Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
[SNIP]
I very much believe that being able to buy books using a simple web browser is a far more convenient approach, but I'm unconvinced that "Connect" being Windows-only is really a practical problem for many people.
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It all depends on how you read the market share numbers. You've quoted one version of the share numbers roughly correctly. But...
- The Mac installed base is rather larger than its trailing year sales %, because Macs stay in service nearly 2x longer than typical PCs.
- Many of the PC sales counted are for applications that are effectively 'embedded.' Think cash registers, and the like.
- The PC is disproportionately installed on desks in the work-place. This doesn't change the "market share," but does mean that the percentage of Macs in homes is a good deal higher than the sales numbers would indicate.
- When considering those workplace PCs, remember that many employers do not permit users to install ANY software on the desktops they use at work. This rather removes those machines from the 'access to a PC' part of the equation.
- Lastly, Mac market share has really been picking up in the last 4-6 quarters. The most recent numbers I saw were nearing 20% of U.S. retail sales. That's not the entire market, of course, but it seems like a good proxy for 'machines on which a user might install the Connect software.'
In my own case, I do 'have access to a Windows machine.' But it's in the lab at school, and I mostly use my Sony Reader at home. Having to schlep in to school to buy or download books rather fails the convenience test, don't you think? Alternatively, I could run windows on my Powerbook via Bootcamp or Parallels, or the like. While I'm a student, that'd be fairly affordable -- $19.95 for a copy of the university-site-licensed Windows disk, plus $69.95 for an academic copy of Parallels at the University bookstore. Of course, that adds $80 to the price of my Sony Reader. On top of which, it'd be the only reason for me to have a copy of Windows at all. Again... not convenient.
I guess what I'm going on about here is that the lack of Mac/Linux support (for the Sony reader) really raises the cost of entry for non-Windows users. Although we are clearly a minority, the absolute numbers are large.
By the way, the added cost to build cross-platform software needn't be large. At the companies I've worked at in the past, it added less than 5% to the cost of producing the software (testing included!) -- as long as you planned for it and designed for it from the start.* Blizzard (makers of World of Warcraft, among others) reports added costs around 3%. Given that Mac+Linux market share has never yet dropped below 5%, I've never been able to fathom why more software makers don't just build cross-platform from the get-go. The business case is trivial to make...
For example, compare Kovid Goyal's one-man-part-time libprs500 (running on Windows, Mac, and a bunch of Linux OSs) to the connect software. Sony's programmers and managers really have no excuse! And that's even allowing for the fact that users are more forgiving of free software than they would be for software that has cost them money.
Xenophon
* Retrofitting cross-platform-ness into an application originally designed for just one platform is a
whole lot more expensive.