Sweet Numbers

The Mac base is growing dramatically in the U.S. Gartner estimates Apple's Third Quarter U.S. growth this year to be in the double-digits with shipments growing a whopping 37.2 percent compared with SQLY.

According to both Gartner and Net Applications (the web measurement company) Apple’s market share of U.S. personal computers was 8.1 percent in the Third Calendar Quarter 2007, up from 6.2 percent during the same period 2006. Net Application’s numbers for January 2006 show Apple’s market share was 4.6 percent. So in a little less than two years, growth at over 176 percent is impressive.

This correlates nicely with the large increase in pre-registration for Macworld Expo (28 percent over last year) and the increases in Macs reported across the nation on college campuses.

Take Cornell for instance. In 2000, their Mac toters made up only five percent of students and faculty; now students’ personal computers running OS X comprise 21 percent of the total. Or Princeton: 60 percent of on-campus computer sales in 2007 were Macs.

Why?
I asked some of my engineering friends why such growth? Their answer: superior hardware, especially the MacBookPro.
Interestingly enough the same WindowsXP sp2 image I install on Dell Latitude 430s and 630s installs at least three times as fast in VMWareFusion on a MacBook Pro. Same CPU. Different chip set.