Slashdot Mirror
Why Microsoft Should Fear Apple
jcatcw writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie says that Microsoft should be afraid because Apple has gotten smarter about how it competes. He says that it's the Parallels Desktop software that has been truly transformational for the Mac. Finnie did a simple three-month trial of the Mac last in the fall and realized four months later that he wasn't going back. Since then he's received hundreds of messages from readers who've also made the switch. 'In the end, this is about perception. It isn't about Apple's market share or even its quarterly sales numbers. (Apple's notebook computer sales for the fourth quarter were 4.1% of all portable computer sales, according to DisplaySearch.) What this is about is that Apple is reaching the right people with its product, winning new converts, Windows user by Windows user -- and creating buzz. How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel. And that's the condition Microsoft should fear. Because buzz can turn into something much harder to combat than sheer numbers.'"
It's not going to be experienced people in the industry buying Mac's and then bithching because it does not play games.
Microsoft shouldn't be too worried until Apple begins to sell OS X for installation on hardware besides theirs. When OS X can be put on all kinds of hardware, I will gladly purchase it and I'm sure many others will as well.
People are talking about the Mac throughout the industry. Admit it: Whether you love it or hate it, you're talking about the Mac at the water cooler.
Apple certainly does have a great public image. They are in a great place right now - they get huge amounts of publicity for free. This just didn't happen by accident though, they've done a good job creating their image, and creating products that people want to get excited about. Actually, some Mac ads are so good, that I enjoy watching them. (I love those "I'm a PC" and "I'm a mac" ads!). Apple has the momentum.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
How many times have we seen articles about how Apple's consumer market share is going to rise? And it never does.
Today, Apple's computer business is a distraction from its core business area of entertainment electronics.
So what's Microsoft supposed to do about Apple? The #1 problem with Windows systems are crap 3rd party programs.
.NET and most don't listen. What more can they do? Nothing.
Microsoft already tells software companies to use
How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel.
Sounds like the "reasons" I'm given to believe in Jesus. I really wonder if people believe in this "exists but not quantifiable in any form" business?
'Buzz' means squat. Sales and market penetration are everything.
Sure there's buzz, and buzz can lead to sales, but when it's contained in a niche market...
Apple is dominant in a particular market segment, the 'too cool for you' market segment. Just about no one else cares at all, and rather, a lot of people see Apple and die hard Apple users as elitist techno snobs.
Apple doesn't sell hardware, they sell an image, and most people couldn't be bothered.
Don't get me wrong, they've got some slick shit, but again, that just doesn't matter. Besides, my shit is slick, extendable, reconfigurable, and cost me one piss of a lot less than anything comparably from Apple. And I'm talking home computer, laptop, mp3, and cell phone. (Not that the iPhone is out yet, but for the stated reasons, I'll never buy one)
Image is nothing, unless you care about that sort of thing, then by all the means, step right up and spend your money.
No Comment.
Since then he's received hundreds of messages from readers who've also made the switch.
The problem is, he hasn't received millions of emails from people who haven't made the switch. This is why "buzz" is misleading instead of using real data. Maybe the "buzz" leads to more people switching to Apple, but if you don't actually measure it, how would you know??
Speaking as a certified Macintosh fanboy who bought his first Mac in February, 1984... gimme a break. If there's anything more boring than an Apple-is-doomed story, it's a Microsoft-is-doomed story.
(Yes, I know he says Microsoft is not going to die... then at the end he says "Nothing lasts forever. The bloom is coming off the rose on Microsoft. I would never put it past the software giant to come up with a way to remake itself in a better light. But the current course doesn't appear to me to lead in that direction. As much as Apple is doing things right, Microsoft is doing things wrong." How is that anything but a weasel-worded version of "Microsoft is doomed?")
Speaking as a certified Macintosh fanboy, Microsoft copies the Apple OS a lot... and, you know what? Apple has, for a long time, been returning the favor. The two companies borrow ideas from each other promiscuously, and only the blinkered view of the fans of each camp prevents them from seeing it. Of course, one idea Mac OS 9 borrowed from Windows was making windows resizable by dragging at all four edges. I just wish Mac OS X had borrow that from Mac OS 9!
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
How many times have we seen articles about how Apple's consumer market share is going to rise? And it never does.
Actually I think the stats show that Apple's market share is rising at the moment. Anyone got any stats?
"How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel. And that's the condition Microsoft should fear. Because buzz can turn into something much harder to combat than sheer numbers." A splotch on the windshield?
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
Blah blah image blah blah snob blah blah tired old BS arguments that only apply to computer hobbyists with no lives.
You're an artifact of the underperforming past. The new century has left you behind. Go play with your crappy beige box of clunky blandness and STFU.
OK, let me get this straight. Microsoft should fear Apple because it is now a lot easier for people to buy a Mac system which also runs a Windows OS? Does anyone else see something odd with this line of logic? If consumers buy MacOS INSTEAD of Windows, Microsoft should be afraid. If consumers buy MacOS AND Windows, Microsoft will just laugh and laugh and laugh all the way to the bank.
to run parallels. microsoft could give a flying fark where you run their os, as long as you buy one.
DELL or other pc manufactureres should be scared of macs.
Look around at any codefest, hack day or industry conference and you'll see a great many macbooks. This is the leading wedge in a sea change for Apple that could translate into market share in the enterprise over time. The real question is - can Apple master the enterprise sales challenge toe-to-toe with Microsoft.
Pure baloney, Scot Finnie.
How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel.
Would you buy stock in a company based on "buzz"? Doubt it. At least these days, in the post dot-bomb world anyways.
What Apple does currently have is momentum. They keep making good decisions and carving out markets. And that's why MS should fear them. MS is already losing in the junior leagues (Zune vs. iPod). Enough of that, and maybe MS will start losing in the big leagues (OS and Office).
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Seriously though Microsoft has nothing to fear as long as Dell, HP, etc is loading their crapware on to their machines by default. Mac as an OS doesn't have a chance against the M$ monopoly.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
Okay! So you bought a Mac!
You bought something MacOS. Yay for you! YOU REBEL!
Now you use Parallels and buy a copy of Windows to put in there.
GAME OVER.
*MICROSOFT* doesn't care what HARDWARE you run their OS on. Running Parallels on a Mac doesn't hurt MICROSOFT in the slightest.
Both Apple AND Microsoft pull a profit off this. Microsoft even moreso, since Mac heads are likely to buy a RETAIL copy of the OS, meaning higher margins for Redmond than they'd get from a traditional OEM copy.
Who it's a mark against? The other PC vendors.
Seriously. Why does everyone turn stupid non-issues like this into a zip-gun fight between Redmond and Cupertino?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Apples has a much better marketing department and Microsoft has a much better business model for its shareholders. Both make the companies money in different ways and both companies are different in how they approach making money, but Microsoft's model has been proved to work. Apples great image is dependent how the mass market views its marketing campaign. Marketing can get you into the industry as a competitor, but it can only do so much for so long.
This is not to say that Apple does not make quality products though, both companies do. I just feel that Microsoft has something that will outlast the fad Apples marketing department has created. As Apple branches off into new markets where specs are more important, we may see a new take on Apple advertising. If not, then we will see iPod type ads for the iPhone, which will not resonate well at all to people looking for smart phones where, of course, specs are the name of the game.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I wish I still had mod points, this is a rather good point. EVERY time I've come across articles praising how well Apple is doing in the market, the author inevitably says something stupid like "you can just FEEL the energy Apple is putting in the market."
I'm with you, I call bullshit. Give me evidence that Apple is 'pwning' Microsoft in any measurable way. Just because people hate using Windows doesn't mean OSX wins by default. My father is STILL pissed how he blew 3000 bucks on an Apple ][ and 6 months later Jobs announces they have this thing called a Macintosh and how they were going to screw supporting anyone who had an Apple. He will NEVER own another Apple product. Look, I have hokey anecdotes too!
One of my professors told me once, long ago: "In God we trust, all others bring data."
Yeah i'm talking to you. The wannabe computer programmer who thinks they are good at computers because they can click around the computer enough times and find the reboot button and 'fix' an inherently flawed windows system. You think you're cool because you can pirate photoshop but not know anything about it, get Microsoft Office for free but have the literacy of a 1st grader when writing a paper, and get a copy of Norton Anti-virus because your inherently flawed system is useless without Administrative privileges. Get a clue, you are not smart, you are just a corporate sheep for a company that will bury you if you ever tried to write any software that did anything remotely useful. You are a clickaround and all you know if your ugly gray existence that is Windows.
/dev/random > Windows.com
Want the sourcecode to windows vista?
head -n 1000000
I (and quite a few others) have said it before, and I'll say it again. I have Age of Empires (the first, through AOE3), Rise of Nations (the base game and the add-ons), Rise of Legends, City of Heroes/Villains, etc. Not one of these games (and hundres of others) works in OSX (without emulation -- that doesn't count).
Yes, this is changing, but not fast enough for me or thousands (millions?) of others. Yes, WoW is available, but most games aren't. Until game studios start porting their software to the Apple platform, MS really has little to worry about.
Add to games, the fact that everyone and their sister seems to be glued firmly to MS Office, and MS is sitting in a pretty good position.
As a side note, I'd happily purchase a copy of OSX so I could poke around, try things, run it as a main desktop for a while to see how I like it. But I'm not going to purchase *another* PC (I have too many in my house as it is) just for the "privilage". I'm not the only one. Until such is possible, I'll just have to deal with the limited amount of exposure to OSX that I receive while at work (we have a few iMac "workstations" students can use, but mostly they sit empty (the original ones, before the silly white rounded base with "floating" LCD)).
Man, I'm tired of seeing these "MS should be worried about Apple!" articles. Do everyone a favor. Write one up when MS's quarterly/yearly profits are FLAT or NEGATIVE. Untill then, I won't even read your articles (so that you don't get paid for the ad views).
Bleh.
bork bork bork!
After skimming TFA, it seems like the #1 reason the author claims Microsoft should fear Apple is due to Parallels on OS X. I don't quite get why this should make Microsoft shake in their boots. Parallels does not somehow allow Windows apps to run without a Windows installation (i.e. what WINE is attempting to accomplish). Therefore a license for XP/Vista/whatever is still required. If anything Microsoft should be happy that Mac users still need to own a Windows license to run apps in Parallels. It may mean that more people will buy Macs because they like the hardware and OS X, but simply owning a Mac with Parallels does not remove the user's need to run Windows apps, and therefore pay Microsoft for a license.
Apple doesn't want to take on the support task of a massive hardware base and driver signing, etc. I don't think Apple wants Microsoft's wide-range market. If they were interested, they would have taken on Dell's offer.
Honestly, the future of computing is not everyone using the same white plasticky computer... that scares the hell out of me. The moment Apple adds support for the everyman computer, suddenly they get to worry about MASS piracy, licensing to an unlimited and growing number of vendors, supporting weird and obscure hardware, oh dear!
Overnight, we'd see OS X becoming just as 'unstable' and 'blue-screeny' or more than Windows, which is set up to run on anything X86. Let's face it guys, Apple just doesn't have the hardware support range or driver/hardware-lab workforce of either Microsoft or the expansive open source community.
Linux is more likely to take Microsoft's budget marketshare than Apple. The Apple they're talking about here just isn't Apple. Microsoft and Linux are modular computing solutions- Apple's proprietary nature is part of the reason their system works as it does.
Why should Microsoft fear something like parallels when you are running THEIR software via it. In fact its increasing Microsoft's market share in the process.
They don't sell hardware, so anything that incerases the number of users is a good thing for them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Worse than a pro-Apple buzz, is the Anti-Microsoft Buzz. As another Switcher appears at the watercooler, smiling like Smilin' Bob, the DIS-satisfaction of Microsoft will grow. What will happen is that Windows users will become increasingly frustrated with their inabilities, the road blocks, the busted drivers, the paths out into the 'Net they now FEAR to tread. Every "Cancel or Allow" will toll in an image of the Apple commercial's sunglassed security monger. The "Sad Realization" will grow.
Like one who looked into the Palantir, the emotional illness will sink in. And they will be trapped. Every mouse click will make them sicker, sink them deeper. Their happy, released Mac User associates will shine like a white wizard among the Orcs.
And every trick that Microsoft will try to rejuvenate their relationship will be transparent to them. Zune the iTune killer will make them laugh sadly. Every promise of liberation and innovation will fall flat before it is delivered. Every
The numbers will lie, like the percentage of marriages that last longer than 7 years... it belies the number of dead marriages still lingering. Microsoft will retain 90%+ of the market, but those will be wretched zombies, entombed in their own fear and loathing.
Microsoft's "WOW" will become "woe", from which they are unable to escape. And like Gandalf, betrayed by a friend and mentor, they are marooned atop a tower which promised great vision, but a broad horizon of darkness, gloom and malevolence is their only vista.
I am writing this in Firefox in Vista on my MacBook Pro. One year ago (almost to this day) I made the switch because I had bought into the hype. I told myself I'd give it three months to make my decision. When the time came I was struggling to be as productive as when I was in Windows. However, I realized that I had not yet learned everything I needed in the Mac to give it a fair shake. So I extended the test. Finally after 10 months I made the Switch-back.
What about all of us that gave it a try and end up switching back? We just get modded down because of the anti-M$ sentiment. I'm no M$ lover -- I run all Linux servers and refuse to deploy Active Directory in my organization because I believe it is a gateway to "everything M$". However, many people like me may find that they are actually more productive in Windows.
Microsoft doesn't sell hardware, they sell software, and the last time I looked the one "Great Thing" about the new mac hardware is that it runs Windows.
Now, I know many (many many) people will run windows without a license, but it will be the same percentage that run windows without licenses on non-apple hardware. People will buy more licenses for Windows because of the great mac hardware.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
I seriously hope Apple doesn't increase market share all that much. They seem to be making plenty of profit and advancing quite nicely without the masses migrating to OS X.
What makes you think having a huge market share will actually improve the operating system? I sure don't think it will as much as being a small competitor with something to prove. MS may have most of the market tied up, but everyone knows how much people love Windows.
Macs are already used by a significant proportion of the technical crowd. The rest of the market is full of people who don't care about computers, they just use and abuse them. Do we really want spyware and general crap being ported over to the Mac? I certainly don't.
It's great how it is, being on a great platform that does what it needs to do. Why care about the other 90% of computer users when they don't care about computers and just treat them like shit?
look at what happened to snow white when it ate the apple!
My kids are college students and always prefer Mac laptops to Windows machines every single time.
1) They don't care about the internals at all. Makes zero difference
2) They see Macs as an integrated whole without having to dick around with things
3) They see the hardware itself as being more solid
4) They see the integrated whole as being more compatible with their iPods, cameras and whatnot
5) When or if something breaks they walk it in to the Apple store, where that is the ONLY thing they fix and drop it off for repair or upgrade
6) Most college courses are online not installed so it makes little if any difference what the machine runs on its own
7) They look cooler
Don't argue with me about this. This is what people who look at a PC as an appliance like a microwave or a TV see when they see a Mac.
I am a laggard. When my XP Home machines eventually become worthless I will replace them either with miniMacs or whatever is what those are at the time, and/or Ubuntu or equivalent machines at that time. I expect this to happen in the next 3-4 years if not sooner. I have no intention of moving to Vista. Not for ideological reasons but because there will be cheaper better alternatives by then.
With the ability to boot into Windows, or run Windows in Parallels, Apple has eliminated the biggest barrier for people to try a Mac. If someone doesn't like it, or a vital app won't run, they aren't stuck with an expensive brick - they can switch to running Windows. Less risk means a lower barrier to entry which means more people buying a Mac.
This gives Apple a chance to compete on the merits of its OS instead of being hampered by the number of applications that don't support it. Users can easily switch to Windows, run their apps, and switch back; and switching isn't even needed if you use Parallels. I claim that after a few weeks on a Mac, users will get annoyed when they have to deal with a Windows machine, and somewhere in Cupertino a bell will ring as another Mac user is born.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
I entirely agree with the article, the "buzz" or shift has begun to lean towards Apple. Don't believe me? I'm a student and over the last few years I've noticed Macs starting to pop-up more and more in class. My feeling is with all the problems people have had historically with Windows viruses and now Vista and its incompatability, people are just getting fedup with Microsoft. Eventually a person can only take so much before they think "There's got to be something better!!!" and... there is.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
When I worked as a programmer years ago, I had a 3270 terminal emulator I ran on my PC to get some work done. I don't have that emulator anymore...
If people start using the Mac as a primary system, and have to specifically load Windows/parallels on it - there may come a day when they are doing a new OS installation and realize, hey - I don't need to install parallels anymore.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple users want to gripe all of the time about flaws in Apple hardware and software. If you read the online discussions before buying a Mac, you might get scared. But the fact is that Mac users are an elite club of really obsessive people. That's not a slight against them. They have incredibly high standards. As a Windows and Linux user, however, my experiences with the Mac were a huge breath of fresh air. It's nice to finally use a computer that's clearly been well-engineered. From simple things like how the keyboards are made to the way MacOS X manages application-related files, you can tell that Apple wants to do things well and isn't afraid to do it.
/usr, /etc) and how config file are plain-text in a way that makes it impossible to do upgrades cleanly. That's annoying as hell. Linux architects need to get their heads out of their asses, group all files for a given app into one place, and use mini XML registries for config options. This is just simply good engineering!
I recently was in need of a notebook computer, so I did some investigation as to what my options were. I put notebooks from various manufacturers side by side and compared based on processor speed, FSB speed, memory (size, speed), graphics (GPU power, shared memory, etc.), display resolution, and numerous other factors. While things appear to have changed slightly in the recent past, at the time, the MacBook Pro was less expensive than any PC notebook with comparable capabilities. How's that for risk management? I was nervous about getting a Mac... what if I didn't like it? No problem. The hardware is great, and I can install Linux or Windows on it if I feel like it. Turns out that I really like MacOS too and run Windows and Linux using Parallels.
As a Free Software enthusiast, I am bothered by the fact that so much Apple software isn't Free. But I'm an activist in many ways. I'm an activist for Free Software. I'm also an activist for GOOD software. And my computer is my computer, and I'll run whatever apps make my life easiest. As such, I'm going to use commercial software when it's clearly superior in design and quality to the Free Software. (Notice how I'm implicitly dismissing Microsoft as anything worth talking about.) Then I tell people which apps are the best and why. This way, the Free Software enthusiasts can take notice and improve their designs
I think I won't be much interested in using Linux as a desktop OS until some Ubuntu comes with Beryl by default. And I'll NEVER like the fact that Linux applications have their files spread out across different sections of the file system (/bin,
First, I'll admit that I might be a bit of a Mac "fanboy". I don't think I'm irrational, but I do like Macintoshes quite a lot these days. To put it in perspective, I spent most of my life using Windows and thinks anyone who was a an of Apple in the '90s was an absolute head-case. However, these days they're basically the same hardware as the other guys, a form of Unix, and a nice GUI. They're hands-down the easiest desktop operating system to set up and maintain on a small/medium scale. (I've never managed a huge network by myself, so I won't speak to that)
Anyway, now that I've given a hint of a background, I'll state for the record that I don't think Microsoft needs to die. I hope they don't die. I'm not looking for more software monoculture and fewer choices, so we don't need to get rid of Microsoft. However, Microsoft does need some healthy competition. They need someone to keep them honest. Microsoft needs market pressures to force them to use open standards and open formats. They need to start playing well with others, and they need an economic incentive to put the needs of their customers at the forefront.
Regarding copying, you're right, and I've never understood the complaint. Microsoft copied from Apple, and Apple copied from Microsoft. Gnome and KDE copied both of them, and they both copied Xerox and any other company that came along with a good idea. Is that a problem?
I really don't know why people would complain about this sort of copying. Some implementations might be better than others, but if you think you can use an already-existing interface convention to make your interface better, use it! For the whole of human history, people have been taking the best ideas they could find and trying to put those ideas together in better ways. That's progress. That's what people should be doing.
I (and quite a few others) have said it before, and I'll say it again. I have Age of Empires (the first, through AOE3), Rise of Nations (the base game and the add-ons), Rise of Legends, City of Heroes/Villains, etc. Not one of these games (and hundres of others) works in OSX (without emulation -- that doesn't count).
Yes, this is changing, but not fast enough for me or thousands (millions?) of others
What is changing is that some of this stuff is heading to consoles, and more will continue to do so. Imagine WOW on a PS3/260 sold with a custom WOW keyboard to attach to the console.
Consoles are where most games are heading now, there are just a few regions holding out before they do are drawn into the whirlpool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Some of us are just stuck using Windows 32-bit because the VPN clients we have to use to access the company network only work on 32-bit Windows.
I would gladly jump to Ubuntu 32/64-bit or Win XP 64 etc. if the VPN client worked. But the Juniper VPN client only works on Windows 32-bit.
Now, the concern is for the OEMs. I have been saying for a long time that by concentrating on price, they are playing the MS game, which is to maximize profit at MS and minimize profit on the hardware. For example, the Apple switch to Intel is not so interesting for Apple, but does indicate that Intel learned that MS has no interest in hardware profits, and that if Intel continued to focus on MS, it would continue to be has been chip maker.
So, MS is stemming the flow that will hurt it's business in the near term, namely there are no fully compatible OS products, and only allowing virtualization of premium priced products. In the long term, who knows. At some point there has to be a competitive compatible OS. Apple would do well to create the OS and run it as layer in the next Apple OS. But the only danger to MS is that the hardware vendors will wise up and stop cutting their own throats so that MS can make a profit.
Indeed, we have seen many OEMs go away as they can no longer make cheap enough boxen. We are really going to be down to Dell, HP, Lenova and Sony. The later two are more or less premium manufacturers. HP has the experience with HP/UX to rebrand it's PC as *nix workstations, but Dell will continue to be at the mercy of MS, and I feel sorry for them as Apple continues to earn 20% per machine, while squeezing Dell's margin to zero, especially now that the Intel kickbacks seem to be a thing of the past.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
With Parallels, you still need to buy a Microsoft OS and any Windows software you need. So Microsoft still collects their money. The only thing is that now instead of buying a Mac and then buying a Windows box, I only have to buy a Mac. Software costs are still the same.
So Parallels ADDS sales to Apple, but neither adds nor removes sales from Microsoft.
That being said, Parallels is shweet! :)
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Who cares?!?! I call bullshit, smelly and simple.
$1 in sales is worth $100 in buzz. I think Microsoft would be very happy to lose the buzz competition, as long as it keeps sales and market share.
Apple is doing very well in its niche market, but it has to get a lot more than 4% market share for the Apple/Microsoft comparison to be one of peers. Right now it looks like the comparison between my 12 year-old kid and Derek Jeter in baseball...
In the last year I've seen a number of blogs from former Microsofties, as well as the infamous Mini-Microsoft. Many of these talk about top-heavy management, unhappy staff, projects leading nowhere, ladder climbers and bleeding money through some product lines.
In isolation, individual blogs may be just some people blowing off a bit of steam, or may be representative of a few dissatisfied staffers.
Taken together, they paint a picture of a company that's in danger of losing its way.
It's hard to know just how representative the sum of these blogs is. They're all pretty self-selecting, after all. If they paint a relatively accurate picture, then Microsoft is missing some key things Apple's recently gotten right:
* Management who understand their products at every level and pitch them well. Anyone who's presented to a large crowd knows how hard this is, but Steve Jobs is a complete master at it.
* Getting the product's look and feel right first time. Pick up a new Apple product. Touch it. Look at the surfaces. They always look great. People react to this, equating professional finish with professional products.
* Focus on product lines, with no products bleeding more money with every unit sold. There's no Apple product I've heard of where each unit sold is a loss to the company. The units both R&D and then start to generate profit. Even iTunes with its razor thin profit pays for itself. This shows solid business planning, solid budgeting and is very well respected by the investors.
* Staff who keep pretty damn quiet about the internal stuff. Apple have a policy on communication, and very few staff feel they need to start some kind of Mini-Apple in response. Few companies allow staff to communicate, as it's just too easy for staff to send the wrong message. The company I work for is vast beyond the dreams of Apple or Microsoft, and we train all staff about external communications (in normal policy & procedure training). The impression Apple gives is that of a tightly run company.
Apple present as a company focused on a few core lines - home computing, professional media/art computing and entertainment. It's easy to see how just about everything they do fits those lines.
Microsoft are all over the place. Their core is clearly Windows and Office, but they've dipped metaphorical toes into media, gaming, tablet computing, robotics, handhelds, peripherals, mobile phones, web searching and more. Some non-core lines are very successful (XBox-360) but they all seem to be in the red, only able to be pursued due to the huge cash reserves brought in by the core lines. Few businesses would do this, even very rich businesses (such as GE) demand each product or division runs a profit and improves year on year. That's sustainable business practice, but Microsoft seems to believe deep pockets last forever.
Microsoft are looking tired, but they can pull things together. Cut some of the non-core lines loose - sell them off. Get out and understand how people want to use stuff before building a product (Zune wireless sharing is a notable failure here). Savage the management layers to shake out dead wood at *all* levels, review all current projects with a view to killing most of them and refocus the (smaller) company on the smaller range of product lines.
Microsoft can waste energy competing with Apple and Google, but they needn't bother. Neither is a threat and the market's easily big enough for everyone. The biggest enemy they seem to have is themselves and their existing products.
To recap a film metaphor - remember when Luke Skywalker went into that cave near Yoda's house on Dagobar? He met Darth Vader, then fought and killed him. The mask covering the head exploded, revealing Luke's own face. His greatest enemy at that point was his own nature.
How do you measure buzz? You don't.
Yes you do. Google search statistics are a pretty good measure of buzz. Maybe they're not perfect, but they're better than people's intuition.
Here is a graph of the number of searches for "mac laptop". The hump last year shows up in the number of searches for "laptop," (link), but the current climb does not. So it looks like the the numbers from google agree with the article.
Personal music devices are hardly junior leagues. There are at least as many of them worldwide as computers. And there is no reason their margins can't be as high as OSes.
For that matter, an OS or office suite is hardly big leagues, certainly not in the future. There are plently good, free versions of both to threaten the future viability of commercial in those areas. OTOH, it would take the invention of that thingie that makes Capt Picard's Earl Grey, complete with glass, to threaten physical music players, and people would probably still prefer to pay the premium for Apple's devices.
Creating the desire to pay premium for your products? Priceless.
Lies about crimes
If you can't measure buzz, how can you intentionally create it?
If you can't intentionally create it, how can you intentionally sustain it?
If you can't intentionally sustain it, how can you reasonable expect it to predict it will continue?
If you can't predict it will continue, how can you claim that it will?
If you can't claim that it will, how can you claim that Microsoft should be worried? =P
But they worry about the iPod, not about the Mac.
MS spent years keeping Apple alive both to minimize the appearance of monopoly in the US, and because they recognized that Apple was much preferable to Linux. As long as the Mac doesn't take off too much, they are still happy with this (nothing like a competitor that drives prices up!).
On the other hand, the iPod (and related products) is a totally different issue. They never meant for that to happen.
I personally don't think it's the OS that makes you productive, but the software and how you use it.
:)
That, and the amount of time you don't spend on stuff you shouldn't have to spend time on.
If it adds up, then PC is for you. No biggie.
But for most people I know (that are below average technically able), they convert to Macs and rave about them afterwards
Stop the brainwash
Wow.
Right-click. Microsoft FTW.
Parallels has allowed our company to begin the migration away from Windows by providing support for specific, required applications on the platform of choice:
- Business users receive Macs, and use Parallels (and sometimes Boot Camp) for specific applications.
- Engineers have the choice between either Mac OS X or Ubuntu. They can also run Parallels or VMware for Windows applications, though they rarely do so.
- Artists run Windows, since their singular, primary application is 3d Studio Max -- Windows only 3d software.
Parallels has allowed us to make a long-term platform decision (Mac OS X and Linux) while continuing to support the short-term software requirements (Running Windows software). As more cross-platform software is made available, we will migrate away from the Windows-only solutions.
http://plausible.coop
- Microsoft Word was not fast enough on the Mac
- Microsoft Word was not 100% completely compatible with Microsoft Word on the PC
Let me tackle each of these in turn (put down your flamethrowers right now).The current version of Word on the Mac is compiled for the PPC and runs through Rosetta. While most people report that Word runs "just fine" through Rosetta, the fact is, it doesn't for people who work like my wife does. Fast. Demanding. Has a lot of work and isn't going to wait around patiently for her last action to complete. Yes, I did all of the tweaks to speed up her Mac (the best MacBook Pro money could buy (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB disk)). Yes, I even allocated more RAM for Rosetta.
And before you ask, yes, I ran Word 2003 in Parallels. Yes, I ran it under VMware Fusion. And yes, I ran in under Crossover for Mac. The sad, but obvious fact is that Word runs fastest natively under Windows on a PC (in this case a brand new Vaio which I had to buy to replace the MacBook Pro). Both of these computers had exactly the same specs.
As for the second problem, it cannot be over-emphasized. You cannot submit a report back to a client which looks like trash in *their* version of Word. Word 2003 is *not* Word 2004. And the upcoming Word 2008 will *not* be Word 2007. Any alteration in a document which is advising investors to spend billions on a particular equity is not acceptable. No, she couldn't use Open Office. Or anything else. And yes, she also tried to save the document using compatibility mode.
RANT: ON
We both hated to go back. She loved the Mac. Anybody who thinks that Microsoft should be really worried about Apple is a little delusional. Microsoft doesn't make software, they make money (which explains why their software sucks - ask me about this sometime). They've also invested heavily in Apple (when Apple makes money, Microsoft makes money). And they are releasing and continuing to develop Office for the Mac, because it is profitable for them. And will continue to be. Sure, Microsoft would like to own every single aspect of the computing market, because that would make them the most money. But when they can't, they hedge their bets (Corel, Apple, most recently Novel).
RANT: OFF
By the way, moving from Microsoft Entourage to Microsoft Outlook is a total pain. You would think this would be straightforward, but no. And if you're one of those who think Micosoft tries to make it hard to move from the PC to Mac on purpose, just try moving back. It's even worse. Ultimately I just set her up with IMAP and had her re-create all her folders (she had hundreds) and copy her mail up to one of my mail servers. Mail is better that way anyway...
As for the MacBook Pro, I'm downloading FC6 right now :-)
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
I don't see why MS should be concerned... Every Mac user that boots into Windows is a new license. PC manufacturers should be affraid.
Why should X write about X being afraid of X, or X Xing X.. Really, Do these articles even matter, aside from igniting an obvious flame war?
Can all fish swim?
I wonder if Apple is avoiding the "bread and butter" market (midtower formfactor with PCIe graphics card) because they fear having their support staff swamped with new users and switchers?
If Apple were to sell 5-10MM $699-$999 xMacs in their first year, could Applecare even hope to keep up?
There's a whole lot of stuff that Mac OS X should have borrowed from Mac OS 7/8/9. A few examples are window speed/performance of the finder, tunneling, speed/performance of the finder, fast open-apple-f find, application switch menu in the upper right corner of the screen, file labels, and speed/performance of the finder. At least the OS is more reliable than Mac OS 7/8/9... I've always been a Mac fan until I became a daily user of the trainwreck that is Mac OS X.
I am quite happy with the performance of Windows 2000 (and of course Linux) on relatively slow hardware such as a Pentium 133Mhz. Mac OS X is sluggish on a G4 cube. Go figure. It makes me want to run out and buy a used PowerMac 6100/66 and run Mac OS 9 on it.
Life needs more saving throws.
They both follow the same model, which is to reinvent the wheel every time, and keep the code secret from the competitors. What they should both fear is a competitor who can always start where the last guy left off. This is how science advanced - Newton did not have to invent Euclid from scratch, and this is how Linux has advanced using shared libraries. This is how xorg got started in three months.
This is why they are both following an over costly and obsolete business model, and they will both fall. Apple maybe first, with its locked software and DRM mania. But both will go. Its just when.
All these "Microsoft don't care where you run Windows" comments overlook the fact that a user switching already has a copy of Windows. One of the best parts of Parallels is that a user switching can simply run an application on their old system that will copy everyhing over to their Mac.
The OS
All the applications
All the settings
All the data
Everything.
Running the application to replicate the old environment is trivial. It's much easier than upgrading to Vista--or even another version of Windows XP. Think about it, how much time does it take for you to upgrade from one Windows system to another? How many hours spent re-installing the same crap over again, hoping that it works on the new system, that is, if you can even find the installation media anymore...
Parallels makes it trivial to switch without ever having to buy another Microsoft product.
That's what makes Parallels the killer app it is. That's why Microsoft should be scared of Macs.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Even today there ain't an order of magnitude of difference between the MS and Apple market cap. That is today, with Apple only having 5% or less of market share. And now 12% of all laptops sold are made by Apple. Apple is a hardware company and they are gaining market share, which is very bad for MS.
...) that do not want an IT world dictated by MS, this is very scary for MS. At this point, they're getting attacked on many fronts. Even their old allies from the Wintel cartel played a nasty trick on MS, by bringing hardware virtualization to the PC world. Apple it benifitting quite a lot from Intel's virtualization technology. MS is reacting to that particular attack from their old allies by arbitrarly crippling Vista (not allowing non-ultimate version to run in a VM), but I somehow doubt they'll be able to win on every front.
When there are several multi-billion dollars companies (IBM, Sun, Apple, Nokia,
One area where MS is doing well is the console arena. Which in the end is the only thing that that company should do: producing toys.
But on all the other fronts they're fighting companies that can't stand the mediocrity anymore (IE crashing when you're using an animated cursor in a CSS sheet? When was that discovered yet?).
--
"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners"
Looks like the newbie stick has been smacking SlashDot authors again.
First, "buzz" is a marketing issue, and it's been pretty well defined for several decades. Look up the phrase "AIDA" (attention, interest, desire and action). "Buzz" is roughly equivalent to "interest": people are interested in the product, but don't necessarily desire the project yet.
Second, measuring levels of attention, interest, desire and action is extremely EASY to do. In addition to decades of university-level research that contribute to our understanding, there are hundreds of marketing and polling firms that can monitor these levels of interest in commercial products fairly accurately.
(If you don't think Apple is employing marketing firms to generate and monitor AIDA, including "buzz", I'd like to sell you something too.)
...Microsoft should be afraid of all its competitors. Vista is so bad that they should be very afraid. Too many of its features go against what users want and slow the OS down in the process (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/27/03 8227&from=rss).
Anyone who claims Vista is faster is either lying or barely using their computer's power. As a developer, I beat the hell out of machines, and Vista is terribly slow compared to XP. On a laptop, it is unbearable (much slower, lower battery life, crashes on suspend or hibernate).
If Microsoft tries to force users to upgrade to Vista, I will switch to anything else. I like XP, but I don't think I'll be switching to Vista (even after a few service packs).
Macworld explains why Apple computers will remain nitch products... From http://www.macworld.com/2006/06/reviews/parallels/ index.php in June 2006:
"The first, and the biggest letdown for diehard gamers, is that Parallels can't presently handle accelerated 3-D graphics. So, while you can play Windows Solitaire just fine, you'll have to use Boot Camp if you want to try out Half Life 2."
It is March 2007, nothing has changed - and it will never change.
I bought a mac-mini just to try out OSX not apple's hardware
I'm always amazed at how few people "get it". The simple fact is that this article would never have been written 2 years ago. 4 Years ago Apple was doomed. Times are changing. OS X is the clearly superior OS. The gap is only going to widen. The only reason MS doesn't need to be that scared is because so many sheep have been conditioned to think that MS is invincible. I'm sure plenty of people thought similar things about Ford, IBM, etc...
If someone comes up with a good idea in your industry, you nab it. That's how it goes. Also I suspect some of it isn't even direct copying, more just technology advancing to a given state that an idea becomes workable. 3D desktop composition would be an example. Why haven't they done that till recently? Well because there wasn't enough hardware out there that supported it to make it worth while. You could have written an engine that did it back in the mid 90s, but then you'd be limited to the few machines with a professional cards that were extremely expensive. Now, however, even integrated cards like the Intel GMAs support it and thus it makes sense to start using that hardware.
Regardless, I expect the borrowing and the co-incidental advances to continue. You see it in every other market, I fail to see why OSes would be any different.
Disclaimers: I'm a Linux sysadmin. And I'm a Windows sysadmin. I like Linux better for some things, but for a lot of things, I'll take Windows any day.
That said, our CEO lets the marketing VP run pretty much the entire operation these days. The marketing guy is a closet Apple-head who reaches for the latest and greatest tech toys whether they make sense in our environment or not. He's just one of those guys. We burn a lot of IT time trying to make these things work with existing technologies. It's pointless, stupid, and aggravating, but that's what you get when you let the marketing department run the company. One day, the CEO comes in off the golf course and asks me to evaluate a Mac laptop with OS-X installed. He wondered how many of our proprietary apps would run on it. He wondered whether Mac might make sense in our financial services company of about 300 employees. I knew the marketing VP was behind this.
I didn't bother trying to explain that, for our Windows users, a switch to the OS-X interface would be disastrous. Instead, I set up a booth where people could actually use the Mac at lunch, on breaks, whatever. Now, I don't know where all these converts from Windows to Mac are coming from, but they're not coming from here. Again and again, I got comments such as "that thing is horrible," or "I can't make it do anything." Never mind whether company apps will run on the operating system - - our people just wanted to open a browser and surf the Internet. It's safe to say that the percentage of users who had a favorable impression of the Mac mirrors the percentage for the population at large: maybe two percent said they liked it. But then, they also hadn't had to use Mac in a work environment. Talk to me about transition times, investment in better technology, blah blah blah. OS-X is the emperor who wore clothes of air.
Using OS-X is like living in an anime world where everyone uses valley girl elocution and swoons over Obama. Macs and Mac people are annoying. Thank Zeus there aren't that many of them.
If they really want to tacking over m$ not I-macs with laptop parts and build in screens.
The mini is too low end for it's price even the apple tv has in own video ram why not the mini, i-mac $999, macbook, or macbook black. The $1500 mac book black should have something better then gma 950.
Why should you have to pay $2000 + just to get a desktop with real video that does not come with a screen build in or $2000 for a laptop with a real video cards. Dell, hp , gateway and othere have laptops with real videos or video cards that have some of there own ram + they use the rest from the system in the $1000 - $1500 range with higher end video cards / SLI video in the $1500 and up range they also have desktops starting at the same price or lower then the mini with desktop parts and open slots also they are much easer to open and upgrade then the mini is. Apple has no desktop in the $800 - $1500 and up range there $2000+ workstation uses high cost FB-DIMMs.
so what's to fear. .2% market share ..yah i'd be sacred.
This article is a joke.
The fact that apple sales increase is due to MS mismanagement of vista.
So apple gains
It's more of the Linux growth that has MS scared.
Scott Finnie: Zing! Zork! Kapowza! Call it what you want, in any language it spells mazuma in the bank!
Microsoft: 'Zork'? What is 'zork'?
Scott Finnie: I didn't say 'zork'. The point is, the camera loves Apple!
Don't argue with me about this.
I'd mod you down, but "arrogant" isn't one of the options.
Your kids are right about a lot of things. Not having to make many decisions before or after purchase makes the Mac much more appealing for many consumers.
And people don't care about internals, as long as the machine does what it's supposed to. Since most consumers don't expect their computer to do anything it couldn't do seven or eight years ago, they don't mind having less muscle than they might with an equivalently priced pc.
(I keep hearing on irc and forums that with equivalent hardware a mac laptop is as cheap as one with Windows. As far as I can tell, this is utterly untrue. If anyone objects to my saying this, please provide a link to back up your claim.)
Mac laptops are certainly not bad in terms of build quality, but I think they enjoy a reputation for sturdiness that they don't entirely deserve. The ibm, dell and hp laptops on the market today are all much more rugged and sturdy than they were in the past. Shock-mounted hard drives are a common feature, for instance, and all-around build-quality is better than before.
As for compatability with peripherals, your kids are flat-out wrong (unless you're going to run Windows on the machine too, of course). Windows is still the compatability king, and while iPods in particular might have slightly better support on OS X than on XP, they're the exception, not the rule.
Finally, If you're savvy enough to run Ubuntu, I don't know what use you would have for a Mac. Aqua is pretty nice, but you'll get a lot more out of your hardware if you run linux. The next 3-4 years will see a lot of improvements to X, as well, so aqua probably won't be so tempting.
Exactly. I used to be a "techie" - I built my own computers, over-clocked my CPU, tweaked Windows, etc - and then, one sunny afternoon, I decided all that was a colossal waste of time. If you enjoy doing those things, that's fine; after all it's marginally more useful than collecting stamps or some similar hobby. On the other hand, there's absolutely nothing wrong with seeing a computer as nothing more than an appliance.
Macs are closer to an appliance than PCs, and I enjoy that.
Don't argue as in you should take it up with the people who are actually expressing these opinions. Convincing me or them that everything we perceive to be an advantage is really not, is, from your point of view a colossal waste of your time. Sorry.
They look slick and impress newcomers. Then they ignore bugs, are slow to release patches and lock their customers into proprietary technologies. In other words, the same thing Microsoft has been doing for the past decade. The fact they can convince the general public they are doing otherwise is what's scary.
Although the new emulator may be able to run Vista, you can't under Vista's license run Vista as a virtual OS. With one exception, Vista Ultimate. So if you wanna run Vista on that Apple computer you better be prepared to pay the highest Microsoft tax you've ever paid. (Vista Ultimate has an MSRP of $500).
Again, the Microsoft License for Vista excludes running the OS in a virtulized environment under another OS unless you buy Vista Ultimate.
Microsoft got their money out of you.
And while YOU may be one of the ones who fully migrates, I'm willing to bet that others still go running back to Windows.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When the Apple falls it drops hard. Many of the trends that Apple has set have already heavily influenced even pc ui. But what we are forgetting is that Apple exists because of creative professionals. If you sit and hope it will fulfill your every need you may be surprised.
The hardware race will always be the bread and butter for developers, and the demand is congruent to a vast unique set of inquiries. Yet we wait around for this "super-computer" to arise but we still need to have at least one hand on the wheel.
The combination of pc and mac skill use is expected by professionals. It's not a race anymore, your just simply falling in love with a look and feel; until you realize that all computers are still flawed.
Unless your already a skilled professional the rise of hybrid knowledge is not only expected it's necessary in harnessing every unique ability to explore every unique possibility.
Epson inkjet printing is definitely very good on Linux, I believe this is due to Epson having open specs in that regard.
I print a lot of photos with my lowly 6-ink R220 fitted with a continuous ink supply device. Works just fine, even 6"x4".
"Pearl" and "MAC" in one post. Stopped reading at that point.
I'm on an older iMac, a G3, running the latest OS X, and it's surprisingly adequate for everything but rendering 3D and movie work. I do pro Photoshop work on it, all of my email and web browsing, iTunes listening, VLC movie-watching, Open Office and LaTEX word processing, everything. On Craigslist you can easily find a computer like mine for $100. Nevermind Apple's corporate interest in making a profit, what they've accomplished is amazing as an intellectual achievement. It's like being able to drive 100 mph in a Model T, and it gets only faster with each new release of the operating system. I feel sorry for Windows suckers stuck on the side of the road.
Oops, that should be "the screensaver in Vista would not kick in".
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Thanks for the link to the "wife" article in Wikipedia--I keep forgetting what that word means. :-)
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I have a MacBook Pro.
I have Parallels.
I have spent $1000 in Microsoft software for my MacBook Pro: Microsoft Office for Mac, Windows Vista Ultimate (so I can run it in Parallels,) and Microsoft Office for Windows.
My Compaq laptop, on the other hand, came with OEM Windows, which Microsoft made very little on, and I bought Office for it. Nowhere near as much money as I spent on my Mac!
Microsoft loves the idea of dual-booting *AND* virtualizing on a Mac, it means more full-cost sales for them, not OEM sales. Now, if Apple starts selling Boot Camp and/or Parallels pre-loaded, with OEM copies of Windows, THEN Microsoft will become indifferent. Either way, they're making money.
As soon as someone releases a true replacement for MS Office on the Mac, then Microsoft will start to take notice. As soon as CrossOver for Mac gets funding from Apple, Microsoft will revolt.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Are you ok?
I don't mean to be pedantic, but especially since you claim to be a Mac OS fanboy: OS 8-style windows (which lasted mostly unchanged through Mac OS 9.2*) did not allow resizing from any side. What they did was allow dragging from any point on the window border that was neither a widget (e.g., the close box or the windowshade box) nor the drag corner. Current incarnations of Mac OS X do have a kind of modern take on this design decision: brushed-metal windows can be dragged from any part of the brushed-metal surface, for example, and applications with unified toolbars (e.g., Mail, Xcode, System Preferences, and iTunes 7) can be dragged from anywhere in their toolbars.
Interestingly, the developer previews for Rhapsody did allow resizing windows from any edge. I don't remember for sure, but I think this functionality was removed before the oft-forgotten Mac OS X Server 1.0 shipped, replaced by Mac OS 8-style dragging behavior. I could be wrong, though. If I am, this is likely what you're thinking of.
* Mac OS 8.5 added the proxy icon to the title bar for document windows, but did not change any existing window behavior.
any more that McDonald's is afraid of Longhorn Steakhouse taking away all of their business.
Microsoft and McDonald's cater to the low cost, good enough crowd who don't care too much for quality. Apple and Longhorn Steakhouse cater to the high cost, best effort crowd who does care for quality. They are both competing in two totally different markets.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I can tell you that I came from the same outlook it sounds like you have, and I've completely changed my tone in recent years. I used to *love* building my own PCs, and wouldn't even consider anything pre-built. I wanted to configure a system *my* way, and make sure I had all top-quality components in it, etc. etc.
... I bought a Mac Pro. Runs Windows and OS X beautifully, and best of all, it's really well constructed. Nicer case than I'd have if I built my own and quieter too. 1000 watt power supply, removable hard drive trays, easy access to memory slots on riser cards, etc. etc. Yeah, it was expensive, but not bad compared to a comparable quad Xeon workstation from any other vendor. And it saved me a BUNCH of time and hassle doing the system building and setup. Warranty issues? One central place to take care of the whole thing.
But after being in this industry for well over a decade, I find myself not really having the time or patience to mess around with some home-built "mutt" of a computer. For example, the last time I considered upgrading my Athlon-based PC, I realized that I was looking at a whole new motherboard (so it could handle the newer CPUs), a new video card (since AGP was on the way out), new memory, and a new power supply that could handle the larger power requirements. Oh, and they were moving to SATA for hard drives too, so I'd only have one IDE port if I wanted to keep my EIDE drives. At this point, you're not re-using anything except maybe the case itself and a floppy drive if you "upgrade".
Instead of starting over totally from scratch, running around buying or ordering all those parts
I still own 5 computers used for my consulting business, but I now just use a MacBook with Parallels + Windows + Linux -- works for me for about 95% of my work. I don't even bother (usually) using my Mac as an X Window client for Linux: now, I just run Linux under Parallels, as needed. Same for Windows.
One thing: Microsoft still makes money from this arrangement (the Windows license fee) so it is not like this is a totally bad situation for them.
Being able to copy and paste between Windows and Mac applications is useful, as is an optional shared file system.
For software developers not focussed on the Windows market, this is a great setup. I use Common Lisp, Ruby, and Java - all portable to many OS platforms, so I usually work on OS X.
oh ok sorry
The fact of the matter is that apple is too controlling. I like the apple hardware minus the single mouse button, but I will never convert not because apple is a bad company but because apple will never open their system up to the tools that I need. Most of my engineering applications can't run in OSX or any other mac OS. I know you can run windows on a mac but why would I, if I was running two operating systems it would just make my life harder plus being a person who knows their way around a PC I have a lot more wiggle room then I would with a mac. The other thing to take note of is that you can buy a PC of the same power as Mac at about half the price so until Apple addresses that businesses and tech savvy people wont be jumping the Microsoft bandwagon. Now if you want to bring up the apple accessories line all I have to say is look elsewhere again the i-pod and i-tv have competitors that offer way more for your buck, whether it be an Xbox-360 or any of the hundreds of mp3 players available. All that said I will give Apple credit for ease of use and ascetics, in fact for the technology impaired apple is a great company. In fact if the price wasn't so ridiculous on Apple's computers then I would have bought one for my mother.
Well, you might be attributing too much to the gaming market as well. Don't get me wrong, it's a big market and people who buy gaming rigs tend to push the bleeding edge of hardware. For some of us old folks, gaming on a PC has absolutely no interest whatsoever. A lot of people don't need the bleeding edge of hardware -- they need decent software that's easy to use.
In my opinion, Apples are coming bundled with a lot more software which is relevant to what people want to do. Handling your digital photos, movies, e-mail, and some light productivity software is probably what a lot of people want. I've been waiting got the right time to add a Mac Mini to my network -- it doesn't need to be huge, it can share disk space with the other critters on my network. But, I want the OS and the apps that come with it. I'm willing to pay a premium for that 'underpowered' machine.
I can't even fathom what you're doing with your machine. And, it is certainly not representative of what I and loads of other people do with out home machines.
I think Mac is currently in the midst of breaking into the market in serious quantity. The fact that this thread exists tells me it is.
I think you might also be missing what older people are willing to pay for a machine which doesn't give them troubles. Old ladies routinely seem to buy Cadillacs, because that's what their husband always bought and they like them. If I had an old grandma who wanted a computer and could afford to put up the cash, I'd absolutely steer her towards a Mac -- because it won't contribute to er early demise with all of the frustration.
You are a developer, and probably a gamer. But, you're also not representative of the rest of the consumer market for computers. I'm a developer at work -- but at home, I'm a light casual user who doesn't really tax his machines all that much: my XP box running at equivelant to around 2.8 GHz (AMD CPU) with 1GB of RAM is more than I've ever needed at home. My even slower FreeBSD box with 768 MB of RAM is just as zippy. I would personally never spend $2k on a machine (my last few have been less than $500 CDN), but I might be willing to go up a couple of price points for a Mac.
The whole point of this thread is that for a lot of people, the Mac offers a very attractive alternative to a Windows machine. For the people who really will do some web surfing, mail, a little light word processing, and handling all of this new-fangled digital media they still don't quite understand, the Mac is an exceptionally good choice.
Well, considering the revenues Apple has been pulling down (even if you discount the revenue from iTMS), and considering entire Universities are announcing they're going all Mac, I think you might find yourself wrong on that statement. Apple has been in 'real' businesses for a few decades now.
Apple aren't trying to supplant Microsoft as the dominant operating system. They're trying to make a niche for themselves of people who want something a little different out of their machines. Personally, that hipster marketing campaign makes me really wish I had one. There will always be a market for the big, honking PC rigs. But, there will always be a market for what Apple is selling as well.
You are entitled to your own opinion. Cancel or allow.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
microsoft could give a flying fark where you run their os, as long as you buy one.
Yeah... unless... now you decide you won't be buying their next one, or any of their software in the future.
Twinstiq, game news
And regarding multimedia software and editing - you would not believe the difference! For professionals and amateurs alike working with video, photos and sound the Mac beats everything out there. Do you know anyone in the industry at all?Absolutely not! Even with comparable Intel C2D + 2GB of RAM my MBP boots way faster than any of my Windows PCs! And I keep them mean and lean.
On the other hand the Linux distributions I have tried have been much slow(er) to boot. But then again I never bothered to configure them properly.You mean like installing Linux on a Compaq? Or changing the hardware configuration on a Windows Vista PC? Besides most people on Macs don't need to hack anything - they just work. The hardcore gamers are all on their PCs anyway, let's just agree to disagree.
....Convincing me or them...
You are them. What is this "or"? You miss the point if you think I care about convincing you. I thought my information might be useful to third parties.
This isn't anything new, there have been DOS and Windows emulators on many products over the years. Amiga, OS/2, etc.
The downside is, as a development company given a choice of limited resources and the realization that Mac users can run Windows software, but not vice versa. What do you target?
Windows, obviously.
Without development of software specifically for the Mac platform, the Mac will never have an edge that pushes it. So in effect, Microsoft has already won.
Remember, it's not the OS... It's the software that runs on top of the OS.
Here's my take.
.NET component that plugs into Exchange and Sharepoint, and does the work of both. Visual Studio .NET helps with that.
:)
Apple can't touch Microsoft until they develop enterprise level applications. I know in a nutshell, that it's maybe not the most popular thing to say on Slashdot (the Microsoft lovers we all are here!), but I feel it's true.
Microsoft offers businesses a 'suite' of products. One that complements another. You have Windows as a base. Then on top of that, you have Office (still the best in class -- for now). On top of Office, you run document collaboration with Sharepoint. You run form wizards with Infopath and further with Exchange. Then you can develop a
Okay, it's simplistic to be sure. But Apple has right now, OS X. And it's a great desktop OS -- better than Vista and FAR better than XP. Better than Linux too (though I'm putting on my flamesuit as we speak!).
For graphic designers and video editors, their home is on a Mac. The applications that are available like Final Cut and things like that are simply not available on the PC in the same form. Thus, in the corporate world those people in the marketing departments who design templates in Quark or Illustrator, or Photoshop, likely use a Mac. But the people who work with financial calculations, metering, forecasting, and even a lot of administration use Windows. It's because they need Excel to do their number crunching. They write VBA macros that are simple and easy to create to get their numbered 'modeled' to what they are looking for.
Apple doesn't have that ability yet. When a person comes home from work, familiarity is always a good selling point. Businesses will use whatever helps them to get the job done with the least amount of money and headache (time is a cost too). So when Bob comes home from forecasting the next quarter's sales model in Excel, a familiar home to him is a Windows machine.
The second obstacle is the open nature of PCs. While Windows is a closed operating system, you can use almost any hardware you like with it. Buy a motherboard, graphics card, and RAM... and you can do it yourself. If a new game comes out, and your PC is struggling with it... you can open it up, buy an off-the-shelf graphics card and boom! You're in business and the game runs faster. Until Apple offers this ability it's going to be difficult to convince people to go their route -- to a completely closed environment. Now I know you can do some upgrades on a Mac, but not to the extent of a PC. And frankly as time goes by, and we all know that this generation will be far more computer savvy than the previous generation, and the next one even more so -- that people are going to know more about open source (a big plus), more about general computing, and more about what bang you get for your buck.
Right now Dell sells you a full PC for $350 shipped, with a monitor. And most people buy Dells. Until we get to the point where Macs can be had whitebox for $350, I don't see them overtaking PCs any time soon. And besides, who's going to pay extra $650 if they are only surfing the web and checking email? Oh wait... I did
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Here are some more words for you:
Step 1. Take any USB mouse with two or more buttons.
Step 2. Plug it into any mac.
Step 3. Use it.
Step 4. There is no step 4.
On a mac laptop:
Step 1. Place two fingers on the trackpad.
Step 2. click on the mouse button while keeping the two fingers on the trackpad.
Step 3. Observe a right click menu popup.
Step 4. There is no Step 4.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"No one will use a product at home that is not used in business without good reason. "
That statement is just dumb. I'm not going to even bother to respond to it.
"People forget that one of the biggest buyers of systems in the government, and we are always swapping hardware and shuffling systems around. At home I run a dual core 64 bit laptop, and it's barely up to par, but it's better then my friends MACBook Pro."
That's funny you feel that way. Not sure where you work, but where i am developers are jumping over each other to get Mac laptops or pro stations and a few have even paid for them out of their pocket.
It's funny you bag on Mac hardware (which is fine) but at the end by this statement I can see why you say that: "I run Linux at home and it's a headache going between XP and Ubuntu, but it's worth it because it's free and stable." I don't think you know elegance and design if it walked up to you and gave you a donkey-punch.
"It's just not feasible to use Java to do something when I know it will be slower and require more overhead then C++, Pearl, or
As far as Java and slow, nobody in their right mind would say that Java on Desktop is great, but there is nothing wrong with running it on the server. Web pages will run just as fast w/Java as they do with C# and if your writing web apps in C++ I question the credibility of your opinion. You made comment of your development starting to move web based, our development has been web based since 98 and we have worked with Perl/PHP then moved onto Java about 6 years ago.
Now we're making the same transition again from Java to Ruby on Rails. We've launched our second large scale RoR based project, the productivity of our programmers has more than doubled moving from Java to RoR with the only expense being slightly slower runtime (which for our application and requirements isn't a big deal, we're not Yahoo or Google). Anyone who's actually making decisions based on $ will see really quickly that the real expense is the dumb-ass programmer that's being paid $100k to write web applications in C++ when they can be done in 1/20th the amount of time with the right tools.
As a matter of fact, as a business the level of rapid deployment we can do now having improved our framework has given us new oppurtunity for growth into services we in the past had to leave alone due to lack of developer resources.
I can buy 4 dell 850 rack (XEON's with 2 gigs ram) servers for the LESS than the cost of 4 weeks of one of our engineers, a productive software stack for development so far outweighs the cost of hardware I can't imagine that anyone even brings it up anymore for run of the mill business-solution web-based applications.
Enjoy your C++ web development
Obvious ridiculous hyperbole aside, Apple really doesn't compete with MS for anything aside from iPods vs Zunes. Apple is competing against HP, Dell, etc, not really against Microsoft. Sooner or later the tyrannical management of apple will face the music and stop selling computer hardware, that will be a great day when apple can start to compete with MS.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I hate to say this, but I can't take anything you say seriously on any computer/developer-related commentary when you call Perl "Pearl" and keep referring to the company Apple as "MAC" ("If MAC wanted to break into the market in any serious quantity"...) You don't even call them Mac... it's not a FUCKING ACRONYM -- made worse by the fact that MAC is a legitimate acronym in the industry for something COMPLETELY UNRELATED.
And I doubt you know what "64-bit" even means, but the MBPs are 64bit machines with 64bit processors and they can run 64bit apps in with access to 64bit memory address space in OSX today.
For the price of a full version of Windows Vista I can almost buy an entire Mac Mini, OS + software and all. There is nothing inexpensive about Windows. Have you seen the hardware requirements for Vista? Have you ever purchased MS Office? Microsoft charges more for software than anyone else I can think of.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
And I doubt you know what "64-bit" even means, but the MBPs are 64bit machines with 64bit processors and they can run 64bit apps in with access to 64bit memory address space in OSX today.
While I disagree with much of what the GP said I also had to make a comment of this statement. Unfortunately it's not only Windows users who have the wrong info on Mactels. A few months ago I went into an Apple store and asked one of the employees there if the version of Leopard for Intel based Macs will be 32 or 64 bit. She said Core 2 Duos were only 32 not 64 bit cpus.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Right as rain.
Core 2 Duos have the 64 bit extensions. Don't believe what people in the Apple Store tell you. Even though they call them geniuses, they're just techs with a knowledge born from proprietary manuals.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
1) I care about the internal components of my system and having my say as to what goes where to do what. I don't want a prebuilt system. I stopped buying premade's when I was in highschool, almost 10 years ago. 2) My PC works with anything I plug into it - sure I need to install the odd driver but when it comes down to it there's nothing I can't make work with my computer in Windows. 3) When it breaks I know where it broke and I am responsible for fixing it - none of this carry it into the store and let them fuck around with it bullcrap. 4) Software software software. Sure everything that I can run on a PC can run on a Mac, but lets be honest, playing games on a crappy emulator doesn't count. Sure, there are Mac versions of Word and shit, but I'd rather stick to a copy of Open Office anyways. 5) I make my PC look how I want it to look. http://i.treehugger.com/files/th_images/junnaMedia 2.jpg vs http://images.apple.com/ca/imac/gallery/images/gal lery1imac20060109.jpg ... No question in my mind.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
I work for a company that has, as I understand it, the single largest install base of Macs at least in North America. And no, it's not Pixar or something similar. It's a greeting card company.
I once competed fruitlessly in the OS religious wars. Now I'm agnostic (except that I think all monolithic kernel OSes are destined for replacement by Microkernels, such as the academic effort: Minix). But there's one thing that tells me this won't fly quite like predicted: There's limited Enterprise support.
In the MS world, we have tools like SMS for automated application deployment. In the Mac word, AFAIK, there are no such tools (or they suck by comparison). We actually wrote our own, using SSH, FTP, and scripts. But that means we have to have the support of our own mass-deployed tool as well. It's such a shame that Apple hasn't built a similar tool (or bought ours from us and then licensed it).
~
Core 2 Duos have the 64 bit extensions. Don't believe what people in the Apple Store tell you. Even though they call them geniuses, they're just techs with a knowledge born from proprietary manuals.
Oh, I knew she didn't know what she was talking about. I went in and asked because I knew C2Ds were 64 bit. She wasn't one of the geniuses though, just a "sales clerk".
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yeah, I have a Mac. A powerbook. I use an HP laptop for everything though, the Mac is mostly just for when I feel like playing.
The buzz on the street is not going to convert me. I see how slick the interface is, I have a lot of software for it (have spent about $4k on it in the last year, actually). I see all the little apps that are out there, things like Quicksilver, and yeah, they do some cool stuff. And yes, the BSD terminal is a little better than cygwin once you understand where they put all the stuff.
The reason I will never switch is simple: I had to support Power PC macs running the computer lab in college. Those POS machines were nearly impossible to operate reliably for over 6 months. Hearing Extents B Tree still gives me the willies. Man, my frist girlfriend was only interested in me becuase I saved a couple papers for her and knew how to keep the things running. I used to tell people the machines were dead when they weren't just so I could keep it. The sad thing is, by that point, people beleived me without a question, and I graduated with about 40 Power PCs stashed in my pad. Made a table out of them, was more useful that trying to use them for computing.
Apple may have gotten something right for the moment, but I still think they are just a bunch of design junkies who take quality seriously only when they have to. Between the original generation of iPods that only lasted 12 months and the friggin power macs, you are dealing with a company that has sold way too much crap that people believed was gold. With Microsoft, their stuff is crap too, but at least a) there are a lot of people who know what the crap parts are and can tell you and b) people aren't deluded about it being anything more than a crap machine, like they are with a Mac. I will give it another decade before I come to rely on one of those things for anything more than resting my drink on it, I don't believe this nonsense about them making better machines will last.
So, here's the kicker. Every time I say anything about how much garbage Apple has pushed over the years, the Slashdot Mac Mafia teams up to mod me down. Go ahead, just more proof of my point that Mac's perceived excellence is based on something besides operability.
M
Wisdom of the crowds? Mentality of the mob? What's the difference?
Well, I think that both Rhapsody and the original OS X Server had the resize from anywhere feature. NeXT had the resize from the 2 bottom corners and from the bottom, which was better than what we have now.
Couldn't MS just limit their software to running on Non-Macs, just as Apple has limited their software to running on only macs. It would be a dirty trick, but If Apple can do it, why not MS. Sure MS is a monopoly, but if Apple wants to play the game of what software can run on which hardware, then I don't see why MS shouldn't have the same priviledge.
Ah but there's a big difference between Apple and Microsoft. MS is a software business whereas Apple is a systems business. Apple designs and makes hardware as well as software and makes sure they play well together.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Some evidence:
MacBook 2.0GHz:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
1GB DDR2-667
80GB HDD
Dual-layer burner
13.3 glossy widescreen
Integrated 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 1.3 + EDR
Integrated webcam
Magnetic power cord
Intel GMA950 graphics
Total: $1299
Dell XPS M1210
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
1GB DDR2-667
80GB HDD
Dual-layer burner
12.1" glossy widescreen
Integrated 802.11 a/b/g
NO bluetooth available as upgrade
Integrated webcam
NO magnetic power cord
Intel GMA950 graphics
Total: $1493
I chose the XPS M1210 because of the form factor. Dell's closest performer to the MacBook in question is a 15.4", and from my experience talking to MacBook owners, most feel that 15.4" is too large and immobile for their tastes (though I personally use a 15.4" MacBook Pro). Many PC users complain when I make the magnetic power cord as a bullet point, but I think it's valid. I've known multiple Dell users who have, in college environments, libraries and whatnot, trashed their laptops by someone tripping over the cord and yanking pins off the motherboard internally. There is a mini-industry repairing these things in my college for those not covered under warranty. I know personally that the MagSafe has saved this laptop at least twice since I got it.
Allow me to price out the alternative...
Dell Latitude D620 (look in the small business section)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
1GB DDR2-533
80GB HDD
Dual-layer burner
14.1" glossy widescreen
Integrated 802.11 g only (no a/b/n)
Integrated bluetooth 1.3 + EDR
NO webcam
NO magnetic power cord
The above machine runs XP SP2, since it won't let me configure a Vista machine with bluetooth options (driver issues still?)
I've tried to be as objective as possible with this comparison. From this I think it's clear that the Macs are very competitive. I usually get a lot of people complaining that you can buy a cheapo Dell for $600 but can't do so for a Mac... but that's not really an issue with Macs being too expensive, more of one with Apple not servicing your particular demographic.
Intel GMA950 graphicsTotal: $1268
Why not also make money on software?
Apple tried once, in the mid '90s Apple licensed some companies to make Mac clones. However Apple found out they lost more in lost hardware sales than they made in MacOS licenses. So when they brought Steve Jobs back he put a stop to licensing. While I'd like to see OSX be able to run on most any PC I don't see how Apple could survive as a business AND make sure OSX just works. Apple is able to make sure it "just works" because they control both hardware and the OS. MS isn't able to do this so Windows may work fine on one PC but crashs on another.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Sorry, I misunderstood.
I don't think crushing Microsoft is part the business plan. Let's put aside Apple's consumer electronics push as symbolized by the dropping of "Computer" from the company name for a moment. First, Apple can happily double its market share off the switchers disgruntled with Microsoft woeful security issues or its convoluted and belated Vista solution. Apple would not rule the market but it would show growth and delight investors. Second, Apple has not or does it show any intention of partnering with the other big OEMs to offer OSX with their desktops. Moreover, they show no signs of switching the kernel to Linux to take advantage of the pool of OS drivers necessary for releasing Leopard in the wild. They are not including a win32 compatibilty layer, releasing a fully feature office suite, making a concerted push into enterprise computing, or doing any other action to throw down with Microsoft. Lets not forget that Microsoft can afford to screw up for a long time before there is any appreciable exodus. Thus, I don't the see logic behind any assertion of the end of Microsoft dominance but I understand the sentiment. Microsoft has woefully proven it does not deserve to be the de facto desktop standard and Apple arguably does have a better OS. But, all the posting on slashdot will never change the status quo.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
i live in manhattan, and everytime i drop by a starbucks in a *younger* part of town (e.g. East Village, Chelsea), i see approx 40-60% of those laptops are Macs
.... like my mom. for her birthday, i tried to convince her to learn MacOS, but she insisted on a VAIO
i think the bigger problem with market share is with those who refuse to learn a Mac because they're too accustomed to using Windows their entire life
then of course there are those people who need Windows to play Warcraft more hours than sleeping..... =)
With a quote like that, maybe you should worry about slashdotters ;-)
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
I can see the logic in your reply; Windows users especially have a tough time with the Maximize button on OSX windows. Windows users expect that Maximize means take up the entire screen (which is where I agree with your point).
I suppose I'll adjust to how Macs maximize windows when I get a new one. However when I basically switched from Macs to Windows PCs there wasn't really an adjustment needed for this. And yes, I switched from Macs to Windows years ago. I was using Macs before MS even released Windows. However when it actually came tyme for me to buy a system I made the mistake of buying a Windows PC and not a Mac. At that tyme though Gateway was buying the Amiga from Escom the German company that owned the Amiga and I thought they would revitalize it, bring it back from the dead, and Amigas were my favorite Computer/OS. In getting a Gateway I thought I could use it as credit when they released a new Amiga. I could then run Amiga OS, MacOS, and Windows on the same computer. BIG mistake, Gateway wasted their money and did nothing with it, thier tech support sucks as well. Unfortunately I compounded my mistake by staying with Windows.
FalconShould there be a Law?
What I want to know is how the fuck they managed to spell PERL wrong.
You can't take the sky from me.
I'm glad to see numbers, but where's the link? ;) Never mind, found it.
The mac does pretty well in that comparison. I built your Dell for under $1200, maybe you had XP Pro? I started from the bottom-of-the-line d620, which permits Home. Still, it's less of a difference than I expected.
Ah, here's the reason. You're not giving the d620 credit for all it's ruggedizing features (shock-mounted hard drive, magnesium-alloy case. More information here). It would be better to compare the Macbook to an Inspiron E1405 like this one, which has the same specs (I even got the upgrade to 667 MHz memory, though I've read that it doesn't improve performance) for almost $300 less.
Also, if you require a video card or if you don't want a DVD burner, the d620 gains ground against the Macbook.
By the way, what's so special about the black one? If you get the $150 upgrade from the 80 GB to the 120 GB harddrive in the white one, it's the same machine for $50 less. Is it just a style thing?
(And why is the hard drive upgrade so expensive anyway? $150 for 40 GB more space is insane.)
Yawn. Another Slashdot pule about Microsoft. How trite.
Once Apple starts gaining more than a token market share, maybe MS can start worrying.
Once Apple starts putting out something other than consumer-level crap, maybe MS can start worrying.
Once Apple starts selling stuff which isn't horribly marked up, maybe MS can start worrying.
Until then, Microsoft has nothing to fear from a niche market monopolist like Apple.
Windows would be infinitely more stable and an infinitely more consistent user experience if it weren't for the fact that it's made to run on *everything*.
That doesn't explain why Linux -- which runs on more hardware even than Windows -- is more stable than Windows.
Then why can't I find a DL DVD RW for my Lnux box? Several months ago I bought a PC with Linux preinstalled however it only came with a CD so I've been looking for a dual/double layer DVD to install but haven't found one that I know will work with Linux. Basically I want a dvd drive for backup purposes but seeing as how I've got more than 100 GBs on my hdd using a dl dvd to make backups is a lot better than using an old dvd drive.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I don't think it's fair to compare building your own computer to collecting stamps.
Many people build computers out of necessity as opposed to a hobby (although some do it for fun as well). Building a PC from scratch allows you to play with many variables which can be extremely beneficial to you such as: maximize the cost/benefit ratio, bring overall costs down, plan ahead for future upgrades, minimize heat dissipation, minimize power consumption, minimize size, maximize performance (whether it be for games, CAD, scientific computation, etc), choose how the computer looks, minimize noise, minimize boot times (faster hard drives, etc).
As far as I understand it, MS mainly controls the market by maintaining a hegemony in both the standard business Office suite, and in the ubiquitous operating system: Windows. Now, sure, OS X is a little slicker than Vista, et al, and I'm sure there are some other competitors in the Office suite market (that don't really matter, in actuality), but I don't see millions of Americans (or Europeans, etc.) going out and buying a Mac. Definitely not when Ubuntu Feisty Fawn is free, fast, prettier, and runs 99% of what everyone needs out of the box, including Open Office. I just switched, mainly out of boredom (and because Vista was such a disappointment), and I really can't see any reason to switch back, and NO reason to go out and buy a Mac. I'm definitely not recommending any commercial OS for family and friends, either.
There's finally a FOSS OS for the rest of us. It's Feisty, I really don't see how all the "also rans" like Apple are going to compete, and I really don't see how it will be possible for MS to continue it's hegemony, either.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Score 0? This is one of maybe 4 intelligent comments on this entire thread.
He said when profit was flat or negative, not the stock price. Yahoo doesn't carry more than the last three year's income statements, but those show still growing revenues. Not huge profit growth, but not flat either. The net income number is still an enormous one. The tax bill increased by 1.5 Billion from one year to the next.
But of course, the fact that the stock price has been so flat is clearly a dissapointment for Microsoft and it's because they've failed to offer anything truly compelling for customers. Google and Apple are the ones coming up with the great new ideas. That's why Microsoft keeps downplaying what the others are doing and acting like it's not a big deal that they themselves are failing to.
No, Windows is an attempt to run on a huge range of hardware... You don't know what you're getting from one install to the next.
So what if we were to only support Windows on our own, proprietary, hardware. Apple's model is nice, but it's not very *open* now is it?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Don't forget that the same kind of tools made it possible for Tim Berners Lee to finish the first-ever working server/browser/editor in three months time - 16 years ago!. (read the sixth paragraph of his bio).
Don't forget we are now 16 years later, and NextStep has grown into Mac OS X.
--------
* Sigh *
Apple sells computers, Microsoft does not.
Microsoft sells software. Apple sells computers with software. (Anti-trust suit for apple anyone? Oh right, governments don't buy Apple because they cost too much... so Apple doesn't get sued by governments)
Apples, oranges (pun intended).
Judging by their advertising Apple does not really know much about computers either, they seem to think that the only OS that a PC can run is Windows. Its like they've never heard of Unix, Linux, BSD... etc.
It'd be nice to see this run on it.
As I read your comments your substantive complaint about Macs is summarized in these two sentences.
"Those POS machines were nearly impossible to operate reliably for over 6 months."
and
"Hearing Extents B Tree still gives me the willies."
Please elaborate so that everyone understands exactly how bad this is.
In particular, can you explain what you mean by "impossible to operate reliably for over 6 months"
and exactly how the alternatives were better in this regard ?
What does "Extents B Tree" mean ?
uh, doesn't using Vista on a mac with Parallels Desktop violate the virtualization section of Vista's license? (barring Enterprise or Ultimate edition)
-Tony
You cannot submit a report back to a client which looks like trash in *their* version of Word. Word 2003 is *not* Word 2004. And the upcoming Word 2008 will *not* be Word 2007. Any alteration in a document which is advising investors to spend billions on a particular equity is not acceptable.
I have trouble understanding why people insist on sending documents in editable format, whether word, rtf or whatever.
If they saved as PDF then the document will look the same everywhere, you don't get bloated word documents with all the editing intact; MS Word defaults to 'fast save' where all your deletions and changes are viewable by the recipient (why are people not more concerned about that??) and bloats the size of the document significantly.
Unless you need the recipient to make changes to the document there is no point in sending editable documents!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
It's about fundamentals. And yes, I know a lot about the stock market (MBA/Finance, not to brag, just to back it up).
In the short term, the stock market is a voting machine. In the long term, it is a weighing machine. .
This is a well known quote by both Ben Graham AND Warren Buffet.
What you describe is called "pumping" a stock. It's illegal and usually done on pink sheet stocks with low volumes. And it is most certainly not what the stock market is "COMPLETELY" about. Not even close. If you don't know that, then you don't know shit about the stock market so quit talking. Stick with the Mac comments.
I haven't found the hardware to be better than anything else either. In fact my experience with Apple hardware has been that it breaks more often than other brands. My iBook has the only LCD display I own with dead pixels. Everyone I know with Macs has had it in the shop at one point or another (everyone in my company has a Mac, among other computers). They're like Ferrari's, nice to look at but a bitch to keep running.
My experience with Macs is the opposite of your's. When I was a heavy user of Macs, from the mid '80s to the mid '90s, I never had either hardware or software problems with a Mac. I bought my first Mac in 1992. It was a used Mac SE30 and I used it until the floppy drive died in 2000, 8 years it lasted me and the only problem I had with it was the fd dying. My second Mac I also bought used, it's a PowerMac 7300/200 I bought after the SE30 died in 2000. I used it until January 2006, last year. I got more than 5 years use out of it.
However with Windows PCs my experiences have been much worse. I bought my first Windows PCs in 1997, a brand new tower and laptop. In the first year the laptop's motherboard and hdd had to be replaced. And it wasn't a no name off brand PC, it was from a then leading PC OEM, Gateway. I replaced it in 2000 with an HP Pavilion. Unfortunately it too had the hdd and motherboard die in the first year. Since then I have replaced the hdd twice and RAM three tymes. The only PC I have not had hardware problems with is the first tower I got, back in 1997. However it has a DEC Alpha cpu running NT 4.0 and was built by Microway. Because the cpu's an Alpha not an Intel or AMD I was not able to install many of the programs I tried to install therefore I have hardly used it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You see that a lot on mutual fund disclaimers - "past performance is no guarantee of future results". But it is an excellent indicator. Far more reliable than gut feelings and media hype.
but WAY less reliable than, I don't know....say, the earnings????? Companies (and stocks) are quantifiable on some level yet you act like there are no objective measures out there to figure out the right stock price. The data is right in front of you and it has nothing to do with buzz, marketing, or anything "special". It's all about how much money (and wealth) the company returns to shareholders. In short -- earnings. Everything you ever read about stocks are nothing more than "methods" to accurately assess what I just described.
A stock's price, over the long term, will accurately represent it's underlying company's fundamentals with respect to it's business and future prospects.
imagine that most people would run Windows in Parallels do you think that programmers would even bother to write/compile programs for Windows or they would write them directly for Mac (or Linux)?
I don't know how things will work out but isn't it possible programmers will just say they can create programs for Windows then if a Mac user want to run it then they can just run it in Parallels? As for myself, I'm switching from Windows to both Linux and Macs, a few months ago I got a new tower PC with Linux preinstalled and for a laptop I plan on getting a Macbook Pro. If the tyme comes when I need to run a Windows program, and I don't believe there is a Windows app that an equivilent app does not exist for Linux or Macs, then I'll run it in Crossover.
FalconShould there be a Law?
As long as Apple lets users boot Vista, they lost.
The first problem here is that applications available on OSX and Vista, are performning faster under Vista than OSX. Not such a good warm feeling for the OSX users.
The second problem is game manufacturers are impressed with XNA development and for the first time have real reason to move away from OpenGl. And since Mac users can be customers as well since they can boot to Windows, why write and OSX version, especially if the OSX version is always going to run slower.
And there is the old OS/2 factor. Being 'too' Windows compatible didn't help IBM nor garner software development support.
MS has nothing to fear, and at the worest case, MS drop Win32 and becomes the new *nix with NT.
I use a mac for most of my computing needs, but there's still a few pieces of windows only software that I have to use.
I'm courious, what apps do you need that there is not a Mac equivilent app? Mind you I'm not asking for specific programs like Office but instead what you need to do with the program such as word processing/writing. While there may be specific programs that are highly tailered for a specific industry, say maybe for drycleaners or machine control, that is Windows only I know of no general consumer or business app where a Mac version does not exist. Linux yes, it is missing some apps like a photo editor for pro photograhers, but not for Macs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Perhaps that's how it should be. Certainly, the OS should get out of the way and let you get on with something productive. However, in practice, we're not always very close to that ideal.
I use XP at work every day, and every day it gets in my way in countless little ways, from snatching focus when I'm typing, to making my Explorer windows bigger each time, to taking unnecessarily long to unminimise apps, to getting confused about whether I'm pressing any of the control keys after switching away from Remote Desktop, to freezing the entire window manager when an app is slow responding, to continually popping up windows on the wrong desktop (using MS's own Virtual Desktop Manager), to presenting lots of unnecessary and annoying fake directories while pretending that my desktop is the root of the filesystem, to making it unreasonably hard to enter accented characters, to... to... Well, I could rant on for hours more!
I use Mac OS X at home, and though it's far from perfect, it annoys me far less because it keeps out of my way more. I'm doing different things, of course, so it's hard to compare; but I certainly feel more productive with it.
Now, I obviously have more emotional investment in a machine that I chose and bought than in one I'm expected to use at work. But I've been using Windows regularly for over twice as long (since 3.11) as Mac OS X (since the Public Beta), so it's not that I'm more familiar or more experienced with the Mac.
I haven't used Vista for more than a few minutes. (Not that I'm bothered.) Any Vista users care to mention whether they thing Vista has a better 'gets out of my way and lets me work' score than XP?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
under 5% of the market share and 150 million in
a re-update/. miss/miss07.html
debt to ms - microsoft isn't worried.
http://www.macrumors.com/2006/06/01/mac-market-sh
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/web.whatnext/hit
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Apple = Hardware
Microsoft = Software
Here's some anecdotal for ya: Two days ago I was writing a lab report in word. There were all kinds of delays- copying and pasting was especially slow. Last semester I used TextEdit and Pages for all my writing. This semester all my lab documents are emailed in Word so I thought I'd try it out (again...I use word intermittently). so I'm writing and all of a sudden I though "This is stupid, I'm waiting to paste." So between that and the goof text formatting tools I hopped back on pages where my only real complaint is having to use the font panel instead of a font menu. Still it's fast.
I'm using a clean 2.0GHz 20" G5 iMac with Mac Office 2004.
I constantly think to myself that word processing should be a freebie and should be excellent (is it really that hard? oOO blah blah. Mimicing Microsoft is not a way to make good products- although sometimes I suppose that's not the goal).
I had a Gateway for a while in the 90's. I agree that they were absolutely terrible! I hadn't thought about it from a Mac to PC perspective. Well, you can always switch back right?
Yes I am switching, though I'm more switching away from Windows than to Macs. Several months ago I got a desktop, well tower really, PC with Linux preinstalled. And for a laptop I plan on getting a Macbook Pro.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have seen this debate *every month* of every single year on line since 1994.
..
They have the same structure, same debating points, same assumptions, and have always been unrelated to the facts and bore little resemblence to the outcomes.
If you look like the art-school drop out on the right, you like macs..if you looks like the geek on the left, you don't.
Maybe thats all there is to it? I mean, I want to listen to the arguments, but why bother?
Remember when it was going to be java terminals? or PowerPC? Or OS/2?
In any event, MS is a huge ass software company, and apple just changed its name from "computers"..
You are hereby de-certified as a Macintosh Fanboy! Objective thinking is not allowed!
The kids are right about peripherals, at least the ones that matter to them. All printers work (zeroconf is in all major printers by default now and they just show up in the Rendezvous browser... no drivers needed, no ip address, etc), all major cameras open up iPhoto when plugged in to a USB port, iPods duh, and USB sticks are well you see them on your desktop as a drive (no need to navigate to My Computer). Are there any other peripherals? Not for 98% of people out there.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
There is a very real market for a Mac mini-tower-- smaller, lighter, and cheaper than a Mac Pro, but bigger, more powerful, and more serviceable than a Mac mini, and with no monitor attached
I think that's a big market segment Apple is missing. If Apple offered one I'd be real tempted to get one and I've heard the same from others. Another segment they are missing I think is a laptop with a monitor smaller than 13", say 11 or 12".
FalconShould there be a Law?
I can only say I'm happy I'm not paying your salary. C++ sucks for web development. Way too slow to develop and costly to maintain. Pearl[sic] sucks in the maintenance arena. It's a great little scripting language and for single use cases, but for rapidly changing web sites in production - been there, done that, converted to Java and had a good night's sleep. .NET just can't support the load. Try doing 35K concurrent pricing requests with yield management sometime. By the time you get that running, you'll be sucking a block's worth of power. I suppose next you'll tell me that MS SQL is the best DB server ever? (This is a huge joke in case you're too dense to catch it. MS SQL has so many issues no self-respecting architect would allow it in their systems) BTW, those 35K users are served off of 6 physical machines in the app server layer (where your C# code would run) and a single DB machine. There's more to the system, but that's all I'll say.
You sound like a junior programmer. You haven't yet learned enough about large systems to talk realistically about them, and it shows. Just ask anyone who's been supporting a large dynamic web site w/ Perl. It's been done, I know one group, and they don't sleep much. They're also about 8 revisions behind the Java version that went live 3 years ago. For some reason they haven't rolled it over yet.
As for Macs, they seem to be selling just fine, shipping almost 5% of the worldwide laptop market last year. That's 5% of the units, think about what that means in $'s.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Egads - you must have used NT 4.0 post SP1. The initial release was guaranteed to BSOD if you kept it up and running, and didn't run on laptops worth a crap.
I've got SP3 installed.
Of course, if it craps out now I'm up shit creek because MS doesn't support it anymore and I don't have a disk for SP3.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's not entirely true. I'm aware that most of the /.-crowd is US-based, but in Europe this clause in the license is invalid. You can run your Vista as you wish - as long as it is only one copy.
Win XP works pretty well, it's problems are its security holes. So.... if you isolate your XP installation from the net you don't have to worry about updates, WGA and all that. Parallels allows that: Just turn off XP's network connections, and you never need to communicate with M$ again. Of course if you really want to download something for your XP installation, just download it in OSX, and then move it to the XP environment.
So all those people who prefer Apple for reasons a little deeper than fanboy reasons are somehow completely wrong and should be ignored. Ok - maybe that's a significant flaw in MS's own business model.
I have been defenestrating Windows machines for years, but my experience with the Mac Book Pro and Parallels did it: I'm a Mac convert. Aside from cost, at this stage for many usres there is simply no reason to buy a Windows box when you can have a Mac and run Windows on it as a guest OS if necessary. I agree with the author: now that virtualization provides transparent Windows support, this is a turning point for furture of the Desktop.
Incidentally, rather than wait to purchase a copy of Windows from the local CompUSA, I was eager to try out Parallels and used for that purpose an OEM copy of Windows that had been removed from a DELL machine, and then activated Windows XP online by purchasing a product key through the Genuine Advantage program. But that wasn't good enough for Microsoft. Microsoft informed me that I was some sort of criminal: "To convert your counterfeit Windows XP software to a genuine copy of Windows XP using the new Product Key, you will need to download and run the Windows Product Key Update Tool on the same computer you used to purchase the electronic license for Windows XP." The Windows Genuine Advantage Kit for Windows XP Professional I received in the mail the following week contained a letter asserting that I had "submitted a counterfeit report" with my order, and that this report would be "treated as confidential." Moreover, "...Microsoft's anti-piracy team investigates each and every lead we receive. Since investigations are ongoing extremely confidential, we are unable to provide you with the status of the particular lead you have submitted. The length of time to bring about enforcements varies depending on the nature of a particular investigation."
Microsoft's practice of treating paying customers like counterfeiting criminals is a further reason to think of Windows as just another app.
Odd... I'm Goverment (the sort that put man on the moon...) and I'm surrounded by almost nothing but Macs. Sure, we have a few PC's (we're almost all fluent in OS X, XP, and generally Red Hat) there are things that PC's do very well with (e.g. data acquisition is often; however, not always done on a PC). We've found Macs to be life-cycle cost cheaper, supportable with fewer IT folks, more secure (You want to have explain to a bunch of very angry Congress wankers how your latest code or design ended up on the Chinese computers? Guess again), reliable, and more productive. I was a Unix guy when I showed up two decades ago. I was initially appalled at having to use a Mac. Now? I work off a MBP and it just seems fitting that it seems to be the tool of choice for most rocket scientists...
All those Flash games run on Macs just fine. WoW runs. Those who play "real" games don't buy Macs anyway, or know how to install Boot Camp and Windows on a partition.
You make some valid and cogent points, save for one that I strongly disagree with:
Consoles are LAME. Besides the cost of games, the graphic quality, infrastructure, DRM, price, and even the controllers for (at least 2 of 3) of the major consoles out today are vastly A good computer and decent PC peripherals.
There are more, better, and different games that can be played on a computer. And with far better imagery, sound, and physics.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is a key example of how vastly better a PC port is to it's console brethren. The console versions are hardly even fun in comparison!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
They keep making these "I need attention" posts, full of sentiments like:
1. Fear Us, Dammit!
2. We can't exactly MEASURE our gains against MS/Windows, but WE MUST BE GAINING!
3. see above.
It's always the posts that talk about the immeasurable qualities that make me laugh the most. Yes, OSX is stable. Yes, you don't get viruses. No, you don't have games. No, you're set in your graphics mindset. Hell, if I want a dedicated device that does a few things very well and doesn't crash, I'll buy a graphic calculator. As a Windows user, I want options in software and hardware, not a monolithic platform.
This argument will go on forever, but immeasurable factors like hype tend to burn out after a while. Give me decent numbers if you want to be taken anything like seriously.
"*giggle* Good news... I figured out what the thing you just incinerated did..."
Used both quite a bit and find the Unix core of the OS X a better foundation of an OS. Sure a computer is as secure as one makes it. But most of the internet is run on linux / unix systems. Therefore when developing software for apache, mySQL, python, php.... apple is the better. Plus, lots of open source is built on Macs.
Macs are a Lazy man's Linux. Its true, I am lazy and want XCODE and my other web IDEs. I fight my Linux system a bit too much and settled on the Mac.
C# and visual studios + SQL Server pretty Incredible. But to put MS in its place, they are better for Intranets, but can't touch web dev. And notice that AAPL is embracing their developer community. Just got a mac pro quad as a dev box.
Because the only Apple retailer in 300 miles stop selling anything for our Apple that year. Maybe Apple didn't stop selling their Apple ][ line, but there was no way we were getting any new software or hardware. Although we had Compuserve and a hot 300 baud modem, it's not like you could just download new software in those days. Back then, you actually had to find a store.
That is the wrongest Mac fanboi I've ever had the contempt of reading an article by. "Cause we got this great Parallels thing..."
Get real. Buzz means exactly what a Mac evangelist knows: nothing.
And notice that AAPL is embracing their developer community.
Just got a mac pro quad as a dev box. I personally haven't touched C# as a production project yet. From several friends and my admittedly limited experience, I don't think I want to either, at least not until it's gone through another revision or two and adds some basic enterprise level features.
MS SQL is unsuitable for anything of medium load production quality. Why? Because of escalating locks and the overall poor performance per CPU. I happen to know a company that couldn't be more MS oriented that's converting to a non MS DB because their MS SQL DB, partitioned to the point of diminishing returns, can no longer be scaled (they've got 800+ DB servers).
MS just never got big business. They developed a small almost toy-like OS that they leveraged (illegally) into a monopoly, and they've been struggling ever since with making portions of it scale. You can go back to the first versions of NT for the painfully obvious shortcomings of vision. The maximum effective networked set of systems on early NT was 1 network segment (however you masked it, provided you had good network equipment). Routers caused problems with the NT network stack in communicating with clients. Each time they fixed something, they broke something else. They added WINS to get around the router issue, then ran into scalability issues because each client pings the PDC every 5 or 10 seconds or something silly like that. It was also impossible to create a multi-geographic site with WAN links in a single domain when you scaled up to just 5K users that were split among only 4 major sites. (These were big WAN pipes btw, they weren't the problem, the latency and increasing delays of PDC response is what killed it) They "fixed" this by adding ADS. They effectively broke Exchange when they did, because try sending a 250K user mailing list with ADS. (It takes upwards of 3 hours to process just 1K users on the last system I benchmarked, FYI, and it took less than 1 min before ADS).
As for Web Dev, they've just never understood it either, because it contradicts their "prime directive". Web apps almost by definition remove OS lockin, and that's something that's anathema to MS.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Unix/Linux users are ideal converts. You can run a lot of Linux/Unix apps on OS X and you even get Bash.
It's an OS that shows what Linux and Unix systems would be if they had kept up with the rest of the world.
I've given up on Linux for a while, I may return. But the confidence level in the software was low and elements of the OS are just as archaic as DOS and the sad thing is many Linux users like it that way.
I can finally spend my time using my computers OS instead of configuring it.
In Mac OS X, "brushed metal" windows may be moved by dragging their edges (or anywhere else on the brushed metal part of the window); normal Aqua windows are borderless so that doesn't work. Personally I've always felt that having two different kinds of windows like this was pretty stupid; it was obviously a choice they made for visual aesthetics, not usability.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
No, he wasn't willing to drive 300 miles, that was the point. Second it was an AUTHORIZED retailer. They were also a repair center. Third, Apple didn't exactly have a catalogue system in the late 70's, early 80's.
The history of Apple started before the iMac and the internet. Apple had local communities of Apple and Mac users driving them, not web boards. Many times, the VERY few Apple retailers were hubs of finding other Apple users and usually hosted user groups. When Apple started pushing the Mac, most of the retailers dropped any reasonable support for the old Apples and no longer hosted user groups.
Now, in all that history and talking with Apple and Mac users, I always hear how Apple is vastly superior to the PC in every way, people are finally noticing, the community is growing, and Apple is inches from breaking the IBM/Microsoft/whomever stranglehold on the market. And you'd think, 20 years later, we'd have made some headway.
I can't believe you've been flaming me over this. My point, that despite the fact I'm an Apple fan, is that they aren't perfect and every geek has stories about Apple. Not all of those stories are positive. Every time I hear this meme, that Apple is about to break IBM or Microsoft, or whomever's back, I WANT REAL DATA.
I agree that Windows is still a large competitor in the computer world, but Mac is definitely on its tail. I used to be a Windows user and totally disliked Macs. My reasoning for disliking Macs back then was just plain ignorance. I was afraid that it wasn't compatible and I didn't know anyone close to me who had a Mac. But after years of putting up with Window's glitches and bugs, I made the switch to Macs in the summer of 2006. And I'll never go back. Not only is it compatible but it works great and it's easy to use. It's not slow and in my opinion looks cool to. As I look around, more and more people are moving towards Macs. My roommate just made the jump for the same reasons as myself. Don't worry about Windows, it will be just fine, but don't count out Macs.
Last time I used Mac OS X was version 10.2, so yes, I suppose my experience is out of date.
Tunneling is the feature where you can double-click a folder holding down the option key and the folder window behind it closes as the new one opens up. Imagine that you have a folder called "letters" inside of a folder called "docs" and have the "docs" window open. Double-click on "letters" holding down the option key. You'll see that docs closes and letters opens instead of keeping both windows open on your desktop.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;