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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets 
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2002
21:57 - How to Make a 3% Market Share Sound Like Fun
http://www.mymac.com/robertson/1.22.02.shtml

 (top) link
This article starts off well, with a title of "Why Apple's Market Share is Fine By Me!" and a starting premise that sounds like it's going to talk about some real, tangible benefits of Apple having a small percentage of PC sales. But it quickly becomes apparent that the author's reason for enjoying being part of a 3% minority is that he likes the feeling of exclusivity. It's the "I'm special and you're all scum" mentality, and that teeters dangerously close to the Amiga mindset. You know, the Unabomber-ish Luddite mental trap of "The fools! Only I see the truth! They won't get to me with their mind rays from space!"

What I was hoping to see in the article was a discussion of how it's often genuinely beneficial to only have three or four really good pieces of software to choose from in a particular genre (that are easy to install and throw away cleanly) rather than fifty crappy and mediocre ones (that screw up your Registry and can never be completely irradiated away). No such luck, though.

This article at IT-Analysis.com comes a bit closer to the mark: they point out the crucial piece of trivia that few people understand about Apple, which is that their business plan is not about taking over the world. They are not Dell, and they are not Microsoft, even though they share some of the same responsibilities in shipping product that both companies specialize in. Apple's business plan doesn't say a word about market domination. What it does focus on is bringing to the market computers with style, cutting-edge features, innovation in usability, and software that enables people to do things that they can't do on other operating systems. They're making a business case out of shipping niche, boutique computers-- and guess what? They're profitable.


This business plan is successful for Apple. They're a niche player, but that is not a bad thing. The last paragraph of the IT-Analysis article says as much:

The picture this paints is not necessarily a bleak one for Apple. Certainly the figure of 3% penetration would not shake Microsoft, but for Apple it represents a lucrative niche that it has, judging by the fact that figures have remained fairly consistent for years, very much captured for itself. And that's no bad thing at all. Particularly as it's a niche that, to date, no other vendor could ever hope to touch.

There are really only two problems with Apple being a niche player: (a) They can't keep prices low through volume sales, and (b) they can't guarantee that software vendors won't abandon the platform. These are both very real problems, and I wish there was an easy solution. But there isn't. Price-wise, Macs will always be more expensive. There's no getting around that. But remember that Apple has to provide 30% margins, compared to Dell's 8%; and using hardware architectures that the rest of the industry doesn't share, volume is not something they can count on. I entreat readers to be thankful that top-end Macs don't cost $8000, like they did five or six years ago! At least they're competitive now.

As for software compatibility, well... yes, that's always been a problem for Apple. But as long as Macs have their grip on the graphics and publishing industries, and as long as there are large educational and corporate installations buying software support contracts, and as long as MacWorld Expo draws tens of thousands of attendees, there will be hundreds of companies producing thousands of software titles-- again, with the average quality being higher than the average quality of Windows software. Especially as users become developers and become attracted to the Mac as a development platform, as in the post I'm about to make next...

Being in a niche ain't so bad, really. And that's not all just back-patting and justification. That 5% (or 3% or 7%, or whatever number you believe) is not going to sink linearly to zero. The smaller it gets, the more the remaining faithful will push back to make sure it doesn't get any smaller. And the way things are going, it might not be shrinking anymore in any case...
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© Brian Tiemann