Mark Stahlman, analyst with Carris & Company thinks that even though Apple’s Boot Camp move might look smart now, Apple will face a moment of truth once Microsoft Vista comes out. In a note this morning to his clients, Stahlman writes….
Just as Apple shifts to Intel’s NGMA (Next Generation Micro-Architecture) and releases the next version of its OS X (codenamed “Leopard”), Microsoft will be flooding the market with its long-awaited Vista operating system and rival computer vendors will be upstaging Apple’s Intel-based products with even better AMD-based systems. Microsoft Vista is likely to be viewed as a true competitor to OS X, for the first time closing the operating system gap.
What…. does the world worry about a company whose market share of the PC market isn’t even in the high single digits. I think from a stock stand point, he does have a point. Apple (like Google) is priced for perfection, and any hiccups will only get magnified. Of course, Mark also is the same analyst who made the siren call: GOOG 2000.
“for the first time closing the operating system gap” has been going once since windows 3.0
How embarrassing. Normally you read comments from a lot of clueless Analysts but this one’s a cherry.
Vista isn’t looking so hot since the consumer version has been delayed into 2007. Rumors of ` code rewrites are floating around on the net and this guy is better the farm.
Then he trying to play the AMD card. Ummmmm guess you were sleeping at CEBIT and IDF when Intel showed benchmarks showing Conroe (Pentium 4 replacement) is besting AMD’s current procs by .
File this bozo where he belongs in the clown section. Also if it’s this easy to be an analyst please someone hire me because I can make up stuff too.
Well, Apple can’t remain a gated community forever. The move to Intel was the right step, and BootCamp is another good one.
My company got XP running on an iMac yesterday, and it was impressive. Allowing XP, and presumably Vista, on Apple hardware will remove one more barrier for the enterprise. This will allow Apple to increase market share.
Vista will be formidable competition regardless.
The better long-term solution will be virtualization, so that one can switch between Mac and Win in the same session. I imagine we will see this in the form of a new Virtual PC from MS, or Apple adopting Xen.
Another clueless MS stock promoter posing as an “analyst”. I would think that Apple reacted to feedback it was getting, and the web “contest” stirring up more. With Intel’s “virtualization” technology coming soon, alongside all the software variants to VirtualPC, I expect we’ll see Boot Camp morph into multiple options when Leopard appears.
Yo Om Malik; I love your site man, but you gotta stop giving this trash more importance than it’s worth. Vista is junk just like any other Microsoft application. Heck, the entire company is self destructing. Anyone betting on Vista is a blind fool, in my opinion.
did he say – Gap is a clothing company…get real Marky.
Jarod, please, put the bottle down.
“Heck, the entire company is self destructing”???
I’m an apple fanboy, but last time I checked Microsoft still dominates the OS market. It’s office suite is the standard. It’s internet browser is still the standard. They will continue to do well for the forseable future.
Apple is a niche player that is growing now, but it will be a long time coming before Apple is back in power.
The entire company (M$) is self-destructing. Let’s see:
Next!
Hey let’s not go too crazy. Vista is delayed…but it’s understandable because it’s a huge undertaking. Microsoft is still doing many things right and with Office 2007 they’ll be entrenching themselves deeper into SMB and Enterprise.
Apple makes cool products but they don’t provide nowhere near the tools of Redmond. Steve Jobs knows Apple isn’t Enterprise. Thus it is nice to have a platform that can excel in both Creative and Enterprise markets
Dude, compare the industries and the size of the market that Apple dominates compared to Microsoft.
What I meant by IE is the standard is that overwhelming that’s what people use ~80% of users. If 80% of the people who use it don’t care what browser they use, well that’s not Microsoft’s fault.
And yes, like hmurchison brings up, Microsoft is in a lot of markets that you obviously don’t care about or are aware of.
SQL Server is actually kicking ass.
Office might be bloatware, but it’s still the standard. They’re might be a million and one competitors, but none of them are making a serious dent right now.
Their OS might not be the greatest, but dude before you slam them look at everything they do and how successful they are overall. From gaming to accounting software to TV, MS is in it.
I’m not even sure that the desktop OS makes up 50% of their business anymore.
“Niche players don’t dominate entire industries. Apple does this”
Which industry are you talking about? With $6 or $7 billion in computer sales, I doubt you are talking about that one.
Mac OS X, released in 2001, will remain at least five years ahead of Vista for some years to come. Certainly, it will take Microsoft and developers a couple of years to perfect Vista (once it is released) and deliver updated software applications, iron out compatibility issues and achieve stability and reliability. To be fair, Apple experienced delays in delivering OS X, which also was several years in the making. But as was the case back in 1984, Microsoft is once again copying many Vista features from Apple’s latest pioneering OS.
He also is the analyst that is talking about Google music download service being the iTunes killer.
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzfill4690365apr05,0,2041821.story?coll=ny-business-print
I particularly like the quote about Google’s future being “one of the major suppliers of downloaded content” – I guess he hasn’t played with Google Video much.
I kinda like these flames, my tuppence worth: the world’s moving server side for the stuff >90% of Windows and Office equipped PCs do, the desktop OS will be irrelevant to that. For what’s left to the desktop, the media stuff, Apple’s target is to win the consumer. They’ve gotta be looking at hypervisors to run Windows and OSX concurrently, once that happens the punters will roll in.
Jeremy
LOL great link. Hey Google is a nifty company but comparing iTunes to anything other than the Picasa or Sketchup from Google is like comparing a Rembrandt to my childs doodling. Google is one of the worst companies at designing interfaces. Gmail finally has become what Apple would have had in version 1.
Seriously …I’m available to become a high paid Analyst anytime. It’s obvious that experience and smarts isn’t necessary. I can whip up some juicy soundbites.
HMMM… Apple’s stock priced for perfection? I think the recent slowdown and the fctored in slow Q1 are already well factored into the stock. Although, a 15% bump because of XP is kind of silly. More than anything it shows the bears have lost control of it.
Google, with its one trick pony and 55 F P/E compared with Apple’s 36 F P/E makes Apple still look they aren’t quite trading in the same clouds as Google.
But hey I’m usually wrong… Regardless, keep up the great coverage. 🙂
“Vista is delayed…but it’s understandable because it’s a huge undertaking.”
Apologist. Oh poor Microsoft. I guess it’s not easy over-promising and under-delivering. What huge undertaking? We might just get something that’s a shade above XP SP2 once they finally throw out enough features to ship it before the end of time.
Suddenly everyone will start using windows on their macs. Then, OSX will disappear quietly into the night, never to be heard from again.
It’s not like Apple is making any money from operating systems. I think apple is genuinely testing the waters here for a switch away from MacOS.
Apple has two markets: iPods/iTunes (sadly the largest money maker by far), and very cool-looking computer hardware that people percieve as robust and reliable. Apple is good at carefully controlling what goes into its machines, whereas you have no idea what’s in your standard run-of-the-mill PC.
Apple will continue to focus on the areas it’s making money in, and will get out of the areas it’s losing in.
Also, to respond to the anti-AMD comment above: Yes, conroe looks good. It’s also not out yet. Neither is AMD’s next chip. Conroe will gain a lot of ground, but AMD’s not going to let itself fall out of the game.
Boot Camp would be good for Mac users who have to connect to their office VPN through a PC. Now they can do it with just the Mac. No need to buy an extra PC. I bet Dell and HP arent too happy.
Its not cause Vista is late that it will be a bad OS. I didnt look forward to XP at all, but compared to Win2000 its a dream. Perhaps Vista will be to XP what XP was to 2000.
Maybe windows is full of holes but frankly, it doesnt affect me at all. And, I dont see the point in forking out 1500USD for a Mac, while a 600USD PC does just the same
Well this guy really does not get it. I am a long time Mac and Windows user. Now I need only one lap top, not two (Yesterday order a new Intel-Mac). This puts OS-X and Vista on a level field. That is great for Apple, great for Microsoft and great for me. This will make both Vista and Leopard better and make my life a little easier. Once again, thank you Apple!
Even if apple had not relased bootcamp, people were already able to run windows on their intel macs. Bootcamp had made things a litte easier. Still, If apple really wants people to use windows and Osx on the same machine, we need more than a bootcamp.
What I mean by more..
Where are the drivers for doze !
I’m sure the windows drivers for the intelmac hardware will eventually popup from someone. But would it not be great if apple takes an initiative to release those drivers.
Centralised media
Well, I want my windows version of itunes to access the same music archive/configuration as that of my OSX version on that machine. I donot want to create another copy of the media on the NTFS partition and I donot want to authorize the DRM songs again as if from a new machine when it is not. This might need apple to release a software that gives access(read/write) to the OSX partition in windows.
Why not go a little further and release a windows version of frontrow (ya, just like iTunes). Imagine being able to use your itunes/frontrow from both windows/osx seamlessly accessing the same media on your osx partition.
I’m expecting more from apple.
Vista is not just about the visual end of the OS (people keep comparing this with OSX). MS are changing some fundamentals within the OS so that developers lives are made easier (again Enterpise market). WinFS for example will change how we look at data (including files) on our machines and the relationships between data. No more data islands! Although WinFS is delayed it will be released! It makes you think why Jobs would develop Boot Camp? Purely to push HW sales and capture some of the PC market where people are looking for that superior machine!
There aren’t that many people in the world, even Mac users, who haven’t tried out windows so Boot Camp won’t make mac users into windows users. And the features that Vista touts don’t seem that much different to an end user than what Mac OS 10.4 already has.
As for AMD, since all the momenum is for laptops, why is AMD such a threat to Apple? On the Desktop, yeah those Opteron chips are amazing but in the laptop world AMD’s battery life is miserable.
In the world of Desktop computing, AMD has closed the production gap on proc speed. AMD is seeing the fastest proc speeds in the computing market. Speeds Far supirior t what intel has ever dreemed of. That is why when mltimedia and businesses requiring a lot of power will look to AMD and in turn Microsoftbecause the desktop AMD procs make intel look 2 years old.