New numbers show 2020 was the first year that Chromebooks outsold Macs, posting impressive market share gains at the expense of Windows. Computers powered by Google’s Chrome OS have outsold Apple’
Source: Chromebooks outsold Macs worldwide in 2020, cutting into Windows market share – GeekWire
Just once, I want to see these graphs and sales figures omit corporate purchases from the data. I’m certain that Dell, HP, and Lenovo could provide numbers that show shipments to end users and, say, Best Buy and Target, vs bulk corporate orders. Then we’d see how people actually vote with their own personal dollars.
IDC, along with Gartner and others, have been doing this forever. The whole point of these articles is to cast aspersion on Apple’s influence in the computer market. As Microsoft-funded outfits (you can’t convince me otherwise), they’re never going to change.
Speaking of boosting the numbers with corporate purchases, the increase in Chromebook numbers in this graph is directly related to schools purchasing them for at-home use in remote “learning.” And they suuuuuck. Both of my sons have them, and they are just terrible, awful things to work with. You couldn’t pay me to believe that anyone would buy one for personal use. A person would buy a cheap iPad over a Chromebook, 100 times out of 100.
And don’t even get me started with the bat-crazy mish-mash of unrelated web sites my boys have to navigate to do “online” school. It’s a disaster. I mean, I know that the educational software world is way behind, but… dang. I really hope this area of the economy gets some serious investment, now that Covid has made everyone aware of just how bad it is.
After 25 years of seeing this lie about market share numbers, I wonder if it’s possible for me to run down someone inside the big 3 PC manufacturers who could provide a breakdown in their figures for personal vs. corporate or school use…