There’s Marketshare, Then There’s Marketshare

This discussion thread at Ars Technica made me think about how in spite of the global nature of the personal computer market, a person’s physical environment can affect how they perceive the viability of Macintosh as a platform.

I’ve operated in companies dominated by Macs. But I also worked in one outfit where the Mac I ran was one of only two; the hundreds of other employees all used Dells. Since I’ve come to law school, I’ve seen a change. Originally there were only a handful of Mac users. Now I see quite a few MacBooks and MacBook Pro laptops among both undergrads and law students.

The network effect seems to work both ways. When the Mac was in a death spiral in early and mid-1990s, I was a “fanatic” for sticking with the Macintosh platform. You still see the term (usually in it’s less inflammatory “fan” form), but less frequently. Now it seems that using a Mac isn’t perceived as strange behavior. Then again, I live in Northern California, a place chock full of Macheads.

Here’s how I see Mac use around me:

• About half of my family uses Macs, and about half uses PCs.
• At the law school, I’d say about 10% use Macs. I could be off, though.
• In downtown Santa Cruz, there’s usually about a 3:1 margin in favor of Macs. One time I went into Lulu Carpenter’s (one of my favorite coffee shops) and there were eight Mac laptops and zero PCs.
• My friends are roughly 50/50. The ones who are heavily into computer games favor PCs.

What do you see in your world? Are more people around you using Macs?

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