iPod's success lures Windows users to Mac

More than 1 million Microsoft Windows users purchased Apple Macintosh machines for the first time this year, claims a U.S. analyst.

According to AppleInsider, an online discussion forum about Apple's industry developments, Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf released a note to clients early this week estimating that there has been a larger-than-expected percentage of Mac converts. Needham & Co is a New York-based investment banking and asset management company.

"If we assume that all of the growth in Mac shipments during the past three quarters (this year) resulted from Windows users purchasing a Mac, then purchases by Windows users exceeded one million," Wolf said, in his report.

He suggested that the resounding success of Apple's iPod digital audio players has had a positive effect on sales figures of the company's personal computers. In the company's past fiscal quarter alone, ended Sep. 24, Apple sold over 6.4 million iPods.

Basing his analysis on checks with Apple store specialists in the United States, Wolf also noted that the move from Windows to Mac was driven by the onslaught of viruses and malware appearing on the Microsoft platform.

Apple however, recently has had to deal with manufacturing flaws in its latest audio player iPod Nano, and an ongoing lawsuit that alleges the company violated consumer protection laws.