Ars Technica has a story in their “Infinite Loop” blog stating that 2007 will be the year of the switcher.
2006 has seen a number of analysts predicting substantially increased Mac sales, and at least one six-figure prognosticator has suggested Apple Computer may sell as as many as 9 million Macs in 2007. Reasons for this remarkable turnaround include Intel CPUs, the iPod Halo Effect, and Boot Camp.
The comments on the site and on the digg entry say it’s hogwash and give reasons centering around things like the lack of support for hard-core games and you can’t build your own. Ha! The average PC’er looking to make a home or small business purchase isn’t building their own or spending 5 hours a day playing intense-graphics shooter games. Take those folks out of the equation and you have a nicely obtainable population who are buying PCs for home finances, writing, surfing the internet, chatting, email, light graphics and video, and to run programs they need for work. For those folks, the Mac is perfect. Don’t be thinking about the average Ars Technica reader, this is about your neighbor who thinks that “digg” has something to do with gardening and has never changed the default home page on their browser. There are many more of them than us.
There are folks who want a $400 PC and they won’t be converted. But there are those who are willing to spending in the $900-1,200 range and they can easily be convinced if Apple plays it right. Leopard is coming and will build some buzz. Vista is coming and all everyone will talk about is what’s wrong with it. Cost differences aside, would you rather buy a computer in an Apple Store or BestBuy?
I was resigned to the fact that I could never come back to the Mac fulltime. Apple’s decision to put Intel inside changed all that for me, and I’m sure there are many, many more.
Judi Sohn 
4 responses to “More PC buyers will be going Mac in 2007? Absolutely.”
I was planning to do it in 2006 but, alas, Santa forgot to drop off my MBP. Maybe he’s just waiting for Leopard…
But seriously, I’d love to get my hands on even a Mac mini at this point just for the iApps. I’ve got GBs of Connor photos and videos to play with and while I had the iBook, I found the iApps provided a typically much smoother experience.
And for the record, I am a gamer. 🙂
It’s worthwhile to note several things. First, that these same analysts said Apple would have 10% market share in 2006. Didn’t happen. They didn’t even break 5%. Second, even the “average” gamer is going to have a problem with the Mac since its gaming performance, as recently documented by PC Gamer, isn’t that great even on the Mac Pro. Third, for all its FUD about security and viruses, OS X isn’t immune and as you can find out on Secunia.org, the seriousness of the bugs found on OS X far exceeds those on Windows. Then there’s Apple’s track record of breaking things (like the iPod Shuffle) with software upgrades (in that case to iTunes but it happens with OS X as well). Personally, I don’t find the iLife apps as easy to use as their Windows counterparts. I’m not a hardcore gamer but I’m certainly not about to switch to OS X… ever!
What would you define as the “average gamer,” Mike? To me, they aren’t the folks who read PC Gamer.
I think that the IBD/TIPP index is interesting but they’re measuring purchase intent and there is a long way from intent to actual purchase. I would take the figures with a grain of salt, it just proves that the general trend is up. By how much exactly remains to be seen. The 9 million Macs in 2007 prediction was made by an analyst without enough evidence to back it up in my opinion.
The overall PC market will grow 10% in 2007 according to IDC and the growth rate will be even lower in the U.S. The Mac growth rate is usually higher, with the current momentum the Mac should continue to grow faster than the market. The difference will be more perceptible in the U.S., the Mac worldwide market share is increasing slower. In a nut, more PC buyers: Likely, and mostly in the U.S. A big breakthrough: I don’t think so.