据AppleInsider网站的丹尼尔•伊兰•迪尔格上周六报道，苹果（Apple）在上上周指出，IDC与高德纳（Gartner）给出的Mac电脑在美国的销售数字有误。这两家市场调研公司称，Mac电脑在美销售出现下滑，而苹果收益电话会议的文字记录显示，公司称Mac电脑在美销售增长强劲，“增幅高达两位数”。

    这不是高德纳和IDC第一次被人发现方法论错误。2010年11月，Asymco的贺拉斯•德迪乌惊讶的发现，两者的移动电话销量数据差额高达7700万台，而德迪乌著名的图表正是基于该数据绘制。

    高德纳称：“我们的方法论在不断更新和完善，它是我们最宝贵的财富之一。”该公司继续极为含糊其辞的描述道：

    “一旦目标设定，分析师会通过向IT用户、技术提供商和投资者、商务人士、学者和其他研究人员发放正式或非正式的调查来收集信息。”[摘自“高德纳内部研究”]

    而据一名IDC公司的前研究员称，销售预测比上面说的更不可靠。该研究员曾于20世纪90年代末至21世纪初在IDC工作了八年。

    我发布了一篇关于“移动电话销量数据相差7700万台”的文章后，这名研究员给我透露了一些IDC公司如何进行销量预测的细节。

    出于法律方面的考虑，这位线人要求匿名。他的讲述如下：

    “菲利普，我曾在IDC公司从事销量预测，所以对其中的肮脏内幕有所了解。1998年第3季度，我对公司的方法论进行了一番深入挖掘。尽管我做的调查是有关个人电脑销量预测，但手机销量预测的方法论是一样的。 ”

    “在大部分季度，团队先以原始设备制造商的销量指引为基础，并根据国家的不同，按国别进行交叉检验。然而，对于美国市场，我们只对供应商的销量指引做些系统性的调整就算完事。比如，我们知道许多Mac电脑是通过迈阿密转运到拉丁美洲的。因此，我们将美国市场的Mac电脑销量减去一定比例（当然，苹果从来没有帮过忙；事实上该公司甚至反对这种做法，称实情并非如此），由此得出来的销量就被安在几个拉美国家头上。这有效地模拟了市场状况，但缺乏底层数据支持。”

    “因此，在1998年第3季度，我分析了‘瓶颈’，即供应链中渠道窄到足以得到最终数字的部分。当时，“瓶颈”是操作系统、处理器、显卡和硬盘驱动器。我记得，我发现多出了2000万台处理器销量。而当时的市场容量大概是1亿台，所以差额高达20%。”

    “随后发生的事情简直堪称蒙混过关的典范。Tracker小组的组长想出了办法，让所有多出的处理器销量变得名正言顺（比如多处理器服务器、库存、投机炒作等）。但多出的销量强加到这些类目上会有大问题，因为这将严重扭曲历史趋势。 ”

    “所以，最后就成了保留增速数据，别管实际数字。而即便增长率数据其实也是瞎编。关键在于“其它”类目，每当有平不了的数据就往“其它”里塞。平心而论，我们确实做了调查工作，四处打电话，参加白盒测试会议与聚会，试图感受市场情况，但说到底，整个过程并不靠谱。我曾告诉客户他们能信任哪部分数据，基本上也就是各大厂商的形状因素和地区数据。其它数据都是垃圾。”

    “该行业本身意识到了这些问题，但选择了继续瞎编，因为这太省事了。大多数供应商自己统计了相关数据，但在公开场合都使用IDC公司给出的数字。关键就在于，那些高管们获得的薪酬是基于我们给出的销售数字。这里头还有其它一些把戏，不过这些下次再说吧。”

    “问题最终归结为，这些预测数据到底是那些为孤儿寡母理财的投资经理们进行投资决策的依据，还是只是行业内部自说自话的产物，根本无足轻重？这个问题一直没有答案。”

    [注：在事先准备的发言中，苹果首席财务官卢卡•马斯特利的原话是：“Mac销量在许多国家实现了强劲的两位数增长，包括美国、加拿大、墨西哥、英国、德国、法国、澳大利亚、中国、印度以及中东。”这句话可以有不同的解释。马斯特利所说的两位数增长，是指上述所有国家的Mac总销量，还是指在以上各个国家的销量？

    苹果发言人史蒂夫•道林本周一证实，Mac销量在上述各市场都实现了两位数增长（即增长率达到10%或10%以上）。](财富中文网)

    译者：项航

    Apple called BS last week to the U.S. Mac sales numbers IDC and Gartner sent to clients two weeks earlier, AppleInsider‘s Daniel Eran Dilger reported Saturday. The two market research firms had sales falling. Apple had them growing by “strong double digits[s],” according to the earnings call transcript [see note below].

    It’s not the first time Gartner and IDC have been caught with their methodological pants down. In November 2010 Asymco’s Horace Dediu was aghast to discover a 77 million unit discrepancy in their mobile phone data — data he depends on to draw his famous charts and graphs.

    “Our methodologies, which are continually updated and improved, are among our most valuable assets,” according to Gartner, which goes on to describe them in the vaguest possible terms:

    “Once an objective is set, analysts gather information through formal and informal surveys of IT users, technology providers and investors, business professionals, academicians and other researchers.” [From Inside Gartner Research]

    It’s even squishier than that, according to a former IDC researcher who spent eight years with the company in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

    After I posted a story about the 77 million missing phones, he described in some detail how IDC goes about estimating sales.

    According to my source, who for legal reasons asked that his name not be used, here’s how it worked:

    “Philip, I know something about this sausage-making process, as I used to do it for IDC. In 3Q98, I did a cross-section, an excavation, if you like, of our methodology, putting a crowbar to it and snapping it into fragments. It was the PC count, but the methodology is the same for phones.

    “In most quarters, the team starts with OEM guidance and, depending on the country, does some by-country cross-checking. However, for the US team, we just did some systematic adjustments to the vendor guidance and called it a day. For example, we knew that lots of Macs were transshipped from Miami to Latin America. So, we took some percentage of Macs (Apple, of course, never helped; in fact, even objected, saying it wasn’t so) and reallocated them from the US to a smattering of Latin countries, effectively modeling the market but with no low-level data.

    “So, in 3Q98, I analyzed the ‘choke points,’ those parts of the supply chain where the channel narrowed enough to get a definitive count. At the time, it was OS, processor, graphics, and hard drive. As I recall, I found 20 million processors with no homes. The market at the time was about 100 million, so this was a 20% discrepancy.

    “The process that ensued was a marvel of obfuscation. The leader of the Tracker team figured out a way to rationalize away all the extra units (e.g., multiprocessor servers, inventory, speculation, etc.). It was politically impossible to force the extra units on the regions because it would introduce gross distortions to the historical trends.

    “So, the mantra became, preserve the growth rates; to hell with the actual numbers. Even the growth rates are fiction. The fudge is in the “others” category, which is used as a plug to make the numbers work out. In fairness, we did do survey work, calling around, and attending white box conferences and venues to try to get a feel for that market, but in the end, the process was political. I used to tell customers which parts of the data they could trust, essentially the major vendors by form factor and region. The rest was garbage.

    “The industry itself was aware of these issues, but agreed to maintain the fiction because it was convenient. Most vendors kept their own numbers, but referred to IDC for public purposes. Thing is, real executives got real compensation based on our numbers. There were other games played, but that’s for another time.

    “The question always came down to, are these fiduciary numbers that investment managers charged with keeping money for widows and orphans rely on, or are they just inside baseball for the industry to squabble over and not all that important? That question has never been answered.”

    [Note: The language Apple CFO Luca Maestri used in his prepared remarks -- "We achieved strong double digit Mac growth across many countries, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, China, India and the Middle-East" -- is open to interpretation. Does the growth rate apply to the set of countries listed, or to every element in the set?

    Apple spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed Monday that the growth was double digit (i.e. 10% or more) in each of those markets.]