All Things Digital

John Locke (played by Terry O’Quinn) and his Apple II in ABC’s “Lost”

“Because they’re the super-small-market share guy, they get all these statements about them.” Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates said that about Apple back in 2005. And while it’s essentially still true, it’s less so than it has been in years past. In separate reports today, research houses Gartner (IT) and IDC (IDC) both note that Apple has climbed to third place in the desktop market in the U.S. Gartner figures Apple’s share of state-side PC shipments for the second quarter of 2008 to be 8.5 percent, up from 6.4 percent in the quarter a year earlier. IDC pegs it at 7.8 percent for the second quarter this year, up from 6.2 percent in last year’s second quarter. And that puts the company in third place in the domestic PC market–ahead of Acer, if you believe Gartner. And in fourth place behind Acer if you believe IDC.

Not that it matters all that much. Because regardless of whose metrics you prefer, Apple (AAPL) still lags far behind the two PC sales leaders. Dell (DELL) is still the No. 1 seller of PCs in the U.S., with 32 percent of the market according to IDC. HP is No. 2, with 25 percent. And in terms of worldwide sales, Apple hasn’t even cracked the Top 5. Yet.

It’s definitely No. 1 in Hollywood though, as critic Roger Ebert noted a few years back. “Macs turn up in the movies all the time–not so much because of product placement, but because so many movie people use them and like them,” Ebert wrote. “A historian of the future, counting all the on-screen computers between 1983 and today, would likely conclude that Macs represented 90 percent of the computer market.”

So that ugly downturn facing the semiconductor industry? Not going to be quite so ugly, say the folks at Gartner (IT). After slashing its worldwide chip forecast from 6.2 % growth to 3.4% growth this past March, Gartner raised it by more than 1%.

Seems the slowing U.S. economy hasn’t had as much of an impact on consumer electronics sales as the research outfit had feared. Gartner projects worldwide semiconductor sales to reach $286.5 billion in 2008, or a 4.6% increase from 2007. “It was widely assumed that the slowdown in the U.S. economy that began in mid-2007 would reduce demand for electronics goods and, by extension, semiconductors in 2008,” said Gartner’s Richard Gordon. “However, while we are still forecasting low single-digit growth for the semiconductor market in 2008, this has more to do with supply-side factors than weakness in demand.”

Gartner’s latest metrics, it should be noted, jibe with the latest sales numbers from the Semiconductor Industry Association. Yesterday, the association said that sales of semiconductors rose 6% in April, boosted by strong demand for personal computers and handsets.

Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent later. … When you forward this email to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a two weeks time period.

For every person that you forward this email to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00. For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a check.”

–Excerpt from the Microsoft giveaway hoax

My God … Bill Gates really is sharing his fortune. But not with folks who help out with that infamous Microsoft email “beta test.” He’s sharing it with consumers who use Microsoft’s Live Search engine to find and purchase products online.

Today, Microsoft (MSFT) will announce “Live Search Cashback,” a sort of search-engine loyalty program that rewards users with rebates on certain purchases of products found through Microsoft’s live.com Web search. “We want to earn your loyalty and reward it with cashback savings for your everyday online shopping,” Microsoft enthuses on the Cashback site. “We are ‘The Search That Pays You Back!’”

Cringe.

Like Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo (YHOO), this new service is yet another effort to bolster its laggard search service, which has long been a very distant third in the search market. Question is, will it work? Gartner (IT) analyst Van Baker says maybe. “Assuming that the rebate amounts are enough to be appealing to people, which it sounds like they are, that definitely could attract a fair number of consumers,” Baker told the Seattle Post Intelligencer. “But what they may do is just go to that site when they’re thinking about buying something, and use Google the rest of the time.”

Turns out that building a business in Second Life is a lot like building one in the first–at least when it comes to failure rate. According to new research from Gartner (IT), nine out of 10 businesses launched in the so-called metaverse fail within 18 months or less.

“Businesses have learned some hard lessons,” said Gartner analyst Steve Prentice. “They need to realize that virtual worlds mark the transition from Web pages to Web places and a successful virtual presence starts with people, not physics. Realistic graphics and physical behavior count for little unless the presence is valued by and engaging to a large audience.”

A bit of a truism, that. A collaborative virtual world isn’t much of a world at all without, you know, collaborators. That said, Gartner is quite bullish on the potential of virtual worlds in the years ahead. By 2012, it estimates that 70% of organizations will have established their own private virtual worlds. “Companies need to start thinking what their virtual-world strategy is, incorporate it into their Internet strategy, and merge their two-dimensional Web pages to support a 3-D Web place,” Prentice said. “Virtual world presence is not to replace the 2-D world but to supplement it.”