Jon Gruber (Daring Fireball) wrote an interesting and provocative piece on “Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline“. Here’s a snippet that captures the heart of the argument:

Microsoft has lost all but a sliver of this entire market. People who love computers overwhelming prefer to use a Mac today. Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. Regular people don’t think about their choice of computer platform in detail and with passion like nerds do because, duh, they are not nerds. But nerds are leading indicators.

I found the essay interesting and fun to read, but I’m not convinced that anything of significance has changed.  I agree that geeks are gradually abandoning Windows — some for Mac OS and some for other ‘nixes. It may be that this will eventually have some impact, but… I don’t see it as yet, despite Graham’s famous “Return of the Mac” essay four and a half years ago. My daughter keeps finding cute new games (our current flame is Wizard 101) that mostly… run only on Windows. Most other apps seems to be migrating to the web — which certainly allows one to use a Mac, but hardly compels one to do so.

Some of my skepticism may stem from my own recent experiences. I bought a Mac laptop recently (after almost a decade away from the platform) and I like it, but I don’t find it a transformative experience in any sense. It’s a very nice laptop, and unlike Linux laptops I’ve tried, hibernate works well. I’m OK with the dock and I like the OS. I think Apple’s touchpad is, by far, the best I’ve tried. The battery life is great. The software and hardware are exceptionally well integrated. It’s a pleasure to use.

Against that, I like to play games, and the Macintosh gaming market is beyond bad — it’s so weak that old games that would sell for under $10 on Windows sell at full price (or nearly so) on the Macintosh, and you feel lucky you can get them at all. I wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger if it didn’t run Windows via Boot Camp. Upshot: I like it, but I’m not planning on replacing my desktop with a Mac.

Caveats: I’ve used Linux, Windows, and Mac OS a fair amount. (I started out on a Mac back in the 1980s.) There are things I like and dislike about all of them. So maybe I’m just tone-deaf to whatever design-fu it is that appeals to the Mac faithful. I agree that it is more tightly integrated, but I don’t understand why it’s the Sun, the Moon and the Stars for some folks.

Gruber puts a lot of weight on the Mac’s dominance in the over-$1000 market. I’m not sure how much stock to put in that number — I don’t think Wal-mart sells $1000 computers, and most PCs I see sold are aimed at the cheaper part of the market. Is Apple really beating Microsoft there, or are PC manufacturers effectively ceding the market? Not that they wouldn’t like the sales, but they can’t concentrate on every niche — how do the dollars available in the $1000 and up market compare to those in the below-$1000 market?

Still, the fact that the Windows PC division is down an astounding 29% sounds ominous. I do have one question: how much of that is a switch in consumer purchases (towards Macs), and how much of it represents businesses getting conservative about buying PCs? Because I haven’t heard of much evidence that businesses have switched to buying Macs. That would be news.

What it really comes down to is the cited numbers, while interesting, are far from definitive in explaining what is happening. I’m sure Apple is doing better in the consumer space, but I think it is rather premature to write Microsoft’s obituary.