OK. Wow, the shoes fit nicely now that you mention it

Yes, Apple's market share is still growing The rate of that growth has
been slowed though. If the iPod taught Apple any one thing, it can be
that momentum is the key.

It's a common miss-step that Apple only makes premium items. The
iPod line again clearly shows that Apple understands domination at
multiple price points and its leverages and benefits. Another good
example is in software. Aperture and iPhoto, Garage Band and Logic,
iMovie and Final Cut Express/Studio/Server.

The next common wrong-sizing is that Apple has been 'caught'
unawareness by the trend toward netbooks. Both in low cost and form
small factor Apple made its first move in January 2007; ASUS was "to
herald" in the modern wave of netbooks in Ocober 2007 at Computex.

Apple's next moves were made in January and July 2008. In January
the Macbook Air, introduced the unibody, sealed battery, solid state,
cut down yet full featured high end 'netbook', with a price tag to
match. It's next big leap was price point, with an appropriate refresh
aimed more at the non-us markets, skipped in the initial home-turf
one year trial launch. At $199 the iPhone 3G demonstrated where
Apple was heading, duplicating the iPod approach, and more so
meshing Mac and Ipod to create a price point reaching from the
shuffle right up through to the iMac.

Netbooks share another feature with the iPhone, namely one of a
simplified interface due to screen size. If you consider Apple's take on
technology, its not about releasing a box, but the experience and
implementation.

Interestingly Apple through OSX on iPhone is experimenting with not
just a simplified interface but a scalable OS for application
development. The iPhone's lack of keyboard, screen size and non
'productivity' functionality is often noted as making it a smart phone
and not a netbook, then again what do you get from a $199 netbook?
Not a lot, according to reviews and forget XP, you'll be lucky to get
Linux and not a flash based web front.

Netbooks as a whole category had by Q308 sold 12M the iPhone by
Q308 stood at 13M. In essence Apple exited 2008 with a 52%+ share
of the 'netbook' market.

Adding in iPod Touch sales is inaccurate, which are not given as a
breakdown of total iPod sales. iPod sold 53M units between the
September 07 launch of the Touch and Q308. The Touch was
considered the big mover, with the average spend on iPod jumping
up. Being kind to the netbook category and saying 10% of sales. This
is still 5M units.

At 18M units sold between the $199 to $399 price points Apple nailed
60%+ of the new netbook category and became the world's 3rd
biggest mobile manufacturer by category revenue.

Its hard to imagine that Apple will rest on this success in 2009. June
will bring the new iPhone, September iPod Touch. Laptops in around
there. Apple, didn't dominate the PMP market in one move, they
perfected each step.

IPhone OSX and the technologies being leveraged from unibody
through to multitouch and flash ram demonstrate the way forward.

That shoe fits really well. Apple though decided to make its own take
on the idea. A typical move, interface and integrate.

Cy Starkman

Posted to ZDNet Jason Perlow