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Smaller and Smaller (2/10/98)
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Apple's just filed its latest Securities and Exchange Commission 10-Q report, and you know what that means: here comes the latest rash of doom and gloom stories! The first one out of the gate is the continuing saga of Apple's dwindling market share, which Apple estimates to be a teensy-weensy 2.6% worldwide, according to the L. A. Times. That's down from the slightly-less-appalling 3.3% in the previous quarter.
So just how bad is that? Well, without making undue comparisons to the interest you make in your savings account or to 2% milk, the downward trend in Mac market share may alarm some people. In the U.S., Apple's share was once actually over 10% (and we remember the heady days in 1995 when we complained that that number was far too small). But one year later that percentage had halved, yielding only 5.4% in 1996 and only 3.3% in 1997. This latest report is just another data point on the curve.
The standard disclaimers apply-- the 10-Q by its very nature always seems filled with the worst possible spin on all of the risks currently facing a company. We at AtAT have to assume that hard numbers are hard numbers, though. On the plus side, Apple's gross margins went up. And their development costs are down, which isn't a surprise, given how many projects they've cut. But Apple doesn't expect things to really get better for another few quarters. As usual, then, the watchword for Mac users is still "wait."
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 2/10/98 episode: February 10, 1998: "Hey, what's that tiny little smudge over there on the sidewalk," asks the media? Why, it's Apple's dwindling market share! Meanwhile, a maverick trio of merry programmers plans to usurp the Mac OS with their own upstart operating system, and the Man Who Pied Bill Gates speaks about his heinous act...
Other scenes from that episode: 439: Infinite Possibilities (2/10/98) Tired of waiting for Rhapsody? Bummed that BeOS won't run on your Powermac G3? Finally come to your senses and joined the rest of the world in realizing that the COS is a big fat vaporous hoax? Fear not-- there's yet another OS being grown out there, and its possibilities are limitless... 440: The Pieman Speaks (2/10/98) Those of us who are old enough may never forget where we were when we heard that Kennedy was shot, but do you remember what you were doing when somebody told you that Bill Gates had just been hit in the face with a cream pie?...
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