I also see a lot of office furniture when I look inside a business. But nobody cares much about office furniture. For most of the market, it's a boring commodity that is bought by professional office managers who care a lot about the price. It lasts a relatively long time and doesn't change very often.
It's also an intensely cyclical business, which is no doubt a big reason why Microsoft's financials are so screwed.
The moral of this story is that the notion of Apple vs Microsoft is more stale than it has ever been. They aren't even in the same industry anymore. You could imagine investing in both of them at once and calling it diversification.
Apple has turned computer sales into a question of quality, much like the Japanese manufacturers gained control of the domestic car market by making it a question of quality.
Meanwhile, there are businesses that still want to run full screen 16-bit DOS programs in emulated Windows XP on 64-bit Windows 7. Windows has become a metaphor of the Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls.
Actually, Japanese car companies gained control of the US market because they offered affordable cars that were more efficient. Once consumers saw that they were getting equal or better quality for less money, they switched.
That’s the US market, but the parent wrote “domestic” which, as far as I understand it, means internal, non-exported, in this case the Japanese market.
I'm not sure I agree about the furniture implication. Maybe practically nobody cares about furniture, but the suppliers do. If they sell 90% of all office furniture at a great margin, they are a successful company. Commodity implies close to perfect competitive markets. That is not the case here.
Anyway people buying servers care. They may not be cutting edge, but they care what they use.
Going back to the original article, though, the point was that industries have "thought leader" consumer groups. I would never in my wildest dreams consider calling any IT department I've worked with a "thought leader". The "thought leader" groups for PC purchases appear to be leaning heavily towards Apple.
Also, while most offices are wall-to-wall PCs, I know that new PCs at our office are budgeted in the $700-800 range for mid-range officefolk (a little but not much more for developers, a little less for simple clerical users). All such purchases this year fall well below the $1000 price point.
FWIW, our developers do tend to buy Macs, and we also tend to get a Windows license for those machines. The Macs obviously cost more than $1000 per box, even with the minor discount we get from Apple.
I also see a lot of office furniture when I look inside a business. But nobody cares much about office furniture. For most of the market, it's a boring commodity that is bought by professional office managers who care a lot about the price. It lasts a relatively long time and doesn't change very often.
"It lasts a relatively long time and doesn't change very often."
"It's also an intensely cyclical business, which is no doubt a big reason why Microsoft's financials are so screwed."
This is exactly why people staying on XP is such a huge problem for them. If people only "upgrade" when a computer breaks or buy another license when they get a new employee, then the the office furniture business fits Microsoft pretty well.
It's also an intensely cyclical business, which is no doubt a big reason why Microsoft's financials are so screwed.
The moral of this story is that the notion of Apple vs Microsoft is more stale than it has ever been. They aren't even in the same industry anymore. You could imagine investing in both of them at once and calling it diversification.