BusinessWeek: Apple's Mind Share Vastly Exceeds Its Market Share

A s part of BusinessWeekis series on Apple, we also wanted to direct your attention to a rather interesting editorial by Stephen H. Wildstrom. In earlier coverage today, we discussed BusinessWeekis article about how Apple is transforming into the Sony of the computing world. Mr. Wildstromis editorial talks about why he covers Apple in the first place, and his answer is that Apple has influence that far surpassed its market share. From the editorial:

Iim often asked: Why do I write columns about Apple Computer products? After all, the Macintosh has considerably less than 5% of the market for personal computers, and among the business computer users who are the core of BusinessWeek is readership, the share is even lower. Add to that the fact that secretive Apple ( AAPL ) is a difficult company to deal with -- which would make it doubly easy to ignore its products.

That would also be very foolish of me, however. For all of its many faults, Apple is a fountain of innovation in the generally parched landscape of personal computing. Thatis why its influence -- whatis known as the tech industry as mindshare -- vastly exceeds its market share.

Thereis more in the full editorial at BusinessWeek, which we recommend as a good read.