Google is traded on the NASDAQ, symbol GOOG (four letter ticker symbol == not NYSE).
...and also, market cap == market cap. If a company traded on the NASDAQ is worth more dollars than a company traded on the NYSE, well, that's more dollars. More is more. Actual price of the stock is sorta secondary here, people aren't saying that the price of a single share of GOOG is now more than a single share of Time/Warner, though that is also true: TWX is going for ~$17, while GOOG did their IPO at $85 and are now flirting with $300!
For your question on OS X security updates: There is a standard security update tool in OS X. It can be set to run automatically as well as run manually; It grabs the current security patches from apple, usually requires a reboot. For third party software, there are apt-ish tools like fink and darwinports so you can make sure you're running the best ssh possible, but that's more for your varsity level guys. The built-in updater handles OS updates, as well as other Apple (tm) software like iTunes or Safari.
For your "if Apple had a Windows-sized market share it would have Windows-sized problems" comment: I will respond with -
standard_reply_1 -- Apache blah blah Windows blah blah, larger marketshare DOES NOT IMPLY more problems. Configuring a system intelligently does a lot to prevent many problems from ever becoming an issue. For more details I refer you to every 8th post in this thread, as well as every 20th post on/. in general.
...as well as:
standard_reply_2 -- The Mac OS is configured to prevent a user from being able to install malware. It is configured to prevent connections from the big bad internet. It has a firewall in place and configured out of the box. You have to enter a root password to install anything. It is not perfect, but by being set up correctly at the outset they have guaranteed that in your marketshare reversal scenario, the Mac users would as a whole, be in better shape than the current crop of Windows folken. By default, your average Mac internet user is already non-privileged and firewalled. That's what we're trying to get Windows users to please please please start doing!
Now a higher marketshare does imply that more effort would be spent on finding Mac exploits, and I fully grant that in turn would create more problems than we have now. But I feel you overstated your case. There is a lot of terrain between "worse than Macs now" and "as bad as Windows now."
And for your distinction between the kernels of NT/OSX/*nix vs. the end user environment: You're doing a little bit of a strawman there. Windows does not allow for you to pull out many of the "extras" and so making a claim that Windows without a browser would be as secure as OSX without a browser is a bit disingenuous. A large part of the security problems plaguing Windows rely on the ability of (eg.) your browser to touch things that a browser ought never to touch.
You made a very good point, however, that Mac users check for updates with less frequency and less urgency than Windows now requires. And as market share increases, yeah, Mac users will have to adapt somewhat. While ease of the updates is a bonus for Macs, the timeline of bugfixes and the average mean time to clicking "software update" both need to mature as Mac OSX takes over your city, county, state, country, world, mwa-hah, hah-ha, hah. Ha ha.
Slashdot Mirror
...and also, market cap == market cap. If a company traded on the NASDAQ is worth more dollars than a company traded on the NYSE, well, that's more dollars. More is more. Actual price of the stock is sorta secondary here, people aren't saying that the price of a single share of GOOG is now more than a single share of Time/Warner, though that is also true: TWX is going for ~$17, while GOOG did their IPO at $85 and are now flirting with $300!
For your "if Apple had a Windows-sized market share it would have Windows-sized problems" comment: I will respond with - /. in general.
standard_reply_1 -- Apache blah blah Windows blah blah, larger marketshare DOES NOT IMPLY more problems. Configuring a system intelligently does a lot to prevent many problems from ever becoming an issue. For more details I refer you to every 8th post in this thread, as well as every 20th post on
...as well as:
standard_reply_2 -- The Mac OS is configured to prevent a user from being able to install malware. It is configured to prevent connections from the big bad internet. It has a firewall in place and configured out of the box. You have to enter a root password to install anything. It is not perfect, but by being set up correctly at the outset they have guaranteed that in your marketshare reversal scenario, the Mac users would as a whole, be in better shape than the current crop of Windows folken. By default, your average Mac internet user is already non-privileged and firewalled. That's what we're trying to get Windows users to please please please start doing!
Now a higher marketshare does imply that more effort would be spent on finding Mac exploits, and I fully grant that in turn would create more problems than we have now. But I feel you overstated your case. There is a lot of terrain between "worse than Macs now" and "as bad as Windows now."
And for your distinction between the kernels of NT/OSX/*nix vs. the end user environment: You're doing a little bit of a strawman there. Windows does not allow for you to pull out many of the "extras" and so making a claim that Windows without a browser would be as secure as OSX without a browser is a bit disingenuous. A large part of the security problems plaguing Windows rely on the ability of (eg.) your browser to touch things that a browser ought never to touch.
You made a very good point, however, that Mac users check for updates with less frequency and less urgency than Windows now requires. And as market share increases, yeah, Mac users will have to adapt somewhat. While ease of the updates is a bonus for Macs, the timeline of bugfixes and the average mean time to clicking "software update" both need to mature as Mac OSX takes over your city, county, state, country, world, mwa-hah, hah-ha, hah. Ha ha.
Sorry, almost got out of control there.