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Microsoft Losing Big To Apple On Campus
destinyland writes "Apple is closing in on Microsoft's share of operating systems among the computers of incoming freshmen at the University of Virginia, confirming earlier reports of an ongoing trend. A yearly survey shows that among 3,156 freshman who own computers, Microsoft's share is just 56% (down 6%), with Apple's share rising to 43% (up 6%), continuing a six-year pattern. In 2004, it was Microsoft 89% vs. 8% for Apple. 'It seems likely that the Mac-using students will outnumber their Windows cousins this school year,' notes one technology blog, citing a new study showing that 70 percent of college freshman are choosing the Mac. Other interesting data from the Virginia study: In 1997, 26% of incoming freshmen said they didn't own a computer, a number which has now dropped to 0. Laptops now comprise 99% of the computer population. And Linux use has dropped from a high of 2.5% in 2004 to a rounding error this year."
You can run Windows on a Mac when you need.. But if you buy a Mac for the better hardware specs, you might as well play with the Mac OS - which you'll find runs smoother on Mac laptops than any Windows-based laptop I have seen. Just try the touchpad on the newest Mac laptop and you'll see it is far superior to any touchpad on any Windows laptop available now.
Seriously.. the laptops available for Windows fucking suck. They're shit. They're all shit since IBM sold Thinkpad to Lenovo. Dell makes shit. HP makes shit. The consumer 'Best Buy' laptops are shiny shit. The 'enterprise' class laptops are flimsy shit. Nothing available holds a candle to any of the Mac laptops in terms of hardware. They're all too thick or flimsy or get too hot. The only thing Mac is missing that would allow it to take over the enterprise is a docking station (probably because that's against Steve Job's whackjob religion.)
Show me a Windows laptop with hardware that can hold a candle to Mac's current lineup, and I'll buy one. I'm currently using a Dell M4400 and I think it's a flimsy piece of crap that has a formfactor as usable as a potato chip and somehow it gets good reviews. I don't own any Macs - but other developers I work with use them.
Oh ya.. and Windows 7 is a crappy OS that just happens to be less crappy than Vista.
It's really sad.. I went from being the biggest nerd in the world that had to have every latest and greatest gadget to being the most jaded. Every new electronic device from cell phones to laptops is missing features I used to have with an old device. At least Mac is making an attempt to introduce higher quality with newer devices. Every other company is racing to offer the cheapest piece of Chinese shit they can find.
If I haven't affended you a little, it's because I spent so little effort in my rant. Am I the only one that is completely annoyed by the lack of technological progression in consumer electronic devices - both hardware, software, and everything else that has to do with them?
--- We need more Ron Paul!
You also have to remember that this survey was conducted on ONE university, on top of that, there's no information about how this study was done.
At my college (an engineering college) you'll find it nearly impossible to find anyone that uses a mac. 90% or more of the students here have windows based machines, only an odd handful of people have macs. That's for numerous reasons.
1. macs are bloody expensive. A lot of mac models have really nice hardware, but this is completely negated by their price. You can buy a nice windows based laptop for about $800. A comparable mac laptop is somewhere around $1200 at the minimum.
2. macs won't run the software required for a lot of engineering. Now, let's be very clear here. This isn't idiot college admins making windows software mandatory when there are suitable alternatives. The software we use is stuff like solidworks (3d modeling program) and NI labview. These applications have no OSS equivalent. Even if they did, these applications are industry standard so it actually makes a lot of sense to use them.
3. Most of the people here are smart enough not to fall for the hype that apple likes to spew. "Thinking different" is great and all, until your computer costs 3 times as much as everything else and isn't even compatible with what you need to do. People here are generally smart enough not to fall for the "OHHH! SHINY!!!!" factor that macs have going for them.
And now to my second point. How was this study done? Did they survey every student on campus? Did they just ask the people that hung out in the local starbucks (and thus skew it towards mac users)? Did they send an email to the mac users group and ask them what systems they used? Does this university focus on liberal arts, engineering, both? How many people are from each department? I looked it up on wikipedia, but couldn't find detailed statistics. Different professions and fields of study demand different computers. Multimedia generation and editing will be done on mac, engineering stuff will be done on windows, and experimental physics stuff is generally done on linux.
And of course this survey is only about INCOMING FRESHMEN. What about the people that have been there for 3 years? How many people stuck with their mac? How many people found it to be worthless, sold it, and bought a windows machine?
Long story short: This study should be taken about as seriously as political polls.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
http://itc.virginia.edu/wireless/encrypted.html
At the bottom:
*ITC provides limited support for these operating systems to connect to the unencrypted wahoo wireless network.
Sounds like they basically tell incoming freshman, "Don't use 'Linux,' use Windows or Mac OS X, or else we will not help you." Here is something else to consider:
http://www.uvastudentcomputers.com/shop_undergrad.asp?mscssid=30F0745C151949448828BA5BF0423D90
Notice that they place Apple's laptops higher on the page than Dell's or Lenovo's -- and that they choose words like "fastest" and "most powerful" to describe them (compare with the descriptions of other machines). This store is located in UVa's bookstore, and so incoming students are likely to purchase their computers from there. No surprise, then, that so many students at UVa are using Apple products.
Palm trees and 8
I work at a university and I can confirm that you see a lot more Macs there than in the population at large. Number of reasons for this:
1) Apple is in with the hipster crowd and a lot of university students are. It is "cool" to own a Mac so they do for that reason alone. Same reason they'll spend $60 (really) on an Ed Hardy T-shirt (there's an Ed Hardy store right next to campus)
2) They tend to have more disposable income in that regard and income they aren't attached to. Normally their parents buy them a computer since all programs recommend it and some require it. Easier to spend extra money when the cost isn't your direct consideration.
3) The university computer store pushes Apple really heavy. The staff there are Mac fans and Apple gets a large amount of floor space, and that space is right near the entrance.
So you see a lot. But the majority? No not really. Also there's a big difference between Apple winning and MS losing. The computer store also does brisk business in Windows licenses and VMWare Fusion. Part of the reason Macs are now viable is that they run Windows. One of our student workers told an amusing story of the first test for 1Ls at law school. You have to have a laptop for it, they use a crappy automated testing software. Also, said software is Windows ONLY. This is clearly stated in the materials you get. This leads to much whining from the Mac owners, and then a run to the bookstore to buy Windows 7 and install it with bootcamp (said crap software won't run in virtualization mode).
Same kind of thing in the department I work in. We have a number of professors that buy Macs for their labs. In some cases, they only get a few. Their desktop, maybe a couple others are Mac and are used mainly for word processing and Internet surfing, maybe some Matlab work. The research systems are Windows. In others they are all Mac, and right after they get their shiny new Mac, they have us get a license for Windows 7 and Fusion. We have a number of important software packages that are Windows only. Also paying a premium for a Mac for a desktop isn't such a big deal, it is grant money anyhow. Paying a premium for a bunch of computers for simulations, well that is a bit harder to justify.
So ya, the point of all this rambling is that I've no doubt Mac sell well on campus, that is easy to see. However I do doubt that it is a majority, and I doubt even more that it is hurting MS.