Re: MacOs
Your group (a) is buying a brand, so can easily be pulled to another brand once that becomes recognisable as being a status-symbol. HP/Lenovo/Dell would be better off creating a new brand for these models (as Microsoft does with Surface and Dell does with Alienware for the same reason in a different demographic),
But the brand-whores also make up some of a third, much more relevant group: "(c) you're spending somebody else's money, so you buy the most expensive toy that you can."
That's who Lenovo, HP, Microsoft are trying to chase. Those users don't actually want macOS; they want an expensive laptop to run their office apps and web-based line-of-business apps on; but it has to be recognisably expensive, so that everyone else sitting in the lounge can see it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
