Out of the blue, Apple topples Micro$oft in Japan with more market share!

[redrumloa]

Japan shuns Vista and embraces Leopard, giving Apple a greater marketshare than Microsoft.

HERE

Mac claims more Japan OS sales than Windows
 Microsoft's has taken a bruising in the Japanese marketplace just as Apple's Mac OS X Leopard was released, according to a new report by the country's Business Computer News. The publication notes that while sales of Mac OS X increased dramatically between September and October, climbing from a rate of 15.5 percent year-over-year to 60.5 percent, Microsoft suffered from the reverse effect. Sales growth of Windows plummeted from 75.3 percent to 28.7 percent. The sudden switch provided Apple with about 53.9 of the total OS-only marketshare in Japan during October -- a breakthrough for the company, BCN says.

-Edit-
I figured I'd mention I've peronally had a very positive experience with Apple lately. Our Mac mini died an untimely death and at first I found the Apple store's handling very poor. After a bit of complaining we got a call back from an Apple corporate rep and their response was way, way above what we would have expected. Our Mac mini solo was replaced with a brand new Mac Mini Duo for the repair cost, Leopard was included and we were given a $100 voucher for our troubles. The Apple store handled our case poorly, they agreed.

Very positive indeed, especially considering the cold reposnse most PC companies give nowadays (cough cough, HP).

[koaftder]

I wonder how much of it has to do with language support. The multi language support in OSX is a lot better than in windows.  It's going to be sad if OSX ends up blowing Windows out of the water.

[redrumloa]

I don't know about sad, I'd be happy to see it. There is no doubt in my mind Apple is putting out a far superior product. I see M$ getting toppled, Japan usually leads the way in consumer electronics with the USA and Europe following.

[motorollin]

It begins..... :evilgrin:

--
moto

[Oliver]

koaftder wrote:
...It's going to be sad if OSX ends up blowing Windows out of the water.

Why is that sad? Is there a hidden note of sarcasm here?

I have had two groups of Japanese tourists renting from me, and both have had macbooks. I've had to set up their wireless access for my home router. I'm not overly fond of the airmac software interface, but I don't think it's any worse than Windows or Linux alternatives. The connection 'wizard' leaves a bit to be desired, but there are ways around the problems.

The language support does appear pretty seemless (not that I understand much Japanese).

I can certainly understand the appeal of a macbook for a Japanese tourist. A lot of features are useful, and hassle free.

[darule]

Lots of Asian people seem to be using a Mac. At work, that's a University Hospital, a lot of Chinese, Indonesian, Indian and other Asian students use a Mac.

[countzero]

well, I don't think vista has any appeal over XP other than gaming purposes. And in japan people buy consoles to play games so no reason to buy vista actually.

[koaftder]

Oliver wrote:

koaftder wrote:
...It's going to be sad if OSX ends up blowing Windows out of the water.

Why is that sad? Is there a hidden note of sarcasm here?

No sarcasm, I just like Windows thats all. I like the mac too. I use both on a daily basis, but for different reasons.

I use the mac for personal stuff, the photo library, the music library, email and web surfing. When people ask me what kind of computer they should get, I point them to a mac. It provides the least annoying experience for somebody who isn't very familiar with computers. No licenses, no hordes of trial software, etc. Good apps right out of the box. A lot of people never install any software on their mac, it comes with everything they will ever need right out of the box.

As for work stuff, the mac just doesn't cut it, mainly because most of the software I use on a daily basis isn't ported to the mac. Having written software on Windows for 10 years, it has become a comfortable environment. I find that properly maintained, windows is more responsive than OSX and chews up less memory.  

[B00tDisk]

redrumloa wrote:
I don't know about sad, I'd be happy to see it. There is no doubt in my mind Apple is putting out a far superior product. I see M$ getting toppled, Japan usually leads the way in consumer electronics with the USA and Europe following.

Like Betamax, the mini-disc and MSX!

LOL

;-)

[downix]

B00tDisk wrote:

redrumloa wrote:
I don't know about sad, I'd be happy to see it. There is no doubt in my mind Apple is putting out a far superior product. I see M$ getting toppled, Japan usually leads the way in consumer electronics with the USA and Europe following.

Like Betamax, the mini-disc and MSX!

LOL

;-)

Exactly, how Japan did not embrace all 3 and see how all 3 fell in comparison to the products that Japan did embrace, VHS, Compact Disk and the Commodore 64.

[Oliver]

Well, I can't see Windows really dying, but I wouldn't mind if it matured.

I also use Windows for most of my work. I need to use a lot of software which is written for Winows only, so it definitely has it's uses for me, but I can't say I really like it.

There are too many annoyances, and the design methodology of MS (not talking about their business methodology) goes against the grain. I feel Windows is something I can force to perform the way I need it too.

It's been a while since I've written any software for Windows, but I am told that it has convenient API's. I think that certainly would be appealing.

Dare I say it, I also like what the Windows user base has to offer. When I used Mac classic, it was often not easy to get info on how to force the OS to perform in a non standard way. I'm guessing that's not such an issue in OSX.

I think it would be a real plus if MS had a powerful motivation to improve Vista. I don't look forward to learning how to customise another Windows OS. It's usually quite a hassle to tame each of their new monsters.

I need to buy a new PC soon, but I'll probably install a second hand XP Pro.

oops, rambling again...

redrumloa wrote:
... Very positive indeed, especially considering the cold reposnse most PC companies give nowadays (cough cough, HP).

Microsoft themselves offer a truly miserable support.

When I bought the original box of Windows NT 4.0 back in 1997, I was allowed 2 telephone calls on a long distance number.

Prior to buying NT 4.0, I had NT 3.51 and it cost me 99$ US to talk to someone...
 :yuck:

[mongo]

Keep in mind that if you are buying Mac OS X Leopard, you already own a Mac.

Apple didn't gain any new users, they just sold an upgrade to existing users.

Total gain in market share for Apple = 0%.

[DonnyEMU]

It's incredible what people call poor support here in this forum. If I go to the Apple store and need help, it's $100 just to speak to someone personally for an hour. Also it's $75 an hour to talk to the Geek Squad at Best Buy, Or FireDog at Circuit City.

Apple can claim all the the sales they want, but how many people are buying Apple hardware and running some form of Windows through BootCamp or Parallels Desktop.

Realize Apple is going after the consumer market, this doesn't talk about what's happened with Vista in the Enterprise, or even Windows 2008 server or Home Server which haven't even showed up on the radar yet, and Apple likes to talk P.R. I doubt Microsoft (a personal opinion) is even talking numbers at this time of the year.

Also, one of the interesting things on the leopard disc is bootcamp drivers for 32 bit XP and Vista for all of the Mac's Intel hardware as it's feature. That would make Apple the number one "PC compatible" if their numbers are true..

It's a little bit like comparing Apples to Oranges so to speak. Microsoft makes software, and accessories. They aren't the PC hardware maker, there are several of them. Apple sells hardware..

[downix]

mongo wrote:
Keep in mind that if you are buying Mac OS X Leopard, you already own a Mac.

Apple didn't gain any new users, they just sold an upgrade to existing users.

Total gain in market share for Apple = 0%.

By that same logic, people are buying Vista to go on their already existing PC's.  So total gain for Microsoft market share is also 0%