Interesting… Macintosh is chomping at Window’s heels.
rick
on 12 Jul 07
How’s that compare to the actual application?
Ben
on 12 Jul 07
I’m not trolling, but what does this say? I’m not surprised at all considering basecamp is so inline with mac philosophy. I’m actually surprised it’s not closer to 50/50.
Looks like google analytics, our biggest site (200-400 visits a day) is around 7 percent mac users so this is exceptional. Lots of people usually debunk this with saying that it’s just the early adopters but I guess that is untrue in this case..
ML
on 12 Jul 07
What does it say? As AC said above, “It says what it says.” I couldn’t say it better.
Real cool people use basecamp and cool people use apple computers.
My problem is that (because i`m from Romania) I can`t buy a macbook because it costs two times my salary as a full-time senior php developer. If all over the world people could afford a Macintosh as you do in USA the gap between windows and macs would be much smaller or even upside down.
I’m just as surprised by the 3.25% Linux share, by far the largest I’ve ever seen for a big (non-linux-related) site.
Apple’s market share seems to be growing phenomenally, deservedly so. Looks like the screenshot was taken from a Windows machine though so I’m getting mixed messages with this post.
Markus
on 12 Jul 07
Hi, I’m really surprised that OSX is only at 24%. I would expect a much bigger share among 37signals customers.
Despite the recent hype around Apple, its computers are yet a niche product for designers and architects. Windows is everywhere and Linux on desktops is clearly on the rise.
I agree with Hurry when he says that Apple computers are very expensive in Europe: considering the current weak dollar, Apple could sell them at a large discount in Europe but they prefer a more profitable niche market to a larger market share.
So what is the breakdown of users? It would be interesting to see if the Mac people are more likely to buy after getting there. Maybe the breakdown on the actual sign up page would be an interesting comparison too.
It will be interesting too, to see the growth of each OS over the year. 24 % for Mac is a lot…
Argo Wibowo
James
on 13 Jul 07
Complaining about “only” 24% mac is funny – that’s at least 10x average. My bog-standard mass-market e-commerce websites score around 3% mac on analytics, and the global average seems to be about 3-4%.
Hey Mac people, remember that most of the rest of us are still PC XP, 1024px wide, and have darker screens than you (or is it lighter? I can never remember).
Pity us?
Terry Sutton
on 13 Jul 07
It amazes me that people still use Linux. I’ve tried them all and there’s none any better than the others. I found that linux was perfect if you wanted to spend 2 hours trying to figure out how to do something that might take 20 seconds.
Some people like spending two hours to figure out something relatively simple; like playing a DVD. I’m not one of them, but I definitely have friends who are. Another friend tried to explain this behavior by comparing it to people who build and maintain old Harley Davidsons, they take pride in knowing that they know their machine in every way possible and know that nobody else could fix their bike. It seemed like an apt comparison.
I think there’s definitely a parallel between the way Apple does things and the way 37s does things; they’re both operating in a niche where they don’t have to compete with the big guys-Microsoft, IBM, etc-but still offer a competitive product. The philosophy of ‘Getting Real’ and Apple’s ‘leave out what you don’t need’ are also very similar.
Ok, simple pie chart, simple stats, simple evaluation. How many Windows users in the pie chart are MacBookPro users running XP or Vista? I’m one. I hop frequently between both environments, surfing within both environments, for different reasons. Agree with #3.
Can we resist turning this into an OS-bashing thread? I use all three of the major systems here – all three have strengths and weaknesses. We could argue it forever without a consensus.
Linux doesn’t take 20 minutes to do a 2-minute task for everyone, and in a lot of cases it takes 2 minutes to complete 20-minute tasks on any other OS.
Macs are much more popular in the design/media community than in most other business environments, so it should come as no surprise that the pie chart looks as it does.
I, too, would love to see that chart expanded to show change over the past 12-24 months, though. I’d also love to see an analytics chart of actual paying subscribers (not expecting Jason to throw that one at us, though) because I have a feeling that Macs have an even larger slice there.
This shows the real promise of a free desktop taking a significant marketshare soon enough. I wonder how the more traditional shrink-wrap software market will cope with this.
Boris Yeltsin's Zombie
on 17 Jul 07
I got a front page Digg story recently.
Safari outnumbered IE6 in my logs.
This discussion is closed.
About Matt Linderman
Now: The creator of Vooza, "the Spinal Tap of startups." Previously: Employee #1 at 37signals and co-author of the books Rework and Getting Real.
Levi
on 12 Jul 07Interesting… Macintosh is chomping at Window’s heels.
rick
on 12 Jul 07How’s that compare to the actual application?
Ben
on 12 Jul 07I’m not trolling, but what does this say? I’m not surprised at all considering basecamp is so inline with mac philosophy. I’m actually surprised it’s not closer to 50/50.
Maybe a trend graph would have more impact.
AndrewH
on 12 Jul 07I agree with Ben, what does this say? Would be nice to see a BasecampHQ previous year comparison or some other Mac share survey numbers.
From my Mac Book Pro running Windows…
Anonymous Coward
on 12 Jul 07What does it say? It says what it says. It’s the OS breakdown for people visiting basecamphq.com.
Peter
on 12 Jul 07That pie chart doesn’t really need a legend. :-)
Ed Knittel
on 12 Jul 07I’m with Ben. I would have expected Mac and PC to be neck and neck
Josh Ulfers
on 12 Jul 07What stat script is that?
Marijn
on 12 Jul 07Looks like google analytics, our biggest site (200-400 visits a day) is around 7 percent mac users so this is exceptional. Lots of people usually debunk this with saying that it’s just the early adopters but I guess that is untrue in this case..
ML
on 12 Jul 07What does it say? As AC said above, “It says what it says.” I couldn’t say it better.
John Zeratsky
on 12 Jul 07@Josh — That’s Google Analytics.
Hurry
on 12 Jul 07Real cool people use basecamp and cool people use apple computers. My problem is that (because i`m from Romania) I can`t buy a macbook because it costs two times my salary as a full-time senior php developer. If all over the world people could afford a Macintosh as you do in USA the gap between windows and macs would be much smaller or even upside down.
Spencer Lavery
on 12 Jul 07I’m just as surprised by the 3.25% Linux share, by far the largest I’ve ever seen for a big (non-linux-related) site.
Apple’s market share seems to be growing phenomenally, deservedly so. Looks like the screenshot was taken from a Windows machine though so I’m getting mixed messages with this post.
Markus
on 12 Jul 07Hi, I’m really surprised that OSX is only at 24%. I would expect a much bigger share among 37signals customers.
Despite the recent hype around Apple, its computers are yet a niche product for designers and architects. Windows is everywhere and Linux on desktops is clearly on the rise.
I agree with Hurry when he says that Apple computers are very expensive in Europe: considering the current weak dollar, Apple could sell them at a large discount in Europe but they prefer a more profitable niche market to a larger market share.
John Nicholas
on 12 Jul 07So what is the breakdown of users? It would be interesting to see if the Mac people are more likely to buy after getting there. Maybe the breakdown on the actual sign up page would be an interesting comparison too.
Vladimir
on 13 Jul 07What about actual BaseCamp application? It have very different stats?
Michael Schurter
on 13 Jul 07As online applications slowly replace more and more desktop applications, I would expect Linux to eat away at Windows slice.
Why pay for an OS when they all run Firefox?
Argo Wibowo
on 13 Jul 07It will be interesting too, to see the growth of each OS over the year. 24 % for Mac is a lot…
Argo Wibowo
James
on 13 Jul 07Complaining about “only” 24% mac is funny – that’s at least 10x average. My bog-standard mass-market e-commerce websites score around 3% mac on analytics, and the global average seems to be about 3-4%. Hey Mac people, remember that most of the rest of us are still PC XP, 1024px wide, and have darker screens than you (or is it lighter? I can never remember). Pity us?
Terry Sutton
on 13 Jul 07It amazes me that people still use Linux. I’ve tried them all and there’s none any better than the others. I found that linux was perfect if you wanted to spend 2 hours trying to figure out how to do something that might take 20 seconds.
Nick Husher
on 13 Jul 07Some people like spending two hours to figure out something relatively simple; like playing a DVD. I’m not one of them, but I definitely have friends who are. Another friend tried to explain this behavior by comparing it to people who build and maintain old Harley Davidsons, they take pride in knowing that they know their machine in every way possible and know that nobody else could fix their bike. It seemed like an apt comparison.
I think there’s definitely a parallel between the way Apple does things and the way 37s does things; they’re both operating in a niche where they don’t have to compete with the big guys-Microsoft, IBM, etc-but still offer a competitive product. The philosophy of ‘Getting Real’ and Apple’s ‘leave out what you don’t need’ are also very similar.
Tod Pedler
on 13 Jul 07Ok, simple pie chart, simple stats, simple evaluation. How many Windows users in the pie chart are MacBookPro users running XP or Vista? I’m one. I hop frequently between both environments, surfing within both environments, for different reasons. Agree with #3.
Myles Braithwaite
on 13 Jul 07I like to see that FreeBSD is at least on the board.
Mike Burke
on 13 Jul 07Can we resist turning this into an OS-bashing thread? I use all three of the major systems here – all three have strengths and weaknesses. We could argue it forever without a consensus.
Linux doesn’t take 20 minutes to do a 2-minute task for everyone, and in a lot of cases it takes 2 minutes to complete 20-minute tasks on any other OS.
Macs are much more popular in the design/media community than in most other business environments, so it should come as no surprise that the pie chart looks as it does.
I, too, would love to see that chart expanded to show change over the past 12-24 months, though. I’d also love to see an analytics chart of actual paying subscribers (not expecting Jason to throw that one at us, though) because I have a feeling that Macs have an even larger slice there.
Yong Bakos
on 13 Jul 07Would you 37s kids be willing to share the user-agent stats for the Basecamp application? Super curious.
Tony Wright
on 14 Jul 07We have similar numbers for the visitors of RescueTime (a time management tool for productivity geeks)... Over a slice o’ time:
Windows 13,347 76.94%
Macintosh 3,172 18.28%
Linux 780 4.50%
Go Mac!
Matt Lee
on 15 Jul 07This shows the real promise of a free desktop taking a significant marketshare soon enough. I wonder how the more traditional shrink-wrap software market will cope with this.
Boris Yeltsin's Zombie
on 17 Jul 07I got a front page Digg story recently.
Safari outnumbered IE6 in my logs.
This discussion is closed.