This is all fine and dandy but if Apple is serious about wanting to take on M$ there going to have to open up the OS to other hardware makers. Their also going to have to some how address the gaming community which could probably be solved by oping up the OS as well.

If they don't I don't see how they will ever bust the  to 20% market share number if they can even get that high.

Given Apple's current market share of... what is it? 7%? I think we'll have to wait a while before Apple breaks 20%. And I don't think Apple will ever open up and be friendly to other hardware makers until Steve Jobs is assassinated or leaves. Either of which I hope happens soon.

As to games, Apple doesn't believe in games. They think that their customers should only run productivity software. You know, only graphics and video professionals, students, and idiots should use their platform. If you want to waste time playing games, go use that inferior Windoze platform...

*rolls eyes* That's what I make of the Jobs/Apple attitude anyway.

Most customers that shop at CC and BBY for computers do not typically spend 2000 for the CPU alone. Also, by selling apple computers and not having a support staff in-house that can service them could very easily cause apple fans to quit shopping there, or even give them the feeling of biting into a rotten apple. Sure, the loyalists wont care, but that's a VERY small percentage of the Computer market place, and most people that shop at these type of stores are looking for either a good $ deal (not apple) and a place to come when something is wrong or they don't understand something. Telling most people they have to contact the manufacturer or take it somewhere else for service, or even that it has to be sent off for service, makes most people angry. I know, I've worked at both places. And neither place has techs at every location that knows apple. And I seriously doubt they have a full genius bar in those BBY stores. It's most likely just a 8 or 12ft section devoted to apple.

Time will tell.

Probably they are just desparate to find new distribution channels, things are not going well for them. They sell overhyped and overpriced products like apple minis, iphones that die after updates, computers that you can hardly find any software to work on
For all their history, they only got one product right and it's the iPod, now they are living off the iPod success. Good luck to apple selling phones for $400 at Best Buy. I'll get my Zune from Circuit City.

I'm a gamer, Mac is not a gaming platform of any worth, therefore they can have all the displays they want, I'm not buying it.

Apple desperate, have you seen their growth numbers. They are busting out moving a ton of Macs. Go to any college campus and estimate the number of those very expensive macs. All those are future owners of a Mac at home and a "PC" at work.

Apple's next breakyout move will be to off windows on thier hardware. It may anger a few fanatically Apple heads but I'm sure that will easily goose "PC" units by another few million units a quarter. Basically Sony and others will see their high end "fashion" PC sales evaporate.

Apple is sitting pretty!

Trying to compare Apple To Microsoft is like
comparing Apples to Oranges. Two totaly
different in just about every aspect. A smaller
company doesn't have to do things that a larger
company has to to be profitable. Look at Apple
stock the last few years and then tell me they
don't know what their doing. This is the same
crap i heard last week when someone tried to
compare AMD to Intel. Same crap different day, AMD
isn't going to fold any faster than Apple is. Both
companys are very strong and will be here for a very long time. And if their not, all the sceptic's that want to see them go will be sad, because there wouldn't be any competition and therefore prices would skyrocket. So please don't
slap around the little companys for not acting like
their a Giant, because they are not and they are just trying to have a small piece of the pie and
they are happy with that , and so should you.

Who cares what Apple does ..... I liked the Ipod until I realized its features only become really useful if you intend to use Itunes and Apple only video etc .... I only wanted an MP3 player and something which would play MPG and WMV files. If Ipod did that I would buy one with the slick interface, til then I will be one of the few with a Zune.

Most students now a days that own Macs just got it because they are "cool" and wheather they are right or wrong their favorite feature is that they can run Windows on it.
As far as the whole BBy and not CC thing, fine by me, I dont like wierd people where I shop. So they can take their Hippie, hybrid driving tree-hugging, im better than you cause I use a Mac attitude to BBY.

This wouldn't have anything to do with the exclusive Verizon stores in Circuit City that won't be selling iPhones, would it?

Actually, every time I have been to the local Best Buy store there are several people looking at the Apple stuff. They are doing very well, so much so that they are selling way more systems than ever before. Sure, I too think that they need to have better support for games and what not but their platform is freaken awesome. I use it for all kinds of stuff and not just for productivity. I have Windows for my games and my Mac for everything else for the most part. Don't knock it till you try it. Their stuff might cost a bit more but you definatly get what you pay for. The MacBook Pro's for example, spec for spec is actually slightely less than the equivelant PC based manufacturer laptops. Also, my new Macbook pro happens to have a Mobile Geforce 8600. First laptop that is able to run Supreme Commander with the same settings that I have on my gaming machine and still play fairly smooth. I had a new thinkpad before this one.

He is right, they are firing on all cylinders right now. Their growth numbers are awesome for their systems. Trust me guys, try it before you hate on it. Vista is definatly not the answere to OS X.

Dude, check the links below and learn a little about Apple.
http://finance.google.com/finance?
chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=
maximized&chdeh=1&chfdeh=0&chdet=
1193364152000&chddm=797619&q=NASDAQ:AAPL

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/the-iphone-
effect?/apple-notebook-and-desktop-
share-rising-a-little-271134.php

Do you still think things are not going well for them?

Barney go back to your kid show. AMD / INTEL is totally different then MS / Apple.

Try the billion dollars required every year to do silicon technology development, and the 5-10 billion for the factories to make the chip.

MS couldn't drive Apple out of business, but INTEL can do it to AMD in a few quarters

People that want apple will buy apple, plain and simple. They know they are going to drop a serious dime for their machines and are more than willing to do it. People that buy pc will buy pc and it is mostly because of the price point.
Apple computers will be serviced by apple regardless where they are purchased, just like if you buy it from the apple store.
The reason cc will no longer get to sell apple computers is simple; Have you been to a cc store and got decent help let alone have someone even ask you if you need any help? They fired all of the people that might have a clue and hired a bunch of high school kids that will work on the cheap.

I'm certainly no Apple fan, never have been, never will be. I own an old PowerMac G4 Cube because it was given to me for free, and I need to support them, so I must learn as much as possible about them. (Installed OS X 10.4.8 on it, upgraded to 10.4.10, will upgrade to leopard when it comes out in a few minutes, added a 15mm thick fan, dropped in a 160gb hard drive, 1gb ram, etc).

I've always said that Apples cost twice as much for half the performance.

But they got one thing right when they did OS X, they used BSD as a core/kernel.

This later allowed them to port it to Intel CPUs without a whole lot of trouble.

That finally brought the price down to something almost reasonable compared to PCs. Heck, you can buy a Mac mini for $499 (ok, $899 with a decent configuration). For Apple, that's amazing.

Their laptops are still a good bit overpriced, but hopefully they'll catch up there sometime too.

The iPod is a hit (nobody can dispute that!)

The iPhone has some serious problems, but once they release the next couple generations it will be quite a decent phone, and it's forced other phone makers to play catch-up. (God my Motorola Q running Windows sucks in many ways, but 1mbps download speeds when tethered is worth it). ;)

I can bash Apple all night (month of Apple Bugs anyone? Security through obscurity?!?), but the fact is their stock price is kicking a$$. They have some very solid products.

The question is, what super-duper-new thing do they have coming next year? Leopard looks good, a 2nd gen iPhone will be good, but I don't see another killer app coming. For next year, it will be: What have you done for me lately?

stock price is not a reflection of how a company is actually doing. Stocks are speculative. Their betting Apple is going to do better then they say they are. I've seen $500 stocks drop 2 $5 in a matter of a month. If you don't believe me check out a chart of JNPR or JDSU. The Apples of the early 2000's. Oh and btw both of those companies are doing just fine as well.

Betting that Apple does not have a new killer app on the stove tends to be a loosing bet. I do not know what they have lined up next. New gaming console? It will have a fantastic UI, and all of us will be talking about it for years.

Since this article was published last year, Apples market Share was roughly 8-9% of the computer market. Today, 8/9/08, Because of their Merge with Best Buy Their Market share is now over 17%, that is a huge increase for 1 Year!! I work at a best buy and we put out about 31 Apple Machines Every Week! We also carry every piece of Software, Hardware and Service that the apple store carries Including: All the MAC computers (IMac 20" and 24", Macbook Pro 15" and 17", and 13" Macbook Black and White, and the all new Macbook Air, Mac Mini, Apple TV, Time Machine, Airport Express, Airport Extreme, All the Accessories...)
The Setup inside best buy to display the Apple Products looks exactly like an apple store. And some stores have Apple Representatives directly from corporate.
Now there is Rumor of a Deal with Best Buy, Apple and AT&T that Best Buy will become the exclusive carrier of the New Iphone 3G, later next year.