Apple Inc (AAPL)

[langostino]

"Because Mikey McDell has that covered"

Win XP's biggest competitor? Win 98/ME
Win Vista's biggest competitor? Win XP
New Dell PC's biggest competition? Old Dell machines
New Apple tower PC's biggest competition? Old Apple towers.

The obsession with seeing the world in terms of Apple vs. the evil empires of Microsoft and Dell may make for good entertainment, but it is a complete sideshow.

The primary driver of Mac sales is how compelling the new machines are relative to whatever Mac users have in their hands today. When Steve Jobs got on stage and promoted the new MacBooks and Intel iMacs, the primary emphasis of the message was what? Processing power. And how was it characterized? Relative to old Macs.

WLD is right on the money. Apple could be shipping dual-core Pentium powered beasts right now that would present a very compelling proposition to the Mac installed base. And they would be selling the heck out of them right now.

That is true of all Mac products and sales, including software. iLife '06 doesn't compete against things like ULead's very fine suite, it competes against iLife '05.


"Apple sells more laptops and AIO's than Mid-range towers"

Again, so what? That's utterly irrelevant. Apple sells more iPod Nanos than Classic iPods. Should it not work on selling the next generation Classic iPods?