Introduction
Evolution in today’s technology has transformed the world systems’ enormously. At the advent of computers until now, there has been a great leap in technology and consumer’s need for technologically oriented products (Promotion: Integrated Marketing Communication 2010; Palmer and Hartley 2008; Schieffer 2005).
With processes that were perceived to initially take very long time to complete, computers and related technology has ensured such processing time is drastically reduce based on their processing speed. Technical and highly abstract algorithms have now been redefined by the using computers; this has enabled tremendous advancements in technology.
The advancements have been largely defined and successfully based on a number of factors. Currently the trend is that technology would be beneficial as per its application (Capon 2009; Chan and Mauborgne 2004; De Mooji 2003). To date, computer age is perhaps the fastest evolving facet of life.
This has necessitated manufacturers of computer related products to find ways of producing products that are highly technical and user friendly. Synonymously, Microsoft Corporation and Apple Incorporation are the major computer technology manufacturers who have continued to strive in gaining a sizeable market share of their products.
Lately, Microsoft Corporation products have gained a substantial share of the market as opposed to Apple Incorporation’s products. However, as brand preference trends continue to change, it seems that each of these companies has its own command of commercial dominance.
This research was intended to study the reasons as to why Apple’s operating system, the Mac OS X is not as popular with computer users as it’s counterpart Microsoft windows operating system. The study involved a market research meant to highlight the key factors that have led to this status.
One of the ways the study was done involved the use of questionnaires (Deshpande 1993). It was necessary during this process to understand reasons why Apple Mac enthusiasts acquired Mac OS X preloaded systems, yet still went ahead to buy Microsoft windows operating system and installed o their Apple Mac hardware.
It was assumed that in order to understand this trend and offer conclusive market research findings then the windows and Mac OS X operating system users were interviewed and then preference data based on the features and use of each of the operating systems gathered and analyzed (Silberschatz, Gagne and Galvin 2002). Generally, in the operating system market share, Apple Mac OS X only commands a total market share of 7%.
Therefore, this market research attempted to point out the reasons behind this trend and possible solution or remedies deduced. Therefore, although there are other operating systems like UNIX and Linux that have little market share, this research only focused on Microsoft windows operating system and Apple Mac OS X.
The findings of this market research are likely to assist the manufacturers of the Mac OS X operating system to redefine their marketing strategy or possibly re-engineer their product to improve their market share (McQuarrie 1996; Orville and Mullins 2007).
Executive Summary
Computer has become a tool and necessity in all activities we carry out today. As a product the computer is quickly evolving to try and satisfy the ever changing technological requirements of its user.
This research focused on a commitment of the computer system as well as one operating brand preference over the other (Doole, Lancaster and Lowe 2004; Hague, Hague and Morgan 2004; Jobber 2009). The research was intended to enumerate the reasons for Apple Mac OS X commanding only a 7% market shares whereas the Microsoft windows operating system takes about 70%.
Generally, the research findings pointed out the fact that most users encounter the Microsoft windows operating system at entry level which unlike the Mac OS X, which is uncommon.
As a result many people gets quickly acquainted to Microsoft’s windows operating system even before they can try to use the other operating systems. Therefore, the brand preference trend indicates that Mac OS X has a 7% of the total operating systems’ market share, of the sixty people interviewed during this market research on brand preference, only six respondents had a preference for the Mac OS X, this translated to about 7%.
These respondents were indeed those who encountered Mac OS X during their introductory levels to computer literacy and usage. It is therefore valid to assume that these respondents are loyal users of Mac computers that are preloaded with the Mac OS X.
The conclusion to this research indicates that Mac OS X has ways in which they can improve their market share. Continued aggressive campaigns can contribute to such progress. Users seem to prefer consistency, a feature they seem to attach to the windows operating system as opposed to Mac OS X (Patton 2001).
Therefore, Mac OS X can also redefine their standard features that would not change their subsequent releases (Apple Computer Inc. 1994; Lu 1992).
One of the resource persons indicated the fact that snow leopard, one of Mac OS versions was as unpopular as Microsoft vista, yet the company did very little when compared to their rivals. Rather than keep changing and introducing new features, Mac OS can attain product stability if they would improve their products features, a factor that can help them to command a larger market than what they have now.
Research Methodology
This was a comparative research and hence a qualitative approach to research was considered suitable. Qualitative research approach is an explorative process used to collect, analyze and report data based on certain research question (Calder 1977; Creswell 2006).
This approach went through a number of steps which formed the design of the study. these included identifying the research problem, research purpose specification, design selection and collecting data, analyzing the data, reporting and analyzing the research as a whole, results dissemination and finally evaluation of the research.
The qualitative approach requires that data be collected and organized before analysis. The data would then be coded and themes and descriptions be derived to establish a concept based on them. This is how the data was validated for accuracy and reliability.
The qualitative research approach is different from quantitative approach where the latter calls for explanation and prediction of relationships among variables. The quantitative approach begins with a theory whereas qualitative approach ends with the hypothesis. Samples in the quantitative approach are selected based on scientific theory. Mathematical models are used to validate data in the quantitative approach to research.
After a thorough examination of various methods available for conducting our research, it was decided that the research questions be answered when data was being obtained directly from the targeted subjects through questionnaires which formed the primary research portion of this study (Beall 2010; Blythe and Megicks 2010).
The data was further evaluated using qualitative approach. The approach was used to analyze the collected data from the questionnaires. Questionnaires were considered suitable for this research because they are cost effective and can be administered easily even when the researchers wanted to collect confidential data from the respondents (Bradley 2010).
In the designing stage, the researcher made a plan and prepared a methodology which had to be clear enough to avoid confusion or data redundancy. How to design the questionnaires and the questions to be asked were then arrived at in line with the research question and objectives.
The participants were then selected as per the criteria that were derived from the research objective. The number of respondents used in this research was based on the subject under investigation where a total of sixty participants were considered a good sample size.
Secondary data was also collected based on the critical review of the documents and web content based on the assessment of the continuous low percentage in using Apple Mac OS X as compared to the Microsoft windows operating systems.
The literature selected were those concerned with the brand preference for operating systems, likely reasons for these variations in brand preferences between Microsoft windows operating system and Apple Mac OS X.
The results of the research were very essential in making the final recommendations and conclusion. An analysis strategy was carefully done in line with the research questions, objectives and hypothesis (Blythe 2008; Bond, Stone and Bryan 2004; Bonoma 1985).
Before this, the collected data was used to compare the research findings with related literature in order to develop accurate results that could be relied upon when making recommendations for the disparity highlighted over the usage of the two operating systems.
Determining the resource persons for the research, the research objectives and the research questions were all developed prior to the event of data collection. In qualitative research, the researcher has to be actively involved though interactions and participation in an attempt of coming up with the best results. There are some general roles assumed by a researcher as stated below;
- Taking responsibility for finding out what is expected in the research.
- Taking the initiative in raising problems or difficulties.
- Helping the supervisory team to ensure consistency.
- Discussing with the supervisory team how to make guidance more effective, including disability related concerns.
- Undertaking research training as agreed and where need is identified.
- Undertaking recommended reading.
- Producing written work as agreed.
- Complying with reporting procedures and informing supervisors of the progress of his research.
- Reporting to the supervisor about difficulties he/she encounters in his work.
- Arranging for informal sharing of information and practice.
- Generating own ideas.
- Setting realistic deadlines.
- Asking and seeking clarification when he/she don’t understand.
- Deciding when to submit the thesis and ensure that it is submitted on time.
- Ensuring that the thesis complies with regulations.
During this research the researcher conducted some prior discussion where he informed the participants on what was expected of them as a request. The information and hypothesis formulation were established based on the field study data gathered by questionnaire as well as literature reviews.
It is obvious that there is a lot of relevant data in the public domain related to brand preference as far as operating systems is concerned. The table (Table 1) below summarizes some of these statistics gotten from the research.
Table 1: Percentage usage for the operating systems from Microsoft and Apple
Research Findings
The general conclusion from the research findings based on the respondents, is that about 71.7% showed preference for Microsoft’s operating systems range. The reasons cited ranged from having faith in an established brand name to trusting a product with consistency.
One ardent Microsoft windows operating system user noted the fact that it was easier to learn and use subsequent versions of the windows operating systems, made it easier to cling on the product. There was also a general public notion that a product that is widely used had a better quality than the one used with fewer people.
However, this research could not prove such facts considering putting into consideration that in other device categories Apple’s Mac OS headed the group over Microsoft as indicated in the trend preference diagrams below (LeVitus 2011).
Table 2: Percentage usage for operating systems – see appendix for chart.
The usage trend can further be plotted as indicated in the graph below
Mobile devices category shows that Apple’s iOS has a larger market share than Microsoft products as indicated in the chart below
These findings also indicate that Microsoft windows operating systems were closely associated with the IBM hardware. However, it was not mandatory that all IBM hardware would be preloaded with Microsoft windows operating system. Contrary, Apple’s hardware had Mac OS preloaded on all their hardware.
This meant that users had more freedom to choose the operating system to install on non Apple computers. Ostensibly, the operating system of choice for this kind of set up was a Microsoft windows operating system. It is possible that Mac OS can compete more effectively with Microsoft windows operating systems if it would be freed from Apple Mac computers.
Some of respondents interviewed during this research pointed out the fact that the windows operating systems had an upper hand in terms of the available gaming software than Apple’s Mac OS X which was more video oriented.
As such a category of computer games enthusiasts are automatically locked out from the Mac OS X hence would prefer windows due to such limitations. However, in smart phone operating systems the trend is a reverse, with the Mac OS X having an upper hand over windows about nine times behind Apple (see the chart above).
The fact that Mac OS X was preloaded and shipped with the associated hardware, the Mac computer for the past two decades made the market uptake of this operating system sluggish. In any case people would still buy Mac computers because they want to own a Mac even as the survey revealed.
However, it was observed that people would also buy windows boxes because they wanted a computer; this ha led to more people being acquainted to the windows operating system as the computer operating system of their time. Still the pricing that Apple tagged on their preloaded system was far out of reach for the ordinary computer buyer who would opt for the windows box instead and therefore ended up with the windows operating system as first choice (Zeithaml 1998).
Conclusion and Recommendations
This market research has established a number of vital findings that can be of benefit to Apple Incorporation to improve on their Mac OS X market share.
Most important though is the fact that most of the respondents interviewed indicated that they more easily associated with Microsoft windows operating systems because the price of Mac computers which are usually shipped preloaded with Mac OS X were way out of their reach.
Though ardent Apple Mac OS X buyers and users enumerated the features that they mostly like be included in subsequent Mac OS X versions, these included the gamming components, which they rated a head to head comparison with Microsoft’s operating systems.
Even the ardent still went to get a copy of Microsoft Windows operating system according to respondent no16 on their Mac computers to ‘test and feel it’. Generally, some ardent Mac OS X users were once Microsoft windows operating system users who decided to change for exploration purposes.
Therefore, they still have a preference for the Microsoft operating system. However, the study also revealed that the Mac OS X has a stronger following from those who use UNIX which offers comparable features to the Mac OS X.
This study indicates that the trend is not likely to change very soon unless Apple Incorporation radically redesign the Mac OS X so that it be platform independent.
It can be considered from the study that Microsoft effectively captured a market need for affordable computers and used a pricing strategy to set up their competitive advantage (Solomon 2008; Strategic marketing plan: Center for business planning, 2010; Wilson 2002; Wilson 2006).
This has effectively achieved a sizeable market share that is currently standing at around 90% of all desktop operating system buyers. The probable recommendation based on the findings from this study would be, to advice Apple Incorporation to find ways of shipping Mac OS X or subsequent versions as independent products.
This should go with a price revision and feature enhancement which is likely to positively contribute to Mac OS X market share. Therefore, as much as Mac OS X commands a nine times lead over Microsoft windows within the smart phone category, Apple Incorporation can effectively utilize this to their advantage if they re-introduce the Mac OS X as a separate product from their Mac computer.
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