If Apple is going to be around for the long term, it has to start driving more people to the Mac fold — and its new products and Mac OS X could do just that, Tim Bajarin, a consultant and computer industry analyst, opines in an ABCNews.com article.
“In fact, Apple reports that 40 percent of the people entering computer retail stores have never owned a Mac and are traditional IBM clone users,” he writes. “The customers are apparently drawn into these stores to get a firsthand glimpse of the flat-panel iMac and the new Mac OS that everyone is talking about.”
The flat-panel iMac is setting sales records and Mac OS X “is being snatched up in record numbers,” Bajarin says. However, it’s Apple’s new digital hub applications (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD) that may be the company’s “secret weapon.” Though he describes himself as an “extremely proficient” PC user, Bajarin himself uses his Titanium PowerBook “exclusively” for digital music, pictures and movie making.
“And I am not the only PC guy using the Mac for digital media,” he writes. “My entire staff has switched over and so have some of my close friends … It is too early to tell if Apple’s digital strategy will convince more PC users to defect, or draw enough new users to help the company extend its market share. But it is clear that Apple has gotten the attention of many die-hard PC owners and is using this new software to effectively show off the Mac platform’s real virtues.”
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