Apple Notebook Event: “Leopard Is Far Superior to Vista”
At an invitation-only event at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the company’s latest revision of its line of notebooks. Before demoing the hardware though, Jobs invites Tim Cook, chief operating officer, on stage to offer an overview of the Mac ecosystem.
Virtually everyone agrees that “OS X Leopard is far superior to Vista,” says Cook. He goes on to tout the Mac’s software. He speaks of compatibility and Boot Camp, which allows Windows to be run on a Mac.
Cook notes that Microsoft Vista’s failure at market–one of the greatest missteps in Microsoft (MSFT) history, according to Cook–has afforded Apple (AAPL) an unprecedented opportunity to win over Windows users to the Mac platform. He says Apple retail stores receive 400,000 visitors a day and that 50 percent of the company’s sales are now to Windows users.
Mac has outgrown the market 14 out of last 15 quarters, Cook continues. The Mac retail share has grown to 18 percent of U.S. retial sales, with a revenue share of over 31 percent, which means that one out of every three dollars spent on computers is spent on a Mac. Quite an achievement.
Finally, Cook points out that Macs now account for 47 percent of computers at universities. Apple has sold more Macs in in the last three quarters than it sold in all of 2007.