Apple vs. Microsoft: Apple's OS Wins Hands Down

Currently being absolutely devastated that a friend spilled his orange juice a week ago on my MacBookPro, blogging will remain rather light until I get a replacement which may take up to 6 weeks for the new matt screens on the 15-inch Mac laptop. As I only have a HP (HPQ) 9000 with next no software on it, earlier downgraded from Vista (a complete disaster from my view) to XP, after days of playing around with system software - which doestn`make handling a SoftMicro system exactly easier - I take the freedom to reduce my web presence as a watcher, not blogger.

Ironically Bill Gates praised Apple (AAPL) as the best machine he had ever seen and this is the year I was initiated to become an Apple devotee. But first listen to Microsoft Founder Bill Gates before you read on.

Pricewise, Apple was out of reach in 1984. At the small Austrian financial news agency Wirtschaftspressedienst I co-founded in 1988, we had used Atari STs as it was a nice graphic user interface (GUI) for a third of the Apple price tag. SoftMicro at that time had DOS. Did you ever run into a PC user (except tech nerds) that was delighted about DOS? I have not.

Apple`s system was no. 6 and it progressed in the late 1980s to system 7. Comparing Windows 7 beta to Apple`s sys 7, I have arrived at the decision that the 20 year old Mac operating system is still superior to what MSFT will issue later this (or next) year as their latest masterpiece.

Microsoft Is Simply Not User Friendly

Using Mac laptops since the laptop numbered 170 (brought out in 1992), I always preferred the ease of use compared to Windows computers where I waste on average 70% of my computer time with trying to get the (expletive) machine running again.

Using an HP Pavilion 9000 at the moment, I just hate to work with inferior software outside the smooth Mac environment. Sorry Mr. Gates, you have to catch up some 20 of operating elegance.

Windows Vista had crippled my network in January and it took me 3 weeks just to get the WLAN running again. On the way, Microsoft`s manuals and help documents always drove me to the most idiotic answer, "Contact your system/network manager!"

Ha ha ha, for my network that`s me!

Biggest Mistake Was Not to Buy Shares in 2003

The biggest mistake that ever happened to me was not to buy Apple shares in 2003 - they have become a 400-bagger or more since - when I bought a 17-inch Powerbook G4 (10-year chart to the right). The thing became red hot in my lap, but it never failed me once and on average I had to reboot the system once a week. This HP with XP Pro I am sitting in front of right now needs to be rebooted 2-20 times a day (that`s when I get a book instead) and right now I am a step closer to just folding the screen down and throwing it away, as it tries do dial something and I cannot figure out how to stop this annoyance.

Apple told me today that the waiting time for my replacement MacBookPro with an eye-friendlier matt screen will be up to 6 weeks.

This proves my beloved anecdotal experiences when shopping. These Apples seem to sell faster than they can put them on the shelves and I may have to wait 1-2 weeks just to get a rental laptop.

As the US stock market still holds at crazy levels with PEs above 100, I would not buy Apple now, but I will certainly be looking in a year from now, even if Apple may not be at true bargain levels again.

Oh yeah, and I intend to short Microsoft once this current relief rally fades away and the S&P 500 is in the 900s, as this signals for me a continuation of this long term bear market.

Disclosure: 3 Macs in the family, one currently broken - and nobody will lend me theirs!

Comments

[TA:]

LOL at the author and his multiple reboots. 1995 is calling and wants it's computer back.

Some users find ways to screw up their PC despite what you install or tell them. They just do the same dumb things over and over installing all sorts of Internet crap and then blame it on MS.
I've been using Win 7 for 4 months now and it's very fast and very nice. Enough to drive a corporate refresh(including mine going x64 on the desktop).

As for an investment AAPL is fully valued here. I said here multiple times that below 100 buy and below 90 load up the boat. Now is a great time to unload. MSFT's stock is far too boring to buy here.

Aug 28 11:33 AM

[jaume ribe,...:]

Never trust the family and purchase a Compaq with Windows 7 (even you say that it is like your icon 20 years ago; so, still wanderful)

Aug 28 11:47 AM

[Andrew Butter:]

Come on Microsoft copied Mac and now there is no difference, buy a decent virus detector and a Microsoft is as good as a Mac for most functions, and it's much cheaper.

Me I'm still using the Mac I bought in 1997 which works more reliably and cleaner than the PC I bought last year.

But finally Microsoft caught up - so when they gonna catch up with the i-Phone?

Aug 28 01:53 PM

[jack dee:]

>>Oh yeah, and I intend to short Microsoft once this current relief rally fades away a<<<

Really? you are going to short a company that is making billions of dollars , is widely considered a value play , held almost as widely as the US dollar and has an great product stream just coming online!
Really? Youre going to short ?
Good luck with that..

Aug 28 03:54 PM

[Techtrader11:]

And what has all that done for Mr. Softy's stock YTD? You must be one of those "investors" who just loves watching their money do nothing. I'd suggest a nice CD or money market before tossing good money into MSFT.

On Aug 28 03:54 PM jack dee wrote:

> Really? you are going to short a company that is making billions
> of dollars , is widely considered a value play , held almost as widely
> as the US dollar and has an great product stream just coming online!
>
> Really? Youre going to short ?
> Good luck with that..

Aug 29 05:02 AM

[Techtrader11:]

Also, those customer satisfaction ratings for Apple vs. PC over the past several years must just gnaw at people like jack here. You know those surveys are keeping Steve Ballmer up at night.

Aug 29 05:04 AM

[Jon T:]

The author is spot on.

With all the praise that MS has had with Windows 7, I thought I should try it (I did same with Vista). And it's a bag of worms.

All the positive press (exactly what we saw with Vista) is just MS's cash talking via an army of disreputable mouthpieces.

My advice is STAY on XP if you HAVE to stay on Windows.

Life under Snow Leopard is incredibly productive and enjoyable.

APPL is going where MSFT went from '95 - '00. Check the chart...

Aug 29 09:18 AM

[RLLH:]

Ah, the Apple fannies must justify overpaying for computers, no matter what the cost.

Aug 29 11:00 AM

[Jon T:]

@RLLH, if Macs were twice the price they are, they'd be great value - assuming that you value your time....

And congratulations, you keep up the great tradition of those that choose to attack anything Apple by including the insults and nothing of value.

Aug 29 12:02 PM

[Nitya:]

If Mac is so good, what is the Market share of Apple's OS?

They donot have a single product in the enterprise market. Which shows Apple is just good for Entertainment and nothing else.

Aug 29 01:01 PM

[Advill:]

Apple was my first PC, a Apple II`+, my romance was broke with Lisa and then i was forced to migrate to IBM PC.

Microsoft has always been a hungry user of machine resources and the first years of PC´s were always with scarce resources for a decent performance, nowdays PC are powerfull and cheap and in the long term as SA blogger John Petersen Says " cheap bets cool".

I´m still an Apple fan (without any Mac near to me) i respect Mr. Jobs as the most valuable live american today but how many hundreds millions wants a PC that can not afford an Apple?.

Regards.

Aug 29 03:55 PM

[The Recusant:]

I own a cheap Toyota. But I'd rather have the Lexus.

Aug 29 09:46 PM

[Jon T:]

A Mac that is 6 years old is far better than a brand new Dell or HP...

My daughter is using a TiBook from 2001. She used it throughout her Uni/College term without a reboot. Her friends used it too in preference to their unreliable -new- Win pc's.

You can pick up a 4 year old Mac for very little AND have cheap and reliable computing.

But then if you want cheap bling, then of course Windows is for you...

Aug 30 08:00 AM

[Jon T:]

Macs market share has gone from 3% to 10% and is growing strongly.

PC's over $1,000? Mac has over 90% market share.


On Aug 29 01:01 PM Nitya wrote:

> If Mac is so good, what is the Market share of Apple's OS?
>
> They donot have a single product in the enterprise market. Which
> shows Apple is just good for Entertainment and nothing else.

Aug 30 08:02 AM

[jack dee:]

So Sorry Jon T your information is wrong.

Apple has a market share of a little less than 4%.

And that silly $1,000 /90% is just that, silly. It excludes all sales that are not retail , most $1,000 laptops are not sold retail they are purchased for companies by the million and we all know that Corp does not buy apple.....


So msft = 95% apple = 4% (all the big score keepers agree)

90% lappy stat = FUD.



On Aug 30 08:02 AM Jon T wrote:

> Macs market share has gone from 3% to 10% and is growing strongly.
>
>
> PC's over $1,000? Mac has over 90% market share.

Aug 31 01:09 PM

[Jon T:]

Hey Jack, yes it was bricks and mortar sales - precisely where you need to judge REAL people's perceptions of what they want to invest their hard earned money in during a recession, making it an even more important measure of what is really happening.

Big corporate spending on PC's is a meaningless measure - even for Dell, HP et al who make nothing for doing it.

Secondly, many of those retail purchases are for small businesses. Exactly Apple's target market alongside the consumer.

Better for Apple to leave the zero profit, commodity priced, dull box pcs to big corporates.

And btw, Gartner has US Mac share at up to 9.5%. The 4% figure is worldwide. So, just look at the expansion you can look forward to seeing in the coming years!

Sep 02 07:28 AM

[User 305589:]

oh yeah?
that old apple 7 OS certainly cannot and will not support the modern hard- and software. This is just biased crap, what you have told here. it's fine that you like AAPL's stuff and that you hate mr. softie's - i have no issue with that. But making bold claims that do not hold water and then sell this as facts is a different matter.
btw, I have had no problems with win xp and even vista, which i installed 3 months ago, doesn't suck as much as i had feared. Though I will certainly replace it with windows 7 as soon as the latter runs stable and with the necessary device drivers issued for my pc.

i really don't get it why people make a religion out of - OS software. Aren't there already enough religious wars fought allover the planet?

Sep 02 11:33 AM

[jack dee:]

Its the Same old story.

Apple fanboy makes a claim about Apple market share, investor (apple fanboys may insert SHILL ) sees crazy talk and corrects the poor information. Apple fans now run around saying market share does not matter.


If market share does not matter why on earth have apple fanboys been posting about market share for the last year, banging on and on about it?
Then suddenly the company coming out with all these silly stats, says “oops” , restates them, cutting apples market share in half.
And like magic, like turning on a light, market share does not matter anymore.....


On Sep 02 07:28 AM Jon T wrote:

> Hey Jack, yes it was bricks and mortar sales - precisely where you
> need to judge REAL people's perceptions of what they want to invest
> their hard earned money in during a recession, making it an even
> more important measure of what is really happening.
>
> Big corporate spending on PC's is a meaningless measure - even for
> Dell, HP et al who make nothing for doing it.
>
> Secondly, many of those retail purchases are for small businesses.
> Exactly Apple's target market alongside the consumer.
>
> Better for Apple to leave the zero profit, commodity priced, dull
> box pcs to big corporates.
>
> And btw, Gartner has US Mac share at up to 9.5%. The 4% figure is
> worldwide. So, just look at the expansion you can look forward to
> seeing in the coming years!

Sep 02 12:57 PM

[Johnny 2 shoes:]

Apple copied Xerox, MS copied Apple...you can even say Linux copied MAC (who copied Xerox) as their desktop looks simular...all OS's now look simular..so yer correct...Mac's are great if you want to stay within thier 'expereice'. As you have stated the MAC you use is cleaner..but for PC users, they like the flexibility to do whatever they want on their computers....want to use a media program with any mp3 player? Use a PC..want to use any mp3 player with MAC, buy an iPod (not an Apple invention, I must say!) cause iTunes does not support other devices. This is why MAC is cleaner..they are a closed OS. That keeps it nice and clean and easy.

As for the PC you bought last year, my comments are always the same....a PC runs as well as the user. Some folks just are not able to handle PC's. That is why there are MAC's.

As for the iPhone...way to jump topics...Give me an Andriod anytime. my biggest concern about the iPhone are updates. If the Apple-God does not want you to do sometinh on your phone(teather it for example) then the vengeful Apple-God will update your phone and eliminate that option.

Apple is needed as we all need options, but I'll stick to a platform that allows me to do anything I want with the system I purchased. be it a phone(android) or a computer(XP)..without fear of an update screwing me over. Or for the Server OS side, a minor update eliminating support for controller cards...I've had this happen more then twice updating our MAC servers...update, everything looks good..oh oh..no more raid array! Who needs data anyways! :)

One note...at least try to be open minded. It is obvious where your loyalities are. It is the one-sided journalism that really makes your profession look bush....and you my scribe, are no different then Fox news! Yer that obvious!

On Aug 28 01:53 PM Andrew Butter wrote:

> Come on Microsoft copied Mac and now there is no difference, buy
> a decent virus detector and a Microsoft is as good as a Mac for most
> functions, and it's much cheaper.
>
> Me I'm still using the Mac I bought in 1997 which works more reliably
> and cleaner than the PC I bought last year.
>
> But finally Microsoft caught up - so when they gonna catch up with
> the i-Phone?

Oct 02 01:28 PM

[Johnny 2 shoes:]

as for stats...

gs.statcounter.com/#os...

Mac OS - 4.63% worldwide
Windows XP - 68.94%
Vista - 22.54% - MS's worse attempt yet and still 5 times more acceptance then Mac OS..

Oct 02 01:35 PM