New Microsoft Ad Targets High Cost of Macs 54 comments
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They’ve got a point on the cost to feature ratio of Macs v. Windows machines in this new Microsoft ad. I have to say, these things are getting a lot better over time. And the price difference is the key weak point in the Apple product lineup. Mac fanatics couldn’t care less. But to a recession-beaten regular computer user, this message is right on the money. “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person,” the actress says after visiting an Apple store and not finding any laptops in her price range.
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This article has 54 comments:
"“I’m not fool enough to be a PC person,"
(But I agree that lower prices would be in Apple's long-term interest. It would be better off today with a smaller cash hoard and a larger user base ready to upgrade to its new models.)
So, I bought an iMac and have never, ever experienced the a computer problem since.
Not cool enough to buy a Mac? Grow up . . . get a life, and a new iMac.
But unlike the scenario above what if feature for feature, the BWM and the Skoda were the same price once you've chosen the optional extras?
That's the real argument here. This price comparison is as daft as the Mghz myth wars of the Pentium 4 versus G5 PowerPC.
It is incredible that Microsoft have had to resort to this - they seem to have tried everything else I guess.
Message seems to be that of course you would go to the Apple store first! And of course you would want a Mac before anything else. You only DON'T get one because you can't afford it.
In this case, the girl was shopping with the advertisers money for something that couldn't be bought in the Apple Store.
Yet another backfire on Microsoft in my opinion.
And that's without looking at secondhand values, cost of antivirus and other software you add, the clean-ups, the fixes and the angst that all goes with Windows...
After I switched to Mac life got a whole lot sweeter, and that was priceless!
Microsoft and the PC makers wish they could sell quality, reliability, and style, too. But they can't, so they sell price-point.
All Mac users, especially those who have switched from PCs, know that you get what you pay for.
Rant all you want, but Macs will never have more than a 5% market share in any economic environment.
Also, have all of you received your $200 refund on the I-Phones yet ?
So do you want to lose $3k over the next three to five years or only $699?
For people not concerned about the cool factor, the answer is obvious.
On Mar 27 09:21 AM HTHTFH wrote:
> The uncomfortable truth for MAC is no matter which one you buy (MAC
> or PC), three to five years later it depreciates into nothing. <br/>
>
> So do you want to lose $3k over the next three to five years or only
> $699?
>
> For people not concerned about the cool factor, the answer is obvious.
Geez we have come to expect so little from MSFT these days...
This ad is right on the money!
He's realizing that all the time he's wasted and all the years off his life through stress and aggravation Microshit has taken isn't worth the few dollars he saved buying a door stop PC with swiss cheese secured Windows running on it. Knowledgeable enlightened people can see right through this ad and they realize just how terrified Microshit must be to run such an ad in the first place.
On Mar 27 06:16 AM Apple Convert wrote:
> I use to think Apple Macs were far too overpriced. So, for years
> I put up with blue screens of death, program lock-ups, and loss of
> valuable data using Microsoft Windows. After all three of my PCs
> seized up, and I had to reload Windows for the umtinth time, I finally
> realized just how stupid I was.
>
> So, I bought an iMac and have never, ever experienced the a computer
> problem since.
>
> Not cool enough to buy a Mac? Grow up . . . get a life, and a new
> iMac.
Also, Apple already has a 10% market share in the U.S:
www.computerworld.com/...
Finally, this idea that people are buying a computer because it's cool sounds like sour grapes to me. Cool has nothing to do with it, unless you consider having a usable, expandable computer with a top-rate, secure OS cool. No, TCK, it's about quality. The quality of the parts in a Mac are better than in your standard PC; the OS X operating system is better (as in more stable, virus resistant and easier to use) than Windows, and the computers come with pro-level quality software that you'll actually use and be productive with.
Honestly, if you want to know which computer costs LESS overall, take a look at the number of companies dedicated to supporting Windows.
'Nuff said.
On Mar 27 09:19 AM TCK wrote:
> Apple will follow the business model of Whole Foods and Starbucks.
> Customers soon tire of paying of paying a 50% premium to save the
> planet or just be cool !
>
> Rant all you want, but Macs will never have more than a 5% market
> share in any economic environment.
>
> Also, have all of you received your $200 refund on the I-Phones yet
> ?
Mac buyers choose Macs for value. Productivity. Performance. The combination of OS and hardware offers all of those. The "cool" straw man is an excuse offered by competitors that can't match the value, and a sour-grapes complaint by PC buyers who find they got less than what they paid for.
MS blows another small fortune on an ad campaign that can't find a single positive word to say about actual MS products. Does it get much sadder?
Exactly the same experience. Reversed.
Never a problem on the macmini, macpros etc we use, lots
of reinstall etc on all my windows machines (except for
Windows 2000 server, which i found extremely stable in the
long run).
Actually the problem is the OS, not the hardware. And windows
is now a real legacy, accumulating more and more problems.
Also if you look closely the quality of the hardware design /
engineering is TOP LEVEL (MacPro, MacMini, i-Mac, ...).
Note that I still use both (for FPS / gaming PCs are still better).
On Mar 27 09:59 AM User 384162 wrote:
> Having owned many Macs and PCs it is interesting to me how people
> defend the Mac. It crashes just as often, bugs are not fixed as
> quickly and it doesn't last any longer than a PC. There is that
> air about Macs being better, but inside the slighty different case
> is the same parts that exist in many PCs. That wasn't completly
> true 10 years ago, but it is true today.
>
> This ad is right on the money!
I don't want to fill the World with Mac users.
Great advert . . . go buy a PC .. . enjoy !
I happen to use PC at work as my workstation and Mac's at home for when I work at home. We still run Windows 2000 because it is the most stable. Our PC's from Dell still take turn dying about once every three months; the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death". Each time, each of us has to reinstall everything from scratch and the installation takes two hours.
My Mac at home does the same work as the PC at work. I compile, link, execute, debug, recompile, relink...etc. On top of that I do iPhoto, a little Photoshop, a lot of home movies editing, a lot of DVD burning. Play iTune music while I work. Write documents using iPage because it is a whole world more professional looking than Word and it gives me precise control of elements. The Mac has not failed once yet; not once and that is over four years. Oh, it is a G4 Mac running TIger. Previously, it was running System 9 because I had to support legacy customers. No crashes either.
On Mar 27 09:59 AM User 384162 wrote:
> Having owned many Macs and PCs it is interesting to me how people
> defend the Mac. It crashes just as often, bugs are not fixed as
> quickly and it doesn't last any longer than a PC. There is that
> air about Macs being better, but inside the slighty different case
> is the same parts that exist in many PCs. That wasn't completly
> true 10 years ago, but it is true today.
>
> This ad is right on the money!
At the same time if she had bought a MacBook Pro, it would still have 3+ years left on the battery life, would have only charged is 120 time. She would love the 8 hour life that it still has. OpenGL and the new OpenCL would run it insuring she can play the latest games of 2010/2011, and will and image processing, video production, etc. And best of all, she would be wondering what all that fuss was about that Conficker that shut down 20M PCs on one day in 2009.
You get what you pay for!
First I didn't say anything about bugs I'd found. The simple fact is that while programming for Macs, I never successully gotten to talk to anyone about a Mac bug. Apple is/was just very hard to deal with. As to the fixes, many bugs and problems are publically tracked these days. Apple is slow in dealing with these. A classic example is the lack of cut & paste on the iPhone. Apple often chooses not to address issues.
Microsoft probably used to much harder to deal with. I started seeing a big change in the 90's. Around 2004 I was embedding Linux and so frustrated with the tools I decided to give the Visual C++ Express a try. I was simply blown away! Microsoft's free tools were vastly better than the best Linux based tools. The current Apple tools are a little better than the general Linux tools but a lot of that has to do the fact that Apple greatly restricts choice.
The simple fact is that there really isn't much difference between a MAC or PC these days. Except for the marketing and the price you have to pay.
As for Mac's I've owned ... Many from the Mac Plus days on ... Too many to list. The wrost hardware problem I had with a Mac is the "Chords of Death" for the SCSI disk. The most common is the crappy power connects, (although I've seen similar problems on Compac Laptops.) On the PC I've never completely lost data, can't say the same for the Mac, but that was before OS/X. (I that case)
Basically a computer is a computer. The Mac has been taylored to run Windows based software so now it is somewhat useful. Save your money, you can buy 2 better PC laptops for the cost of one good Mac laptop.
> www.computerworld.com/...;articleId=9124718&...
>
Actually, probably less than that, but closer to 10% than 5%. The 5% figure would be international.
Current sales data (NPD) suggests that the Mac is taking a dive. We should have some real numbers next month when Apple & Microsoft report.
1. In some statistics from November last year, Apple was taking a US market share of more than 60% for notebooks costing above 1,000 USD. Companies MS depends on (Dell, HP, and many others) would kill for a higher percentage in this segment, and here comes their business partner MS, happily cementing the lower price point. Ingenious. Dell will love that this campaign hits timely for their premium Adamo laptop, Sony will need to find a different OS for Vaio TTs costing up to 4k? The message is: I'm a PC, and I buy fish?
2. As others have said, if you compare feature by feature the price difference is minor in most cases (and the Mac Pro is one of the cheapest Xeon based workstations on the market), the resale value of Macs is significantly higher (I always have the latest 17" MacBook Pro / PowerBook, since 2004 I paid an average of 550 USD p.a., the rest was compensated for by reselling the older models on eBay – show me one 17" Windows laptop – same quality and features – that can be owned at that price point).
3. We moved our entire company (210 clients and 13 servers at four locations) from Windows to Macs in 2006. Our total IT cost declined a little over 30%, downtimes and help desk calls over 50%.
I do all web design on a Mac and use PC for business since FedEx Shipping Manager does not work on Mac.
In short, both are fine. However, the PC requires security software. I've had AVG and Kaspersky. Those cost around $70-100/yr for the full suite. I downloaded software and ended up with a rootkit virus that replicated itself each time the lower-end software would get rid of it, so I had to get the full-fledged anti-this, anti-that to get rid of it. This also took my time to set-up, and run. The iMac does not need this.
I also defrag my hard drive once each week, run a full virus check each week and use Little Registry Cleaner to keep the Windows XP computer in top-condition.
The PC and iMac both boot-up in decent times, the iMac is faster. However, since I login to each computer, the PC takes a LONG time before its really usable, before you can launch and use an application. The iMac is ready much sooner.
The only downside to my iMac is that its a G5 processor. I wish I had purchased it a few months later when the Intel move was announced -- and implemented. The #1 downside to Mac's are that Apple makes software run on the newest hardware and does not care much about hardware they made a few years prior. Once more, my PC is over 5 years old.
The PC is annoying to use a lot of times. When you launch an application and move to another, you will be switched to the recently launched app. It you are working in an app and another app needs your attention, you will be switched over. If Windows has downloaded and update and asks to reboot, you will be asked every 10 minutes. If you walk away or leave for lunch, the PC will decide it knows best and will reboot for you. This is not user friendly.
As for the Mac, the biggest issue I have is that PC's have "adult sized" keyboards and mice that have "real" scroll wheels. Apple has junky keyboard and mouse. Most "power users" of Macs will agree as they usually purchase a Logitech set. If you perform any sort of data input, the PC is better. Filling out web forms are better on a PC than Mac. You can tab to all fields. The Mac still can not figure out how to tab to a drop-down menu (e.g., choose your state from a list). The Mac also does not allow for hitting the "end" key to go to end of sentence, etc. So, PC is better for people who like to use keyboard and avoid using mouse -- to be faster and more productive.
So, I use both Mac and PC. I like the PC more for the most part. It certainly is cooler, easier to use, etc. However, the PC is reliable -- if you maintain it. Most PC's are maintained by an IT department. Home users of PCs do NOT have this "luxury." Most people who use and promote PCs do NOT take this into consideration. That is where the TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP comes to mind. Yes, the Mac is less expensive when you consider anti-this and anti-that software that is NECESSARY due to PC's lackluster security and need for maintenance (e.g., a good 5-10 registry errors per day on my well maintained PC).
The downside to Mac is the iMac is the best price-point for most people, but the monitor is tied-into the computer. So, if you go with a mini, you have less powerful hardware and are better off with the iMac. Otherwise, if you go with tower (Pro) you pay a lot for computer and monitor.
PCs are "less expensive" but that means you get a Pentium processor and no graphics card. So beware of $500 computer. Its not the same. Its not a Core 2 Duo at that price! If so, there is no graphics card, rather "integrated graphics" which are performed on processor. Really, it comes down to daily / weekly maintenance of PCs. That's what makes them more expensive in the long run ... unless you have an IT department.
That's taken from using IDC's and Gartner's figures and the Apple figures they report.
According to the reviews I looked at, the weight and the battery life of Apple's and H-Ps 17 inch laptops looks about the same. The H-P has an ATI 3200 video card - better than the Apple's.
The H-P comes with a 60-day Norton Antivirus.
Ah, facts - the bane of the Mac fanboi.
On Mar 27 05:44 AM Roger Knights wrote:
> That line hands Apple fans a great comeback:
>
> "“I’m not fool enough to be a PC person,"
>
> (But I agree that lower prices would be in Apple's long-term interest.
> It would be better off today with a smaller cash hoard and a larger
> user base ready to upgrade to its new models.)
Comparing Macs to PCs is kinda like comparing a sundial to a grandfather clock. The sundial has no moving parts and is a simple design and therefore rarely breaks. A grandfather clock has all these different moving parts to it (different hardware manufacturers, windows, 3rd party software/hardware, maleware designed to go after the 95% of computers rather than the 5% that is Mac share) and so its more prone to break down.
Macs aren't special, they just benefit from the closed environment and lack of large market share.
On Mar 27 01:04 PM Industrial Hemp wrote:
> Filling out web forms are better on
> a PC than Mac. You can tab to all fields. The Mac still can not figure
> out how to tab to a drop-down menu (e.g., choose your state from
> a list).
You can tab to pulldown menu items using the tab key. When you see the dropdown menu highlighted, press the enter/return key. When menu opens, use up/down arrow for selection. Press enter/return key to select target again.
> The Mac also does not allow for hitting the "end" key to
> go to end of sentence, etc.
Try the down arrow key. Up arrow key goes to the beginning of paragraph.
On Mar 27 09:21 AM HTHTFH wrote:
> The uncomfortable truth for MAC is no matter which one you buy (MAC
> or PC), three to five years later it depreciates into nothing. <br/>
>
> So do you want to lose $3k over the next three to five years or only
> $699?
>
> For people not concerned about the cool factor, the answer is obvious.
This is hovering between 8% and 10%.
On Mar 27 01:22 PM Venture wrote:
> The Mac's worldwide share is 3.25 percent.
>
> That's taken from using IDC's and Gartner's figures and the Apple
> figures they report.
>
> According to the reviews I looked at, the weight and the battery
> life of Apple's and H-Ps 17 inch laptops looks about the same. The
> H-P has an ATI 3200 video card - better than the Apple's.
>
> The H-P comes with a 60-day Norton Antivirus.
>
> Ah, facts - the bane of the Mac fanboi.
What metric should you use in judging product quality? Try this: What is the overall customer experience? How to measure: what % of those who have used both are likely to switch back to the other brand? Are Mac users switching (back) to PCs or are PC users switching to Macs and staying with them.
The price argument is bogus or at least so complex that it mostly serves as a come on for inexperienced buyers. My favorite restaurant is more expensive than many others I have tried. Why do I go back?
- the base configuration contains a dirt cheap Celeron CPU, the MBP has a 2,66 or 2,93 Core2Duo standard
- FSB and memory are both slower (800 vs 1066)
- the HP has 4 hours claimed battery life (maybe 2.5 hours in reality according to reviews), while the MBP has claimed 8 hours (I get around 6:30 hrs out of it with normal work)
- the ATI 3200 is no video card at all, it is an integrated chip without dedicated VRAM and poor performance, the 17" MBP contains a 9600M GT... just to give you a hint: 3DMark result of the ATI HD 3200 is 2591, the 9600M GT achieves 9372... that is more than 3 times faster!
So much about "Mac fanboi" and facts :-)
On Mar 27 01:22 PM Venture wrote:
> According to the reviews I looked at, the weight and the battery
> life of Apple's and H-Ps 17 inch laptops looks about the same. The
> H-P has an ATI 3200 video card - better than the Apple's.
>
> The H-P comes with a 60-day Norton Antivirus.
>
> Ah, facts - the bane of the Mac fanboi.
On Mar 27 01:04 PM Industrial Hemp wrote:
> The Mac also does not allow for hitting the "end" key to
> go to end of sentence, etc.
Press command-down arrow to go to end of paragraph. Command-up arrow to go to beginning of paragraph. Up and down arrow does go to end of sentence or word if it is alone on 1 line of text.
As a bonus, Shift-command-up arrow, selects all text above cursor. Shift-command-down arrow selects all text below cursor.
Dell? HP? Lenovo? Asus? Not any of those.
Apple? YES! Why the fuck do you fill the screen with your competitor's logo in *your* ad?! And in case the viewiers did not guess what the logo is, they conveniently point it out to them that it is the "Mac store"
I am sure Microsoft partners love the Microsoft advertising that gives viewers explicit instructions on where to go first when shopping for a laptop.
To all of the people that claim that their Mac is not a commodity, get a clue! Of course it’s a commodity. It’s also a tool to get your work done, not a piece of art. Who really cares what their computer looks like? If you’re that shallow, you need therapy. I just want to fire up my software and get my work done. And, by the way, there’s a LOT more software available for Windows than Mac. If you think that your Mac is “loaded” with software when you buy it because it has iLife and iTunes, you really don’t have a clue what a computer can do. You still need to buy MS Office and any Adobe products, probably Toast and a bunch of other stuff too just to do normal daily tasks. You’ll need to download Firefox because it’s a much better browser than Safari. Mail and iTunes don’t hold a candle to Windows Mail and Windows Media Player 11. I’ve searched high and low for a replacement for iTunes on my Mac and I can’t find anything nearly as good as WMP, WinAmp or any number of other media players for Windows. If you know of something, send me the link!
To that guy that said his company is still running Windows 2000 because it’s the most stable of the Windows OS’s: fire your IT guy. He’s an idiot! Windows 2000 was never very stable! XP and Vista are light years ahead of Win2K. You probably have really old hardware, too.
I find that most Mac users are single computer type of people. They use only one, or maybe two Macs but they don’t often connect them to other computers or servers and don’t know how much more there is to computing than sitting at your one little console surfing the web, using iLife or Photoshop. PC’s thrive in environments where they connect to lots of different computers, servers, devices and even your home entertainment system. Macs are difficult to integrate into large networks.
Does the Windows OS have problems? Yes, but the biggest problem isn't the OS, it’s that so many people don’t run good anti-virus and anti-malware programs on their Windows machine. Windows also has the unfortunate problem, or good fortune, depending on how you look at it, of having to support a multitude of hardware and software combinations, unlike Mac’s closed system. That creates scenarios that programmers just can't plan for and there are sometimes problems.
Are Macs good machines? Absolutely. Is Windows a good OS? Absolutely, you just need to make sure that you have up to date protection. Should value be determined by purchase price? Of course, not. If you’re happy with your Mac, great! Just don’t get down on Windows because you think it’s inferior. It really isn't. In many respects it actually much more versatile and powerful. Maybe just not in a way that many Mac users can understand.
The bottom line is that computers are tools help accomplish a task and both Macs and PC’s get the job done. The similarities between Macs and PC’s are FAR more numerous than their differences. Everyone should just get off their high horses and get back to work.
The cut and paste is not a bug but a feature limitation.
(2) Poor Development Environment says NOTHING about Mac hardware.
I develop software on Mac too from way back when. I do agree Apple had a lousy dev env. How does that jive with your claim of Mac as unstable or breaks down as often?
(3) SCSI is hard drive, not motherboard.
Yes, this happened to me once with a Seagate drive and I had to switch it. That has nothing to do with the machine. Seagate drives for a time was failing in my IBM PS/2 boxes too, right before a deadline! That PS/2 box was still the most reliable of all PC I have ever used.
(4) Power connect is not motherboard or hardware.
(5) Lost data? What does that mean? RAM crash? Hard drive? Motherboard problems?
I have lost data on Mac, Sun Solaris boxes, IBM AIX boxes, HP-UX boxes and Windows boxes. Most often on Windows and most often due to strange crashes that froze my development applications. I have learned to check-in often whenever I use a PC for development so my changes are on the server. Much less often on the rest and they are normally peripheral failures like a bad drive.
I use PC at work, I am familliar with 2000, ME and even tried VISTA for a time. At home, my windows PC languishing in a corner runs XP and I have tried and found WIndows 7 quite nice. So I am not interested in bashing Windows. I am interested in hearing truths and facts versus a lot of name-calling.
It seems you lack in-depth dev exp on Mac and do not seem to know it well if these are all the problems you can name :-).
On Mar 27 12:48 PM User 384162 wrote:
> "Interesting, care to name the Mac Models you own and the bugs you
> found?"
>
> First I didn't say anything about bugs I'd found. The simple fact
> is that while programming for Macs, I never successully gotten to
> talk to anyone about a Mac bug. Apple is/was just very hard to
> deal with. As to the fixes, many bugs and problems are publically
> tracked these days. Apple is slow in dealing with these. A classic
> example is the lack of cut & paste on the iPhone. Apple often
> chooses not to address issues.
>
> Microsoft probably used to much harder to deal with. I started
> seeing a big change in the 90's. Around 2004 I was embedding Linux
> and so frustrated with the tools I decided to give the Visual C++
> Express a try. I was simply blown away! Microsoft's free tools
> were vastly better than the best Linux based tools. The current
> Apple tools are a little better than the general Linux tools but
> a lot of that has to do the fact that Apple greatly restricts choice.
>
>
> The simple fact is that there really isn't much difference between
> a MAC or PC these days. Except for the marketing and the price
> you have to pay.
>
> As for Mac's I've owned ... Many from the Mac Plus days on ... Too
> many to list. The wrost hardware problem I had with a Mac is the
> "Chords of Death" for the SCSI disk. The most common is the crappy
> power connects, (although I've seen similar problems on Compac Laptops.)
> On the PC I've never completely lost data, can't say the same for
> the Mac, but that was before OS/X. (I that case)
>
> Basically a computer is a computer. The Mac has been taylored to
> run Windows based software so now it is somewhat useful. Save your
> money, you can buy 2 better PC laptops for the cost of one good Mac
> laptop.
Apple has been selling its product at higher price since its founding. It has always been more expensive, it always tries to do more and it has always tries to be easy to use.
Many of us Apple users have been buying and using Apple product, paying more for the quality and ease-of-use, for a long time.
Apple survived three recessions and was near death not long ago but it continued to stick by its guns. You think Apple is in a panic because of an Ad by Microsoft?
Windows, Linux, OS/X, UNIX all have their reasons for being. I have to use them all on my jobs and have my own preferences. There is no reason to bash Windows or OS/X or UNIX, to each your own :-).
If you cannot wait to bash Mac, may be you are in a panic? :-)
On Mar 27 01:03 PM User 384162 wrote:
> This ad is completely on the mark. That is why the Apple fans are
> in such a panic over it. Cost is Apple's weakest point.
We use mostly Windows in our office because PC's are cheap for our corporations. It does not bother me at all. I hate the blue screen of death, I cannot wait for Windows 7 because it is very nice. PC generally requires more technical intervention to keep it running well, a user needs to know more system management. No big deal because that is part of doing my job.
My family and I use Mac's at home because when I am home, I want to do my own things and not worry about system managements. Mac is my choice.
LINUX is great when I want to tinker and muck around with low level stuff and yet have complete control over a system. It is where I can play from the lowest layer to the application layer, breaking hte machine and revive it again later.
Sun SOlaris multi-CPU boxes are great industrial-strength toys especially for doing fun parallel programming projects. For now, they are still the easiest multi-CPU boxes to manage for a single person. We can try out all sorts of research software on the box to understand how we can design our software to make our processes more efficient. We can model semaphore usage and concurrent access models.
Each OS has its place. This bashing back and forth is entertaining to a point but it shows the lack of computing knowledge.
On Mar 27 09:19 AM TCK wrote:
> Apple will follow the business model of Whole Foods and Starbucks.
> Customers soon tire of paying of paying a 50% premium to save the
> planet or just be cool !
>
> Rant all you want, but Macs will never have more than a 5% market
> share in any economic environment.
>
> Also, have all of you received your $200 refund on the I-Phones yet
> ?
On Mar 27 01:03 PM User 384162 wrote:
> This ad is completely on the mark. That is why the Apple fans are
> in such a panic over it. Cost is Apple's weakest point.
> I find that most Mac users are single computer type of people. They
> use only one, or maybe two Macs but they don’t often connect them
> to other computers or servers and don’t know how much more there
> is to computing than sitting at your one little console surfing the
> web, using iLife or Photoshop.
Are you suggesting most Windows users are not like that?
> ...
(A) FIre our IT?
Nope, our IT people handle Sun Solaris boxes, IBM and HP servers. Our machines are determined by engineering dept. Some people prefer Win 2000. I am on XP. A few are on VISTA and we are all waiting for Windows 7 unless our purchasing decides to switch to Mac.
Your arguments are well thought-out and deserves a well thought-out refinement :-). You are overly focused on a specific business-end and forget about the consumer-end.
(B) Consumer Mac Requires Additional S/W Purchase: FALSE.
If you are a consumer who needs only writing documents and do photos and cut family movies. Mac comes ready to go. iPage, iWeb iPhoto and iMovie are all that one needs at the consumer level and they do a fantastic job for consumer-grade tools. They actually produce pro-sumer grade results.
iPage beats WORD in lay out and graphics management. It produces high quality document. Integration of iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie and iPage is excellent. A normal consumer needs no more. Thus Mac comes "loaded" with software.
Apple's Numbers is OK for now, I prefer MSFT Excel.
You are right in that if you are a pro-sumer who demands more, then you can buy Adobe, buy Microsoft Office (I need Excel). But this argument goes for Windows too, right? So in that regard, Mac users who can get away with Apple software are already all set to roll with no need for further purchases.
As for Toast, why? DVD burning? Editing? There is Final Cut Studio Pro that I can use. It is a much better tool. Not sure why you mention Toast.
(C) Mac Users are Mono-OS People : FALSE.
Another point is you are mixing people who just use a computer and those who are engineers.
Many first-time computer users who buy Windows PC know only PC, true? Their whole set-up at home is about PC. That is NO DIFFERENT than first-time computer users who buy Mac and know only Mac.
Then there is a second category of computer users who have been exposed to Windows and Mac. Specifically, people who use Windows and all flavors of UNIX in their professional capacity and those who use Mac at home. These people actually are quite proficient in all these different operating systems. We have no choice because Windows machines are everywhere and we must use them. If you are IT, you should at least know about this?
Come to Silicon Valley any day and meet with engineers from HP, Sun, GOOG, AAPL, IBM, and any other little start-up's and you will bump into a high number of people well versed in any of these operating systems.
(D) Mac and PC are same: FALSE.
For now, there are still differences because the OS is different. Unless you are a software engineer, you probably cannot appreciate this. I will not bother explaining this here. You can read up on this if you care.
Windows and OS/X are different. Their SDK are different. Their UI policies are different. Their coding standards approach are different. Their dev env are different.
Yes, there are many more software packages for Windows, an old argument and fact. Mac is also rapidly ramping up as more developers develop for the Mac.
(E) Mac are harder to integrate into IT network: ARGUABLE.
My Mac at home easily logs into our network at work and I can easily see my UNIX boxes in our labs. At work, I can log into my Mac home network to grab files from my share folders. On rare occasion when my Intel Mac laptop shows up at work, I easily transfer files from my laptop to my UNIX account and those files are immediately via my XP workstation.
Can a Mac see a Windows machine? That is the difficult part. We have no need for that yet in our office but it was known to be near impossible in the past. Is it possible today? I have heard that PC's on the same Airport network with a share folder is now visible to Mac on the same Airport network. I will try that at home this weekend :-).
(F) Computers are Computers: AGREE.
If you love WIndows, use it. If you like Linux, use it. If you love Mac, use it. If you still prefer DOS and WordStar 2000, use them.
There is no reason to force fit one solution for everyone. These bashing back and forth often starts because PC people over-react or become trolls. Then Mac people become defensive. It can be entertaining and informative to a point but it is not helpful.
Microsoft & Windows, the Yugo of the computer industry!
On Mar 27 03:45 PM Cheat Sheet wrote:
> On Mar 27 01:59 PM Giamatti wrote:
On Mar 27 05:47 PM Giamatti wrote:
> Yes, most Windows users are in business environments.
Here's the truth behind the fanboy's affliction:
"When you ask white people about Mac’s they will say “oh, it’s so much better than Windows,” “it’s just easier to use,” “they are so cutting edge,” and so forth. What’s amazing is that white people NEED to meet people who use Windows to justify themselves spending an extra $500 for a pretty looking machine."
stuffwhitepeoplelike.c.../