According to Steve Jobs, the Mac now makes up 20% of total computer sales. I personally know of about a dozen people that have switched from PC to Mac,but none that have gone the other way....
I'm sorry to hijack the thread with a long post which will immediately be perceived by Mac aficionados as trolling but I have to say......
Apple claims there are 5 million Macs worldwide. Microsoft just sold 240 Million licenses of Windows 7 alone. Now that doesn't include anyone still running Windows 98/2000/XP or any of the alternative platforms Linux(Ubuntu, SuSe, Redhat, etc.) which has more users that Mac as well.
So if you do the math of just 5 Million Macs and 240 million Windows 7 licenses - about what percentage does that come out to again - worldwide?
I used to love my Amiga more than any other platform. I certainly saw it through rose colored glasses but I never let my enjoyment - skew my real sense of reality like many fans of Apple seem to.
Apple is riding a wave of popularity due primarily to being in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the pent up demand for a quality digital music(mp3) player. They have capitalized very well off the mind-share created by their iPods and used to to launch a myriad of other iDevices(iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). However, this hasn't translated into as many Macintosh sales as they would like. Hence the latest push to convince consumers Mac Air(Netbook) that they've started to merge their iPod/iPad line with their Mac line. Culminating in Lion and the new Apple store, etc.
This totally ignores that other vendors aren't sitting on the sidelines and conceding the market to the Apple monopoly. Just one good example of something that ultimately may lead to the collapse of this wave of popularity is Google's success with Android in the Smartphone market. Android has recently been dominating the Smartphone market which Apple never really was the leader of. (That would be RIM.) Now when I listen to students and local kids talk about phones it's not all iPhone this and that. A lot of them are talking about Droid and some are even picking on their peers for buying the iPhone 4 because of the antennae/reception issue. (But I digress because all Smartphones have bugs, including my Android phone.)
I guess my only point in this long diatribe is - I find it hard to believe that even the staunched promoter of Apple products could believe the claim that Apple Macintosh makes up 20% of computer sales. The market doesn't bear it out.
I'm glad you like Apple and have had good luck with their products. We have supported Mac labs for years, they've had all kinds of bugs that we've had to find work arounds for and end up taking up more support time than the Windows machines, even counting malware repairs on Windows. On top of that we have no local support firms, no local warranty repair and a total lack of knowledgebase to call upon when problems occur. To top it all off Apple is so unwilling to acknowledge any flaw in their products, we often must locate our own fixes to problems until, if we are lucky, they fix them in the next paid service pack(OS) release. For all Windows is picked on most of their OS versions go through several free point releases where as point releases of Mac OS are paid. Thankfully, they are only $30USD per machine for schools.
