Voodoo Communications

A New Platform for Growth: Mac OS X
The successful launch of Apple’s new operating system, Mac® OSX, has created a wealth of business opportunities for developers.This document provides a basis for exploring the business advantages of developing products for the Mac OS X platform as well as a snapshot of what the technology industry has to say about the emerging Mac OSX market.

Unprecedented Success

Since March of 2001, Apple® has achieved a rare and remarkable feat—the successful transition to a new operating system, Mac OS X.

Adoption of Mac OS X climbed to seven million users in June of 2003, or 28% of Apple’s installed base of 25 million worldwide.“That’s a phenomenal rate of adoption of an entirely new operating system,” says Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President, Apple Worldwide Marketing. “No one else has done that in this industry.”

More than 6,000 applications are now available for Mac OS X—another indication of the platform’s successful adoption by both users and developers. Applications span all categories, as can be seen in the Macintosh® Products Guide (guide.apple.com). And industry leaders such as Adobe, Aspyr, Intuit, Macromedia, Microsoft, Quark, Symantec, and Wolfram have demonstrated strong support for the platform by releasing a host of new Mac OS X applications.

With 25 million dedicated users and long-standing relationships with the best-known developers in the software industry, Apple has succeeded launching a new operating system by combining this user and developer base with a remarkable history of product innovation. This focus on innovation has provided an unprecedented number of new business opportunities for developers.

Innovation

Apple is a Fortune 500 company and the second largest producer of high-volume desktop operating systems. Apple has dedicated customers and developers, a brand recognized worldwide, and a 25-year track record of headline-grabbing, history-making innovation.

“Most companies today can’t grow revenue by flogging the same old stuff to the same old customers through the same old channels in the same old way… You can’t just grow revenue significantly—unless you bring jaw-dropping new products and services to customers,”says Gary Hamel in Fast Company. In his Macworld 2003 keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs agreed: “What’s driving us is one thing—innovation.”