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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.
I have heard people at my business who never before considered a Mac very excited about getting a Mac because they can run that particular Windows software they have to run and have the Macintosh computing experience all at once. The downstairs computer lab has been switched to all Mac as well because of this. There simply is no reason to own a PC anymore. You can get a Mac and have your PC, too. All in one.
I'd say OSWeekly knows who their biggest advertiser is and are pandering to them.
Take a survey and ask them how many of you paid or for your copy of XP on your Mac (and are not violating MS EULA). Any guesses out there? I will start and say 8%. I think I am high, but figure almost 1/10 users are honest. Most either: 1. Visited there local bay of pirates and downloaded it. 2. Had a copy from a current PC so are in violating the EULA and installing it. 3. Borrowed a copy from the local IT admin and installed it. Most of the legitimate people may have gotten it from work and they have a ELA with MS so maybe they are not violating. I know all of my friends have not paid for a copy of XP running on the Mac or are using a work copy. All of them. They are using it for testing, gaming and occasional software but are not publishing work from it, so MS will not be able to track them down. I bet this over the long term will hurt MS since many people I know used to buy a cheap Dell for testing, which at least had a legitimate OS on it. Now they just need an XP CD, and its different shoving out $200 for a CD vs $400 for an entire computer.
www.IBuyMacs.com
Please not the "security through obscurity" argument again. It's unsubstantiated waffle. One might just as well claim that the fact that OS X has not been the victim of viruses or malware would spur virus writers and malware creators to be the "first". As it stands, the most recent "terrible breach in OS X security" was caused by a couple of guys who had to cheat to hack a MacBook.
If OS X was to be less of a target because of its marketshare, reasonable people would expect the picture to be the same as it was with the Classic Mac OS. That had a hundred or more viruses IIRC. Of course that's nothing compared to what Windows had at the same time, and you could probably put that down to marketshare, since the Classic Mac OS was not renowned for its security.
But OS X has not had a single virus in the wild AFAIK, nor do OS X users suffer from malware. It stands to reason that there must be other factors preventing the spread of malicious software on the OS X platform. Why can't people simply admit that Apple has released a pretty secure platform?
Microsoft on the other hand has released a Swiss cheese operating system that simply can't compete with OS X security wise, marketshare differences or not.
Now let's be fair. I actually (and perhaps naively) believe that Vista will fix a lot of the security problems the Windows platform has faced. It's not going to be perfect, but Windows users should be quite a bit better off than they were. When this happens, the same marketshare trolls will be trumpeting how superior Windows is to OS X security-wise. People can't have it both ways, no matter how much they try.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
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.
Apple has included...in their contracts...must respect human rights...is simply a PR strategy for the Apple-hostile media.
Anyone who can use the phrase "Apple-hostile media" in the middle of a serious rant deserves a +5 funny!
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
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.