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Why Microsoft Is Beating Apple At Its Own Game
ttom writes "OSWeekly.com looks at Microsoft's promotional strategy and concludes that Microsoft is beating Apple at its own game." From the article: "Apple is to blame for this, at least to some extent. They just had to go and release Boot Camp, didn't they? By the way, please don't take my sarcastic tone as an expression of my dissatisfaction for the product. I think it's great, and I really never expected to see something like Boot Camp come out of the Apple Camp. I know that users have bombarded them with requests for officially allowing Windows usage on a Mac, and the fact that they yielded to these requests is interesting because they've emphasized the OS X and Windows experiences as being completely separate for quite some time."
The article's opening line & premise the rest of the article is based on is incorrect:
No. Boot camp made a small stir, but the vast majority of people out their still see Mac PCs as very different from WIndows PCs (and don't understand the dual boot process anyway). Macs are still getting far more ipod splashback publicity than they were five years ago.
A more interesting discussion would be "Why Dell Is Beating Apple At Its Own Game"? After all, two years ago I know I certainly wouldn't have expected to see:
1) Apple rushing to join an Electronics Industry Code of practice founded by Dell after sweatshop scandal rumours.
2) Apple scoring lowest on a "Green" survey - when Dell scored second highest.
Both those items are areas I expect Apple's marketing (if not reality) to shine, but instead it's Dell with all the glory.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Sure, I love running WinXP on my MacBook Pro using Parallels. The real worry is that once you can easily run Windows on your Mac, there will be less incentive to port apps to the Mac side. Publishers will say "why should I put in all that effort when you can run the PC version?" I wouldn't even be surprised to see a wrapper that installs Windows apps on Macs to run without a full version of Windows installed... As a Mac professional, this prospect scares the crap out of me.
Is OSWeekly written by 12 year olds now? That's got to be one of the worst article summaries I have ever read, and I've been reading /. for years...
Seriously, you have to be slightly brain damaged to think that MS is better at whole-system integration than Apple.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Switching to Intel closed the price, performance and (with BootCamp or Paralells) the application compatability gaps; advantage Cupertino. Apple reported their best hardware sales quarters ever just recently, and I have read some speculation that they sold 50% more MacBooks than they expected this quarter (not sure how true that is but the delays in shipping make it plausible). My local Apple Store is literally jammed all day long, including week days and the wait at the Genius Bar is upwards of an hour most days. I seriously doubt all that bustle is for XP install on BootCamp???
The only category that might truly suffer from BootCamp existing is game development, porting is expensive and this is the kind of easy way out the big game publishers love.
On second thought I might install BootCamp with Leopard... if it will let me run Ubuntu?!
And the only reason OSX is more secure is because of its significantly smaller user-base.
That is one reason. I really don't believe it is the only reason. I don't think anyone except a few of the more extreme Mac Zealots are claiming that OS X is perfectly secure. If Apple achieves 50% market share, of course there will be a few attacks made for it. Even Apple admits that OS X isn't perfectly secure. What they are saying is that OS X is more secure than Windows. Just the fact that pretty much any user program on OS X can run on a heavily restricted user account, provided the restricted user has perms to run that software, says a lot right there. Some Windows software practically requires you to use high-privilege accounts just to run software, and Windows by itself doesn't warn users if something is trying to be installed silently.
I imagine Apple's licensing policy for HFS.
Now something like that has been brought to the Windows world. What is Microsoft's NTFS licensing policy like?
When was the last time my Mac bitched at me about upgrading hardware invalidating my license for the OS, or required some stupid activation process so I could log in.
Never.
I upgraded my fathers computer to a new Core 2 system on the weekend and went through so much pain getting his system working; once I resolved the initial hardware issue and was able to actually boot an OS Windows XP decided to tell me it wasn't activated and prevented me from continuing until I activated it. I hadn't even had a chance to install the network drivers so I was forced to make a phone call to activate it.
Then it decided it wasn't a legitimate copy of Windows XP. Seems the date & time were wrong and therefor the copy of windows couldn't possibly be authentic.
Due to the hardware issues I had ran across trying to get the system setup I stripped it down to damn near nothing and installed things one at a time. At which point, an hour after I had got it up and running and passed the first authentication/illegal copy BS, I installed the rest of the memory and hooked up the other harddrive, and installed the soundcard. Then Windows decided it was upgraded too much and needed activation again. Atleast this time I had 3 days grace and could finish configuring the system. Unlike the first time where I wasn't even allowed to log in.
I tried the online activation at this point since I now had all the drivers installed and everything was working well. Online activation was refused as obviously the computer had been upgrade too much and I was in violation of the license; so then it required me to call the automated services again to get a new code.
At which point it refused to give me one as well and sent me to an actual live person.
The live person then asks me what changed, etc, and how many computers the os was installed on. The answer? 1. This is a retail Upgrade copy of Windows XP Pro. It is fully, and legally licensed; I would have had less hassle if the damn thing was a pirated copy!
I believe OSNews has missed the point.
Apple has always touted OSX as a superior experience to Windows, and is continuing to do so.
However, it is simply reality that many folks have Windows programs they need to run as well. Between Boot Camp and the various VM approaches Apple now has that option covered nicely.
Where does that leave Macs exactly? As:
- The worlds most versatile computers.
- Powered by a superior, more secure OS.
- Able to run legacy Windows applications as need be.
Windows continues to chug along on its own momentum, but I expect Mac sales to do VERY nicely. The vast majority of Mac user time will be spent in MacOS X, I predict. I also predict more and more native MacOS game ports over time, as the userbase swells.Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I work for an IBM customer. I have a machine and a table on a IBM building here on Rio de Janeiro, where I can keep a close eye on the project they are working on for us. Well, even having a PC there, usually I carry my Ibook with me, so, let me give an example of how Mac and Windows are different: Task: connecting to wireless network: MAC iBook ->Airport has detect network XXXXX... do you want to connect to it? "hey guys, what is the passphrase?" ..... Connected. online.
My colleague's IBM Thinkpad running windows -> Complicated and absurdely ugly wizard-style dialog asking bazzillions of technical details... he asks for help... "I don't know what all those questions mean"... "but, hey, you've connected right?" "hum, yes... but I am using a mac, it just asked for the passphrase", "(*)!"
Somehow we manage to find the correct parameters, reboot. he is online.
So, do you really think someone that has a Mac will switch to windows just because, he, err.... experienced windows?
think again.
The only thing I see on bootcamp is that you can run windows games on a mac. It's just a convenience. but even a seasoned windows user will find hard to come back to windows after a little time of Mac OS usage. "Hey, where are my mouse gestures? where is spotlight?"
Your ad could be here!
The ability to run Windows will sell more Mac hardware, which gives Apple more money, and increases their marketshare.
People will not worry about having to use a new operating system, they can fall back on Windows without having useless hardware. What would have been a no-sale is now a potential sale for Apple, lots of people are curious about Macs and Mac OS X, but were put off by the risk if they didn't like the software.
Other people can get two systems in one, ideal for laptop users. Others can keep on running that essential Windows app.
As Mac OS X marketshare increases, more and more of those essential Windows apps will get a Mac version, especially if their customers start demanding it - "I hate having to reboot into windows just to run your software", etc.
The road that Apple does not want to go is to support the Windows API out of the box. In this situation, there is less incentive to port to Mac OS X, if your Windows version will just run anyway. Some people think that Apple will support this however, that there will be a Windows.framework in an upcoming version of the OS.
Of course, I've had a Mac for just over a year, and I barely touch my Windows PC now.
The article meanders around without making much of a point, but this seems to be the gist of it:
He goes on to say:
Of course Microsoft is unconcerned, because they make money by selling Windows. They are not a PC OEM. Apple has a different business model. The company makes most of its money selling hardware. The well-integrated OS and hardware are what coax consumers to buy Macs. You can't have one without the other and still call it a Mac. As us old fogies remember, Apple tried letting other companies build Macs, and it was not exactly a rousing success for Apple. Sales of clones ate into Apple's market without building overall market share.
Boot Camp and the various virtualization technologies are giving Windows users the opportunity to buy Apple hardware and compare the Mac experience with the Windows experience on the same machine, with no special technical expertise required. So far the results have been overwhelmingly positive for Apple. There's a reason Apple was confident enough to bring a x86 processor into Macintosh hardware again (it's been done before). Apple knows that if customers compare Windows to OS X head-to-head, OS X will gain users. If even a small percentage of new Mac purchasers make OS X the primary OS on their Mac, OS X will gain marketshare.
So far the strategy appears to be working. The low "green" rating for Apple is unfortunate, but it's not going to keep people from buying Macs. Dell, the company Jobs considers as Apple's biggest rival, isn't exactly kicking ass, and Microsoft's troubles with Vista are well-known.
How is it that Microsoft is beating Apple at its own game?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Boot Camp is awesome, beyond awesome, but it's highly reminiscent of OS/2 and why OS/2 died: why bother building OS/2 native apps if OS/2 runs Windows apps? Code for Windows and you run on both; code for OS/2 and you're wasting your time! With the rumored native Windows support in Leopard, this could get even worse... eventually next to nothing will come out for Mac OS, which will appear to be a huge black eye for Apple. OS/2 was technically superior, too, but if all your apps are for Windows, why not just run the real thing?
:(
I miss OS/2.
However, Greenpeace cheers for HP and Dell, who generate far more e-waste than any other PC makers. They churn out disposable, cheap PCs with short life spans, often using far more toxic CRT displays to hit the low price target. HP was rated good on "Chemical Management," despite missing their goals last year. Meanwhile, Apple was rated "partially bad" for not having as many published goals, when in reality they had already banned use of those toxics, including Hexavalent Chromium and others.
If you like facts, here are more examples of how the Greenpeace report was misleading and incompetent.
It's really too bad the Greenpeace report was thrown around without any criticism from the mainstream media or even from bloggers. Even Slashdot refused to cover it. Everyone is afraid to say anything about Greenpeace, but ignoring their misleading and irresponsible report on the grounds that it's politically incorrect to critique anything calling itself "Green," actually waters down the efforts of real environmentalists and those interested in forwarding the state of the art in clean and responsible business and manufacturing.
Incidentally, the Greenpeace report was written by a SVTC member. That's the group that targeted Apple last year in a campaign against the iPod, saying that people would throw their iPods away when the battery ran down. More about the Toxic Trash campaign on Apple.