software and hardware company with cool products always wins if the products are cool enougth to buy.

Oct 28, 08 - 01:56 pm Comment from: Gabriel

Chip, chip, chip away...

Oct 28, 08 - 01:58 pm Comment from: disposableidentity

Sure Windows is there, but only on 60% of the top-selling notebooks at Amazon. 60% is a number we haven't seen associated in any way with Windows before.

Plus, most of those machines are basically running a 6/7 year old version of Windows.

That's significant.

Even more importantly, the only full-featured notebooks on the list are from Apple.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:00 pm Comment from: jean

ericdano is right. have to look at total sales figures, not just the top 10 list from one consumer retailer.

Apple won't topple Windows anytime soon in most markets, even though it is a superior OS. It needs a stronger foothold in corporate markets. Key corporate software remains windows-centric. When it comes to replacing hardware, corporations are notoriously short-sighted, buying the same stuff they always used. They are cost sensitive on purchase price but ignore long term support costs. Note too that Linux is becoming a reasonable option for an increasing number of corporate users. Apple will remain the best of the pack by most measures, but even a lackluster Ford outsells Porsche.

And what does it matter anyway? Better to be high quality than high volume.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:17 pm Comment from: January 24, 1984

I'll take the Porsche.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:25 pm Comment from: Another IT Guy...

So based on a temporal snapshot of Amazon sales, M$ will be filing Chapter 11 soon? Hope springs eternal I guess. Pour me another glass, Steve.

"When it comes to replacing hardware, corporations are notoriously short-sighted, buying the same stuff they always used. They are cost sensitive on purchase price but ignore long term support costs. Note too that Linux is becoming a reasonable option for an increasing number of corporate users."

You're really demonstrating your ignorance about how corporate IT works. If they were short-sighted, they wouldn't ask for specific technology roadmaps from vendors--you know, those things Apple would never provide to a purchasing agent lest they give away some secret about a backlit keyboard or something. If they were ignoring long-term support costs, they'd not bother with automated image deployment systems or support/user ratio analysis. And if you think Linux is making a big play at the corporate level outside of appliance servers, you're forgetting that with Linux, it's free only if your time has no value.

Apple doesn't care about the enterprise, and it shows in their product and support offerings.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:26 pm Comment from: Demon

Cheap, High Volume, low profit Netbooks perinstalled with Google's Andriod, That would give Ballmer a artery busting Broomstick up the arse. I'd love to be the one to give him a Google Android powered Netbook.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:27 pm Comment from: viktor

Does any body knows some one who actually pays for a copy of Windows (any version)... I don't mean that it came pre loaded OEM. I mean that you brought a computer or assembly it and they you went to the store and buy Windows for it, or you requested it with windows.

Any Body?

I did actually went to apple at Fashion Valley in San Diego and get evry copy of Mac OS I have.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:32 pm Comment from: spyinthesky

',,,even a lackluster Ford outsells Porsche' and of course that is a very good comparison and perhaps more insightful than was intended. Ford is slowly wilting on the vine despite more make overs than I have had hot dinners. Porsche on the other hand is not only successful and extremely profitable, despite a small market share (sound familiar) it is precisely these factors which are now enabling it to progressively take control of VW a company that is far from wilting on the vine. Inevitably at some point in the future the significance of Porsche will be rather more relevant in the real world than that of Ford in the great scheme of things, and it may not be that far off.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:49 pm Comment from: ElderNorm

@ericdano,

"This doesn't mean anything at all. Windows is still there, it is just not Vista"

Yea who will not see.... :-(

Microsoft is already pushing Windows 7 since Vista will be still born. But Windows 7 will be "like Vista only bigger,,,, er better"

If net books do not run Vista, they will not run Windows 7.....

Get it..... ???? grin

Just a thought.
en

Oct 28, 08 - 02:52 pm Comment from: Jeremy

This is the key phrase here:

"... those 'net books' just don't need to run fully featured versions of Windows."

That's the whole point. Windows is only profitable and workable as a monopoly.

Windows is not needed, nor is it even useful to use in the next generation of computers and computerised devices like Netbooks, Phones, Tablets, and Kiosks. Ergo, the monopoly is broken.

Also, guess which company is offering the best OS for the next generation of portable devices? Apple.

Windows will soon be like IBM was in the 1990's, selling software for platforms that no one even uses anymore.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:53 pm Comment from: @ The Great Apple Fanboy Massacre

Congrats!

That has got to be the most dumbass comment ever posted on MDN!

Oct 28, 08 - 02:54 pm Comment from: spyinthesky

Of course Apple doesn't want to replace Windows in your run of the Mill Corporation, only a fool would. What it needs and indeed is doing quite nicely is bypass that quagmire of increasing big outlay/low return business. Mobile computing, cloud computing and telephony is the future and the place to make big money for the forseeable future. Own that and other developing technologies and you increasingly reduce Microsoft to IBM, important but hardly bleeding edge.

It can keep the Corp. desktop, for the desktop will increasingly be a corporate millstone around its neck as its development costs increase while income in real terms will decline as mobile technologies eat into it. Even Balmer knows that for MS to remain dominant it needs to 'own' areas in which is presently a minnow and it is totally incapable of exploiting innovative future developments, thus its expensive inefficient blunderbuss policy. Unless it finds someone as stupid as IBM were, or can buy its way into those markets it needs its decline will be slow but ultimately inevitable.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:56 pm Comment from: Buster

Netbooks are gonna hurt Apple bigtime if Steve is not careful.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:58 pm Comment from: qka

MDN - if you haven't already, grab the picture of Ballmer from the linked article. No his most grotesque, but definitely up there.

Oct 28, 08 - 02:59 pm Comment from: ElderNorm

@Jean,

"Apple won't topple Windows anytime soon in most markets, even though it is a superior OS. "

Steve Jobs said, "for Apple to improve, Microsoft does not have to lose." Apple is getting more and more people that use it, and those people are NOT going back to windows. PERIOD.

Microsoft still has plenty of people to sell to. Netbooks can use XP or MS mobile (LOL) but the key here is that Apple grows. Many people will always buy the cheap computer..... just cause. Apple is not trying to sell to that lower price and profit point.

nuff said.

Just a thought.
en

Oct 28, 08 - 03:05 pm Comment from: x

Apple has the best netbook, too. Its called iPhone.

Oct 28, 08 - 03:21 pm Comment from: doubletrouble

7 out of 10 pretty much says it all.

That's an estimate of the users who don't need an advanced operating system.

This measure may apply just about equally to the future of Apple's OS X.

There seems to be a shift occurring toward the cloud, like toward Azure and toward MobileMe, and toward a greater degree of 'net dependency.

Cut off the 'net and there goes our way of life. Maybe we should task the Defense Department to proactively protect the 'net.

In the meantime, how's Apple coming along with MobileMe's development?

Oct 28, 08 - 03:23 pm Comment from: Spudly

@ Another IT Guy...

"So based on a temporal snapshot of Amazon sales, M$ will be filing Chapter 11 soon? "

Congratulations! You just failed your SATs! Go back and read it again. I'll wait... ... ... OK, now you can explain how "beginning to erode" could be interpreted as declaring bankruptcy!?!

Oct 28, 08 - 03:36 pm Comment from: Macslut

The software ranking is interesting as well:
#7 OS X Leopard
#15 Windows XP Home Edition
#22 Windows XP Professional Edition
#64 Windows Vista Ultimate
#96 Windows Vista Ultimate - Upgrade

Vista is below iLife, iLife Family Pack, iWork, and Aperture.

Now granted, like hardware, this is only a snapshot in time, but I've been keeping an eye on this, and this is pretty normal lately.

Also, like hardware, this is only one vendor that represents unique demographics, but still the trend over time tells an interesting story.

Oct 28, 08 - 04:26 pm Comment from: morons...

Do any of you guys or the author of that retarded article realize how many PC assemblers there are combined with how many numerous configs there are for just one Toshiba laptop with that model number? Mac only has the top three because they only have 4 laptop models.

Time for some critical thinking for everyone...

Oct 28, 08 - 04:27 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

I think it's a bit optimistic, but my gosh I hope it's true.

Oct 28, 08 - 04:37 pm Comment from: MacSmiley

"In the meantime, how's Apple coming along with MobileMe's development?"

Right. No new Apple iCards yet, iCard patents notwithstanding.

Oct 28, 08 - 05:42 pm Comment from: jjjj

some day this will happen to AAPL's iPod "monopoly."

Oct 28, 08 - 08:59 pm Comment from: Yawn

"Sure Windows is there, but only on 60% of the top-selling notebooks at Amazon. 60% is a number we haven't seen associated in any way with Windows before."

No HPs, NO Dells, do you seriously expect us to beleive that those two companies have disappeard overnight?

Or could it just be that the Amazon store is not a representitive sample?

Oct 28, 08 - 11:14 pm Comment from: ken1w

> Apple won't topple Windows anytime soon in most markets, even though it is a superior OS.

Apple does not want to "topple Windows anytime soon." Apple's approach is steady and strong growth year after year for many years. That's how to run a successful long-lasting business.

Eventually, Apple will be the #1 PC maker, and it will happen with Mac OS X market share at about 25% and Windows still trudging along with more users. So you see, Mac OS X does not even need to beat Windows for Apple to become #1. Apple's competition is not Microsoft. An underachieving Microsoft is the best friend Apple could ever ask for, because all of Apple's real competitors rely on Microsoft to provide their OS.

If Apple wanted a faster route to market share dominance, it would be playing in the low-margin high-volume PC field. It's not. And I'm very thankful for that...

Oct 28, 08 - 11:41 pm Comment from: El Guapo

@Yawn
Or could it just be that the Amazon store is not a representitive sample?

I agree. I don't know anyone that buys their computers from Amazon.

Oct 29, 08 - 08:21 am Comment from: British Mac Head

OK, maybe Amazon is not the ideal yard stick to measure this trend but Mac market share is growing. And it's growing fast.

Students at many US universities are buying MacBooks disproportionately to the rest of the PC laptop industry. Remember, Apple is one single computer manufacturer competing with many in that market sector.

As Apple sells OS X to upgrade existing Macs (that's Macs not PCs). Microsoft are not a direct competitor of Apple, Companies like Dell and HP are. So M$ really only compete with Linux in market share. As Linux is free, They are not actually competing in a business sense with Linux developers either. This means Microsoft are a monopoly with an eroding OEM market due to open source.

However indirectly Microsoft's total market is shrinking slightly every month as a result of Apple kicking Dell's, HP's and every other PC manufacturers collective arses.

I am a parent with two teenage kids who will be going to University within the next few years. All of their friends are interested in Macs for the first time after seeing what they can do and after their piss poor experiences with Windows at school.

So Apple's year on year growth compared to that of the collective PC industry is what's important. That and Apple's continued profit as a company for their shareholders.

It's a paradigm shift that's happening and it's happening exponentially. Apple's market share is going to snowball and in the next five years they will be bigger than Microsoft and it's Microsoft's fault for selling crapware.

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