Tom Yager has written the perfect review of Leopard for IT guys, extolling the extensible framework architecture as being in a different league than Vista. “Leopard is a rung above perfection”:

Perfecting perfection: Mac OS X Leopard, part 1

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]Tom Yager has written the perfect review of Leopard for IT guys, extolling the extensible framework architecture as being in a different league than Vista. “Leopard is a rung above perfection”:
Perfecting perfection: Mac OS X Leopard, part 1

After using the Leopard beta for some time, I remember telling everyone I could that when the IT guys finally got their hands on Leopard and looked under the hood they would be blown away by what they found

Digitimes estimates Apple’s global market share for notebooks is due to rise 1% in 2008.

Global notebook PC shipments to top 116 million units in 2008, says paper
Commercial Times, November 20; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 20 November 2007]

Global shipments of notebook PCs, as affected by the shortage of some key components, are expected to reach 93 million units in 2007 before growing to 116 million units in 2008, according to the Taiwan-based Topology Research Institute (TRI) as quoted by the Chinese-language Commercial Times.

Acer and Apple are expected to benefit from the expanding consumer notebook segment, with both vendors to see their volume sales grow over 30% on year, and their global market share to increase by one percentage point each in 2008, TRI was quoted as saying.

Among first-tier notebook makers, Wistron is expected to enjoy an over 40% shipment growth in 2008, with its notebook shipments expanding from the 12 million units projected for this year to top 17 million units in 2008, the paper said.

My back-of-envelope sums say that’s worth about 25c to AAPL’s FY08 earnings (remember we’re only talking notebooks here, not desktops).

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]My back-of-envelope sums say that’s worth about 25c to AAPL’s FY08 earnings (remember we’re only talking notebooks here, not desktops).

This is where the Mac Pro update is key. It provides volume with high ASPs. Moving beyond the higher education and consumer markets, penetration of the Mac Pro into more enterprise environments will produce more portable Mac sales.

Leopard IMHO is the best enterprise OS Apple has ever produced. I was hoping for an update to the Mac Pro line before the end of the calendar year. 2008 could be a solid enterprise sales year with the right product mix. More and more I am hearing of decision makers interested in the Mac now that the ability to run specialty Windows software on a Mac is a real possibility.

This story about a new iPod Shuffle version with display might not “move the market” but changes the picture. After all back when the first Shuffle was introduced the concept red: “Life is random”.

I found this in an article on Looprumours:

This week, The Fox News Channel has replaced its standard PC laptops with Apple’s MacBook Pros. The anchors now sit at the desk with the Apple logo brightly lit, endorsing the Mac laptops.

Somebody say Macs aren’t enterprise-friendly again, please

I believe that CTOs will start getting sacked for rolling out excuses about why they can’t integrate Macs into their corporate networks soon. At the very least, new hires in the IT department will be expected to know and understand how Macs work and how to work with them. That in itself will open up so many doors it will start a revolution as the old WinPC IT dinosaurs who grew up with DOS are slowly pensioned off.

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]I found this in an article on Looprumours:

This week, The Fox News Channel has replaced its standard PC laptops with Apple’s MacBook Pros. The anchors now sit at the desk with the Apple logo brightly lit, endorsing the Mac laptops.

Somebody say Macs aren’t enterprise-friendly again, please

I believe that CTOs will start getting sacked for rolling out excuses about why they can’t integrate Macs into their corporate networks soon. At the very least, new hires in the IT department will be expected to know and understand how Macs work and how to work with them. That in itself will open up so many doors it will start a revolution as the old WinPC IT dinosaurs who grew up with DOS are slowly pensioned off.

On a similar note, last night, at the end of one of the Fox NFL game, the behind the scenes producer gave his thank yous to his crew for working on Thanksgiving. Sitting clearly on his table was a closed 15” MacBook Pro with glowing Apple logo.

There’s definitely something going on between Apple and Murdoch . . . . .

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]There’s definitely something going on between Apple and Murdoch . . . . .

I agree the signs are there from the website redesigned for iPhone to product positioning on the Fox TV network . I think Newscorp owns a major movie studio too which makes it really interesting

[quote author=“sleepygeek”]There’s definitely something going on between Apple and Murdoch . . . . .

Yep… if you have an iPhone click on this link. It was launched the day the iPhone was released in the UK:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/iphone/home

Murdoch is actively engaging Mac, iPhone and iPod users these days. Nothing this old fox does is by accident. He’s making sure whichever side wins, he’s on the winning one.

Thought the same thing when I saw the Fox News item. Totally agree something is going on—exciting.

Sony to Introduce Playstation Phone-Financial Times
According to a top company official, Sony is toying with the idea of developing a “Playstation phone” that would combine the power of a gaming console with that of a mobile phone

There was a reference link, but the linked page has been removed.

[quote author=“lumi”]Sony to Introduce Playstation Phone-Financial Times
According to a top company official, Sony is toying with the idea of developing a “Playstation phone” that would combine the power of a gaming console with that of a mobile phone
There was a reference link, but the linked page has been removed.

This has been rumoured and denied at least 4 times this week. I wouldn’t take it very seriously. Merging a PSP with a phone would take incredible and unprecedented co-operation between different Sony departments, and they are each governed as if they’re the personal fiefdoms of their respective bosses. I suppose they might get around to it by 2010

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”][quote author=“lumi”]Sony to Introduce Playstation Phone-Financial Times
According to a top company official, Sony is toying with the idea of developing a “Playstation phone” that would combine the power of a gaming console with that of a mobile phone
There was a reference link, but the linked page has been removed.

This has been rumoured and denied at least 4 times this week. I wouldn’t take it very seriously. Merging a PSP with a phone would take incredible and unprecedented co-operation between different Sony departments, and they are each governed as if they’re the personal fiefdoms of their respective bosses. I suppose they might get around to it by 2010

Agree that if they’re “toying with the idea” that it will be quite a while—might even see the PSP platform dead and buried before the phone is ready

Apple extends European Education market share to a whopping 19.6%

Apple continues to build marketshare in the UK education market, Apple’s director of EMEA education markets, Herve Marchet, told Macworld this morning.

“In the past quarter we reached 19.6 per cent marketshare across Europe,” he said, adding that full year results in the UK have been “fantastic”.

In the UK it has reached 15.4%, putting it in second place:

Recent figures from research analyst at the Gartner Group have confirmed Apple has achieved 15.4 per cent market share in the UK in the third quarter of 2007 - the second biggest provider within the UK education market.

Link to full interview

Many, many analysts on CNBC have been naming tech as the best sector to get into right now. It’s down 10% from highs and likely oversold. As I mentioned elsewhere, on Wednesday’s Fast Money there was an interview with Dennis Gartman who said he’s short most of the market but is long two tech stocks in particular: AAPL and MSFT. To close the show, Pete Najarian’s Final Trade was to buy AAPL—which he says is going to “explode into January”. The AAPL-bashers on other message boards notwithstanding, AAPL sentiment seems to be increasingly positive and improved from this fall—stating the obvious, I know, but still nice to see.