I'd like to see 10m Macs sold this year, as I'm sure Apple would too, but I reckon the rise won't be as astronomical as that. Yes, the transition is going well and the backlog of upgrade starved user demand is waiting in anticipation for the full range ... but 2006 is short bearing in mind the Intel PowerMac will only have been on sale a few months at best. These models are all going to be a roaring success, but 2006 is a tight timeframe seeing as they're hardly all shipping as we speak.

However I have big expectations of Macs moving into the mainstream in the next few years: provided Vista works on them so easily that Joe Average can run it (a 3rd party solution maybe with dual boot preinstallation before purchase could be a real business opportunity there).

Vista is going to push a lot of the Windows userbase into hardware upgrades anyway and how Leopard and the new Macs play into this active market should be quite entertaining.

PS: make a tablet Mac now!!!

10 million Macs would be the result of many consumers and businesses making the Switch.

I'd love to see 10 million Macs sold in 2006, not sure if it will happen but I expect the numbers to surpass the number of units sold in 2005.

they must be kidding. THEY HAVEN'T BEGAN SHIPPING LAST WEEK!

It won't happen. Or, if it does, it'll be more because people are swallowing up the G5 machines then the intel ones.

The intel move will spur some sales for those who need the end-all/be-all, plus some who've been waiting for them to finally upgrade. But there's a huge population of mac users who will: Buy G5s because they need classic compatibility Buy G5s because their software/drivers/etc won't run in Rosetta Wait for the rev 1 bugs to be worked out Wait for universal versions of their pro apps Wait for the model of computer and price range that they want

I can see a bump in purchases, if you believe that there's a trend going on, but doubling sales? Not going to happen.

I could see it happening if Apple laptops could dual boot Windows as well. I just bought a new PC laptop that would've been an Apple laptop if the MBP could run Windows natively.

I wish I didn't need to buy a PC, but SQL Server & Visual Studio only runs on Windows.

The PowerMacs are NOT going to be a roaring success. They're too expensive, compared to other models. Most current mac users do not buy these machines because they don't have the money or don't need the extras. Switchers will ignore them because they're way too expensive for what you get. They're geared right to the pro market.

And the pro market isn't going to go nuts and buy these up until
they're apps are converted to universal binaries (and whoknows how long that'll take) the apps that aren't converted are tested and verified as working under Rosetta, and that there's a noticable performance gain running it under Rosetta they pull themselves completely from Classic (if they still use it for this or that) they're sure that they have drivers and such for all their external devices, hardware, printers, etc, etc, etc.

Pros have bigger concerns then just "its a little faster". Remember, they were the last to switch to OS X because of all the incompatibilities between their existing setups and OS X, even with OS X's benefits like protected memory, preemptive multitasking, etc, etc, etc.



Dual-boot users is not a large segment that is going to drive switchers. Most users do not want to dual-boot. They just want to open their computers, work, and then close it up again. if they have to boot into windows to do this or that, they'll end up keeping it in windows, which Apple won't care on a computer sales basis, but it does nothing to improve the OS X mindset or marketshare.

i don't think so, apple started killing their bestselling powerpc products already.
i think the huge population of option a to c will actually be a huge minority.

option d is a problem for a lot of potential customers, but also a minority.
(including me, but i will buy an intel mac this year anyway, and adobe CS3 universal binaries when available)

option e is indeed a large group who, according to apple, will be served in 2006.
i agree.

o and fok dual boot

The greatest sales prediction I've seen up until this was 8.6 million units, which I thought was too high as well.

My own estimates have been between 6 million and 7 million.

Of course, if the PPC sales dive too early, and Apple can't get the x86 machines out fast enough, even 6 million might prove to be too high.

But I hope not.

The only powerpc product they've killed is the iMac. I don't know if that's their best-selling product, nor does anyone, technically, because, IIRC, Apple stopped announcing sales of their different models.

But on the iMac, they killed production and then let sales run out. Those ran out quickly, so either there was a big buy-up, or Apple actually guessed correctly on when to end production on the earlier version (I can't believe the second one). I, for one, specifically bought an iMac G5 for my mother for XMas because I feared the intels were coming soon. She's uses too much stuff that's classic only for me to try to find alternatives in the OS X world (that also would work on rosetta). hell, it was hard enough to get her to take the iMac.

Is (was) she a PC person? If so, how does she feel about it now?

My friend got an iMac for his (then) 83 year old mom, and it's turned her life around.