Om Malik, in another fit of Apple-loving, has yet another post up about how great Apple is.
Let me first state that I don’t really have any issues with his conclusions, but I do have a few points to make.
He compares Apple buyers to people who buy expensive jeans. I think this is an excellent comparison. Diesel jeans and Levi’s both serve the same purpose and do their tasks equally well. Some people fall for the marketing and the whole cachet that comes with the more expensive jeans. Others buy the Levi’s, get their work done, and buy a couple of meals with the money they save. I wish I had access to the statistics on this, but I would bet the farm that the percentage of Apple users among Diesel jeans wearers, is much higher than the percentage of Apple users among Levi’s, or even Wranglers, wearers…even adjusting for the income differences between the two groups. Apple is all about style and cachet. The Dell’s of the world are about putting a box on your desk. You can do the same things with either, just as you can with a pair of Diesel jeans or a pair of Levi’s, but one is cooler than the other.
Om ends his little tirade with a note about how, yes, Apple doesn’t have a great track record, but we should forget about that because, well…I don’t know why we should forget about it, but Om thinks we should. He’s right, of course (rather Mark Twain is right), that historical trends, are not a guarantee of future performance, but it’s surely an indicator.
With those things said, I agree with what I think Om’s overarching theme is: Apple is becoming a force to contend with in the PC world. It’s not because their products are necessarily better (I can do everything that someone with their fancy G5 can do with my XP Pro box) but because their products have that ephermal quality called “cool”.
Update: In a somewhat tangential note, Cringely has a good idea, about how Apple is going to increase their market share…See item #3 in his 2006 predictions.