Mac sales up, PC sales down

Apple have reported their best sales quarter ever, while Microsoft are suffering a slump in sales, although they don't look that bad. Even the economic downturn gripping the world has seemingly had little effect on Apple sales. Could it be that Apple are producing consumer products that people want to buy?

There also appears to be evidence of Apple's move into the enterprise space, without Apple even trying. The Macintosh had a history of not being seen as a powerful business platform after loosing their way in the 90's (although ironically the Apple II started it all with Visicalc) but it is finding its way into offices, not just the design studio.

They must be doing something right.

Michel Dell said that Apple should give up now, Microsoft had won. He advised Steve to sell Apple before it became worthless. Now Apple could buy Dell outright! Dell has said it would love to sell PC's running OSX if Apple would licence it.

What is the reason Apple is doing so well? Take a look at their site, and the first thing you see is no presure sales information and friendly videos showing you how easy it is to achieve what you want to do. This same approach filters through to the Applestore. You get "come in, come in.. try some of our kit, use the free wifi want to sit upstairs and use your Windows laptop on our network, no worries. go for it have fun, we'll show you how to do stuff and give you some free training". Contrast this with any other computer store and you get "Can I help you with that sir?, no just browsing? You really need this protection software suite, are you going to play with that all day or are you going to buy it?"

Have Microsoft already addressed some of their issues by making Windows 7, if so why the job cuts?

Apple Reports First Quarter Results

January 21, 2009

Apple today reported the best quarterly revenue and earning in its history, ”surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” according to Steve Jobs. Announcing results for its fiscal 2009 first quarter, Apple posted record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion, or $1.78 per diluted share. During the quarter, Apple sold 2,524,000 Mac computers, a record 22,727,000 iPods, and 4,363,000 iPhones.