endekks made a completely ridiculous reblog of this post:
Sigh… Why do so many miss the point?
That’s like saying that “the most popular $25k+ car sales” don’t count because governments, corporations and truckers buy trucks and vans.
When did I say it didn’t count? I said it “isn’t really groundbreaking news” for Apple to dominate the retail sales over $1000 because most retail computers are priced far below that. Simple reality: there are very few computers priced above $1000 at most U.S. brick-and-mortar retailers.
Since when do most large companies buy $1k+ computers? You know those ThinkPads and tiny grey Sony note PCs everyone has? Yeah… Not over $1000.
Businesses don’t always buy the cheapest “consumer” lines because they tend to break sooner under constant “not-my-computer” treatment by employees. Many go for the low end of the “business” lineups in a 14-15” size with a midrange screen resolution. Granted, it’s not extremely far above $1000, but we’re still above that for many of the sales. Note that my argument never mentioned company size, and I never said “most” companies bought computers above $1000.
(I assume the pricing for this report doesn’t include Microsoft Office or other software, which would drive most business computers far above $1000.)
While business will get bulk deals from distributors, where is it you think “creatives and gamers” buy their PCs? It’s called retail. Saying that someone purchasing a PC online from a store doesn’t count is like saying buying an iPod from the Apple Store doesn’t count as a retail purchase.
The latter statement is completely asinine, so I’ll just address the former: most creatives and high-computer-needs professionals order high-end or custom configurations that simply aren’t sold at most retail stores except Apple’s. (And even then, many high-end Apple buyers get them online so they can configure them with more RAM or other upgrades.)
Gamers absolutely don’t buy their PCs at retail. They can’t — nearly every PC sold at retail has integrated graphics, because gaming video cards are expensive and power-hungry and hot and unreliable and most people never use their capabilities.
Businesses like PCs because they come pre-installed with the applications they need / think they need. Gamers like PCs because there are 100 to 1 more games for that platform. (Though I know a lot of gamers who have been using the newer iMacs because they play games shockingly well.) But do not begin to tell me that creatives prefer PCs. Sure, maybe in the 3D sector, but referring to just that aspect of creative rules out almost everything else “creative”.
I never said that creatives preferred [Windows] PCs.
The word was “computer”.
Please read the statement you’re arguing with before making a bullshit argument.
The article wasn’t about how many sub $1k PCs are sold in comparison to $1k plus PCs. It was only about the $1k plus PCs. That’s like saying an article about murderers being 90% male doesn’t count because there are more shoplifters than murderers and 99% of shoplifters are women. What’s that have to do with this article?
Again, the statement that you’re apparently arguing with was that the article “isn’t really groundbreaking news”, which you’ve failed to adequately refute or even address.
The article needn’t say “MS learn from Apple before rolling out Windows 7” as Apple’s hardware sales have nothing to do with MS’ software sales. The only real computing hardware MS makes is the Xbox 360, and that has no bearings on Apple products.
How is any of that relevant to this discussion?
Normally, I wouldn’t address idiots and trolls on the internet, because they’re not usually worth the time and there are far too many of them to argue with. But this guy is special, as he ended this wonderful post with this:
Seriously internet, do you think you can ever learn to have a proper argument? I think before people start debating or writing anything (on the internet or anywhere in life) they should be forced to read a book like this, so we can have real discussions.
I look forward to having a real discussion with you. When did you plan to start?
