Windows 7 Market Share After One Month Surpasses Entire Apple OS X Installed Base

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141424/Windows_7_passes_Mac_OS_X_in_market_share_race' target='_blank'>http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...rket_share_race</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Windows 7 passed the 5% market share milestone last weekend, which put it, if only temporarily, above the total market share of all versions of Apple's Mac OS X, a Web measurement firm said today. Last Saturday and Sunday, Windows 7 powered an estimated 5% and 5.14% of all computers that were online those days, according to Internet metrics vendor Net Applications. The two-day average of 5.07% was higher than the 5% of the market that Net Applications said Apple's operating system averaged for the week of Nov. 15-21."</em></p><p>This is a welcome reality check. I know that Apple has tremendous mind-share because they spend an ungodly amount of money on prime-time TV advertising telling us how much Windows "sucks", but at the end of the day only 5 out of 100 computers on this planet are Macs running OS X. The market share for Windows that same week was 92.64%. The numbers say a lot - and no amount of reality-distortion field spinning is going to change that. Macs might be the perfect computing solution for some people, but they're not a mass-market product, no matter how hard the Mac faithful want to believe that.</p><p>There's also a weird reality distortion bubble in the media - many people in the media/blogging tech world use Macs. A far higher percentage than the rest of the world; <a href="http://www.windowsphonethoughts.com/news/show/95970/mobius-2009-fascinating-but-little-that-can-be-shared.html" target="_blank">just look at figure 2 in this article</a>. I don't know whether it's techno-savvy people who got sick of Windows, or the uber-geek's desire to try the next shiny and new thing, but at many tech events I'm in the minority using a Windows laptop. At that Mobius event OS X had 53% market share; in the rest of the world, 5%. Funny things can happen when you get a bunch of Mac users in the room: they think their platform always matters, even when it doesn't. Sounds harsh, right? Let me explain. <MORE /></p><p>One of the things I hear brought up over and over again is "Why is there no Zune client for the Mac?". The math tell us the story: take 5% of the computer market as potential buyers for the Zune who are running OS X. What percentage of those people are open-minded enough to try a Microsoft product instead of an iPod? In my experience, people who buy a Mac also buy into the ecosystem, often owning an iPod or an iPhone. So, what then, 10% of that total 5%? So we're looking at 0.5% of the total market, and I think even that's a big stretch.</p><p>Now put yourself in Microsoft's position: you have limited developer resources for the Zune software client. There are lots of features you want to add, but if you need to make an OS X client you'll have to curtail development on the Windows version. Are you willing to do that for a potential 0.5% of the market? Probably not. And keep this in mind: you don't need the OS X users in order for your product to become a success. You need, and want, Windows owners to buy your product. If you get enough of them, you'll be laughing. So why waste any resources on an OS X client?</p><p>The iPod would never have become the success that it is today if Apple hadn't released a Windows version of iTunes. Apple needed, desperately, the Windows platform as a host for iTunes - without it they'd only have OS X users, which represented a small percentage of the market. Microsoft doesn't need Mac owners buying Zunes, so they're not going to waste the resources developing for OS X - no matter how loud tech bloggers whine about it.</p>

[jeffd]

I think alot of people would like to try macOS, I know I would. The problem is it does not run on their pc..it does not run on my pc.. it does not run on my old PCs as an alternative OS. As software usability goes.. it is high, but as far as portability, flexability, it is dead last.

[ianbjor]

I don't think anyone will be surprised by the numbers for Windows 7 adoption, and everyone is well aware that Windows' market share makes Mac OS X look like nothing. Calling this a "reality check" is a stretch.

However, you must be aware of the idea of mavens -- the influential people who drive market trends (if not, read Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point. These are the people that everyone asks, "What (insert compter/gadget here) should I buy?" Individually, they represent a small percentage of the overall market, but they have massive influence. Therefore, attracting these consumers is crucial for a product to be successful. These are probably many of the people you saw at Mobius, and who read this site, too.

For the iPod, Apple correctly recognized that many of these customers were running Windows. Making iTunes for Windows was crucial not only for the success of the iPod, but it has certainly been a factor in the Mac's growth as well -- the "halo effect" is well documented.

Look at the marketing for the Verizon Droid: It is clearly aimed directly at tech-savvy people. The ads point(ed) out issues that normal users couldn't care less about, and may not even be aware of ("iDon't support open development", "iDon't run widgets", etc.).

There are plenty of Mac users that I know that look at the Zune HD – and especially the Zune Pass –*with interest. It's a great music player, and the subscription service is something that they would love to take advantage of, since Apple won't (or can't) create a subscription plan for the iTunes Music Store.

So, a company can't just look at raw sales to drive a decision on whether to support a certain segment. They need to understand *who* is in that segment, and if the influence they have is worth the cost.

[Macguy59]

Microsoft doesn't need Mac owners buying Zunes, so they're not going to waste the resources developing for OS X

Really ? Given how little success MS has had selling Zunes (including the HD) you would think they wouldn't exclude any potential source.

[Janak Parekh]

Really ? Given how little success MS has had selling Zunes (including the HD) you would think they wouldn't exclude any potential source. You can't tell me in all seriousness that the Mac population will adopt Zune in anywhere near-useful numbers.

As Jason mentioned, most Mac users will not use a Microsoft media player. .5% of the potential userbase is tiny! Just because Mac users are over-represented in technology forums, including ZT, doesn't mean it'll play out the same in the mass market.

Also, keep in mind that there's no modern Windows Media libraries for the Mac. It would be a lot of work to port them from Windows -- especially the time-sensitive DRM that forms the subscription model that's at the heart of Zune Pass. And you need to port them before you can build a client.

While I'm not sure I agree with Jason about the general implications of the size of the Mac userbase, I agree completely with him here -- Microsoft would be wasting money making a Mac Zune client, and I'd be shocked if it ever happens.

--janak

[Macguy59]

I'm not trying to tell you anything. Zune as a platform is struggling. If you think the cost of including Mac support would outweigh the potential return, that's fine.

[Janak Parekh]

I'm not trying to tell you anything. Zune as a platform is struggling. If you think the cost of including Mac support would outweigh the potential return, that's fine. That's definitely what I'm saying. :) ("You can't seriously tell me" was just rhetorical phrasing. Sorry about that.)

--janak

[Joel Crane]

Good article Jason. Some interesting points about Zune on Mac. Recently I've become quite the fan of Microsoft. The Xbox 360 made me stop hating them, the Zune impressed me, and Windows 7 totally won me over. I've been running the RC for a while now, and I just installed Professional (Student) on my old Pentium III laptop. The whole Xbox 360, Zune and Windows 7 ecosystem works beautifully together (I am however lacking the Zune third), just like it should.

[Vincent Ferrari]

Funny things can happen when you get a bunch of Mac users in the room: they think their platform always matters, even when it doesn't. Sounds harsh, right? Let me explain.

Good.

While you're at it explain Microsoft Office, Silverlight, Messenger, Remote Desktop, and Live Mesh being developed actively for the Mac, seeing as their platform "doesn't matter."

And... Go....

Oh, and if Apple's platform as a whole maintaining a 5% market share means it doesn't matter, why is it that you run Zune Thoughts, a site for a product I'm sure isn't exactly tearing up the market, because, by your standards, the Zune definitely 100% doesn't "matter" either.

Your standards, not mine.

[Felix Torres]

While I'm not sure I agree with Jason about the general implications of the size of the Mac userbase, I agree completely with him here -- Microsoft would be wasting money making a Mac Zune client, and I'd be shocked if it ever happens.

--janak

The thing is, the issue is not just about Zune.
The same principle applies to dozens of products and markets.

Pretty much everywhere you go, you see products and services with limited, delayed, or non-existent Apple support (peripherals, gadgets, and web services among others) and in each case you hear the online screams from the faithful. They want to eat their cake and have it too. They want to be separate from the mainstream yet they expect (as if it were some kind of entitlement) to be supported by Apple's competitors as if they were.

Just because you are a loud minority does not make you mainstream.
Visibility does not equal relevance.

[tregnier]

Just because you are a loud minority does not make you mainstream.
Visibility does not equal relevance.

Wow! This is so totally backwards. Our media has shown that visibility does equal relevance. That is why we are so scared about H1N1 but not the 400,000+ smoking related deaths annually. That is why we are so concerned about sick puppy dogs, stranded whales, and other media created "needs" and not so much the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the U.S. I don't mean to stray so far away from the Apple OS topic, but this comment just struck me as to extreme naivety as to media and its impact on American culture.

[Felix Torres]

Wow! This is so totally backwards. Our media has shown that visibility does equal relevance. That is why we are so scared about H1N1 but not the 400,000+ smoking related deaths annually. That is why we are so concerned about sick puppy dogs, stranded whales, and other media created "needs" and not so much the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the U.S. I don't mean to stray so far away from the Apple OS topic, but this comment just struck me as to extreme naivety as to media and its impact on American culture.

I'm not talking the media.
After all, the media is in Apple's pockets to start with.

Read the full post and you might notice I'm talking about the business case for Apple support.
And to the people who make those support decisions Apple is irrelevant at worst, second-tier at best. It costs about as much to create and maintain products and drivers, help desk support, and the rest of the product structure for MacOS as for Windows, but windows has 20 times the market size so the usual question is; "why double the costs" for a 5% increase?
For a lot of product and services the answer is a shrug.

The media can cover Macintosh and lift it on a pedestal all they want; that is the very noise I speak of. The very hype that disguises the line's limitations.
Relevance is measured in market share and the dollars and products that follow that share and there the Mac is just short of meaningless.
An afterthought at best.

But, in a way, you just made my point for me; to some people buzz and visibility is all that matters. The image.
The majority of people, however, buy substance; for all of Apple's massive advertising campaigns and bad-mouthing of the opposition (notice they rarely if ever actually say anything substantive about Macs? Their whole message is "buy a Mac; its not Windows.") all they have to show for it is 5% market share. Or about 5 weeks of Windows 7 sales.
Ultimately there's a lot of reasons people buy PCs and only one reason to buy Mac.
And most people would rather be productive than cool. They say so with their dollars.
92% to 5%.
Substance over hype.
Thanks for playing, though.
Next!

[Macguy59]

I
Ultimately there's a lot of reasons people buy PCs and only one reason to buy Mac.
And most people would rather be productive than cool. They say so with their dollars.
92% to 5%.
Substance over hype.
Thanks for playing, though.
Next!

Sure. Because it's what they are used to and they can be had cheaply. The next sentence is a classic straw man. What they say with their dollars has ZERO to do with your premise.

[Janak Parekh]

The thing is, the issue is not just about Zune.
The same principle applies to dozens of products and markets. As a heavy Windows and now Mac user, I totally disagree with you here. Peripheral support on the Mac is excellent. Not as good as Windows, of course, but there are very few peripherals that I've wanted that wasn't supported on the Mac. The only one that gets me is the terrible SlingPlayer Mac client.

Pretty much everywhere you go, you see products and services with limited, delayed, or non-existent Apple support (peripherals, gadgets, and web services among others) and in each case you hear the online screams from the faithful. No, you don't. The "faithful", as you call them, shop for a compatible device. That same faithful is willing to spend money (given that Mac products are generally premium-priced) to get what they want.

They want to eat their cake and have it too. They want to be separate from the mainstream yet they expect (as if it were some kind of entitlement) to be supported by Apple's competitors as if they were. You are cherrypicking and generalizing here. Just because some people complain does not mean that the entire group are complaining.

Just because you are a loud minority does not make you mainstream.
Visibility does not equal relevance. What do these two sentences have to do with each other? Mainstream and relevance are distinct concepts.

All that said, I'm not sure why I'm arguing with your post; I know your viewpoint well and this is unlikely to change it. Posts like these are unlikely to change mine either. ;)

--janak

[doogald]

One of the things I hear brought up over and over again is "Why is there no Zune client for the Mac?". The math tell us the story: take 5% of the computer market as potential buyers for the Zune who are running OS X. What percentage of those people are open-minded enough to try a Microsoft product instead of an iPod?

I'll play devil's advocate.

One thing to note is that these market share numbers are worldwide and they include computers running in workplaces, there Windows has a larger share than they do in the consumer market. Zunes are generally sold to people who are buying home computers, not to plug in to their computers at work, so I think that you need to subtract any work computers from these market share calculations.

Second, the Zune is sold with all of its features in the US only, right? (particularly the HD) Mac market share in the US is at 8.8%, and analyst Gene Munster thinks that consumer market share in the US is over 20%. Ok, so maybe he's smoking too much weed, but clearly Mac sales skew more to consumers than to businesses, so the Mac market share of US consumers is north of 10%. Go to a university and you'll see that, among what would likely be Microsoft's most desirable sales demographic for Zune HDs, perhaps it is higher than 20%. Microsoft surely is overlooking a lot of potential customers, who happen to be fairly interested in devices like the Zune HD.

And, to counter your last statement, Microsoft sells a lot of Office for Macintosh computers; Apple Stores have the product clearly displayed all over the store. VMWare and Parallels sell boatloads of VM applications to allow Mac users to run Windows inside OS X. Clearly Apple users are open to buying Microsoft products. I'll say this much: it may be true that Mac users are unlikely to buy many Zunes, but Windows users haven't buying too many, either. And Microsoft will not sell more than a few Zunes to Mac users without native drivers and sync software.


In my experience, people who buy a Mac also buy into the ecosystem, often owning an iPod or an iPhone.

I own 3 Macs (plus my kids each have one.) I own an iPod, but I owned iPods before I had Macs - it wasn't the Mac that made me buy the iPod. I also own a WM phone (bought after I had the Mac.) I know plenty of Mac users with Blackberries. As I said, MS Office 2004 and 2008 have a very high market share on Macs. Your 10% figure is just a premise, is it not? Let me ask you this: how many of the people at the Mobius event with those Macs would have loved to get a Zune HD? (Well, they actually did get Zune HDs, if I am not mistaken.) So, how many of them turned them down?

[doogald]

Also, keep in mind that there's no modern Windows Media libraries for the Mac. It would be a lot of work to port them from Windows -- especially the time-sensitive DRM that forms the subscription model that's at the heart of Zune Pass. And you need to port them before you can build a client.

Doesn't Flip4Mac play all non-DRMed windows media in QuickTime? So that part wouldn't be too difficult to overcome, since it already has been. I really can't say about the difficulty of DRM development, but, as Vincent mentioned, Microsoft does have a full team of Mac developers working on Office, Silverlight, Live Mesh, etc.

And, of course, there are non-US Zune owners who are enjoying them without Zune Pass, right? Perhaps support for Zune Pass would be unnecessary for a Mac port.

(Still playing devil's advocate.)

[Janak Parekh]

Doesn't Flip4Mac play all non-DRMed windows media in QuickTime? So that part wouldn't be too difficult to overcome, since it already has been. I really can't say about the difficulty of DRM development, but, as Vincent mentioned, Microsoft does have a full team of Mac developers working on Office, Silverlight, Live Mesh, etc. Non-DRM, partially. DRM, not at all. Time-based DRM is not easy to implement on a platform in a way that users can't circumvent it. Also, not all of the tracks on Zune Marketplace are DRM-free, even if you factor out Zune Pass.

And, of course, there are non-US Zune owners who are enjoying them without Zune Pass, right? Perhaps support for Zune Pass would be unnecessary for a Mac port.

(Still playing devil's advocate.) Playing Devil's Advocate is fine, but this would be a terrible move by the Zune team. It would dilute one of the most important advantages of the product. Yes, I'm aware that non-US doesn't have Zune Pass, but Microsoft doesn't have an option at all there, they couldn't acquire the needed subscription rights. Ditching DRM for a Mac client would be a solely Microsoft decision, and would not only make people look ill upon them ("they made a Mac client, but neutered it! What a waste"), but would also eliminate what I think is the main competitive advantage of Zune over iPod. I for one would never be interested in a Zune without Zune Pass.

--janak

[ptyork]

Aww, man. Go away for a long weekend and miss a good Apple vs. Microsoft battle. Arrgh!!

While you're at it explain Microsoft Office, Silverlight, Messenger, Remote Desktop, and Live Mesh being developed actively for the Mac, seeing as their platform "doesn't matter."

And... Go....

That's really easy.

The only significant development effort of the above is Office, which is developed A) because Microsoft committed to develop it back when it saved Apple from certain death in the late 90's and B) because it is the office platform standard and sales will be MUCH, MUCH higher than Jason's possible 10% for Zune (which is a VERY optimistic estimate).

Silverlight is worthless as a Flash competitor without >99% browser compatibility, so this is a necessity. As is support for Mono and the Moonlight project for Unix users.

Messenger is effectively dead and was cheap to port.

Remote Desktop is a super easy product to develop and a no-brainer for just about every client platform since it allows Windows clients and servers to be accessed universally for free. Certainly looks good compared to the competition (http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/).

Live Mesh is also effectively dead (at least as far as I can tell). It is also relatively cheap to keep ported. And if it isn't dead, it's intended to be a development platform for offline cloud apps, so it makes sense for this to be ported universally just as was Silverlight.

Oh, and if Apple's platform as a whole maintaining a 5% market share means it doesn't matter, why is it that you run Zune Thoughts, a site for a product I'm sure isn't exactly tearing up the market, because, by your standards, the Zune definitely 100% doesn't "matter" either.

The point isn't that it doesn't matter. The point is that it doesn't matter enough as a targeted user base for a Zune client. Let's be conservative and say that a Mac port would only cost MS $2 Million. Let's further assume that MS makes $20 off of every Zune and maybe another $15 in NPV for the ZunePass (after royalties and costs). That would require either that MS would sell around 60,000 Zunes to Mac users. Okay, according to a recent NPD survey, only 1.8% of US households are Mac-only (i.e., would NEED a Mac Zune client). Of those 1.8%, exactly 100% are fanboys--just kidding...kind of. So, 115M households == 1,750,000'ish Mac-only households in the US. Maybe around x2 that for potential MP3 users per household to make it 3 million. That means that Microsoft would have to "hit" 2% of Mac fanboys to make this worthwhile. And I think I'd eat a pair of raw shoes if they were able to achieve that. ;)

They might also do it for "goodwill," but goodwill from the Mac community for anything MS is generally nil...