OS X Adoption

ziggy on 2002-05-15T02:55:18

Steve Jobs seems to think that adoption of OS X is pretty slow:

At the start of the year, Apple had only 1 million of its 25 million Mac owners actively using OS X. That number is now in the range of 1.5 million to 2 million, although about 3 million Macs have been sold with the new OS on the hard drive.

However, Jobs remains confident the company can end the year with 5 million OS X users.

That 5 million figure must incorporate an expansion of their market; even with that large user base, it would represent at best 20% of the Macintosh market, 16% at worst (if every OS X user is a new Mac user).

For all the talk about Apple becoming the largest vendor of RISC-based UNIX computers, this prognostication sounds like the OS X market is still a minority fringe.

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Hardly surprising

djberg96 on 2002-05-15T03:22:09

Most people aren't going to run out and buy an OS that they don't have any software for. Heck, most people don't even upgrade their version of MS Windows - they just take whatever came with their computer - and those are *compatable* operating systems.

I think the lack of support for OS 9 will kill it eventually, but it will take about 3-4 years at least for it to die completely (or reduce it to Amiga/BeOS status).

No worries

pudge on 2002-05-17T02:22:42

The first version, few adopted. Only with 10.1 did large-scale adoption begin. This is an almost completely new OS, it takes time, and it's amazing that many people have adopted it already. I figure with the next version, which brings significant performance and interface enhancements, as well as some more compelling user features, will significantly increase the chances that people who buy new Macs will use Mac OS X.

Side note: my mom held off buying a new iMac because it came with Mac OS X. She didn't realize it came with Mac OS 9, too. Oopsie for Apple.