“I want Vista to be a better OS than it’s been promoted to be, but at the same time, I also want OS X to finally receive the public adoption that it deserves. Now is the time for Apple to creatively promote its Macintosh platform with OS X. This is the critical hour, and if Apple is able to take advantage of the uneasy feeling that many have towards Vista, then they could attract an untold amount of new users.”
It seems to me as if Vista’s potential problems are simply going to have a lot of people (both in the business and home markets) holding off on upgrades, or going with PC makers that can install XP on their computers. I’m talking of course, about the more knowledgable users…I assume that people who tend not to care about this sort of thing will snap up whatever’s in the stores.
Apple, with as good a product as they have (I have an Imac and a Thinkpad at home, so I’ve been on both sides of the fence) is always going to have trouble attracting new customers for one reason…people have gotten used to the fact that computers are hard to use and break down alot, something which I find appalling. We wouldn’t put up with a car that broke down once every two weeks, so why would people tolerate this from their PCs, I wonder? Sadly, even with Vista’s abomination of a user interface and massive requirements, I think that in the long run you’ll have people holding on to their older PCs a bit longer, then finally converting when they have no choice.
Edited 2006-09-14 16:33
We wouldn’t put up with a car that broke down once every two weeks, so why would people tolerate this from their PCs, I wonder?
There’s a flaw in your logic though.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the common stereotype of how women are treated when they take their cars into the shop for a check-up or repairs. Mechanics will try to rip them off, telling them they need to make (frivalous in actuality) repairs and over charge them for the service.
To be fair, it probably happens to men who don’t understand cars as well. The point still remains, that people who don’t understand certain basics of cars or computers will just dismiss the problems as “the nature of the beast” and pay the bill anyways.
You may have a point…I suppose most people simply don’t care enough about it, or simply blame themselves when anything happens.
“people who don’t understand certain basics of cars or computers will just dismiss the problems as “the nature of the beast” and pay the bill anyways.”
Consumers. They don’t understand anything, are completely stupid, get screwed all the time by companies and still put the head to the axe gladly. This is our society. And the problem is that it affects us more “smarter” (or savvy or intelligent or simply put so much f–ked that we have learnt).
Edited 2006-09-14 17:01
Just one thing:
Sell OSX apart from the hardware and make it compatible with the white box computer I make.
That’s another thing…if Jobs ever decided to release the Mac OS for whitebox PCs, he could grab up to half of the home market in a few months time. Apparently, the risk or lack of increased profit that this would bring has put him off.
Which goes to show, having a larger market share doesn’t necessarily translate into healthier profits.
The empirical evidence is that profitability plotted against market share is U shaped. Companies are usually very profitable at low shares (because they are niche producers and highly differentiated – think high end Hi Fi companies making tube amps, for instance). And they are profitable at high shares because of economies of scale.
In the middle you are not differentiated but are relatively high cost, and so you can’t get premium prices or sell cheap enough, so you get poor returns. In the phrase, you are different but not differentiated. That is, you are different from the high share guys, but not in a way that adds any value to your customers.
So the danger for Apple would be, sell a lot of OSs, but not reach MS economies of scale, and become so much a standard product that they were not valuably different. It isn’t silly to decline to try it. What is really silly however is articles like the OS Weekly one that seem not to even understand the problem exists.
Edited 2006-09-14 17:05
So basically, if Apple were a 10% market share company they’d be dying slowly but as a 3% share they’re strong.
It does make sense the way you explain it but it’s not really the way we consumers want to see it either!
No, not exactly, or not quite like that.
To get to the 10-15% they would have to sell the OS to people other than their present base, ie the ones who will buy Apple hardware to run it. If they could gain this share with the present model, they would probably be fine. But they can’t. So they would have to emulate MS in terms of distribution channel, pricing, support and so on. But if they did this, they wouldn’t have the same volumes, at least at first. So the R&D would be written off against smaller unit sales. The marketing expenses of the OEM channel would be written off against smaller unit sales. There would be little in this higher cost method of operation compared to MS to differentiate them for consumers. So they might, might, end up playing MS game but at lower volumes.
You can see that its not silly to decide against trying this. I’m not sure if its right or wrong. But reasonable people could decide no.
don’t think apple can get half of the market
everybody can buy an apple machine but very few do it
there are not enougt software, too limited…
on windows and linux you have 23 email client, 47 software to create dvd…..
people like variaty…
the only problem for linux, hp, dell, compaq, gateway don’t sale pc under linux
they have fear of microsoft?
the only problem for linux, hp, dell, compaq, gateway don’t sale pc under linux
they have fear of microsoft?
There are far too many problems with OEMs installing linux then just fear of microsoft. For example what distro would they use?
Ubuntu? then tell customers they have to do things illegal to get multimedia playback
Linspire? Then deal with the hordes of anti-linspire zelots bitching that its not “real” linux
Then you have the issue of 3rd party software, and I don’t just mean MS office. When you buy a system chances are it’s preloaded with all sorts of ads, stuff like AoL, yahoo toolbar ect. While the lack of these things is a good thing for the customer part of the reason OEMs still sell 299$ PCs is they make money off the advertising space on the desktop
company have just choose most popular distribution…
it’s only a choice like they need to do when it choose to include an antivirus and other software
in Latin America, hp sale mandriva
they only need to do a special release, or include software like real player or add a like to install they software via the web
we don’t care about anti-linspire and other zelots… anyway this kind of user don’t buy this kind of computer (hp, dell…)
you can continue to have some ads
if this company alreay do it for some country, they can do it for the rest of the world
You could simply offer Linspire and instructions on how to get the hardware working in general. The “zealouts” know how to do an install, they just want to know their hardware is really, truly, supported before they invest $2,000.
The point about 3rd party software is unfortunate, but you could use it as a mode of advertisement if you were the first to do it: Sell Linux PC’s for the same price without any extra software or ads installed. I know there are non-technical people out there who actively dislike all the crap their PC gets shipped to them with.
Us techies just wipe it and get an OEM disk out.
I dont need 23 email client and 47 DVD softwares to fetch 10-15 emails and for writing 1 dvd in a week!
What really a bottle neck is Cost of Apple machines. Recently i got a new HP notebook for $800 and with same screen size and RAm and disk storage Apple notebook would have costed me $1800 .. I guess u must have got my point?
I’ll rather buy $800 notebook and $200 OS… Apple is making huge amount of money by not only selling OS but their main money money is coming by selling hardware and they are not ready to give up that….
But the fact here remains important that most of the apple hardware are “state of the art” … people who can afford to have apple hardware are not going to stop buying the same … but they can double the sell of OS by supporting other hardware… Ofcourse the down side is…. support activity in Apply will increase…
Could you link us to that particular computer? Thanks.
Ha ha its even worst in terms of price than I thought!
)
My Notebook is
HP Pavilion with WindowsXP SP2
dv8309us with AMD 64 bit 2 GHz, 1 GB Ram, 100 GB HDD, 8x Dual layer DVD RW,17″ Screen, 4 USB, 1 Firewire
PRICE : $882 after rebate
goto http://www.hp.com Price on HP site is more than of the Fry’s or Circuit city but still it is below $1000 and if you compare it with mac its way too low!
Apple – with Mac OS
17″ Screen, 1 GB Ram, 2.16 GHz, 120 GB HDD, 8x Dual layer DVD , 2 USB , 1 Firewire port
PRICE : $2799
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=…
But it has only one core (1.8GHz at circuitcity) , half the video RAM, lower quality video card, half the memory speed, 1440×900 (apple has that on their 15 inchers), no bluetooth, meagre software bundle, etc. Let’s not pretend that machine is in the same league as a 17″ macbook. It isn’t.
But you’re right about it being cheap. What I do like is the 54 exprescard slot and that lightscribe stuff sounds pretty interesting too. Personally I’d go for an intel model though.
Edited 2006-09-15 14:46
there are not enougt software, too limited…
on windows and linux you have 23 email client, 47 software to create dvd…..
people like variaty…
I don’t think this is the problem. Most Windows users stick with Internet Explorer, and I bet a large proportion use Outlook Express for e-mail simply because they’re the defaults.
The average consumer wouldn’t have any problem with Safari and Mail if they switched to OSX. Let’s face it, most home PC users don’t need specific software, as long as they have a decent web browser, an e-mail client and a word processor they would be happy. The only software the average user might need that would cause a problem if they switched to a Mac are games.
That’s very narrow view of home market. There are multitude of windows only sw that get’s used by all but most shallow home users like:
games (HUGE disadvantage), websites that use active X (lot’s for kids, banks), media players that support obscure formats, P2P clients, most the cds spread with magazines, multimedia CDs (4 kids, apps put on audio cd, and like that), VOIP clients, other internet services that need some desktop app (usually only supporting windows), accessory sw (like webcams, media players) the list goes on. Pair this with limited 3rd party peritpherial support and we have pretty uphill battle. The situation looks bad for apple here, even worse for linux.
and mac’s have over 80 web browsers…
http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html
but people only need one, maybe two.
Edited 2006-09-14 19:11
That is entirely untrue. They would completely fail to grab half of the home market. Too many people have applications that are incompatible with OS X, and currently OS X has nearly no drivers. I know if I tried to use my TV tuner card under OS X, I’d be SOL. Apple will have the same exact problems as Linux has in market share adoption, and will remain at numbers quite similar. Most people won’t want to go out and buy something that will remove all of their current programs and their current way of life. Apple would just get a couple more geeks who are poorer, and thats it.
If apple decided to sell OS without a hardware… I’ll buy a MacOSX… even by dumping my Linux. [ I will never consider Windows to dump cause I’ve already done that for Linux ! ]
I can only dream of the day this will happen. I like OS X a lot and would love to run it on my current white box.
OSX is nice and stable because Apple can control the hardware that it runs on.
They can create a minimum of hardware drivers and make sure that they are good.
A large amount of the stablity issues people have with windows are related to cheap hardware with badly written and untested drivers.
Making OSX available on generic hardware would mean more work for Apple in supporting all the hardware and less profitable because they have to directly compete with Microsoft in a software market instead of getting the extra profit they make from the hardware sales.
– Jesse McNelis
Its a myth of course – one of the many. It may not be the right thing to do, to release MacOS from Apple hardware, but not for this reason.
It is not true that non-Apple supported hardware is any worse quality or any lower priced than what they do support.
It is also not true that Windows stability issues are caused by hardware and drivers. They are mostly caused by malware.
In addition, Windows now is (except for the malware issue) at least as stable as OS X.
Nor is it true that Apple would have to write lots of drivers. The manufacturers would write the drivers, as they do now.
This is one of those things that was true about 10 years ago. If you were comparing Classic with Windows 3.1 or even Win 95, there was a case to be made that the anarchical situation in hardware and the lack of standards and expertise for drivers meant lesser stability. But it has not been true for a long time now, and its very hard to understand why Mac advocates keep on repeating it, like some sort of magic incantation, over and over again. The world has changed guys.
It worked pretty well with Windows, that argument is a myth.
It’s worked well with Windows and only Windows. Going into a head to head competition with Microsoft, isn’t something any company should take lightly. Striving for total world domination a la Windows isn’t the only way for a company to make profit. Not only that, it’s arguable whether it brings any added benefit to consumers.
If people really want to run OS X that much, just buy a Mac.
I think you misunderstand what people on this forum want: You think they want a highly successful Apple. No, I bet half of them could care less where Apple sits.
They want two things: To build a PC themselves and run OS X on it, because they like OS X and want to play with it without buying a Mac.
And they want Microsoft on its knees. Not gone, just not so dominant that it seems invincible.
I’d call the second a laudible wish, but maybe it’s not right to throw Apple away to get it. The first is just a greedy desire, which is fine if you can be honest about it.
That’s exactly the point. No company that is run by self respecting people will take a course of action that is going to be detrimental to itself. There is no financial justification for Apple to attempt to go head to head with Microsoft, aside from the wants of certain computer enthusiasts, who want to run OS X on PC they build themselves.
Every company is there to serve itself. It will keep its customers happy as long as they keep its bottom line happy. Wishing for Mac OS X to be installable on just any PC is a pipe dream.
Alcibiades has posted an excellent explanation of why.
“If people really want to run OS X that much, just buy a Mac.”
If you really insist on approaching your customers like that, stay in your niche!
Two sides of the same coin.
Does it matter if Apple remains a niche? They’ve been a niche product for the last 20 years or so and they’ve been dying for pretty much that long too.
Edited 2006-09-15 08:26
Dear God! Apple is dying again! I just knew investing that cash and having it double a few times over was a horrible idea. *sigh*
All mocking aside… Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot were they to decide to release OS X on a generic white box. Right now they have total control over quality. And let’s face it. It’s pretty solid. You can talk about how they’ve had issues or faulty products, but remember they’ve also been all over problems like a fat kid on a cupcake (and just as fast). Though I would love to see a crippled version of OS X make it’s way to the masses, I need to remind myself (like most others) that they are a hardware company first. Not a software company like Microsoft. It’s apple’s and oranges here.
As it’s been repeated time and again here Apple makes computers that are over priced because of what is put into them. Not just ram, CPU or hard drive, but quality and design. Yes, you can go on for ages talking about the the quality of other makers or the “elite” computer you can build yourself, but you get what you pay for in this deal. Top notch customer service and hardware that lasts (check out a 6 year old Mac’s resale value).
One last thing before I go. I don not run a Mac and haven’t in years (not including the iBooks my kids have and the box that hosts my servers). I am running OS X on a computer I made with pieces I bought off from ebay 3 years ago (a Sawtooth motherboard). I will never buy another Mac for myself because I’m just nerd enough to avoid it. I wanted to throw that out there before the zealot rants ensued.
Peace.
A little over dramatic, no one is uneasy about Vista except businesses (who are always uneasy when new versions of anything comes out) and power users. The “untold” masses haven’t even heard about it and are going to buy whatever Best Buy has $299 (hint, its not an Apple).
I would be willing bet most power users play games and like to build their own computer, this rules out a Macintosh.
I would also be willing to bet the majority of businesses are locked into windows because they require some applcation that is not available on a Mac, so they won’t switch either.
In other words, the supposition in the article is wrong.
I sometimes wonder if the “masses” will ever hit a breaking point where the OS is just too clunky, ugly, complex or buggy, prompting them to move to something else, or will they just keep taking whatever’s shoveled down their throats?
How can they move to something else, if they are not aware of alternatives?
Windows got where it was in people’s homes, because that’s the OS they used at work.
The article seems to be about getting the home market more than business. Even though he mentions business, his strategies don’t make sense for attracting business.
Even if Vista isn’t all that impressive, the fact of the matter is that it will get installed by OEMs on every new PC sold. So, really, what has changed? XP had 0% market share 5 years ago. Now, it has 80%.
If they will not sell to the 97% of the market that is looking to sell an OS on non-Apple hardware, they will not make a dent in Vista or Windows in general, or move out of the niche.
Simple really. The market is largely composed of PC manufacturers. If you won’t sell to them, and your competition does enthusiastically cultivate them, how are you going to dent it? You’re not.
Now it may be that if they did, the PC manufacturers would destroy their hardware business in a year. Could be. If true, this just shows they really cannot attract ‘an untold number of new users’.
However many that is….
I think the real reason that Apple won’t go into the whitebox market is for fear of a confrontation with Microsoft. If only they’d had the long term business sense to let everyone clone the platform some years back.
-sighs-
I think the real reason that Apple won’t go into the whitebox market is for fear of a confrontation with Microsoft. If only they’d had the long term business sense to let everyone clone the platform some years back.
Yup. I think it is pretty obvious that Microsoft and Apple have an agreement which states that as long as Apple keeps its operating system locked to its own hardware, Microsoft will continue to legitmate that software and hardware by producing software for it (Office).
If that’s the case, the real time to strike will be coming up: When Office software becomes devalued and comodotized to where Office is not the 60% income winner for Microsoft anymore.
If Microsoft is successful in replacing Office with a similar racket, err market, then it might not work so well. But so far they’ve failed to expand to a new and profitable market.
Apple doesn’t need to trump Vista or suddenly acquire shedloads of new users. A sudden and huge increase in new users would throw the company into turmoil, damage its brand image and almost certain gain it a rep for awful customer support (because they’d be overwhelmed).
Apple needs a nice, steady increase in high-value users who’ll pay and go on paying for Apple hardware and the Apple way. With regard to Vista, I suspect this is what Apple’s marketing will be aiming for. Even a relatively small gain in total share of the PC market would give Apple all the new users it can handle as well as a hefty increase in turnover and profits.
After all, with Vista Microsoft just get a one-off purchase per user. Apple, if they are canny, get an income stream from their users that can continue for years – software updates, new hardware and all the rest.
On a somewhat related note, having used Vista RC1 on a housemate’s PC: what horrible idiot did Microsoft pick to design the new look and layouts for Vista? It’s ugly, cluttered, and seems to go out of the way to make everything hard to do. It’s like they took the orginal Apple HIG and did the opposite.
If I could buy a copy to install on my PC I would in a second. They really need to license it now that it runs on Intel compatible hardware.
Apple doesn’t have to do anything about the OS itself. It’s already miles better than Vista will ever be. Yea, sure, flame me – the sad fact is that Vista won’t differ much from Windows as we know it right now.
What Apple needs to do is SHOW said OS in their commercials, and stop the silly ‘switcher’/’hi, I’m a PC’ crap.
another mac fan…. stop the fud or stop your lobotomy
“another mac fan…. stop the fud or stop your lobotomy”
Umm.. no. I run several OS’s. I just happen to think Windows is low quality. Not happy with my assessment? Too bad for you.
And thanks for the personal attack
Edited 2006-09-14 19:04
no personnal attact it’s just a fact
surely another morron american
continue your good works, bush junior
“no personnal attact it’s just a fact
surely another morron american
continue your good works, bush junior”
There’s nothing factual about it. I don’t need a lobotomy, I’m not a Mac fan and I’m not an American.
And btw, I love your posting style, spelling skills and your tendency to call people names. I think it makes you look very smart and witty.
Edited 2006-09-14 19:22
I like Vista RC1, I use it as my primary OS. I even took the plunge and upgraded my perfectly usable installation of XP to get Vista. I’ve had some issues with XP mostly related to drivers (video, sound and iPod) that went away when I installed Vista, everything is working fine now.
I have owned Macs in the past, most recently a 20″ iMac G5 (iSight) and I enjoy them. What I do not enjoy is going into a computer store and staring at all the software I can’t use. That is not fun and it deffinately doesn’t make me any smarter than what some of the more elitest among you have dubbed “the masses”
My understanding of the Apple ‘community’ is that its comprised of users who ‘think different’. They are prepared to pay a certain premium for I.T. that ‘just works’ and that looks like it’s designed rather than simply assembled.
*cough* Dell *cough*
I saw an article the other day that claimed that ipod was loosing it’s cool because so many people have them. I don’t know how true this is, but imagine that that’s not what Steve wants.
As a home user I like the idea of a Mac. I have used nearly every release of Vista and will not be upgrading due to poor fit and finish, a reduced feature set and DRM policies that I personally don’t care for. I’ve got a 360 for games, and Kubuntu isn’t quite there yet (it’s damn close!)
I am honestly concerned about the overall build quality of certain models of Mac tho. I would also avoid PC’s from certain vendors for the same reasons.
As a business user I would be concerned with the emphasis of cool media trinkets as opposed to computers. I want to deal with a company that focuses on my IT business needs, not lifestyle gadgets.
In fairness, considering the state of Vista this can be applied to MS too.
Apple have already switched to Intel. They don’t design any of their internal components. They don’t build their own computers. They depend on Intel for their technology roadmap. Perhaps a limited licensing program for the OS is only a matter of time…
NOTE: It’s my understanding that Intel design the motherboards for Macs now. Oddly enough, Dell actually design some of the boards they use. I welcome correction.
your right apple use nigh on intel defaults in their current machines, hence being compatible with vPro. Not centrino however as the use the airport cards (broadcom?) still.
back in the day, the n bridge and the like was co-designed by apple
the non release of the os for whitebox is political and in no way technical
I think apple needs to target more to the “average joe useless” by producing less expensive macs,you know like something they can afford,cheap.
I think thats what they were aiming for with the Mac Mini’s. A Mac for about $599, which is reasonable and no where near the $1299 and up price for the iMacs or Mac books.
apple should start by supporting their os on MORE than just their own hardware.
Nothing.
I just advice them to revise the pricing of their lower and middle line products that run OSX as they are not appropriate till now, and it repells new comers from it.
Otherwise they are the best peace of mind for any user to consider when shopping for a computer.
There are several reasons why OSX can’t dent Vista, based on the currently known featuers of their makers.
First, Apple’s roadmap is a mystery to all but Apple. We heard about supercomputers and high-powered micros a few years back, and then lo and behold we get an Intel machine. First there was no dual booting a Mac, now there is officially, Boot Camp. Macs are great products but an IT organization can’t live with that sort of uncertainty and vendor-lockin.
The costs of changeover are largely the cost of re-training employees and reworking the behavior of legacy software applications — some of which wont even work on OSX today. Second, there is always the fact that computers are a commodity product and an Apple is overpriced. We’ve been through the debate many times here, so I won’t resurrect it. The fact is an IT place hs $X with which to buy Y identical machines with support, from preferred vendor Z. I talked recently with someone from SAP Hosting. I was told that there is such a tight linkup with MS, that the Mac doesn’t show up on their radar.
Vista sales will trickle through the first-line customers who are the OEMs themselves. The actual user does not call the shots.
For details on the market share of operating systems, look at the chart at the website http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
clearly, changing more than 95% of the world’s computers and their operating systems overnight is not feasible if the change is to machines made by just one company with a superstar leader. Business doesn’t think that way.
If, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”, is still true then all you have to do is make a better product and survive all the FUD, total loss pricing, bribery, reseller kickbacks, paid shills/bloggers etc. etc. of the competition as they give away the store trying to buy the market out from under you. Then it becomes just a matter of who goes broke first.
Give me an Mac-mini without the mechinical storage for less than $300. Then you have a Mac revolution on your hands.
http://weblands.blogspot.com/2006/09/apple-falls-oh-so-close.html
I’ve used Macs in the past (pre-OS X days), but have little experience with them.
Microsoft will likely win this current battle, simply because Apple computers are too overpriced. Plus, Apple has a bad reputation for machines that break, whether it be iPods or Macs. Lower your prices, make better quality machines, and you can easily defeat Microsoft.
As for Linux on the desktop, it will never happen. It is still very difficult to install and configure, and auto-detection tools don’t always work the way you want them to, if they work at all.
Plus, Linux is *designed* to be difficult to use. Don’t believe me? Recall the Raymond/Perens business model, which recommends that companies profit from open-source software by selling CDs (quickly becoming a thing of the past, with the widespead adoption of broadband), as well as SELLING SUPPORT FOR THE SOFTWARE. So Linux is designed to be difficult to use, so that companies like IBM and Novell can sell support for it.
“As for Linux on the desktop, it will never happen. It is still very difficult to install and configure, and auto-detection tools don’t always work the way you want them to, if they work at all.
Plus, Linux is *designed* to be difficult to use. Don’t believe me? Recall the Raymond/Perens business model, which recommends that companies profit from open-source software by selling CDs (quickly becoming a thing of the past, with the widespead adoption of broadband), as well as SELLING SUPPORT FOR THE SOFTWARE. So Linux is designed to be difficult to use, so that companies like IBM and Novell can sell support for it.”
That’s the biggest FUD statement I’ve seen in a long time.
If Linux is so friggin difficult, then how come I can install PCLinuxOS, Freespire, Mepis, or Kanotix (and a number of others) in 10 minutes or less, without having to configure anything, and all hardware working out of the box?
Basically, danq’s statement is one of complete ignorance and assumption, and zero real experience.
I’m sure he/she just heard “linux is hard and for geeks”, and assumed it was true. Either that, or he’s a paid MS astroturfer.
Ah, FUD. It just never goes away, does it?
No FUD here.
I am a former Linux user. If you check out my Web site, I support the free software movement and Creative Commons. As a libertarian, I am also very much opposed to intellectual “property” and Microsoft’s politics. I am the maintainer of the GNU/DOS distribution of FreeDOS, and have developed a number of smaller GPLed applications and games, some of which run on Linux.
Linux has (especially since Kernel 2.6, newer versions of KDE, Gnome 2 and Slackware’s decision to drop it, ALSA, OpenOffice, and other recent developments) been extremely frustrating for me. This is just personal experience. I have used RedHat, Slackware, Arch, Ubuntu, and perhaps others I can’t think of right now.
While I used to like Linux, I am no longer happy with any of them. One may support my wireless card while another might not, one might not autoconfigure X properly while another will, and one doesn’t let me use the sound in YouTube Flash videos while another does not work with my sound card at all. Not to mention shutdown problems with APM that require a kernel recompile, etc. Just a total mess and lack of coordination when I can simply turn on a Windows machine which, despite its problems which are easily fixed through quick installations of third party programs such anti-virus, anti-spyware, and alternate browsers like Firefox, is worth paying for, and use it.
Not to mention the fact that Linux is much slower, especially the OpenOffice program (why did they choose Java of all languages to write such a critical component in?)
If you like all that work, no problem. But if you’re like most computer users and want a computer that simply “works out of the box,” Windows is the best choice unless Apple lowers their prices.
I simply do not believe you. If you have the skills that you tell us you do, configuring things like the ones you talk abount should be a no matter at all. Besides, what are you talking abount OpenOffice being coded in Java ?
I don’t know about Gnome, I don’t care about Gnome.
About the rest of your rant – there’s really nothing here I can recognize.
Regarding the startuptime of OO.O – AFAIR there is no quick start functionality in the Linux version as there is in Windows.
Second, OpenOffice org is not written in Java – its only when you use the DBMS, whose backend is Java-based, that you are correct. Actually if you do not use the OO.O-Base DBMS you do not even need to have a JRE installed.
The reason I stick with Windows rather than switching to Mac OS X is nothing to do with the quality of OS, Apple’s advertising, or even the software available for it. The limitations of Apple’s hardware range is the one thing that keeps me using a PC.
I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with Apple’s hardware, or that it’s overpriced considering the quality and elegance of the design. I just can’t find Apple computers that meet my needs as well as the PCs I use at the moment.
For example, my silent media centre does a better job than a Mac Mini would, mainly thanks to the options offered by its PCI slots and the extra space it has for drives. My main workstation PC does everything I need, but cost less than half as much as the bottom of the range Mac Pro. Cheaper consumer Macs wouldn’t allow me to use my current dual-headed display, something I would miss when doing graphics or web design work.
The one really nice thing about the PC is the massive choice of configuration options, and if I can’t find what I want off the shelf, I can build my own computer.
I have to balance what would benefit me more, using Mac OS X on Apple’s hardware, or sticking with a PC and having to use Windows or Linux. At the moment the hardware makes too much of a difference for me to switch. Maybe one day Apple will make hardware that meets my needs, or will sell OS X separate from their hardware, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
As for Vista, I can’t see any compelling reason to switch from XP, and I doubt I’ll bother upgrading for the foreseeable future. It’s not like Vista offers the clear advantages over NT based versions of Windows that they offered over Windows 9x. The flashy UI and various tweaks seem pretty unimportant to me, they’re all things that I can happily live without.
Well, Apple has some worms eating away at it, called Linux because Fedora is light years ahead of it.
Plus, you have more multi-media in Linux than Apple except for Quicktime a CPU hog in Windows kind of like Adobe products.
I just recently bought an old ibook G3. It runs OS X Tiger (latest version) without any slowdown. This is on a PC that is 7 years old. I was impressed. I was also really impressed by the OS and how easy and fun it was to use. I now consider myself a Apple user at home.
However, I don’t see Apple ever getting more than 10% market share, if only because it won’t get corporate support. I work in IT, administering Linux and Windows networks and after using Mac OS X for roughly 2 months now, I can safely infer that OS X has no place on the corporate desktop, even if it does run on a whitebox PC eventually. A few reasons why:
1) Users would be lost… even if Mac OS X is easy to use for EVERYONE (my Mother loves it), it would be too much of a paradigm shift for users to accept as well as keep up their current productivity levels.
2) It would cost IT billions of dollars trying to adopt Mac OS X as its desktop system, simply because all the software they use (Accounting, legal, office, payroll etc.) would have no equivalents on OS X and even if there were, databases would have to be converted, procedures re-writen and staff retrained. There would be massive downtime and considerable loss of profit for extended periods of time.
and finaly 3)
A desktop user who uses Windows/Linux at work is going to go home and when they decide to buy a computer they will look for familiarity. Of course this is not always the case (like me), as some users really do see the beauty in OS X as a home desktop system.
OS X is great… but it will never get mass adoption. I would be overjoyed, as an Apple user, at 10% market share for Apple, simply because it means that they will continue to supply me with hardware and software well into the future.
In closing, I consider Linux to be more of a threat to Microsoft on the desktop (in terms of mass adoption) than Apple/OS X. I love Linux too and I can see it getting better and better everyday.
NOTE: I would also like to say that in my organisation we choose to lock ourself into a single vendor hardware supplier, as do most large organisations, because we need all equipment to be identical for logistical reasons. So the “single vendor lockin” argument used before by one of the other posters really has no bassis in terms of organisational purchasing influence on Mac adoption in the workplace.
Love all you Mac OS-X fans, winge about DRM yet have you bothered to look at the DRM crap Macs have on them and how hard it is for the average Joe to circumvent them?
Vista maight not be as pretty as OS-X (matter of personal taste) but it will most likely be as good as an operating system and not lock you into overpriced under spec’d hardware.
I’m running Vista 64 RC1 at the moment on a test machine and it is quite good considering drivers are limited and in beta. I’m fairly confident it will be a very stable platform when it hits release.
Is it perfect, no but it ain’t as bad as some make it out to be. It handles 64bit and 32bit elequently, more so than I have experienced under Linux.
The security model employed is long overdue and at the moment will be nagging but when developers decide to play ball it will be fine.
Linux, yes, nowdays is easy to install (I was very impressed with Edgy Eft 64) but, to get some fav apps working there is still a lot to deal with and that is due to having to run windows apps on Linux as there isn’t decent native versions to use yet. My only replacement for Windows Vista would be a form of Linux though as OS-X is definately not worth the headach of dealing with (and yes I use it at work and support it on some of our Graphics Workstations).
Vista will repleace XP for me as
1. I want a decent 64bit OS for media creation
2. Better securitly model and also the other under the hood enhancements that will lead to a better computing experience.
Remember kiddies that you should be able to get an OEM version of Vista with some hardware purchases which will bring the cost of the OS down considerably.
I look forward to late Northern Hemisphere fall when I will be able to Beta Test some Echo Audio Drivers on Vista 64.
Rant Done.
I have listened to all the arguments and come to one conclusion. For Apple to trump MicroDump it must not do what Wind-ow-s does.
I work with Oracle on a daily basis on a university campus and I subscribe to the support lists. I’ve read how MicroSilly `poked` legitimate `campus` licenses on the servers.
So, again, for Apple to trump MicroCrap it must do the exact opposite of Willy’s wonder OS.
Apple’s value is not its computers but its operating system. Software worths a lot more these days than hardware which is quickly outdated. It is software that makes the computer tick.
Therefore what Apple should do is release its operating system for generic 80×86 PCs. They don’t have to support everything under the sun, only the major hardware. You see, I already have made a good investment which I am not willing to throw away (Athlon 64 2400+, K8V motherboard, NVIDIA 6800 GT video card, Soundblaster 64 Live sound card, 1 GB RAM) and it does not have any non-mainstream components…and such is the case for many other thousand, if not million, PC users.
The world badly needs an alternative to Windows. Linux is not such a thing, because it requires techical skills that me and my family does not have. If tomorrow Apple released their O/S for my PC, I would be the first to buy it and throw XP out of the window…
The fact that Windows does not seem to require at least a minimum knowledge drives directly at the poorly installed and working systems that are themselves one of the reasons that Windows has a bad press (only one of them). Mac OS X, GNU/Linux or Windows are as powerful as the persons at their charge … it is just that Windows and OS X seem to be more capable with less knowledge and GNU/Linux requires a minimum starting point to lead to a working system, which once configured surpases both OS X and Windows by far.