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Leopard Vs. Vista
Rockgod writes to point us to an ongoing series of articles, "Leopard vs. Vista," by Daniel Eran. The latest is part 4, Naked Sales, and it's a meditation on hardware without Windows, Apple's strategy of hardware-software integration, and the dissatisfactions that arise from the creative tension between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers. (The earlier articles in the series are linked form this one.) From the article: "The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship. That's why all name brand PCs prominently repeat their own version of the cult-like phrase 'Dell recommends Windows XP Professional,' as if there were a choice in the matter and they thought it would be helpful to provide some guidance... Apple's current Get a Mac advertising campaign doesn't compare Mac OS X to Windows, it compares the complete experience of a Mac with that of a PC. After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product."
From the original Mac, back in 1984, to the iPod, Apple has always been about integrating hardware and software into one seamless experience. They certainly haven't always hit the mark, but it seems they have an advantage in an era where experience design continues to become more important.
Discussion about whether Apple is a hardware company or a software company has been going on for ages, but Apple has always been a systems company. Microsoft has subordinated hardware to software, and the PC industry has developed according to that dictate. Maybe that is why so many people immersed in the Windows world have a hard time understanding how the Mac is different.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It was deemed illegal to have "per-processor" licenses. So they don't have them any more.
But it is still "legal" to pay Dell to be part of your "advertising campaign". Which, in effect, reduces the cost Dell pays Microsoft per license. Those who do not want to be full partners in the campaign will be paid less than those who do.
Logical, isn't it? So if you push Windows instead of Linux, you pay less for Windows than if you did not. And the profit margins are so slim on computers now that the OEM's will take whatever deal is offered in order to increase their profits.
And since Microsoft still has the monopoly on the desktop, all the OEM's have to offer Windows. Even if they don't like the terms of the deal.
> A Mac would be cheaper if Apple didn't have to develop OS X.
Of course it wouldn't be a Mac either.
no taxation without representation!
Windows may eventually topple as the operating system of choice, but no time soon. Even if companies like Dell could freely advertise other OS's without penalty, I doubt it would make a dent in their sales of Windows PC's. Say what you like about MS, they have built remarkable brand name recognition. To erode that in the minds of people who say "the internet is broken" when IE won't launch is going to take a long time. Apple too, while having strong brand name recognition is seen often as cool, funky and not serious. Do they build a superior platform? Absolutely! Apple has always had superlative hardware and the easiest to use OS. I don't know why anyone would buy a mac and put windows on it, expect maybe to play games. There's an irony, Apple is often viewed by the general public as not serious and yet they have a superior suite of work applications while not having anywhere near the number of games available for windows. Windows is seen as the machine for work while having a mediocre suite of work apps and a killer selection of games. Apple has made inroads into the mass market, but with the iPod. At the rate macs are penetrating it is going to be ages before they make Bill Gates sweat buckets on the OS front. Right now he's laughing. In the PC wars, so what if a mac is a better windows machine? So much better for his market share.
Linux, Ubuntu is a step in the right direction, but until you no longer need to be an ardent computer hobbyist or know one to set it up, it ain't happening fast either. What Linux really needs is some kind of mature plug and play especially because people keep buying crap to hook up to their computers and they want to use it. There's lots of good software, the hardware link is what's needed if Linux is ever going to have a "Year of the Desktop".
In any event, in terms of manufacturer's offering an OS, it's going to be a Windows world for them for quite a while. There is no incentive for them to upset the apple cart until MS brand recognition go south. Geeks and their friends may think it has, but not enough to make a difference. In the meantime, all people who favour a particular OS or platform can do is enjoy their difference and show their friends. Someday it will make a difference.
I've recently got a Mac Mini and it's kind of handy, though I'm undecided as to whether my PC will get upgraded, or replaced, or if I"ll stick with Macs. What I do know is that I won't be plumping for vista given the high system demands it's got. 1GB memory at least? Er, no. What Leopard has going for it is that it doesn't require a significantly higher spec than a Mac running OSX 10.4.
The problem was that those solutions were very expensive, and what MS did was decouple the OS from the machine to create a myth of an equally powerful cheap machine. I say myth because if all the costs were factored in, the savings often were not that great. What was the benefit is that a person could buy a much more flexible machine, and if they were on a budget, but a lower quality machine than would be available from a company that actually cared about reputaion. As time went on, MS forced it's OS onto every machines, and created the monopoly. Any OEM, really system integrator that actually provided support to the end user, was forced to supply only MS OS, while MS could sit there raking in the profits while doing comparatively little.
But the front line is still, and always will be, the system company. These are the people that provide the front line support. The problem with the PC industry is that though they provide the front line support, they do not in fact reap very much of the profit. MS, who does relatively little, get the money, while all the real producers are fighting for the crumbs. But it is thier decision.
The point is that the long term successful companies are system companies that keep attuned to the users needs. IBM is a good example. HP is a good example. Apple is a good example. In fact, when Apple tried to be a hardware company, with spin off of Claris, the Newton that did not integrate, and a failing OS, the company floundered. It bought into the idea that hardware companies were more viable than system integrators. As much as people wish for Apple clones, supporting every cheap piece of trash on the planer comes at too high of a price.
Even MS is going to be a systems company, if it will survive. It will survive on the XBox, which is an intergrated product. It will survive on phones, if it will ever just make one instead of trying to force the phone companies like it did the computer OEM. Otherwise it will just be a speciality shop, serving legacy machines.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
How unfortunate. I just plugged my new camera in and XP immediately offered up a Scanner and Camera wizard to transfer the images, with an Advanced option to just open an explorer window onto the camera as a filesystem. No drivers, no hassle, zero-click.
Mind you, this is a reasonably expensive camera (Canon Powershot 3IS). Perhaps proper USB support in the peripheral makes more difference than the OS??
As an Apple user, I am guaranteed that OS X will run perfectly on Apple's hardware - you don't have to think about it... it just works. If Apple were to give up control of the hardware spec, they would have an exponentially harder time making changes to the OS without breaking this seamless user experience.
As much as I would like to save some cash on my next computer purchase, I'm not prepared to sacrifice stability to do this.
As for the cases themselves, they're not just good looking, they're well engineered and well constructed. Remember, it wasn't until Apple showed the industry that case design mattered that PCs had anything other than big beige boxes with noisy fans.
But even in that case, saying "Apple is more expensive" is still disingenuous and misleading, because you're still making an unfair comparison. The only thing you could really reasonably say is "Apple doesn't make what I want." They're entirely different statements.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
When you buy a Mac, you're not just buying a computer. You're buying an experience.
When you lay down the cash for that shiny new MacBook, you're not just paying for the hardware. You're not just paying for the OS. You're paying for it to Just Work (tm).
Apple has quite the reputation to live up to in the Just Works department. Even if they released a 'generic x86 OSX' with the disclaimer of 'don't expect it to work at all,' people would still expect it to. Apple would still get bad press over it. That's not what they want.
Macs are a bit more expensive by design, I believe. Cultural exclusivity plays a small part in the pricing and marketing. But a strong economic reason for Macs being (a) perceivably better and (b) more expensive is that by narrowing their choice of common components down to a single set that they know integrate well, they are opting out of the competitive race that drives the costs and quality of a typical Windows PC down to least-common-denominator.
BTW I've worked for both Apple and Microsoft. Apple's reality distortion field was way nicer.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear