DUNCAN McLEOD: There is a crack in Windows, where the Mac gets in

The market is likely underpricing how quickly the desktop moat can erode once the low end becomes “good enough.” If Apple can compress entry price while preserving margin through silicon reuse, the pressure is not just on Windows unit share but on Microsoft’s ability to use the desktop as the control point for identity, productivity, and AI distribution. That creates a second-order risk for MSFT: every laptop that ships without Windows is one less endpoint to upsell Copilot, manage through Intune, and keep inside the Microsoft gravity well.

The more important competitive inflection is not consumer enthusiasm, but developer and power-user migration. Once the technical workforce normalizes Mac/Linux, enterprise IT follows with a lag because endpoint policy tends to trail usage patterns by 12-24 months. That means the real earnings risk for MSFT is not next quarter’s OS revenue; it is slower attach rates and weaker adoption velocity for Copilot and adjacent desktop services as the next generation of decision-makers increasingly works outside the Windows default.

For AAPL, the setup is better than the headline implies: the strategic value is less the incremental laptop margin and more the funnel effect into the broader ecosystem, especially if sub-$400 desktop products broaden the installed base in education and first-job cohorts. For GOOGL, the share gain is indirect but real because ChromeOS/Chromebook familiarity plus browser-based workflows lowers switching costs away from Microsoft’s stack. The main caution is that Windows still has institutional lock-in, so this is a share-shift story measured in years, not weeks; the selloff risk for MSFT is more multiple compression than immediate revenue collapse.

The contrarian view is that this could be an accessibility premium cycle rather than a Windows death spiral: cheap Macs may expand the total premium PC market and simply cannibalize low-end Windows OEMs while leaving enterprise core intact. If that’s right, the most vulnerable names are not MSFT’s subscription franchises but PC hardware and Windows-linked ecosystem vendors with low differentiation. The key tell over the next 2-3 quarters is whether enterprise desktop refresh budgets start allocating to Mac/Linux pilots, which would confirm this is moving from narrative to procurement reality.