Spin, spin, spin
Here’s something funny.
The folks over at MacDailyNews, always good for a laugh, have a headline: “Research firm: Intel, Boot Camp powering huge Apple Mac sales surge” it gushes.
A huge sales surge in Macs? Interesting.
That is, if it was true. But, typical with MDN, it’s not — it’s hope and hype.
What the research firm’s report actually says is that 33 percent of the computer-industry personnel it surveyed said they would be “more likely” to buy a Mac now that the company has a deal with Intel. (This is up from only 19 percent who said so last June.)
Another part of the survey found that 25 percent of them were “more likely” to buy a Mac because of Apple’s Boot Camp software.
So no one’s buying anything — there is no “huge sales surge.” What there is, is people saying they’d be more likely to buy one. And a minority of people at that — only 33 or 25 percent, depending on the survey.
Ask people, “Would you be more likely to buy such-and-such a car if it came with free anti-lock brakes?” Many will say Yes. But you can’t then say, “Free anti-lock brakes power huge surge in sales of such-and-such cars!!!”
But the MDN folks love their rose-colored glasses.
Of course, spun another way, the survey said that 67 percent of people surveyed didn’t care that Macs were now using Intel chips, and 75 percent didn’t care that Boot Camp allowed them to run Windows programs.
It’s all in the spin.
Brich says:
Here’s some ’spin’ for you: 97% of Windows users are too busy trying to eradicate malware from their systems to even comprehend that there is a viable OS alternative that doesn’t require even a nanosecond of wasted computing time to attend to spyware and viruses.