I do wish that I could get a Mac to work in a business environment. I am doing consulting work and kind of a semi-technical person who can not risk something not working in the field. So here I sit with a clunker of a laptop limping along - knowing that there is a bright shinny Mac that beckons.

So before I can make the decision that I would like to make, these business tools MUST funtion proplerly and be stable Citrix, MS Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.), MS Project, MS Visio. Yep I know now your gonna say well they do with Boot Camp. In my mind why would any sane person plunk down $2K for the MAC and then another $400 for another opeating system?

I wish it were easier and more integrated - but.

OK - Christmas idea a MAC buisness platform full integrated to business needs!!! Until then I’ve gotta hobble along with my PC be it HP, Dell or IBM … pretty bad ain’t it!!!

tWa

Ah, don’t think it will be 50% for many of the reasons listed here. Macbooks lowest price point is still 2x the PP for a reasonable PC (notebook even) with vista for most people. If the majority of the country is worried about gas going up a 1$, they don’t have any extra five benjamins to throw at a sexy notebook.

Now, where do you think that MARKET SHARE is going to grow the MOST in the next couple years, I would say in this semi-premium segment. It is becoming a bigger “statement” “fashion accessory” than ever before. It’s COOL to be a geek now (okay, I was also cute in high school!) but today everyone wants to be seen as hip, current, tech savvy, sharing photos, doing video conferencing, checking email (ala important) etc. That segment has $ and they will spend it here. So, without QUESTION the mac products are going to be the dominant products for that sector and I think macbooks, pros and even yes the AIR will sell very well in it.

I had a macbook, loved it, recommended it (hmmm, I had a macbook and then JEREMY had a mac book “-) )but I had to sell it since the glossy screen gave me bells palsy! To date my LT of choice is still the Thinkpads (currently loving my X61 tablet) and I RECOMMEND it, and even the VISTA that comes on it.

I still think XP is a better operating system, but more for the fact that we fully baked everything in it in the past seven years and it worked. Not too much eye candy, and once configured well it was solid. SERVER CLASS solid. Vista needs some tweaking and baking, but for the most part I am pretty happy with it now. AND, for the tablet user the handwriting recognition is really something to see. I cannot believe they did so well at it.

Comments on a couple comments. The killer feature today, especially for startups, software developers and even VC’s is that the mac offers such built in rock solid performance and virtualization. The ability to run native windows apps on the mac in a virtual environment means easier testing, never having to maintain two systems, can see how things run on multiple platforms, browsers, etc. So, even though the pc might be cheaper out of the gates, having essentially TWO platforms in ONE (or more if you include the fact that it runs on UNIX platforms basis) is going to be cheaper and easier in the overall. Same is true for the VC community. (don’t forget the HIP comments above) but the ability to have all platforms and robustness in one package is best. I would put a bit more weight here on the fashion accessory than the later though

Note about corporate adoption. I DO think this is going to be a drag on getting to your 50% market share, but mac products are making very large inroads into corporations and faster today than I would have thought. This is largely due to better networking technologies, built in exchange support and notes support (really, does ANYONE really still use LN?) the ability to run on a virtual environment, better understanding of proper security impact and virus/spyware succeptability and IMHO the large success of the iphone (soon with even better exchange support etc.) In the companies that I consult with, I see macs on about 10+% of the desktops, across manufacturing, software, professional services, legal, mobile application providers.

And yes, I TOO use an MBP for all the above reasons. Once the NEW MBP comes out (and please dear eight and a half pound baby infant whatever one likes to call him don’t let them put a damb GLOSSY screen on it!) I’ll move to that new machine and pretty much make it my daily driver. Carried around in my smart of course, listening to my iphone!

TB audi 5000

Today, if you buy Asus, Lenovo etc. laptop, you are either stuck with slow Vista or if you are brave, you may run whatever distro of Linux or Unix. Given that Linux appeals to so few (on a grand scale) due to lack of some critical business/commercial software support, the verdict becomes Vista. No wonder people are jumping ship to mac, which has decent software options and a great operating system. I only wish for more freedom to choose hardware.

It is a shame that manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo and others have to suffer because Microsoft cannot build a modern, lightweight, and affordable operating system.

http://www.shuttertalk.com

My reason is, over the next 2 years, the initial buyers will start needing a new computer. However one forgets:

- Apple’s very first model of MacBook Pro (which was only out for 6 weeks), nearly all of them failed within 2 weeks. Those that unfortunately didn’t, spent their lives being serviced.

- The second model was terrible too. Hot, loud, and many issues. In fact, it was only recently Apple got their MacBook pro’s to a decent state.

And yes, “I’ll never buy another apple product again” was a common phrase.

- The macbook’s also had dozens of reliability faults.

- The macbook Air’s only rich folk buy. The reality is, people seem more impressed with the EEEPC then the Macbook Air.

- Yet, what I have noticed, is that people are oblivious to OSX bugs, or failures in their hardware for Apple. And thats the only thing keeping apple alive really. Its the vibe from the people.

So I think we’ll see a drop in the period that the initial buyers are actually re-buying other computers. However, after that, there may be a gain again.

- Also.. I should add, Apple equipment has severe reliability problems (constantly). Out of all the equipment I purchased of Apple’s (a lot). Half of them were faulty in some way. (Like even the 23″ displays, many people don’t realise, but they wont work with certain video cards because apple didn’t test properly, and they don’t support the resolution needed).

Of course, this is speculation, but sooner or later, the cow dung will hit the fan, and that generally happens when more businesses start using OSX. In fact, that’s one reason I quit, business people are a lot more realistic then your normal crowd, and they cant accept half their equipment failing first year. As I left, there were actually quite a few angry business customers, and they were increasing (over issues with OSX, apple was taking forever to fix)