After reading the article, I found the predictions quite curious, so I decided to run some numbers. Especially since it's about the global PC market, and the figures seem to include enterprise sales. Apple's computer sales have always been strong in North America, but its market share is negligible in large parts of the rest of the world. Apple also has little market share in the enterprise market.
The article states that, at this moment, global market share for Apple desktops and notebooks is 4.4 percent. It predicts that Apple's desktop and notebook market share won't change much in 2011. About 300 million desktops and notebooks are sold annually.
Apple's computer sales have outgrown the market by 25-35% for the last couple of years, but ofcourse, such continued growth would translate to only 1.5 percent point next year (so that doesn't contribute much towards the predicted tripling of Apple's market share). Apple sold 13.66 million Macs in the last four financial quarters -- at this rate it will sell ~20 million Macs next year.
The analyst predicts sales of 37.2 million iPads in 2011. Combined with the 20 million Macs, that would make for 57.2 million Apple computer sales. If that makes up for 12% of the global market of desktops, laptops and tablets, then that market consists of 475 million units in 2011.
I think the total market for desktops, notebooks and tablets will be smaller, closer to 330 million units (that's still a 10% increase!). That would mean that Apple's market share will be even larger than the analyst is predicting: a whopping 17.3%
It's obvious that iOS is working out quite well for Apple, but with iOS devices outselling Macs 6 to 1 in 2011, I hope it continues to love Mac OS X and iOS equally.
I was given an iPad as a gift from work, and for pretty much all of my life I have been more sided against Apple and its devices. There are a few nice things about it, however I'm a bit annoyed of some limitations of it:
-Email is quite good on it, it displays emails correctly and quickly, but the email App is missing important things I need to make email reading/sorting a better experience. I can not show pictures by email, its either globally on or off. This is very bad for spam, and its a pain to turn on and off as you have to exit the app to get to settings.
-The 4.2.1 update has made the lock switch mute, which I hate. Apple say its to keep the iOS devices consistent, but the iPod touch doesnt have one, and the iPhone uses it as a tool to mute calls. Even having an option in settings to change its behavior would be nice.
-Multasking is a mixed bag. Some apps like email and safari need it, whereas others have never been developed for it, and it makes the experience confusing to jump between apps and having to wait for them to restart.
-The device itself feels like a slave, mostly to itunes. I have no music or videos on it whatsoever because my home computer, and laptop which with all my music and media, runs Ubuntu. Ubuntu plays well with most iOS devices now, except for the iPad. I believe they have changed how the music database works and that has destroyed compatibility with libimobiledevice.
-Id like a filesystem. Its all well and good that some apps have their own space now, but if you want it to be counted as a computer, it needs a central area where the same programs can access the same files. Dropbox helps, but i dont have internet all the time.
-One speaker makes me feel like im deaf in one ear.
A lot of those issues are why i cant regard it as a PC. It's just a huge iPod touch to me.
Seriously, I live downtown in a city with a disproportionately large techie population and I rarely see these things in public. 12% is crazy-high, particularly when you consider that nearly everybody that owns one also owns a conventional PC as well. Maybe I'll give you that 12% of PC owners will own an ipad, but that's not the same thing.
Keep in mind that "PC market" means the total number of PCs sold in 2011. And many people who currently own PCs aren't buying new ones (I'm typing this on a 4-year-old Dell laptop and I don't have any need to replace it).
This is why its not a PC, many people will already have a PC/Laptop they are happy with but like the idea of an iPad for consuming media. Its really only the day when users decide iPad instead of Laptops that it really becomes a PC. For some people this will be enough. Its desire as a consumable/entertainment device really sets it in a market of its own.
The point is that tablets are themselves making the market a lot bigger than it is now and that the iPad will get a disproportionately big chunk of the new pieces of pie.
>> If we include tablets in our PC unit forecast, then our estimates suggest Apple’s combined iPad and Mac market share would reach 12 percent in 2011.
That is not what you argue against (and it also contradict the submission's title, sigh.)
IPad is not a PC so this statistic by itself is useless. And yes I know they said if they add it in but still I stand by my statement and say this is useless.
From a hardware point of view, it would normally definitely qualify as a PC. However, since it's walled-garden'd, I definitely would not consider it a PC as it is.
Unfortunate that it's artificially restricted like this.
In corporate use, many users cannot add or update programs on their computers -- that is handled by the IT department. Yet there is no doubt that these computers are PCs.
I can imagine iPads becoming quite popular in enterprise environments because the software is managed. No antivirus, 1 standard(s) web browser with no browser plugins to worry about, and no p2p applications.
I'll concede that this is a different kind of computing than most consumers are used to, but I believe that many consumers will welcome a system that is safe, makes it easy to buy and update software, and which provides a consistent UI.
Right now, Apple is preparing a Mac App Store. If, in a couple of years most Mac software will be distributed via the Mac App Store, I can imagine Apple building a feature into Mac OS X that will allow administrators to turn off access to the standard filesystem for certain types of users, making such setups virtually foolproof.
In home consumer settings, the user is the owner of the PC, The user decides what programs to run on the PC. In corporate settings, the corporation is the owner of the PC. The corporation decides what to run on the PC.
In home consumer settings, the user is the owner of the ipad. Apple decides what programs to run on the ipad.
I see what you're saying, but apparently home users happily give up that bit of control to get a computer that 'just works'.
Other companies have noticed this, RIM and Microsoft are working on similar systems. Google's ChromeOS is even more extreme, as it only runs web apps. The CR-48 looks like a notebook, but following the logic of some, it shouldn't be called that.
I have had one since launch, use it a lot, but in no way consider it a replacement for my laptop. I see it being closer to a smartphone than a PC/Laptop just as I see a net book being closer to a PC than a smartphone. The day I can do everything with my IPad alone is the day I consider it a PC.
Sigh... What happened to "never change titles" guideline