Amid all the hoopla over the iPad and iPhone 4, a handful of folks have predicted that the Macs days were numbered. If so, it's because that Apple wants to lose money.
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com) has released its "Global Top 10 Computer and Peripherals Companies -- Industry, Financial and SWOT Analysis. Apple is, of course, in that group, along with HP, IBM, Toshiba, Dell, NEC, Canon, Asustek, Acer and Lenova.
The global computers and peripherals industry generated total revenues of $540.1 billion in 2008, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5% for the period spanning 200408. And now the important (for this op-ed anyway) part. According to Research and Markets, the personal computers segment proved the most lucrative for the global computers and peripherals industry in 2008, generating total revenues of $236.9 billion. That's equivalent to 43.9% of the industry's overall value.
So let me say it again (and this will be my last comment on the subject for a while): the Mac and the Mac OS X are not going away. They'll change and evolve, but they'll be an integral part of Apple's future as far as the eye can see.
-- Dennis Sellers
Comments
No one is saying that the Mac will vanish tomorrow...
But like all contemporary desktop computers, it's days are numbered.
When he was interviewed by Fortune Magazine on February 19, 1996, Steve Jobs was asked what he would do if he was running Apple. Steve responded, “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
Clearly this is what he’s doing!
The Four Horsemen of the Macintosh’s Apocalypse are Cloud Computing, iOS, the iPad/iPhone, and the App Store. They are the Macintosh’s war, pestilence, famine and death, not necessarily in that order.
From Wired:, “…Apple is selling more than 200,000 iPads per week, says Mike Abramsky, an RBC Capital Markets analyst. That’s almost twice the rate of Mac computers, which average about 110,000 units sold each week…”
Its an iPad World. You just don’t know it yet.