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Software Snow Leopard Outsells Predecessors in Opening Weeks of Availability
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - September 17, 2009 1:15 PM

31 comment(s) - last by honestIT.. on Sep 18 at 3:49 PM

Snow Leopard sold nearly twice as many copies as Tiger and Leopard in first few weeks

Apple is selling its latest Mac OS Snow Leopard at a very brisk pace according to reports from research firm NPD. NPD reports that the sales of Snow Leopard have far exceeded the sales of the previous operating systems Leopard and Tiger.

According to numbers gathered by NPD, Apple has sold nearly twice as many copies of Snow Leopard as it did Leopard and almost four times as many copies compared to Tiger. Another important metric for Apple is the fact that while sales of Snow Leopard have decreased since the first week the OS was offered, the decrease hadn't been nearly as significant as the past two OS updates over the same period.

NPD reports that Snow Leopard has seen sales decrease about 25% after its first week of release. Leopard and Tiger sales decreased by about 60% after the first week of availability in comparison. Stephen Baker from NPD said, "Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners — thus helping to push sales to record numbers."

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Expected

By saarek on 9/17/09, Rating: 0

RE: Expected

By Mitch101 on 9/17/2009 3:03:22 PM , Rating: 2

A lot of people will have paid $50.00 for each copy of Windows 7. You must have missed that promotion.

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RE: Expected

By Mitch101 on 9/17/2009 4:39:40 PM , Rating: 3

If your a student or know one go here and get Windows 7 for $30.00

http://windows7.digitalriver.com/store/mswpus/en_U...

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RE: Expected

By Mitch101 on 9/17/2009 6:51:09 PM , Rating: 2

Even better?

Students: Get 8 Windows 7 Professional Keys for $19
http://cybernetnews.com/msdnaa-windows-7-product-k...

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RE: Expected

By jadeskye on 9/17/2009 7:14:21 PM , Rating: 2

They're giving windows 7 away. Crazy stuff isn't it?

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RE: Expected

By MrDiSante on 9/17/2009 7:58:33 PM , Rating: 2

I'm a student at the University of Waterloo and I get nigh-unlimited free Windows 7 licenses provided that there is a good reason for me to use them. E.g. If I have a netbook and a desktop PC then I'm entitled to two. If I have a laptop and my relative has a desktop, I'm only entitled to one.

They don't really check. My experience has been tell them how many licenses you need and they increase the number of machines your keys work on accordingly.

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RE: Expected

By Targon on 9/17/09, Rating: 0

RE: Expected

By ersts on 9/17/2009 3:34:54 PM , Rating: 5

You don't have to challenge Apple; they already tried it and it failed. All the OEMS selling Macs ended up undercutting Apple in the 90s and nearly sent Apple to the grave.

Apple doesn't make any sort of profit from the iTunes store either; all it does is promote hardware sales.

Everyone keeps telling Apple: You need to open OSX! You are stupid for opening retail stores! The iphone will fail!

And every time Apple proves them wrong, miserably. They just don't understand: Apple isn't Microsoft.

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RE: Expected

By inighthawki on 9/17/2009 4:34:11 PM , Rating: 2

They could cut down on some of those losses by not licesning it to business, ie for system builder/consumer only. That of course doesnt stop anyone from buying a pc and loading on snow leopard for a still cheaper price than Apple direct.

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RE: Expected

By omnicronx on 9/17/2009 11:58:11 PM , Rating: 2

First off, itunes makes money, to the tune of an estimated 500 million a year, so I don't know what you are talking about here.

Second, Apple's business model was totally different in the mid 90's. Apple made money selling hardware, whereas MS made money selling software. The Apple OEM's of the 90's directly undercut Apple sales because they made little money selling the OS. Today is not the same situation, they could for all intents license their OS and make money just like MS, they would just have to sell a lot more volume to make the same amount of money. Its not a bad idea really from a business perspective, but they probably will never match MS in OS profits if they continue to do so. The thing is, I think Apple is perfectly content right where they are.. a nice pricey niche market.

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RE: Expected

By sprockkets on 9/18/2009 4:02:13 AM , Rating: 1

1. During meetings with shareholders/investors they warned that itunes would lower their profit margins due to it selling high volume but very low margin music sales.

Think about it: They give itunes away. Most only buy 25 songs for their player.

2. The only PCs that are made today that are experiencing any sort of growth is the $300 netbook; it's clearly like you said something Apple doesn't want. Neither do I; I won't make a junky computer, and I refuse to sell a computer to a person who doesn't appreciate a good product. Likewise, those same cheap people would never spend money on a real person to help them out, and since I cannot charge ahead of time a reasonable cost to cover future warranty repairs without making my PC cost $200 more than what is at the store, nobody wants my computer.

I avoid those people at all costs.

Once OSX is available for cheap hardware, what will keep Apple alive? How much should support cost if the software is only $99? Would you pay $200 for it when your hardware only costs $300?

It is one thing to sell an OS; its a totally different ballgame when you have to sustain your business.

Software sells hardware! People will buy Macs because of Final Cut, or OSX or because how well the hardware integrates.

3. The only reason why that model you suggested works for Microsoft is because they are a monopoly. They've done all they've can to stifle competition. Microsoft still has its stupid OEMs say "We recommend the lastest version of windows." Why? That's all they sell!

Think about it: Who buys a retail copy of Windows? Who pays for any distro of Linux? Who ever upgraded Vista Basic to Premium? For that matter, who buys upgrades for Windows? Most people just buy a new PC since it requires new hardware anyhow to run it right, especially Vista.

Aside from their mice and keyboards, what hardware venture has Microsoft done well? The xbox? Zune? Orgami? Gizmodo? Playsforsure?

Consider also this: Most people in 2007 had me downgrade the computer to XP. I've done work on business pcs with Vista Business stickers on them but have XP installed on them because they can't use Vista. Netbooks have XP on them due to their weaker hardware.

XP doesn't want to die. I wonder if Win7 will change that...

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RE: Expected

By dark matter on 9/18/2009 5:46:38 AM , Rating: 2

There are so many "most people" comments in your post. I allow people to use it once, twice at a push, but come on dude show some empirical evidence for your claims or be explicit that this is only your opinion and not the hard facts you present it as.

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RE: Expected

By ersts on 9/18/2009 2:26:03 PM , Rating: 2

I think was he is trying to say is, it is easy to sell hardware because it is tangible and can't be user duplicated. Software is something that people can easily duplicate and thus has little perceived value.

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RE: Expected

By sebmel on 9/18/2009 2:29:01 PM , Rating: 2

"they [Apple] could for all intents license their OS and make money just like MS

I don't agree. You can already pirate Mac OS X and put it on a home made PC... just choose the right components... hackintosh advice is on the net.

Yet Apple has no problem with large scale copying, while Microsoft estimate 50% of copies functioning worldwide are pirated. Apple is so confident it doesn't have a problem that the client OS has no serial number, no LAN checks, no anti-copying DRM and no authentication.

Who's going to pay for an unprotected product they couldn't be bothered to steal?

Apple know that their current market is principally well engineered sealed boxes that 'just work'. In fact, the only product they make that doesn't fit that description is the small volume Mac Pro tower.

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RE: Expected

By stubeck on 9/17/2009 4:38:16 PM , Rating: 2

I assume you mean Vista SP3. There are actual improvements in 7 though, SL is basically just 10.5.9.

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RE: Expected

By Shadowself on 9/17/2009 6:39:59 PM , Rating: 3

Where do you find OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch or a 64 bit Kernel in 10.5.9? To say 10.6 is basically the same as 10.5.9 is false.

It is true that the user interface has barely changed at all so the average user won't see much difference between 10.5.9 or 10.6.0 or 10.6.1. Especially since the default boot is to a 32 bit kernel on almost all machines.

However, there is a subset of the Mac community that can take advantage of new things in 10.6.x.

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RE: Expected

By sprockkets on 9/17/2009 11:42:39 PM , Rating: 2

People deride the 10.5.x upgrades. On 10.5.7, Macs got an upgrade giving them 1hr extra of battery life. Even the MSI Wind hackintosh did as well, even though Atom's power management is not supported in OSX, meaning the fix was not related to CPU frequency scaling.

Service packs come out and roll out fixes and some new features as well. XP sp1a gave you better USB support, removed MS Java due to the lawsuit, and gave more features to hyperthreading. SP2 gave a security center, implemented badly needed security fixes, and easier wireless network support. SP3 gave one new security fix from vista for XP, updated XP to make sure WPA2 is there, and other stuff.

But OSX releases many more . releases than Microsoft does service packs. Both offer each a few new features each time and are comparable in nature.

With OSX, EVERY 10.x upgrade is faster than the previous version, and arstechnica has proven this each time. It might be Win7 can finally say that, but it set the bar fairly low with Vista.

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RE: Expected

By omnicronx on 9/18/2009 12:07:18 AM , Rating: 2

The problem is, that subset does not consist of that many people. With maybe 5% worldwide marketshare and its main demographic being 'beginners' or those that want something that 'just works', it cannot be very much.

SL is laying the groundwork very much so similar to what Vista did, but to the general Mac community, most people probably won't even notice the difference. You really think Apple was selling their OS for 30 dollars out of the goodness of their heart?

Really its a smart move, Apple needed to do this, but please don't make it out to be some magical OS, especially consider it is not a 64 bit kernel for most users (i.e pretty much anyone who upgraded). 32 bit kernel (i.e drivers are still 32bit also) by default with ability to excecute 64bit code, which was no different then leopard of course, just this time around they actually rewrote a bunch of the apps in 64bit.

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RE: Expected

By reredrum on 9/17/2009 10:17:25 PM , Rating: 2

must've also missed the fact that vista has an sp2 already...

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what are the chances...

By omnicronx on 9/17/2009 1:44:00 PM , Rating: 5

That a 30 dollar OS is going to sell better than a 100+ dollar OS.

This is pocket change in comparison, of course its going to sell better.

In other news, Toyota sells more cars than Ferrari, buyers proclaim price was not a factor!

RE: what are the chances...

By amanojaku on 9/17/2009 2:03:00 PM , Rating: 5

Amen, dude... I've been on DT for about four years and I finally feel like a lot of the other hecklers on this site. Is it really necessary to:

1) State established facts as if they're new discoveries?
2) Perpetuate the Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux vs. Other fights?
3) Publish articles several days or weeks after everyone else does, including non-technical sites?
4) Sensationalize EVERYTHING ?
5) Discuss virtualization so often that no one cares?
6) Provide no real value compared to other news aggregators?
7) Copy and paste, er, PARAPHRASE other articles without finding sources?

If it wasn't for the comments this site would be useless. Most of what I learn comes from posters, and you guys are funny, too.

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RE: what are the chances...

By Smartless on 9/17/2009 2:11:37 PM , Rating: 2

Agree and agree. But how many of us are trolls in disguise? Me, I just come here because I'm too lazy to look up my own articles elsewhere and some posters are rocket scientist or something (Masher2). lol. I also find it funny that this story and the "Snow Leopard is less secure the Windows 7" are right next to each other.

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RE: what are the chances...

By Mitch101 on 9/17/2009 3:08:13 PM , Rating: 2

For me its because Apple runs on Intel hardware that for $30.00 I'm going to take a shot at building a Hackintosh.

I would suspect this also makes it easy and cheap for hackers to build Hackintoshes to explore exploits.

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Correlation

By Evan B on 9/17/2009 3:16:03 PM , Rating: 2

In other news, there has been a positive correlation of popularity of Mac OSes and attention by hackers.

RE: Correlation

By Shadowself on 9/17/2009 6:40:42 PM , Rating: 2

Any proof of this statement?

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RE: Correlation

By Targon on 9/18/2009 7:03:40 AM , Rating: 2

It is a generally accepted fact that there the professional malware developers are not going to pay much attention to a lesser used computer platform when they can scam more money out of people by being focused on the most popular platform.

With that said, Apple has gotten a boost over the years, not just from their advertising(when most PC makers have been cutting back on advertising), but also from pushing in the schools, and from the popularity of the iPod and iPhone, which has gotten some people to switch to MacOS. The increase in visibility and popularity of Apple products, especially with students IS going to increase the number of scams and malware applications aimed at that platform. Basically, Apple is going to lose their security through obscurity model that makes MANY Apple users think that MacOS is more secure.

MacOS isn't more secure, it is just that historically there have been fewer malware apps designed for it. Increase market share/visibility, and you increase the desire of malware authors to target users of that platform.

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By rdeegvainl on 9/17/2009 4:27:18 PM , Rating: 3

Yo Apple, I'm really happy for you and ima let you finish, but Microsoft has one of the best OS's of all time.

RE: Yo

By SouthCA on 9/17/2009 6:45:32 PM , Rating: 2

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Of course...

By inighthawki on 9/17/2009 1:41:16 PM , Rating: 2

It seems obvious to me that an increase in market share over the past few years as well as all the advertisement it got after being compared with the much hyped windows 7 release date that naturally the sales would be stronger than previous versions. Not even to mention the low price...

RE: Of course...

By djcameron on 9/17/2009 1:52:54 PM , Rating: 2

In other news, more people installed Windows Vista SP1 than purchased Windows Vista. Why? Because most people got Vista with the purchase of a new computer. SP1 was installed for those people and all the Vista Upgrade Disk purchasers.

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