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400,000 Windows Users Switch To Mac
bonch writes "Analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. wrote that 400,000 Windows users have moved to Macintosh, citing factors like the fabled iPod halo effect and the desire to escape the Windows virus epidemic. Mac shipments rose 35 percent, three times the rate of the PC market, with sales expected to surpass 45 percent in the current quarter. Quote: 'Assuming that Mac shipments would have been flat year-over-year, these percentage increases imply that about 200,000 Windows users purchased Macs in both the second and third fiscal quarters.'"
these percentage increases imply that about 200,000 Windows users So which is it, 400k or 200k?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
This clearly flames the debate : is Apple all about iPod now (or already video iPod) ? Or is it still a true old fashion PC company ?
The real test of this switching will, of course, have to be seen to continue over the next couple quarters, which would also show that most people are not caring about the processor used in the machines, so long as they work well.
antipaucity
I suppose there should be an important distinction made here between people who buy a Mac and have both Windows PCs and Macs, versus people who throw their Windows machine out the window (irony!) and purchase a Mac to replace it.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
What is this number based on? Looks like they are just pulling numbers out of thin air.
-- Cheers!
This has been a long time coming, and is less dramatic than I think people will realize.
The numbers of mac users have long been under-reported for a number of reasons:
1- The "independant" research agencies don't reports sales apple makes directly or thru apple specific retailers.
2- The sales market share is reported, rather than the Total Addressable Market (TAM)
3- Macs last a lot longer than PCs and are useful a lot longer
4- Windows is counted twice- once when the PC is sold and once when an upgrade is bought, meaning that many of the "new PC sales" are actually windows upgrades.
They don't go into their methodology for a reason-- because the goal is to market windows as the dominant platform. (How many linux boxes were shipped with windows and count as "windows marketshare"? A large percentage.)
Recently I heard that an independant survey had been done to find the TAM, and that this survey found that %16 of the household machines currently in use were Macintoshes.
I'm glad to see Apple has been growing Mac shipments. I hope that software developers will realize that the Mac market is much larger, and vastly under-served compared to windows. But then, again, I think maybe I should shut up and go write some software to sell, and hope nobody shows up to compete with me.
I wonder if the intel switch will affect sales for Apple... but I don't think so. Most people don't realize that Macs don't already use Intel chips (believe it or not!) and it seems amazing to believe, but I think mainstream america thinks that Apple makes windows boxes and doesn't really see what the difference is.
This would explain teh failure of the switch campaign-- people think Apples are just another form of PC like Dell, and why would you care? They just buy what the salesman at the local store tells them to buy.
This brings up the third factor for Apple. The halo effect helps, and the ipod store brings people in.... but these average, mainstream amercians, then end up asking the salesman what computer to buy, and since they are in an Apple store, he sells them a Mac.
So, while I think computer retailing is on the decline, Apple's stores strategy will prove to be brilliant. When the others won't carry your product or market it, do it yourself.
And I'm glad to see Apple showing the haters to be wrong-- when given a chance to know about them, people will buy Macintoshes.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
"Assuming an 11 per cent switching rate, our model has these users purchasing over 1.2 million Macs in calendar 2006, about 700,000 more than in 2005."
Some year, it seems, we'll have 121% of the population using Macs. The analysis fails to take bulk business and academic purchases into account. In addition, the numbers are artificially inflated by Apple devotees' propensity for buying several machines each generation. Purchases may increase linearly, but users do not!
Could the surge in the second quarter have been caused by people who already own Macs upgrading or buying a Mac Mini as second system? Or even Windows users buying a Mini as a secondary machine? I know several Windows users who bought a Mini but still use a Windows machine.
Further more what is the plural for a Mac Mini?
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Market Share refers to the sales cycle. You're talking about Installed Base. They're not the same and Mac haters have good reason for choosing to frame the argument in their terms.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Wired: "Fabled iPod halo effect"
Tired: "Steve Jobs reality distortion field."
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
I much, much preffer using OS X versus windows. OS X is so much more mature of an operating system than windows even attempts to be. The old addage of 'it just works' very much so applies. If Apple can come down in price a bit more, and bring in more software development, and market there machines a bit more agressivly, then Apple has a great chance to take over some market share.
Add to the fact with the rumors of all the DRM lockup of longhorn, OS X has none of that expect with iTunes, who wants to use an OS that is crippled for media?
I have purchased a Mac Mini, and a 17" top of the line Powerbook within the past 3 months. I was praying that OS X would at some point run on all intel/x86 hardware, but I doubt I ever see that.
Mac has OS X going for it, and Its a very good thing indeed, no wonder people are switching over and dumping spyware, adware, drm crippled, and virus infested PC's that, never ever come close to having a realitivly bug free, secure operating system.
Meanwhile, I'm looking ahead at Longhorn. I'm not seeing Windows maturing in the way we'd all expected -- .NET was supposed to help unify the branching 64 bit architectures and foster finer-grained security controls, but MS are backing away from .NET for Longhorn. Instead of eating their own dog food and telling us it's good, they're telling third party developers "you go first" and apparently waiting to see if it's safe for THEM first. Why is skipping out on .NET so bad? Things are bad enough with wildly different Windows configurations, thanks to MS' lack of library/DLL versioning and much larger range of hardware platforms. It's impossible for a developer to test or even forsee every target configuration. And now instead of migrating to .NET with versioning and a narrowed virtual target platform, we're just going to add random combinations of DLLs from 3-4 slightly different CPU architectures in the mix.
MS' operating system lifecycle is 3 years and growing, and we're preparing to see more of the same. The current model is too fragile to do new and exciting things reliably, and so unless MS are working on a new OS in secret, Windows is going to be a pretty boring place for the next 3-5 years.
This "article" is nothing more than speculation.
What'll be interesting is if at some point network effects kick in and Apple's marketshare really takes off. What marketshare do you need to get to before people stop worrying that "no one else has a mac"? Once Apple is past that things will get interesting!
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
I switched last year and won't be looking back anytime soon. I'm also a windows developer by day, and I've purchased a Mac Mini that perches atop my P4 winxp development machine. Now the only app that I use in Windows is Visual Studio.Net while the rest of my day-to-day activities are accomplished on the Mac.
The true advantage of the x86 switch for Apple is being able to capture sales from windows users in two ways: 1) Dual-booting, or just selling it to the user with OS X knowing that he can fall back to windows if anything goes wrong. I bet most average joes would just keep OS X -I did. 2) VIRTUALIZATION. Being able to run Windows inside OS X at almost-native speeds would be the greatest thing that could happen to us people needing some vertical windows apps. With only an alt+tab get into a virtual-pc (or whatever), get it done and go back to OS X. I'd go for that. As for *nix, everythings working pretty nice. Wish they'd make X11 a bit more transparent, duh. OS X could be in some years THE operating system...
Just because sales raise does not mean that a Windows/PC user has 'switched'. Even if a PC user did buy a Mac, it doesn't mean he's abandoned his PC for OSX land. I, myself, am considering purchasing a Mac just to work with the otherside. That in no way means I will never use my Windows/Linux boxen again.
I think they are interpreting the figures wrong. There may have been 400,000 sales, but that does not necessarily mean that there are 400,000 new users. It could have been just one really big Windows user who switched.
... and then they built the supercollider.
...as one of the 400k. I bought a 1.25ghz mac mini when Tiger came out, overclocked it to 1.5ghz, added 1 gig of ram, and now it's my daily use internet, email, etc machine.
Mac OS X is extremely nice compared to Windows/Linux (gentoo, ubuntu, debian, etc). I just wish the thing had a little better video chipset. A Radeon 9200 will play WoW, just not as well as the 9800 Pro on my PC.
Now to look for a good KVM, anyone know of a good one that supports USB kb/mice and dsub/dvi monitors?
1) My positive experience with my iPod,
2) The security and virus issues associated with Windows and the lack of said issues on Mac,
3) The Mac Mini is now in the range of price I am willing to pay for a desktop computer, especially one that will mainly be chacking email and surfing the web,
4) Positive reviews of Mac's OS X from programmers and IT geeks.
Mac has done a lot of things right lately to start winning over former Mac haters such as myself.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
How about if we all just relax, take a stress pill, and buy the computer we personally prefer?
Even the guys who sit around the TV and argue the superiority of their favorite pro wrestlers admit that it's just a pastime. How many of us are willing to admit the same about our computer advocacy?
While I'm a PC user who uses primarily XP and Linux myself (I'd like to purchase a Mac in the future) when it came time to help my friend buy a new computer, I recommended she get a Mac mini.
Traditional her and her family had always bought PC's, mostly because they were the default option. They owned several old Compaqs and a white-box store built machine. The primary reason I got her to buy a Mac is because she's a totally non-techie, and hasn't the slightest clue about computers (nor should she have to, IMO). Mostly she just wanted to be able to type stuff up for college, browse the web, IM, email, and play music.
Initially she was very hesitant about going through with the purchase (she had been set on a Dell previously..) since it was something totally new and she was concerned she wouldn't be able to use it. But I eventually convinced her to buy the Mini.
I was supposed to go over there and help her set it up once it arrived but when I called her to confirm, she gleefully told me that she had managed to set the whole thing up by herself and was already using. No help from me required, and this was someone who was a complete techno-phobe.
She's had her mini for several months now and uses it way more than she ever used her PC, which was full of crashing software, crawling with spyware, and in generally a bad state. Last I checked, the mini was running good as new. She's now recommending it to all her friends.
I think this experience highlights what I think is the best part of Apple's whole initiative.. they have simplified the computing process for the average user. Most people have no need nor desire to be computer experts, they just want the damn thing to work properly and stay out of their way. This is the way it should be. I really hope Apple keeps up the good work, because if someone like my friend can set up, use, and maintain their computers with so little trouble, then Apple is doing things right.
From my experiences with Microsoft, I still don't think they "get it". People should just be able to USE their computers, and from what I've seen of Longhorn, it doesn't look like the situation will be improving..
If enough people switch, the viruses will come. I'm a firm believer that this is primarily a result of market share (yes, also helped by poor security...but not security is never any better than a user's clue level and vigilence). Does that mean that once viruses hit the Apples, that people will switch to Linux? What will be the next thing after that, a FreeBSD migration?
-Turkey
And they did it correctly. Remember those Gateway stores ? Neither does anyone else, because they were around for about ten seconds and cost the company millions of dollars in losses. All the news media claimed the same thing would happen to Apple when they first announced their plans. And today, you've got 400,000 "switchers"
That's not an accident, and it's not just the Ipod.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
I think they are interpreting the figures wrong. There may have been 400,000 sales, but that does not necessarily mean that there are 400,000 new users. It could have been just one really big Windows user who switched.
You assume that one really big Windows user (ie: a gigantic being roughly 400,000 times the size of an average human) could satisfy his or her computing needs with 400,000 Macs. This is a poor assumption. The giant in question would have a hard time seeing the relatively tiny Macs, let alone use the keyboard. No, I think to prove your theory right we need to find evidence of one really big Mac (roughly 400,000 times the size of an ordinary model) being purchased recently.
Apple is growing so fast that they are almost back to where they were in FY 2000. What other computer company would consider 0% growth over 5 years as being a success.
The American Dilemma:
1. Life could be better.
2. Change is bad.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
Had Al Gore not invented the Internet back in the 90's, we wouldn't have the current movement towards a non-reliance on a specific hardware platform.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I just bought my first Mac (iMac 20") yesterday. Over the years, I've had a 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Athlon, and now a G5. I was a heavy Windows user until around Win98, after that I mostly have used Linux.
So yes, I am a win for Apple. But Windows pretty much lost me years ago. I'll still continue to use Linux, but will have no need to dual boot to Windows anymore.
I'm one of those switchers.
I got a mini-mac just to play with, a new gadget, figured if I didn't like it then it was only the minimal specced model.
Within two days I removed my PC completely, and gave it away to someone. I was using XP, because I'm too lazy and I don't really have the time to mess with things. I used to use Linux exclusively, but (personal opinion) the font handling was so bad I gave in.
It's funny, this mini-mac is drastically underpowered and when I do things like unzip stuff I notice it, but for general use I guess I just don't care. I use a webbrowser (Safari), itunes, adium (MSN),
mail, terminal (ssh), and none of those need much power.
Well, this was long and pointless, but this thing is just so elegant that I couldn't stop myself gushing like a fanboy.
"Macs Mini", assuming that "Mac" is the noun and "Mini" is an adjective which modifies it. Otherwise, pluralize the other word. Disclaimer: I don't really care.
-- $SIGNATURE
If Viruses are a user problem, not a security problem, how would anyone who is unable to keep Mac OS X safe going to benefit from a move to Linux?
Is Linux plagued by viruses and adware and popups, despite having more exposure to crackers than OS X? After all, people writing Windows malware for PCs are more likely to try exploiting Linux than an OS on an entirely different hardware platform.
But no, we don't have a massive spyware/adware/virus problem on Linux. Linux and OS X aren't protected from attacks because they are minority platforms, but because they provide a better security model.
A loose, sloppy Mac OS X admin is about as safe as the most dedicated Windows admin, who is on top of the latest exploit patches and knows how to set up firewalls securely.
In fact, I've worked in a number of highly competent, proactive Windows shops who still suffered virus outbreaks from time to time, and suffered frequently from adware nuisances. Mac OS X simply does not have these problems, primarilly because of a better security model, but partly because of the Mac culture.
If Apple gains substantial market share, there may be more adware targeted at Mac users, but the platform won't suffer from widely distributed virus attacks that disable machines in ways the user is helpless to repair.
Microsoft's security problem was caused by Window's mixing their security free, dittohead office LAN environment with the PC hacker community, as part of an initive to join an internetworked world. They were simply unprepared to deal with security because it was never considered necessary before.
Mac OS X comes directly from NeXTSTEP, which was used by the CIA and NSA, and draws its security model from Unix and the BSD community. Security was not an afterthought.
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That was sort of my point. Security models are no better than their weakest link. In most cases, it's the user.
So is Windows. That doesn't mean that it's particularly secure.
-Turkey
The question: "If the sky is orange, why does it appear blue?" ... does not prove the point that the sky is orange. It questions it.
Yes, security models are no better than their weakest link. If the user is a weak link, there has to be a security model that limits what the user can do, moving that link out of the chain. That's what a security model does: takes options away from the user, so they can no longer be the weak link.
File permissions prevent users from editing things they shouldn't, and keep them from inadvertanly creating security holes.
Windows has a problem because it historically did not limit anything in the name of security, thereby giving users full opportunity to blow off their own feet.
Windows has a history of no security, and that legacy was carried along into the present with security bandaids as Microsoft's customers began to suffer. MS shipped an OS with open communication ports accepting outside commands (Messenger) up into the last couple years. This feature came from an office environment where it seemed good to allow admins to popup messages to users. Tured out anyone could pop up anything whenever they liked.
Internet Explorer was designed to be extended into application development platform to counter Java and Netscape's release of platforms that rivaled Win32 desktop applications, but security was only slopped on as an afterthought, leaving IE users at the mercy of whoever wanted to execute whatever on their PC.
SMB is another example of finding a way to do something without thinking about security enough.
All those are examples of Microsoft technology that employed lax security because it was destined to run in a office unconnected to a hostile network.
Unix systems originated on worldwide networks, and have benefitted from a refined security model over decades of use.
My point is that Mac OS X and other Unix systems come from a mindset of not trusting outside information and not allowing unnecessary communications ports by default. Windows comes from a mentality of letting PCs work together without strong security in place. Security = the opposite of convenience.
(Altivec is nice, but only helps in "broad brush" operations. It's pointless outside of graphic processing tasks.)
:)
It's nice in my pro tools setup, and several other windows ported audio apps too
So Apple has been successful in attracting the 'x86 is teh fastest' crowd. Whoopie.
Thank god IBM dumping Apple has got me the fuck off that dead end platform.
What you are talking about seems to be a disturbing trend for a lot of pc buyers. The average joe just dosn't need a 3.0ghz processor, and a 256mb graphics card that runs on PCIe x16, to send e-mail and browse the web. I am typing this right now on a P150, that I refurbished to make it practical. I will however say that ram is where it is at. You can have an old processor, and it will run great if you have enough ram. For example, my school recently upgraded to 2.8ghz processors, but they gave them 128mb of ram. That is like putting a new engine in a car, but having a crappy transmission, or crappy wheels. A 1ghz with 512mb would outperform that by far.
Case in point: people are uneducated on what they need in a pc, so they waste their money on unnessesary things.
I was a user who switched not more than a month ago. I had a fairly high-end PC (Athlon 64, 1 GIG RAM, Radeon 9700, etc). My computer was more equipped, I discovered, for playing games. The main reason I switched to the Mac wasn't the hardware (the 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 w/ 1 GIG RAM I have is nice, true, and the LCD is nice for documents tho the CPU is 20% slower). Its been for the software and not for OS X itself.
Spotlight, some apps included with the OS and some others I've bought as shareware really make my academic work so much easier. OS X is nice otherwise for the Unix stuff (shell scripts especially). I don't use Automator or Applescript since for what I need to do, the shell scripts are easier.
The difference I see is this: all Mac OS X apps are user-centric whereas Windows apps are too task-oriented. They don't overwhelm with Menu options or buttons. There's greater empahis on tabbed-interfaces.
Allow me to illustrate the difference as I now refuse to use Word for my Academic work for the following reason. I've found a program called "Copywrite" which lets you easily flip between different documents and add notes to the project or each document easily. This program alone shows the difference, to me, between Windows and Mac apps. Pages is another great app. I was trying earlier to stop using Word and move to an app that doesn't lock my work in as much as Word does. I've changed my workflow to use a plain-text editor (Copywrite) to write the text, biblio, etc and then use Pages to format the text. Brilliant. I save all the headaches of Word-atuo-formatting-clippy crap. These two programs are really the killer-apps for me.
I've been a Unix advocate for years, however you seem to imply that Unix was designed inside and out with security in mind. This is simply untrue. Security was an afterthought in the Unix world the same way it was in the rest of the computing world. Sure, Unix was built with privelege separation, but this is only because it was a multi-user system. Network security was a joke back then. Unix was developed relatively long before there was any kind of global data networking (TCP/IP was backported to DEC's Unix on a PDP-11 long after the IMP's had been running ARPANET). In the early days it was really only privelege separation -- nobody thought much about security because security mostly came down to physical access. Contraty to your contention, Unix wasn't originally designed to be connected to a hostile network, there were no hostile networks back then. This is why there have been so many easily exploitable legacy suid applications over the years (wu-ftpd, sendmail, etc). With so many suid apps, perhaps the thinking wasn't as proactive as you assume.
Look, I'm a Unix user, and a former Unix SA. It has its advantages. However, your assumptions about Unix's origins are not consistent with history. Further, your assumption that Unix has a long history of not using certain TCP/UDP ports and services by default is also inconsistent with history. If you want to talk about historical SMB security, surely you can't ignore the (historical) total lack of NFS/NIS security, right? How many Unix systems ran the NFS daemon from the start until about 6 years ago? Perhaps it was a few years ahead of the Windows world, but this decades stuff is BS. If you want to talk about file permissions, don't forget to mention the superior ACL implementation that Windows has had since the original Windows NT (I think it was 3.5). Also remember that SSH is only 10 years old. Before 1995, most people were sending cleartext passwords around with telnet and rsh in order to connect to machines remotely. Unix machines were regularly owned by people with packet sniffers snagging root passwords from telnet and ftp sessions. So much for security in a hostile network. If you want to talk about Windows Messenger being a security risk, what about services like rtalk and ytalk, which provided similar services to terminal users. Like sendmail, rtalk had a history of remotely exploitable bugs...with this in mind, was Messenger really a security risk, or was that only an annoyance because it was exploited by commercial interests?
Finally, don't forget that with most desktop systems, the user still needs root-level access. MacOS is not an exception to this (in fact, Apple developed a convient way for non-superusers to provide a password to install software at a root level from the desktop). If the user is allowed to install software at a root level with a simple password entry, how much is does this security model really take away from the user? That means that a Mallory can still write whatever kind of malware and dupe people like my mom and pop into running the code (either at a user or superuser level). The problem is still a user one.
I really didn't want to compare this OS to that OS. I am a Unix user, and appreciate many things about the how it works, including its security. However, I'm under no illusion that I can run any code I find because the system is completely safe. A Mallory can (and will) write malicous code for any platform they choose. You've never heard of trojaned Unix code? Perhaps you haven't been working with Unix very long. This still has little to do with system security, and quite a bit to do with the user.
-Turkey
It's not about the amount of exposure. It's not like there are teams of crackers working around the clock to write malware for alternative platforms and they just can't seem to figure out how to get in. I also want to point out to you that Linux has no known issues with spyware because there is very little (if any) commercial interest behind writing applications like this for an OS which is not widely used on the desktop (compared to the dominant OS). Furthermore, Linux is pretty architecture independant. Finally, the hardware platform has very little (if anything) to do with malware...unless malware can somehow only be written in x86 assembler (this is not the case).
-Turkey
But isn't that where numbers come from?
...also known as the command key. Ctrl is another key altogether ;)
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Yes it is interesting to look at the state of security from a decade ago or more, but I originally replied to the comment that viruses are a user problem, not a security issue. That's just not the case. While users can bung anything, having a security model in place stops the rampant spread of self replicating malware (viruses).
I noted that adware/spyware is a different issue, as there isn't a lot you can do to stop poorly written stuff from getting installed. Being able to uninstall things, and have some control of how things can get reinstalled is a security model issue however.
There really isn't much to discuss about Windows lack of security. Even competent Windows shops get entirely fubared from spyware and viruses sometimes.
My point about lineage is that Mac OS X comes from NeXTSTEP, which had many modern security features at a time when Microsoft was selling Windows 3.11. Microsoft didn't sell a version of Windows with any real security for regular users prior to the initial release of Mac OS X, and they continued to sell OS with ports wide open long after it was painfully apparent that Microsoft's products were a major security problem.
We aren't talking about security in 1995; even from 2000, Microsoft sloppily took 5 years to begin offering an OS that didn't immediately begin trading infections within moments of gaining network access.
So yes, there is no 100% security anywhere, but Apple obviously thinks about security as a way to make their products better, while Microsoft thinks about talking about security when they start to look ridiculously incompetent.
Another factor to consider is that Mac OS X, like Linux, is based on open source foundation and networking stack that has been built with security in mind and peer reviewed. Microsoft's code is a big black box. In that context, Unix has benefited from a refined security model over decades of use because it has been refined, not just resold.
With all that in mind, I don't think Mac OS X will be suffering from IE/Outlook style virus/adware zombification just as soon as they hit some notch of market share. Microsoft isn't suffering security headaches from owning the PC OS market, they are suffering from bad security design.
I agree that the business case behind malware obviously picks targets that commercially attractive, and Windows is obviously the thing to attack for that reason.
Still, if Linux were easy to exploit, there would be far more exploits targeted at the markets Linux is used in: web servers, firewalls, and the like. If you look at the web logs of any server, the attacks you get daily are 1) guessing bad SSH passwords and 2) attempts to own IIS boxes by exploiting bad code. The first is an attempt to see if the lock was left open, while the second is simply kicking down a door that was never built with functional locks in mind.
Back on the desktop, if Windows employed basic security, it would still be attacked disproportionately higher because of its ubiquity, but perhaps we wouldn't have such an after market for basic security products, and spammers would actually have to own and operate their own machines to send out their spam rather than harvesting acres of Windows boxen that willingly offer their services as so much low hanging fruit.
Nobody is selling Internet Security in a box for Linux.
We don't tolerate similar behavior in our cars, entertainment devices and other electronics, but PCs seem to be immune from public scrutiny and minimal quality regulation. Imagine if your car pulled over randomly and made you sit through an ad before continuing down the road? That wouldn't last long.
Security becomes rather nebulously abstract when you talk about it as an idea, but it's pretty obvious to look at the woeful mess that is killing productivity and creating massive problems with spam and see that Microsoft is to blame for much of it simply through their incompetence.
If Microsoft were replaced in the marketplace, security would still require vigilance, but it does not follow that the problem would necessarily continue on whatever platform replaced Windows. There are ways to provide basic protection from such rampant viral embarrassments.
First question: 400.000 users in what timeframe?
Sure, more and more "users" are switching to a more modern operating system. The development of Windows has stalled since years - in the customers perception. So what do you expect?
Apple seems to put much more effort in the OS development than Microsoft, because MS is focused on so many other target groups/products, like the new XBox360 and so on.
It takes another year until the next version of Windows comes out and I don't know, but it'll take at least another five years until they announce the next version after Longhorn.
There is one rule, that works out pretty fine in the software "industry": "release soon, release often", and thats what Apple's doing.
Times are over, where you had a os-monopoly when you released a major update every decade. MS is going the wrong direction: downhill.
Disclamer: I'm a Linux-user since 14 years, but I'm very impressed by Apple since a few years. Go on!
It's more of a virtual machine.
Wine is not a virtual machine -read: a virtual computer inside your operating system running at almost-native speed with no emulation flaws. That's why a virtual machine running windows (no need to run *nix, as os x already is *nix) would complete the last piece.
So you're willing to buy PPC hardware, now, in lieu of 18 months from now you'll be able to run OS X on Intel? What sort of pointless logic are you leveraging and how the hell did this get modded up as 5[I know how since more than likely you gave yourself massive karma bonus, but I hope not].
Such logic begs the question, "If you're willing to purchase PPC now, what stopped you from purchasing it beforehand? After all, it's the Operating System and OO Design Paradigm for developers to produce Cocoa Apps which is the truly compelling power of Apple. The hardware is a bonus. Switching to Intel doesn't modify the OS, just gives the perception that more timely hardware updates will be available and large volumes to meet potential consumer demands.
Ironically, if you think it means you'll be able to update your System by swapping out the CPU with an upgrade option you are in for a rude awakening.
Mac minae?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
I now use a Mac mini instead of my VAIO Notebook.
Will I ever go back to Windows for the kind of light, personal, browsing/chat/development I do at home? I doubt it.
Will I even bother with windows PCs once gaming really takes off on the Mac? I doubt it.
Why have water when you can have eye-melting grain gin!
In other news, 400,000 males were born on this planet. Useless statistics abound!
Gadgetoid.com - Gadgets & Games Journalism
I still discount the halo effect as I know of no iPod users who have switched. Now I know a few who have said they will buy a Mac next but no one has made the jump.
From the geek perspective, why would I switch NOW? We know that the MacTel machines are coming which makes purchasing any PowerPC based Mac less reassuring.
Now once the MacTels are out and someone can show how easy it is to dual-boot XP/LH I expect a lot more people to buy a Mac.
Here is one thought, if Apple goes to an Intel Platform what is to stop anyone from competing from being the OS of that machine? There are far more people comfortable writing for the x86 platform. The fact that there are limits as to what components will be found in the MacTel machines should make the job even easier. Hell even Microsoft could write a targetted OS for those boxes. (now who would buy it is a different question)
As for the article's numbers I do not agree. It does not indicate that people are switching. There would be much coexistance as well as new buyers entering the fold.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What stopped me before was that the average Mac user had something about as powerful as a four year old PC. Not a particularly interesting playground.
Security was an afterthought in the Unix world the same way it was in the rest of the computing world.
Not every OS was built with security as an after-thought.
Just saying, is all.
Why not fork?
Apple would count me as a switcher but I bought a Mac mini to (1) Have a higher degree of safety when dealing with email and the web and (2) to replace a Linux box for the occasional general Unix task. My Windows box is still my main machine and I will be buying another Windows box in the future, probably much much sooner than I buy my next Mac. Given my Mac's relatively lightweight use it will have a much longer useful lifespan. Well, with respect to email/web/unix tasks, I already have it's second life planned, replacing my silent P2-233 being used as an OpenBSD firewall.
Agreed, and it's a good point. This is sort of what I was talking about with privelege separation, and specifically differentiating between user space and kernel space. It's a good start, and is inherent to just about any true multi-user multitasking OS that has come since then (it's inherent to multi-user OS'es with lots of IPC...also critical to protected memory systems). However, remember that system security in the 60's was vastly different from today's landscape. Perhaps I should hone my original point to say that security was an afterthought in desktop systems and networking protocols (mainly because the networks weren't dangerous places), and TCP/IP itself (as well as the associated applications) was designed to be very trusting and didn't have much in the way of security.
Again, you're right -- OS'es like Multics were designed with security as more than an afterthought, but think about how much the concept of security has changed over the last ten years. With the exception of physical security, practically everything has needed some sort of overhauling.
-Turkey
"I still discount the halo effect as I know of no iPod users who have switched."
." : P
And we all know that anecdotal evidence is far more meaningful than any other form.
How many people would you have to know for that statement to be statistically relevant?
In the future you should preface statements like that with, "This is completely meaningless but . .
P.S. If by chance you just happen to know every iPod user, then I'll stand corrected.
Oh, wait.... I'm switching from Linux to OS X..... But I Switched from Windows to Linux a little over a year ago..... So by the rule of Hypothetical Syllogism, I conclude I'm going from Windows to OS X.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
69.4836% of ALL statistics are made up on the spot.
Mac Mini Miney Mo
And someone who avoids them is a Mac Mini Skirt.
Is this another one of those dumb analysis where they count every non-Windows user as a Mac user?
What they fail to factor in is that serveral schools just got an increased tech budget, Several of schools are replacing their old iMacs with brand new eMacs. If the school is still using old pcs than they replace those with eMacs too.
I sold my Mac Mini yesterday to a Mac user. I wasn't impressed by it at all.
I plan on putting the money towards a really nice dishwasher.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
"I want in on the quick growth that's going to come when the Intel Macs are released"
I really wish I was drinking a glass of water so I could spray it all over the screen.
All the smart devs are leaving the sinking Apple ship and they are getting dopes like you to fill in...
I can't wait to see the reaction of the diehard Mac people who stick around when the start to see the garbage people like you are bringing to their platform...
I've yet to hear a good argument against the Intel switch, transition difficulties aside. It's all been emotional twitching. I'll retract that if you can back up your assertion -- can you name a single noteworthy developer who's abandoning the Mac because of the Intel switch?
i totally agree buying a ppc today was as stupid as the people who bought it before the annoucement boy are you confused
Ugh, please, not with these same tired arguments over and over and over again.
If you are comparing OS to OS you've done an extremely poor job in pointing out anything having to do with security flaw. Everytime one of these arguments come up people spout off about Windows superior acl's and how Unix has had exploits over the years blah blah blah.
To all of you long time decisive unix users, tally up all of the Unix exploits since it's existence. Then tally up all the Windows exploits since it's existence.
If you are going to compare OS to OS then this must be a requirement. Then based on that look at the environments where Unix and Windows operate. From here you can begin to make some logical conclusion.
As i'm aware the original argument is about Virus/Trojan writers and not necessarily with the security of one system in particular. It's obvious still which one takes a more proactive measure in protecting the user. To argue tit for tat is the most silly thing i've seen and yet people continously do it. Either your argument is that authors of malware will become more prolific with market share (which has been disproven time and time again. With not only Apache, but even crap like sendmail and on and on). Or you're argument is that one operating system is more or less secure and or insecure depending on market share and type. IE:"The Desktop market share will always have the most malware and it just so happens that Windows is in this space. If it changes to lets say OS X then that will have the most malware".
Thats the only valid assumption I figure that can be made. Whether its true or not, one cannot say because reallife world data isn't available. The only data that is available to date says otherwise. It still doesn't address the statement however, so your hypothesis; however valid you may believe it to be by pushing it down the food chain to the user. Is valid only in the sense that no one can either prove or disprove it today.
However, we can forecast on the tiny bit of data that we do have. With things like Selinux (MAC, RBAC) systems being implemented into Unix via kernel and userspace utils. Allowing ones programs to run in security context against verified policy. It's going to be hard to write malware for a default install or system. It's probably going to be even harder to write malware for said system to disable that.
For the "Mallory". It'll always be easy to con a sucker. A user wouldn't give a mover the keys to their place without verification and someone being around. So user education should be aligned with some of these more simple ideas for it to hit home. User education; is important in this process.
Like the Mac-community should be impressed by that number of 400.000 potential wintel-switchers. We'd rather not have them cause as the saying goes: *The more attention you are getting the more trouble is also comming with it.* Oh,someone mentioned that he was not impressed by the Mac-mini and gave it away. Well, the Mac and it's OS is not there to be impressed like some MSN screencaps folks go gaga over like it is the next big thing. The Mac and it's OS are most of all made to be functional and straightforward. Only it's hardeware is made to drool you over. But hey! if you are not into Art, it surely shows you have no taste as in quality taste. I would suggest you stick with your custom christmas tree computer with all those flashbulbs(blue/red) and lousy OS from Redmond you'd love to tweak...
" Always look on the bright side of life "
All I'm saying is that Unix (and its security model) is not a silver bullet for anything. The previous poster to whom I was responding made a few remarks which just didn't make any sense to me -- so I refuted them with specific examples of where Unix security hasn't been up to par...and again, not that I think dislike most Unix-ish OS'es - I never made that claim. This user clearly hadn't been using Unix (or Unix-like) systems for very long. I didn't say that I thought that Microsoft had done a particularly good job with their security -- their track record tends to prove otherwise.
In the case of malware, I am arguing that it will go to whatever the most the most widely used desktop platform is. It has very little to do with security, since the only concern is exploiting an account in userspace. My comments also had nothing to do with actual OS security and the OS with the most market share. We're not having a scientific discussion here. There is no data, because commercial malware is a relatively new phonomena. I think that we'll agree that it all comes down to the user. That was my original point: want better security, build a better user.
You are right, however, it is a tired argument. Where it ended up was not where I had intended to go.
I don't think that this tells us anything. To begin with, you're talking about a ~40 year old OS (which, at this point has become more of a concept than an OS -- with all of the varaints) and comparing the number of bugs to an OS family that's less than 20 years old. Also, are you just talking about the kernel, or the kernel and all of the associated applications and services? Microsoft tried to use these metrics to show that Microsoft's OS'es were more secure than Linux. It didn't convince me of anything then and it wouldn't if it 'showed' that Linux were more secure.
-Turkey