The Pros Get It!
Does anyone else?

While surfing the World Wide Web and looking for information sites (a favorite activity, the best results of which I plan to share with you monthly), a recent report headline caught my eye: Apple To Outsell Windows And NT By More Than 3:1 In Creative Markets.

Wow! A 75% market share for Macintosh?!?! Against all versions of Windows combined?!?! Why haven't I seen this in all the newspapers and online news services? Why haven't I seen it in ANY of them?

Further reading revealed that the report was from TrendWatch which, according to their website at http://www.trendwatch.com.cnchost.com/news/nr040899.html was "the first organization to size the U.S. creative markets and was the first to develop reliable graphic arts demographic data for the world's top 35 economies."

"TrendWatch reports, initiated and published for the past five years, have increasingly gained respect as the foundation for market-sensitive decision making, and have earned the reputation of containing the most reliable and timely market intelligence in the graphic arts and creative marketplace."

It sounds authoritative. So I wondered what else TrendWatch revealed that the mainstream press missed (or ignored). So I kept reading...

"HARRISVILLE, RI -- April 8, 1999 -- The release today of the latest TrendWatch demographic analysis of U.S. creative professionals indicates that Apple Computer is still the favorite of creative professionals, yet at an increasing rate.

"The TrendWatch Creative Demographic Atlas and Market Segmentation Guide is a comprehensive market and product development resource used to identify market and revenue opportunities in the U.S. creative markets. The report segments the markets by state, major metropolitan area and 3-digit zip code. This report is the only market information resource of its kind for companies marketing to creative professionals.

" -- The U.S. creative markets represent 62,000 sites and 219,000 professional graphics seats;

"-- More than 17,000 creative firms plan purchases of Macintosh and PowerMac workstations in 1999--nearly 3,400 creative firms plan Windows 95/98 workstation purchases and 1,600 firms plan Windows NT workstations purchases;

"Apple continues to dominate the creative markets. Since 1997, planned purchases of Macintosh and PowerMac workstations has risen 4.96%, yet during that same period demand for Windows workstations has fallen 19.9%."

Yes, that is a ratio of 3.4:1, Macintosh planned purchases vs. total Windows (W95/98+NT). Was this market leaning this way even during Apple's "dark" times? It must have been for sales to be going up only 5% since 1997!

Folks, the professionals obviously GET Macintosh. Which got me to wondering, does anyone else? If so, how is it that the Macintosh market share is only roughly 12%, as we read over and over?

So I started digging deeper into the online news services to see what is hidden behind the headlines. Here are a few interesting tidbits I snared:

From PC Week http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/columns/0,4351,403642,00.html
"It may seem foolish to predict what we'll see on the IT scene three years from now, but some predictions border on certainty. What college students are using today is what our professional labor force entrants will expect to see in 2002.

"From that campus perspective, Java and the Macintosh have stopped looking like attractive but risky propositions and have started looking like sure things.

"If undergrads aren't your idea of a bellwether market, then look at iMac sales overall: A third are to first-time computer buyers, four-fifths are to first-time Internet users. And Sears will start selling them at the end of this month. I call that momentum."

From VST Technologies, via a MacOpinion column:
http://macopinion.com/columns/roadwarrior/99/07/30.html
"'Apple is providing the user community with a powerful, full-featured, lightweight, and wireless Internet capable portable computer,' according to Vince Fedele, founder and chairman of VST Technologies, Inc. 'With the iBook, Apple has created a product that virtually every student and consumer will want.'"

From CNET News:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,39596,00.html?owv
"Apple continues to sell relatively pricey computers while maintaining market share in retail and catalog sales."

From Time:
http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,28498,00.html
"Now, in tangerine or blueberry, comes the iBook, Apple's "iMac to go," a clamshell-shaped laptop that promises to do for the portable market what iMac did for the desktop--sell like crazy and leave the rest of the industry playing catch-up. Very hot. Apple products dazzle by giving us what we didn't know we wanted but suddenly can't live without. iMac is clearly a superior product--a fact vividly evidenced by the rise of Apple's consumer market share from 5% to a startling 12% in less than a year."

From Newsweek:
http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/05_99b/printed/us/st/ty0105_1.htm "Fueled by the success of the huggable, balloony iMac--one of the world's best-selling PCs of late--Apple has nearly quadrupled its consumer market share to about 12 percent."

Whoa, did you read that, in three different articles? "
" ...while maintaining market share in retail and catalog sales."
" ...the rise of Apple's consumer market share from 5% to a startling 12% in less than a year."
" ...Apple has nearly quadrupled its consumer market share, to about 12 percent."

Now it makes more sense! The market share numbers we see quoted by all the major news services appear to exclude, at least in large part, Apple's biggest market!

Creative professionals don't normally buy in the retail or catalog markets, they buy direct and through major wholesale distributors. Their purchases wouldn't be included in the consumer market tallies. So, I repeat myself: The market share numbers we see quoted by all the major news services appear to exclude Apple's biggest market!

Why would the pros be buying Macintosh in such large numbers--3:1 over Windows 98 and Windows NT combined--if consumers are not?

It boils down to simple economics. Creative professionals make money through productivity. If a tool allows them to do a job a little--or a lot--faster, it improves their profit margin and can mean the difference between making money on a job and taking a loss. And meeting or beating deadlines can mean the difference between repeat business and no business.

With that in mind, here is a word from a Macintosh creative customer, compliments of the Apple website:
http://www.apple.com/publishing/video/dod
"Since the 1940s, the Department of Defense (DOD) has had network broadcasting for its troops. With the ever-increasing communications technology available, the capacity for global entertainment broadcasting has expanded, allowing the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service Broadcast Center (AFRTS) to create and expand their Creative Services division.

"And that shop's been using Macs ever since for all on-air and off-air products. "When I built this department, Mac was the only answer, and after three years of creating on-and off-air elements for all of the networks we broadcast around the world, I'll never use anything else," says Warvi, now Art Director/Broadcast Designer for the AFRTS.

"While the DOD still maintains its conservative, closed-mouth approach to endorsements, saying, "We CANNOT endorse one particular product for any reason," their exclusive Mac network for entertainment media design speaks beyond the silence of the military code."

And recent news is driving the Macintosh wave. The New York Times recently wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/circuits/articles/02geek.html
"But Apple, with the surprise announcement of its G4 chip family, is now the top banana in the PC speed wars."

And this again from Time Magazine:
http://www.pathfinder.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,30360,00.html
"On stage Apple CEO/Eternal Champion Steve Jobs put the machine through some carefully chosen tests in which it beat the pants off a Windows machine running a top-of-the-line 600MHz Pentium III processor."

And here is some refreshing evidence that even died-in-the-wool Windows NT users are starting to get the message:
http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep1999/a19990901hacker.html
"Web Page Hacker Arrested, Government Sites Becoming More Secure Christopher Unger, web site administrator for the Army Home Page, didn't want to talk about specifics of what the hacker did to the web page or what the Army is doing to protect its sites from future hackers. However, he said the Army has moved its web sites to a more secure platform. The Army had been using Windows NT and is currently using Mac OS servers running WebSTAR web server software for its home page web site.

"Unger said the reason for choosing this particular server and software is that according to the World Wide Web Consortium, it is more secure than its counterparts."

Creative professionals use the tools that are best for their productivity: Macintosh. And they use Macintosh by an overwhelming majority! The creative professionals GET Macintosh!

So, when you hear numbers for Apple's market share, check them out carefully to see if the whole story is being told. And when you're making computer system choices, listen to the people whose paychecks depend the most on making the right choices.

And now, KnowledgeSpider's Knowledge/Information Resource recommendation of the month:

Hardware: Get an information tool that lets you use it to learn, not one that makes you learn to use it. Get what the pros are getting. Get Macintosh!

Each month I will grab a knowledge or information resource from the web and share it with you. If you have a learning or knowledge resource or a teaching technique that has proven particularly useful to you, share it with all of us by tossing it into my web!

David E. Price
david@mymac.com