Windows Is for Oldies

The future does not look bright for Microsoft, if one were to consider their customer demographics. Statistically, Mac users are much younger than Windows users.

According to a study developed by Hitwise Intelligence, visitors of Microsoft's website are considerably older than Apple's visitors.

LeeAnn Prescott, senior research analyst at Hitwise Intelligence notes that both Apple and Microsoft understand very well the nature and structure of their customer demographics and use the appropriate strategies to promote their products.

According to Hitwise demographics, most traffic to the Apple website came from users under 45, while users over the age of 35 gave the majority of traffic to the Microsoft website. 22 percent of Microsoft's website traffic came from visitors over 55.

Both Apple's and Microsoft's advertising teams worked with the age factor and came up with appropriate campaigns for their costumer populations. Windows' chosen spokesman on the Windows Vista promotional website is Tom Skerrit, a 73 year-old actor.

Apple's ad campaign is centered on two characters, Mac and PC. The Mac character was embodied by a young actor while PC was played by an older, nerd-looking actor.

Though both companies understand who their customers are and use the appropriate approaches, the age gap between their customer populations are definitely not a good sign for Microsoft.

Young, adaptable audiences choose Mac, while people who are not willing (or able) to let go of the familiar Windows environment stick with Microsoft products. It's obvious that as time goes by, Windows' older user population will shrink. The future is, as always, held by the young.

Though it's true that Windows strongly dominates the desktop market, it is also true that if Microsoft does not shape up and if Apple gets its break on enterprise clients, things are very likely to dramatically change.