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Mac vs PC Gap Reaches Narrowest Margin Since 1996
It's something almost everyone has seen either between friends and family, coworkers, on internet forums and even commercials. The iconic battle between Mac & PC has been going on for as long as most of us can remember. It goes without saying that PCs have always had far larger sales numbers, going so far as to peak above fifty PCs for every one Mac sold in 2004. This gap however has been dropping at a steady rate since then and is contributed to Apple's release of the MacBook. A tech analyst by the name of Horace Dediu of Asymco has been following the Mac vs PC slugging match for many years and his number crunching has proven extremely interesting. Microsoft Windows PCs may have outsold Apple Macs eight years ago at a greater than 50 to 1 ratio, but these days it has dropped under 20 to 1. If mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets etc are added to the mix, the playing field ends up closer to a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of Microsoft. That is a far cry from that 50 to 1 ratio mentioned earlier, and more importantly should Apple maintain the advantage in the mobile sector with it's iPad, iPhone and other products they could possibly break even with Microsoft in the next two years. This could pose a huge problem for Microsoft, as for the first time they would have to actually compete directly for users, developer talent, enterprise investment etc. All of which Microsoft has enjoyed at length for over a decade. The data presented by Dediu certainly tells an interesting story, one that shows that Apple is more than able to compete with Microsoft and has rapidly closed the gap in terms of sales in recent years.
It's unclear how much he factored in Windows 8, Microsoft's new operating system that will run on both PCs and portable devices with the goal of marrying them together into a seamless computing experience. But Dediu says that Microsoft's evaporating lead could be bad news for the software company.
Posted by | Fri, Jul 06, 2012 - 02:49 PM
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