Slimy, Rich continues his OT anti-Apple rants.

On 8/11/2011 10:44 PM, nospam wrote:
In , PeterN
wrote:

I am one who used to love to fly. Now it think it's a real PITA, with
luggage restrictions and waiting on long lines for security checks. Also
jammed flights have taken a lot of the enjoyment out of it, including in
first class. I think I am more typical of retiree, than you. Some of my
friends, who fly free, prefer driving, for similar reason.

it's not difficult to have luggage restrictions waived and also avoid
long lines at the ticket counter, for security and at the gate.

however, capacity is lower and load factors are higher. it's rare that
there's an empty seat and extremely rare for an empty row to stretch
out. that's one thing i miss, but on the other hand, the chances for an
idb are higher which makes up for it.

What do you mean by idb?

actually, i meant to say vdb, voluntary denied boarding, aka bumped.

idb is involuntary denied boarding, which the airlines greatly prefer
to avoid (as do the passengers), thus the generous vdb offerings to get
them to volunteer.

I was not familiar with the acronym.
Now, I fly only for vacation purposes. I don't want to be bumped and
miss part of my vacation, My guess is that It would take more money than
the airlines are welling to pay.

As for business flying, I guess if an employee wants to scam the company
be saying he was late, and pocketing the reward, that's an issue between
he and the company.

Having said that, I can think of one time I volunteered, and that was
coming home on a business where the compensation was a free first class
ticket and the delay was two hours, which I spent relaxing in the lounge.


--
Peter

On 8/11/2011 11:14 PM, tony cooper wrote:
On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:01:01 -0400, PeterN
wrote:

On 8/11/2011 11:16 AM, tony cooper wrote:
On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 08:57:40 -0400, PeterN
wrote:

On 8/11/2011 1:04 AM, tony cooper wrote:

Personally, I think that figure is bogus. It must be higher than 6%.
The business class flyers are too busy knocking back free drinks and
asking for hot towels and paper slippers to haul out their laptops.


In my business flying days on the way to the meeting I would be busy
reviewing my notes and preparing my presentation. Coming home, most of
the time I was busy summarizing the results of my meetings. It was a
rare occasion that I got to enjoy the "free" drinks, etc.
It was only on vacation flights that I really got to enjoy the perks.
Even then I would only drink more than one or two, if we were being
picked up.

I rarely did any business work on an airplane. I read a book. Any
preparation for the trip was done prior to setting out for the
airport. Summaries were done when I returned.

I rarely even opened my briefcase. I was a 3x5 card person. I
carried a stack of 3x5 cards in my pocket and pulled one out if a
recordable thought came to mind.

An associate of mine, who often traveled with me, filled pages of
notes on a legal pad (no laptops in those days) and read everything in
his briefcase on every flight.

He'd kid me about being under-prepared and I'd kid him about being
over-prepared, but we both managed to be well-prepared. We just had
different styles of getting prepared.

I seldom ate or drank on an airplane. In those days, we usually wore
suits and ties when traveling, and there is an Absolute Rule that if
you wear a tie on an airplane, something will spill on that tie. If
an extra tie was not packed, the spill would be greasy and messy.

There was another Absolute Rule about flying to a business meeting:
the lighter-colored the suit, the more likely someone will spill a
meal tray in your lap. The Corollary to that Rule is that spills are
92.3% more likely to happen on the departing flight than they are on
the returning flight.

Then, there was the leaky pen and the huge blue spot on the shirt
pocket thing. The first flight I made after I bought my Montblanc
fountain pen, I didn't cap it before sticking it back in shirt pocket.

Those of my age who traveled on business will remember carrying Kodak
carousals or stacks of transparencies with us. One of my secretary's
tasks was to check with the destination company to make sure a
projector was available. (Yes, she was a "secretary". The term PA
didn't exist then)

Once, in the departure lounge, I noticed another business-type lugging
one of those easel things with a large pad of paper towards the gate.
He had done his presentation on pages of the pad. The stewardess
(Yes, we called them stewardesses in those days and they didn't seem
to mind.) refused to let him take it on board. I thought the man was
going to cry.

Some uber-stew finally came out of the plane and agreed to take the
easel and stow it somewhere.

The modern traveler with a laptop and Power Point or one of those
small projection devices just doesn't understand how lucky they are.


The tie thing was rarely an issue. I went casual and slept over then
night before,

Most of the time I wore a suit and tie even if the meeting was the
next day. Habit, I suppose.


On one trip I forgot to pack a tie. Since my first meeting was with the
IRS and it was a hot day, I really didn't need one. My next meeting was
with a client. It took me almost an hour to find a tie. When I got
there, you guessed it, my client was wearing a golf shirt and mentioned
that not having to wear a tie is one of the reasons he moved his company
to Maryland. I immediately took of my new tie.



whenever I could. Then there was the time KLM lost my
luggage between Amsterdam& Zurich. Fortunately, I always carried
toiletries, underwear and socks in my hand luggage. However, I went to
three days of negotiations wearing jeans.

My worst lost-luggage experience was between Puerto Rico and Tortola,
British Virgin Islands. I had business reasons to travel to Puerto
Rico, but left there for Tortola where my wife and I were to spend
five days on a chartered sailboat with another couple.

My wife, and the other couple, had flown from Orlando to Miami to
Tortola and I had flown Orlando to San Juan with a later connection to
Tortola. My luggage was stolen in San Juan and I didn't even have a
carry-on bag. Just a briefcase.

I was wearing a suit and tie and dress shoes, and that's all I had for
a five day sailing trip. I bought some tee shirts, toiletries, and
some shorts in Tortola. I couldn't find a pair of tennis shoes in my
size and had to buy a much smaller pair and cut out parts to get my
feet in them.

I never saw my suitcase again.



--
Peter

On 8/12/2011 6:38 AM, Whisky-dave wrote:
On Aug 11, 10:01 pm, wrote:

snip

That's an interesting point, do you thiunk the type of trousers you
wear affects your negotiationable abilities[1]
or do they affect the way others percieve you do you job.
In other words what differnce does jeans make in doing your job
effectively ?
and I wonder if the same thing happens with computers.


[1] Well obviosuly someone like Lady Ga-Ga couldn't go on stage
dressed in normal jeans
or perhaps a football player couldn't play as well in jeans.


Zurich is a very formal place. when a client is sending me to Zurich to
negotiate a deal and we estimate the negotiations will take several
days, proper business attire is an important part of the negotiations.
similarly your position on the negotiation table is also a part of the
negotiation. With any serious business negotiation I would try to
schedule the initial meeting for late afternoon and take a nap prior to
the start. thus I would be refreshed and the other party would be tired.
Yes, in business negotiation is a technique. the seemingly unimportant
points can give one an advantage.
I would also try to

--
Peter

tony cooper wrote:
On Mon, 8 Aug 2011 22:39:39 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
tony cooper wrote:
On Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:13:18 -0700, nospam
In article , tony cooper

The numbers I've cited are compiled by firms that are in the business
of collecting numbers and publishing them.

They are not in the business of making truthful numbers,
they are in the business of making money.

All businesses are in the business of making money. Since any
business in the field subscribes to the reports, it is to the firm's
best interest to be as accurate as possible. They want Apple to
subscribe as much as they want H/P to subscribe.

And since they want Dell and all the other Windows laptop
makers just as much, the single Apple gets the short straw
--- it's outnumbered 25 to 1 or worse.

To the best of my
knowledge, Apple has never contested the numbers. Since Apple's
shares are held publicly, you'd think Apple would be the first to
contest the numbers if they under-report their market share.

No, why should they?
They report their sales and their earnings and lean back.

i never said it was representative of all users,

Good Lord! What do you think "market share" represents if not
"purchased by all users"?

Well, it could mean the population in use, for example.

I have no idea what that means. Do you?

Sure I do.
Shall I rephrase that for you?

OK, in easy terms.
Think cars.
Now, the cars on the road weren't all bought THIS YEAR, right?
Imagine THIS YEAR everyone bought a Honda. Would all cars on
the road be Hondas? Nope.

So what is the market share of Honda? 100%? "100% *this year,
so far*"? 32% (the other cars sold were used, but from Honda)?
28.36% (the number of all Honda cars on the road)? The average
of the last 3 years of sales? Or the last 9 years (i.e. about
the average age of a car)?


Which could be *quite* different, e.g. if one product had to be
replaced every 2-3 years and the other had to be replaced every
5-6 years.

That has nothing to do with the figures for laptops sold, by brand,
in a period.

"laptops sold, by brand" is not a useful distinction. It neither
tells us in which units it it counted nor or over which time
frame the count was made.


It is like someone from Minnesota saying that half the people he knows
own snow tires, and projecting that snow tires have a 50% market share
for all tires and insisting that national figures of snow tire sales
must be bogus because he's observed far more snow tires in use than
the figures indicate.

it's nothing at all like that. you can't be that stupid.

Exactly like that.

Well, if the snow tire market share is indeed only 5%, you
can surely explain why someone from Minnesota would see a
much higher rate.

No one with a lick of sense would extrapolate what type of tires they
see in use in Minnesota to a national market share by type.

Oh, you cannot explain?

That's interesting ...


Now: Why is there a much higher rate of Macs in e.g. planes?

Who says there is? We have one person of doubtful veracity

Extrapolating from yourself?

making a
claim based on a laughable survey technique,

It's a pretty fair technique to check numbers. Not to generate
them, but to verify their sanity.

and a claim that is the
figures are "bogus" because he personally sees "a lot" of Macs in use.

The figures don't match his reality, they're *way* off base from
his personal experience in rather random populations. Since you
bring up the figures, you have to explain why they are still
correct, or stop using the figures.

He offers no numbers, no percentages, no ratios...just "a lot".

He has offered specific ratios: namely about equal Macs and
non-Mac-laptops on flights.

He has consistently seen multiple times the numbers of Macs
expected by your 6-9% claim.


There may be more Macs in use on flights than their market share
indicates, but that doesn't make the market share figures bogus.

You surely can explain ... or can't you?

I did. In another post. Demographics.

I debunked that; the demographics would speak for more than
average Windows. Gaming is a *very* strong Windows indicator.
Business is another one --- not only because businesses (or their
IT shops) decree everyone has to use Windows.


-Wolfgang

nospam wrote:
In article , tony cooper


Any sale to a person or company that
is not buying the product for resale is an end user sale. If a
hospital buys a unit for an employee to work with, the sale to the
hospital is an end user sale.

Take a sale to a car maker that uses the laptop inbuild in cars as
a motor management/navigation/etc gadget (running under Windows,
god help us!). The car maker sells the car with the laptop
installed into the car.

Is the sale of the laptop to the car maker an end user sale?
Is the sale of the car to an end user an end user sale of the
laptop?


you're missing the point. someone who walks into best buy or
microcenter and buys a computer is an entirely customer than a
corporate buyer staffing a hospital or call center or whatever. if the
company is running custom software (i.e., point of sales terminals),
they may not even have a choice in hardware.

It doesn't make any difference. The end user is the person or entity
that buys the computer without intent to re-sell it. It doesn't make
a difference if the person or entity buys one or a dozen units; what
makes a difference is what the person or entity does with the unit.

that's correct. what the user does with it is exactly the point and
you've just contradicted yourself.

I think he just thinks 'does' only in conjunction with
'resale'.


If you are going to use a term, understand the term.

So, your 6-9% "market share" --- can you explain what that
term means exactly in that case?



More stray straws. Your dentist is an end user. What software the
dentist installs on the laptop means jack-**** as far as his laptop
purchase being part of the market share as reported when the
manufacturer sold it.

nope. an x-ray machine that's built around a pc is counted as a pc
running windows in market share numbers, but to the end user (the
dentist) it's an x-ray machine.

And a Therac-25 counts as a PDP 11 in market share numbers?

Above laptop inbuild in the car is counted as Windows laptop
in market share numbers?


You have made absolutely no gains in convincing anyone of this.

you've done a survey of all readers? or is that another one from
gartner?

He hasn't asked me. But tony is good at mind reading, or so
his mind reading skill tells him.

-Wolfgang

tony cooper wrote:
On Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:09:00 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

PeterN wrote:
On 8/8/2011 4:39 PM, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
tony wrote:

The numbers I've cited are compiled by firms that are in the business
of collecting numbers and publishing them.

They are not in the business of making truthful numbers,
they are in the business of making money.

Just how long would they remain in business if the numbers were
continually doctored.

Unless the study is sponsored by someone with no interest in
the result --- and why would they sponsor such a study? ---

Nothing like a person who has absolutely no understanding of a subject
sounding off about the subject.

Yep. Now put the mirror down.

The surveys cited are not "sponsored". They have been published by
firms like Gartner.

Also known as Gärtner (Gardener).


| [Microsoft fighting against Linux] also decided to commission
| studies which show GNU/Linux to be more expensive [1,
| 2]. Failing the first time, Microsoft argued, they can simply
| try again. This methodology fits well with tactics that
| are presented in internal Microsoft talks about "Effective
| Evangelism". One of the tactics is *to* *manufacture*
| *evidence* that you need and then reference it. Analysts can
| be compensated in many ways that escape the public eye, as
| detailed in the company’s presentations (all endorsed by Bill
| Gates by the way).
|
| In one of the documents disclosed in Comes vs Microsoft,
| Microsoft was seen explicitly asking IDC to remove signs of
| its sponsorship of a study. This study accidentally showed
| GNU/Linux (server) to be superior. Microsoft had similar
| studies conducted with market research groups like Yankee and
| *Gartner*.
(Emphasis mine)
http://techrights.org/2009/03/02/gar...c-linux-share/


Gartner specializes research in the technology
field. Gartner sells their services to clients, and they have about
60,000 clients at present and their 4,600 associates collect data.
Their 2010 revenue was US$ 1.2 billion. It's not one guy running
around airports with a clipboard.

No, it's many guys thinking to which airports to send their
associates to, to get the numbers they can sell better.

| Bill Gates is also a major Gartner investor and Microsoft a big
| client.
http://techrights.org/2010/03/01/gar...et-share-bias/

The article goes on showing how Gartner continously uses
methods to measure market share in the GNU/Linux case that
are obviously a) beneficial to Microsoft and b) not
applicable to reality.


A firm like Gartner wants all manufacturers of similar products to
hire them, so they have to provide accurate data.

| Gartner operates by providing reports to firms that request
| them, usually handling data and methods that are *selected*
| *or* *designed* *to* *produce* *the* *required* *outcome.* The
| firm which pays Gartner to produce a report expects it to be
| positive. In turn, in order to invite future business, a mutual
| relationship needs to be formed; the companies which Gartner
| praises have to respect Gartner in public and hopefully pay
| Gartner too [...]
|
| The Gartner Group has been caught deceiving many times in
| the past. [...] Backlash from Gartner is unhealthy to one's
| business as Gartner is able to 'punish' its critics by giving
| them negative ratings.
| [...]
| Court material that we got hold of shows Microsoft writing to
| say that it "Successfully lobbied and changed the Gartner Group
| TCO model to show Windows as providing the lowest overall TCO".
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gartner_Group


Apple, or any other
company, isn't going to subscribe to Gartner's service if they know
that their own data has been misrepresented. They would assume that
all data is misrepresented.

Sure, and any company isn't going to pay for advertisements,
seeing how their own products are misrepresented. They would
assume that all products are misrepresented.

Hello??? Somebody home?


It isn't just companies that make laptops that are interested in
laptop market statistics. There are hundreds of companies that make
or design or develop components used in laptops. A company that
makes, or is planning to make, laptop cases is just as interested in
the marketing figures as a company that makes laptops.

They are much more interested in which laptops are around and
don't have a case. After all, no oßne case fits all laptops


and since even the choice of parameters can skew a result,

It doesn't skew the results. Reports are labeled as to what figures
are being presented. The figures at
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...s-globally.ars
are clearly labeled as being the comparison of unit sales.

No, they aren't. The unit growth is unit, but is the 10.5%
units? I cannot find it saying that anywhere. And the
numbers are from Gartner, which, well, look above.

Still, your 5% Mac market share seems wrong, now, doesn't it?

And you do agree that Apple does better in laptop than in PC
sales, so maybe it's 20+% laptop market share?

(note that tony cooper hasn't yet told us what his numbers
are based on)

Of course I did. When I posted the first cite, it was a link to a
website showing industry figures.

A link isn't explaining.
But let's see: you gave
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/oper...e.aspx?qprid=8
= that's population by whatever the browser fakes in it's headers
(and includes smart phones and washing machines) for a number of
sites (i.e. skewed sample), that's not market share according
to you. There's no indication over the timeframe the data
was sampled.

Subsequent posts linked to other
website figures.

And you gave
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/ar...NPD/1248313624
which actually gave units --- and also 91% (ninetyone! percent)
market share for Apple (US-Dollars, Computers costing $1000+)
--- which is the market Apple caters for (June 2009).

Or 8.1% (US only, PCs only, no date or timespan indication).

And that's it. So not "subsequent post*s*" --- it's one single
post. (But everytime you claim something like this, you are wrong,
scatterbrain cooper.)


Funnily, you don't use the number for the market of Apple.
Only the everything-numbers.
That's as if an high end electro-bike maker selling only to
Great Britain would include the cheap (and obviously mostly
non-electrified) bikes in China in it's market numbers.


There is a range of figures because what is
available to link to changes. The link above is to all types of
computers (not just laptops)

PCs don't include laptops. Unless you can prove differently
from the websites you cite.

and compares third quarter 2009 to third
quarter 2010. Another link may be to second quarter comparisons or
fourth quarter comparisons. Market share is a dynamic, not static,
figure.

Market share is a great way to lie with numbers, and Gärtner
knows how to do that.


A Windows-pro study would simply choose units, an
Apple-sponsored study likely dollars. Same numbers,
different results.

What nonsense.

See above. 91% Apple market share.


The people in the industry are not as ill-informed as
you are. The figures are not to inform the public, they are to inform
the industry.

They are to cement a belief of knowledge in Gartner, and to
carter to those who are investors in Gartner (including Bill
Gates) and those who are big clients (including Microsoft).

The public doesn't give a rat's ass if the market share
is 5% or 10% or 20% or if it goes up or down by quarter. The industry
people care, though, and base their strategies on the figures.

I see you must be an industry people and Gartner analyst:
- You deeply care about these numbers
- You misrepresent numbers, e.g. easily fakeable browser ID on
a limited number of self-selected sites --- which is a very
skewed sample and will show major biases --- i.e. a skewed
population as market share.

Dollar figures are meaningless, anyway. Are they wholesale dollars,
retail dollars, pre-rebate dollars, or what?

Unit figures are meaningless, anyway. Are they per CPU, per
item (mouse? USB stick? Harddrive (yes, there's a computer
inside)? MP3 player? or what?

And yes, dollar figures are very meaningful --- after all,
earnings and winnings are not expressed in units other than
monetary units.

-Wolfgang

tony cooper wrote:
On Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:47:50 -0700, nospam
In article , tony cooper

You'll often see industry figures for the same time period but for
different measurements. For example, one figure for unit sales and a
different figure for unit orders. With products that have a lead time
between order and delivery, the figures can differ considerably.

So you basically say the idea of accurate numbers being provided
by Gartner has gone down the drain, since the numbers aren't
even repeatable over different firms conducting such research.
Thank you for contradicting yourself.


and anyone who blindly follows market share numbers misses the boat.

Again, you fail to employ common sense. If you were the owner of a
company that makes those carry-around cases for portable devices, how
would you go about designing a case that would be expected to sell
well?

Wouldn't it be common sense to follow the trends in market share of
various devices and design your product to fit the devices that are
gaining market share?

No. I'd sell cases to those populations that are apt to buy
cases, which is *absolutely* *not* even close to the market
share of different portable devices.


To switch over your production lines from
designs that fit units with declining market to units that have an
increasing market share and are newer and more popular devices?

The sheep's way of leadership.

If the units with the so-called declining market (by what
numbers? See above, you yourself say that they are varying a
lot!) are devices for which owners often buy carrying cases
and the new and so-called more popular (by what numbers?)
already are delivered with a case --- I might better commit
suicide than destroy the whole company!


To
design a product that is sized to accommodate the devices that are in
a growing market?

With all the others fighting for a 3% market share of a 2%
market, when I can have a 2% market share of a 30% market?


The 6% to 10% share is the figure for Mac laptop share.

Source?
What is included in the market?


Well, gee, what an astute observation. For most purposes, unit sales
are the most meaningful figure, though.

Wikipedia disagrees. So do most managers.


You refer above to Apple's "tiny market niche", which is a
misrepresentation. Apple has a small share of the overall market, but
the overall market is large enough in number of units that products
designed for Macs are in an attractive market.

Apple doesn't care for the overall market. Apple cares for
it's profits. They are, BTW, fine.

Again, you abandon common sense by not seeing this. Common sense
tells you that a small percent of a large market can be a large
number.

Common sense tells you to not blindly quote numbers that have
an uncertainity range of 80%.


actually, the public does care, because many people are sheep and buy
whatever everyone else is buying, without ever looking at what might
best fit their needs.

You are the one that says that the Apple stores are always busy. Are
you saying that the sheep follow the other sheep into these stores?

Since everyone buys Apple, that's it. Noone buys Windows any
more. Compare iPhones and Win-phones.

However, the sheep mentality is not based on market share numbers
published primarily for industry use. It is more likely manifested by
seeing what is used on airplanes and coffee shops by the cool people.

Really, you should give more consideration to formulating more
intelligent arguments.

Yes, you should, tony.

Too much of your output is just plain silly in
your efforts to contradict.

Too much of your output contradicts itself.

-Wolfgang

tony cooper wrote:
On Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:34:51 -0700, nospam
wrote:

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

You'll often see industry figures for the same time period but for
different measurements. For example, one figure for unit sales and a
different figure for unit orders. With products that have a lead time
between order and delivery, the figures can differ considerably.

in other words, the numbers are misleading.

Why would they be misleading? The people who digest and use these
figures know which to apply.

That excludes you, obviously.

Unit orders are a predictive figure for
what unit sales will be at a future time.

I see. And the predicted temperatures are a predictive figure
for unit sales in the future, too --- and usually more correct.
Just think of ice cream.



Evidently, the industry feels there's something significant there or
just one company - Gartner - wouldn't be enjoying $1.28 billion in
annual revenue.

Organized crime, racketeering, drugs and smuggling people also
have a very good annal revenue. They must provide good
business figures, just like Gärtner.

The 6% to 10% share is the figure for Mac laptop share. It is not the
share of all Mac computers. Desktops usage is a larger market for
Photoshop and Lightroom products.

proof?

Use your head.

That's only proof that nospam's got a head. Obviously you
again have no proof, not even rumours.

-Wolfgang

PeterN wrote:
On 8/9/2011 6:34 PM, nospam wrote:
wrote:

So no Macs are used in the workplace?

i never said that.

Who did?

At a guess, a certain PeterN.

-Wolfgang

tony cooper wrote:
On Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:02:37 -0700, nospam
In article , tony cooper

Yes, that would result in the sale of two PCs just as someone buying a
Mac, and having that Mac stolen from their auto, would result in the
sale of two laptops.

So Macs are stolen and cheap PCs break *and* are stolen. More
PC sales, then.

Neither scenario, though, is a major source of
sales, but replacement because of theft of either Macs or PCs is a
bigger source.

Proof? None? Thought so.

you are also ignoring channel stuffing, where the sales are to stores,
not end users, hoping that people will ultimately buy them. that's what
samsung did with the galaxy tab (the link is in an earlier post).

Sure. All retailers/re-sellers have computers in stock that have been
reported as sold by the manufacturer but have not been re-sold to end
users.

So your claim that the market share numbers are sales to end
users is hereby contradicted! The numbers are sales from the
manufacturers to resellers.

Any brand of computer that is distributed by a re-seller has a
certain number of sales-by-manufacturer that are not yet sales to end
users. It evens out.

Osborne effect.

The people who work with reports understand
this and take it into account.

So you lied to us when you claimed your numbers --- you
presented them as end-user sales.


You really don't understand this?

much better than you do. your understanding is superficial. you aren't
looking at how the numbers were obtained or what they really mean.

You really don't know how the figures are obtained, do you?

Tell us!
After all you quoted webbrowser headers (easily faked) on
selected sites as "market share" ... remember? 5% or
thereabouts ...
I really want to know how much you knew --- if you really
know, then you are a liar, if you

There are two ways figures are obtained:

1. The figures are supplied to the reporting firms *by the
manufacturers*. Apple supplies their figures to the reporting firm
as do Toshiba, Dell, etc.

And manufacturers never would lie. Or mislead. Or count
mice as units.


The reason Apple is willing to divulge their figures to the reporting
firm is that they subscribe to the reporting firm's results and this
allows them to get Toshiba and Dell's figures.

This is the most common way it's done for market share.

A-ha. I see. So you claim to have end user sales and market
share --- and produce random numbers that are neither.


How did you think it was done? Observers in airports?

Counting browser headers on Microsoft sites. That's how you do it.


2. Some reports are estimates and clearly identified by the reporting
firm as estimates. The figures are based on projections made from a
statistical sample with a stated margin of error.

Aha. And where is the URL that shows that the Apple numbers are
not estimates? And how broad is the margin of errors? 50%? 90%?
3 sigma? 95%? more? Have you any idea?

Of course, I don't expect an answer, as you don't even understand
what I am saying.


This is the most common way of predicting trends, interest in new
products, and price points. Members of the sample group are asked if
they intend to buy a X in the next X months, would they be interested
in buying an X with X features, and would they pay $X for this
product.

At airports!

Or wherever the groups are that are apt to buy such stuff, if
the study is for a client who gains by many sales.


I find it very amusing that you claim my knowledge is "superficial"
when you don't have any idea of where the figures come from, think
that one person's personal observations is a legitimate reason to call
industry figures bogus, think a viable statistical sample is what you
see from your seat in Coach, repeatedly make ridiculous statements,
think retirees and students fly as frequently as business types, and
think "lots" is a meaningful term.

I think it's interesting that you claim to know so much ---
and yet use numbers that are less valid than counting computers
in airports.


-Wolfgang