Geoff Arnold writes:

Like many Mac users, I’ve dismissed talk of Apple’s miniscule share of the personal computer market by (a) pointing out that many of those PCs are just glorified 3270s/VT100s/Wang word processors/cash registers, and (b) invoking the “BMW argument”: what market share does BMW have – and does that stop them from being a really important, cool, desirable brand? So now Apple goes and releases a couple of down-market products, and various people are asking, understandably, “is Apple blowing its BMW model?”. Frank Steele has a nice response: “Perhaps BMW could create (or purchase) a second brand that sold cars that were not quite so expensive. Maybe comparable in price to other cars, but maybe a little smaller, and fun. […] But what could BMW possibly call such a company?”

(Via Oren.)

…but let’s be honest here, the media are just setting-up Apple for a fall-story in about a year’s time, when the MacMini fails to grab some arbitrary N-%age of “The Enormous PC Market”.

It’s gonna happen, and Apple stock will plummet because the sheep who are analysts investors don’t know any better.

It’s just a matter of when.

The problem is much as you have it: because there is no clear target to jump-over, then any comparative shortfall can be spun into a disaster for Apple:

• Fewer MacMinis sold than PC
• Growth of MacMini sales not as fast as iPod
• MacMinis not making penetration into embedded market
• Windows sales still strong in the face of MacMini
• …

All of these are unrealistic expectations, but I suspect a few of them will appear as headlines in a year or two…