Mac and PCs are becoming different product categories

Today NPD came out with some pretty astounding data. Of the computers costing $1000 or more, Macs accounted for a whopping 91% of the money spent.

This puts Apple's Macs in a different world than Windows PC's. At the $1000 price point, you go from a 90+% Windows dominated world to the the exact opposite, bizzaro landscape where Apple dominates in the exact same way.

How can this be?

I think we are starting to see a widening differentiation between platforms even though they are based on the same commoditized Intel chips.  How else do you explain this black and white gap.

It is no longer Macs are BMWs and PCs are Hyundais. It's more like Apples are cars and PCs are motorcycles.

Why else would pricing be so incredibly variable?

Windows has an added concern. The Android/Linux camp is aiming for the low end which I call the Windows PC Squeeze. Apple is on the top and Linux is on the bottom, and they are both starting to cut into Windows share.

Have you seen Microsoft's numbers today? It ain't pretty. Those Laptop Hunter ads that everyone got excited about? They only served to reinforce the idea that Macs are what people aspire to. PC's are cheap; that is their redeeming quality. Nowhere did any one of those commercials ever say that a PC was better than a Mac in any way besides cost.

Of course, there is a lot of room between $300-$1000 and that is where 90% of the world's computers lie. There is something to be said for economies of scale.

Still, though, Apple has always contended that it didn't want to play in the tight margin, low end PC world.  One has to wonder if they did, where would marketshare be then?

Tim Cook said at the last conference call as Apple has said many times:

So we are not thinking fundamentally different about the Mac business than we were before. Our goal has been and continues to be to build the best computers in the world and when we can do that at lower prices, we do that. When we can’t, we won't put the Apple brand on a product that doesn’t stand for innovation and doesn’t have the legendary ease of use that we are known for.

Protecting the Apple brand seems to be doing very well for Apple's bottom line.