Apple's recent success in the enterprise comes as the company has worked to cater to businesses' needs, and also as Chief Executive Tim Cook has shown a friendlier side than companies were used to with Steve Jobs.
Apple's presence on the Web continues to expand, with browser use of both iOS and Mac OS X seeing growth in October that propelled the company to new heights.
Mac business users have been shown to be more productive than their PC counterparts, prompting Forrester Research to encourage companies to support Apple hardware in the workplace.
Apple experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors in the U.S. PC market last quarter with shipments rising 21% on a yearly basis to garner the Mac maker a near 13% share. At the same time, the nation's obsession with the iPad took spending dollars away from PCs.
With Apple's fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 drawing to a close, it is expected in a matter of weeks to report record sales of both its Mac and iPad product lineups.
Apple has once again topped the American Customer Satisfaction Index for PC makers, making it eight years in a row that consumers have been most satisfied with the Mac maker.
Back-to-school Mac sales once again easily outgrew Windows PCs this year, even though Apple did not offer a free iPod touch and discontinued its education-focused white MacBook this summer.
The latest sales figures from the NPD Group show Apple's Mac platform is set to have its best quarter ever, with sales on pace to hit 4.5 million.
The release of Mac OS X Lion has helped Apple grow its share of the PC install base to nearly 13.5% in the U.S. and more than 6% worldwide, according to new statistics.
A new, disputed report from one Wall Street analyst claims Apple's Mac sales have slowed significantly since the fourth week in July, suggesting its back-to-school promotion is not boosting sales as much as expected.
Back-to-school sales have been particularly strong for Apple this year, with both the Mac and iPad proving popular, while non-Apple tablets have failed to gain traction with education buyers.
Apple's line of Mac computers are seen making further market share gains in the coming years, growing to 4.5 percent of sales in 2011, and 5.2 percent of new PCs sold in 2015.
Both Apple's Mac and iPad lineup are poised to make significant gains in the second half of 2011, as the Windows-based PC market remains "relatively stagnant" and is predicted to see 4 percent growth, according to a new analysis.
The latest domestic sales figures from the NPD Group suggest Apple may have sold as many as 4.2 million Macs in the June quarter, a sum that would represent the company's best quarter ever.
Apple's share of the U.S. personal computer market rose to nearly 11 percent during the second quarter of 2011, with the Mac maker representing the only major PC manufacturer to report double-digit growth in a market that contracted by more than 4 percent.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer this week boasted that sales of Windows PCs continue to vastly outperform the Mac, but also conceded that his company's mobile phone business has not done much to improve its market share.
Apple is expected to dethrone market leader HP in terms of global notebook shipments next year, if the iPad is categorized as a portable computer.
An HP executive said Thursday that the TouchPad tablet is not meant to take the market away from the iPad and is instead aimed at the enterprise, while a new report claims Apple is set to overtake HP next year as the world's leading portable PC vendor, if iPads are taken into account.
Needham & Company increased its revenue and earnings per share estimates for Apple on Tuesday, with new figures that reflect higher estimated shipments of 30 million iPads and 17 million Macs in 2011.
Through the first two months of Apple's third quarter of fiscal 2011, U.S. Mac sales are up 15 percent year-over-year, but that number is expected to rise in June when Apple faces a more favorable 2010 comparison.
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Neil Hughes
Slash Lane
AppleInsider Staff
Katie Marsal
Chris Smith
Sam Oliver
Josh Ong
