Apple has become an industry force. For its last financial year (ending September 06) it had revenues of $19.3 billion, 38% greater than the previous year. As such, you could claim that it wasn’t such a good year for Apple as the growth rate in the previous year was 69%. Some commentators claim that sales of the Mac were hampered by the switch to Intel—even though Mac sales grew at about 30%.

There may be some truth in this (time will tell). Adobe has yet to release its Apple Intel port for its Creative Suite products and when it does, it may act as a sales booster amongst the traditional Mac users in marketing departments across the world.

The main point about Apple is that it is now head-to-head with Microsoft in the home market and gaining strongly there. Most of the reasons not to buy a Mac have simply disappeared. Probably the most important objection was “I don’t want to have to buy the applications I use all over again”. The existence of Parallels Software and Apple Boot Camp, which allow you to run Windows apps, anyway has laid that to rest. The consumer is left with 2 considerations:

1. Do I want the Apple learning curve?

It is undeniably the case that you will undergo a learning curve with Apple—and it will be a week or two before you are as productive with Office software as you were on the PC. However, Microsoft has just released Vista and that means you’re in for a learning curve anyway, when you buy a new PC. As it happens, the Apple learning curve is longer, but it is also more rewarding. It is only a mild objection.

2. Do I want to pay the Apple premium?

Apple computers are not always more expensive. The top end Mac Pro is a little less expensive than the equivalent Dell product. However you pay a premium for the laptops. Price is only a mild objection, unless you have a constrained budget, because Apple products are designed quite differently and have a number of extra features (both in the OS and the hardware) which will be worth the expense to most users.

To add to this, there is the Mac advantage, which is best summed up with the words “it just works”. Macs are not hassle free, but they are hassle-lite.

A survey in December last year of US consumers (the IBD/TIPP Home Computer Purchase Outlook index) indicated that increasing numbers of people “intend” to buy a Mac. In the survey, US consumer PC buying intentions placed Dell at 47 percent, HP at 13 percent and Apple at 12 percent. When it came to laptops, it was Dell 47 percent, Apple 15 percent. You can compare this with a survey by S.G. Cowen & Co. in June 2005 (18 months before) which put Mac buying intentions at 7.5 percent.

Clearly Apple has growing momentum in the US consumer market. US trends normally drive world trends, infecting the UK first in Europe and Japan first in non-English speaking Asia. Apple’s retail strategy is mirroring this as it has opened Apple stores in the UK and Japan. Its retail activity is being pushed as hard as possible, because it is so profitable and it drives take-up of the iMac.

As for Apple’s old enemy, Microsoft, it must now be scratching its collective head and wondering how to compete. Apple delivers an end-to-end product and an end-to-end product range. (Web + hardware + product range + software). Microsoft simply cannot do this. In particular, it cannot manufacture PCs—it would be financial suicide. So it is condemned in many of its activities to imitate Apple—a strategy that once served it well, but is increasingly defunct.

So I am writing this on the eve of MacWorld 2007, when Steve Jobs is expected to announce a new Apple cell phone/iPod, a new version of OS X (in an effort to put Vista in the shade) a new video server and possibly a video iPod. There will probably be a few innovative surprises and, most likely the new crop of Apple products will sell well.

It is difficult for me or anyone else to forecast anything other than that Apple is going to have a good year in 2007. Right now there are no clouds on the Apple horizon and it looks like Apple won’t pause for breath until it has doubled its revenues to about $40 billion—which is likely to happen in 2008