Apple leads the industry in overall customer satisfaction for desktop personal computers, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 1995 Desktop Personal Computer End-User Satisfaction Study. Apple scored the highest in the industry for vendor reputation, upgradability, connectivity, set-up/documentation and display.
An October 1995 study of technical support costs in business environments by Gartner Group Consulting Services indicates there is no cost penalty for maintaining dual personal computer platform environments. Moreover, the study indicates that the higher the percentage of Macintosh in a given Mac/Windows environment, the lower the overall support costs. Support costs for Macintosh are approximately 25% lower than those for Windows.
Apple is the brand of choice in higher education institutions. 19.4% of PCs purchased by higher education institutions in 1994 were Apple computers, according to Computer Intelligence InfoCorp.
Based on Apple and third-party data, Apple has an estimated 47% share of U.S. commercial publishing customers, 26% share of U.S. corporate publishing customers, and 50% share of U.S. chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, scientific, and engineering customers. 63% of all multimedia applications development was done on Macintosh in 1994 per Dataquest.
- Apple continues to lead the way in technological innovation.
According to the 1/29/96 issue of Information
Week, Apple
Computer was awarded 53 U.S. software patents in 1995, more than
any other vendor.
The Apple Power Macintosh 7500 and 8500 received BYTE Magazine's 1995 Editors' Choice Awards of Excellence.
There are thousands of Mac applications on the market today, including approximately 1200 native Power Macintosh applications, and 500 Mac-only applications.
Is There a Mac in My Future?
By Jason Myre, Computer Support Specialist (myre@unt.edu)
In the last few weeks, many Macintosh computer users have
approached me with concerns for Apple Computer Inc. Let me just
start by saying, the computer you can expect to see sitting on my
desk in the future is a Macintosh. That's right, the Macintosh
computer is still alive and breathing despite what the press
wants you to believe.
A Healthy Apple?
I admit that there is a question as to the current health of
Apple. They reported a $69 million loss for the winter quarter.
In response, the company is restructuring to a point that no job
is sacred, including CEO. Due to the restructuring costs, Apple
predicts an even greater loss in the current quarter. Definitely,
not all is well. But let's just keep this all in
perspective.
Much of the blame is falling on the shoulders of, until just
recently, CEO of Apple, Michael Spindler. Mr. Spindler threw the
dice and lost when predicting that consumers would purchase
mostly computers in the $1000-$1500 range for the holidays. When
the machines closer to $2000 were in demand, Apple could not
supply, and in turn, lost a bunch of money.
Shortly after Apple announced their loss, the Wall Street
Journal reported that Apple was on the brink of being
bought
out by Sun Microsystems Inc.
The WSJ later printed a
correction saying their sources were incorrect and that the two
companies never agreed on a price. Meanwhile, Apple's already
sliding stock was pushed even further when Standard & Poor's
downgraded Apple's debt to junk bond status.
The article "Apple of Sun's Eye" in the February 5 edition of
TIME
Magazine, recommended those buying Apple products
rethink their decision as if Apple had already gone under. Just
because Apple had a bad quarter does not mean that it is the end
of the world for them. The very same quarter that has the media
predicting the end of Apple is the same quarter that they shipped
1.3 million units and generated $3.1 billion in revenues, their
largest in history.
Ousting Michael Spindler and appointing Gilbert Amelio CEO
might suggest Apple is trying to get through this one without any
outside help. If there is anyone who can get Apple back on track,
it's probably Amelio. To become CEO and chairman of Apple, he
resigned from his position as chairman, CEO and president of
National Semiconductor. In the
February 5 edition of
MacWeek, the article "Amelio at Apple helm; Spindler
pulls
rip cord," an anonymous source quoted said "When [Amelio] came
to National he set down rules and imposed them without emotion.
He said, If you can't do the job to the metrics, I'll find
someone else.'" During the four years Amelio was there, National
increased their revenue from $1.7 billion to $2.3 billion. Before
working for National, he achieved similar results as president of
the Communications Systems Group at Rockwell International
Corporation.
A Lot of Hope
There is still hope for Apple, lot's of hope. Even if there
are some problems with management, the technology speaks for
itself. According to information from Apple Computer:
Despite reports from the media, Apple still continues to
produce superior desktop computers in addition other hot
technologies. As long as this is the case, you can expect Apple
Computer to be around for a long time.
More information
More information can be found on the following web
sites:
Also, check out Guy Kawasaki's Mac mailing-list, "The
EvangeList." For more information, send E-mail to
cway-request@solutions.apple.com
for an automatic reply. Evangelist archives are available at: http://wais.sensei.com.au/searchform. html
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