PC vs Mac

[bytebear]

Gee Dr. Spock, interesting diagnosis - but it sounds like you just made it up. It's not that Mac users as a population WANT to feel special by being better educated. They have in fact gone to school and become better educated, then, being better educated, they, compared to those less educated, choose MACs. That - you know - a fact. What you said is, like, you know - crying in your beer.

But doesn't your argument fall apart when you realize that by and large, the business world overwhelmingly uses PCs over macs? How about we instead compare high cost PCs vs. Macs. Since there is no such thing as an affordable Mac, you are simply stating that educated people can afford more expensive computers, whether PC or Mac.

[bytebear]

Can lightening strike twice? How about 5 times.

Apple created or revolutized:

Personal Computers

MP3 Players

The Music Industry

Smart Phones

and coming soon: the iPad.

Apple - iPad - See the web, email, and photos like never before.

and then... probably TV.

Something done by no other company in history as far as I know.

Personal computers were actually started with Commodore and Atari. Apple stole their Macintosh interface from Xerox.

Sony Walkman was around long before the iPod.

I would say the MP3 revolution was caused by Napster, until it was shut down by the government.

And Palm and Blackberry were around long before the iPhone, and as I said earlier Nokia sells more phones in a day than Apple does in a month.

Now, say it with me. Newton.

Edited March 19, 2010 by bytebear

[Snow]

But doesn't your argument fall apart when you realize that by and large, the business world overwhelmingly uses PCs over macs?

Mac adopted a failed business strategy. Mac share shrank, Microsoft, often through behavior legally determined to be abusive, grew. Now large industry has massive investment in IT PC expertise, hardware and software... and yet Mac is again growing at the expense of Wintel growth.

How about we instead compare high cost PCs vs. Macs. Since there is no such thing as an affordable Mac, you are simply stating that educated people can afford more expensive computers, whether PC or Mac.

This is the part where people who don't know what they are talking about get themselves into trouble.

The Gistics report (which surveyed over 30,000 business professionals) concluded, “One justification for substituting Wintel computers for Macintosh computers is that it would be less expensive to support a single Wintel platform. Numerous studies, however, have shown that this common perception is false.”

The report went on to state, “In a fully accounted 36 month cost-of-ownership of a system purchase, a Macintosh user saves $2211 more than a Windows user.” This amounts to over $700 per year per computer!

A Gartner study was conducted at Melbourne University's Faculty of the Arts. That facility uses some 4,676 Macs and 5,338 PCs, and:

It compared direct costs such as hardware and software for desktops and mobile computers, servers and peripherals, upgrades, service and support and depreciation. It also examined the indirect costs of supporting end-users, training time and non-productive downtime.

Gartner found that Macs cost $1,114 to support per year, while PC-based systems cost $1,438. Macs also needed less technical support and hardware and software costs were lower, the report explains.

Many other organizations have reached similar conclusions including: CBS News, USA Today, TrustedReviews, N.Y. Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

I work for a living and I happily afford to outfit my family of six with Macs. In the long run, we save money. Not every one considers the long run.

[Snow]

Personal computers were actually started with Commodore and Atari.

I had an Atari 400 and an 800. Calling it a computer is generous, however, although Commodore came out in the same year as the first Apple, Apple is credited as creating the first personal computer.

WikiAnswers - When were personal computers invented

Jobs and Woz were selling personal computers circuit boards in 76. The Commodore came out in 77. Before that what hobbyists were putting kits together themselves.

Apple stole their Macintosh interface from Xerox.

I'll wait while you produce the legal decision. Do you think I'll have to wait long?

Sony Walkman was around long before the iPod.

And reel to reel was around before the Walkman. Do you have a point to make?

I would say the MP3 revolution was caused by Napster, until it was shut down by the government.

MP3 existed prior to the iPod. Apple rendered them all irrelevant when it revolutionized the industry with the iPod, regardless of Napster's illegal behavior.

And Palm and Blackberry were around long before the iPhone, and as I said earlier Nokia sells more phones in a day than Apple does in a month.

Do you even follow the smart phone industry. Apple redefined and revolutionized it. Now Apple is on track to pass Blackberry soon and everybody else is trying (badly) to copy the iPhone the same as happened with the iPod.

Now, say it with me. Newton

Good point. Apple also created the PDA - too bad it was a few years too early.

[bytebear]

Mac adopted a failed business strategy. Mac share shrank, Microsoft, often through behavior legally determined to be abusive, grew. Now large industry has massive investment in IT PC expertise, hardware and software... and yet Mac is again growing at the expense of Wintel growth.

It's funny that you used the outdated term Wintel, considering Apple abandoned Motorola for Intel several years ago. Funny how Apple fans were so quick to dump all over Intel until Apple adopted it.

This is the part where people who don't know what they are talking about get themselves into trouble.

The Gistics report (which surveyed over 30,000 business professionals) concluded, “One justification for substituting Wintel computers for Macintosh computers is that it would be less expensive to support a single Wintel platform. Numerous studies, however, have shown that this common perception is false.”

Again with the Wintel label. Shall we start using Mactel as well? Here's an interesting fact though, Pixar just replaced their fleet of Unix systems for Linux boxes, PCs running Intel.

So, from a hardware standpoint, Apple still loses.

The report went on to state, “In a fully accounted 36 month cost-of-ownership of a system purchase, a Macintosh user saves $2211 more than a Windows user.” This amounts to over $700 per year per computer!

A Gartner study was conducted at Melbourne University's Faculty of the Arts. That facility uses some 4,676 Macs and 5,338 PCs, and:

It compared direct costs such as hardware and software for desktops and mobile computers, servers and peripherals, upgrades, service and support and depreciation. It also examined the indirect costs of supporting end-users, training time and non-productive downtime.

Gartner found that Macs cost $1,114 to support per year, while PC-based systems cost $1,438. Macs also needed less technical support and hardware and software costs were lower, the report explains.

Many other organizations have reached similar conclusions including: CBS News, USA Today, TrustedReviews, N.Y. Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

I work for a living and I happily afford to outfit my family of six with Macs. In the long run, we save money. Not every one considers the long run.

But the problem is this, you simply don't have the user base to make such assesments. In any large organization, the mac users at least in my experience are power users, familiar with computers and know how to fix their own problems. Throw macs in front of the masses, and I bet those numbers will go up. In other words, this study plays well on MacWorld, but in the real world, it just isn't accurate.

It's the same argument that Macs are somehow less susceptible to viruses, but the fact is there are far more virus writers attacking PCs than Macs.

Edited March 19, 2010 by bytebear

[Elphaba]

disposable: A detailed survey by PC Magazine (August 2001) bore this out when they determined that the average useful life of Macs was 3.9 years, while the average useful life of the top seven PCs was only 2.4 years... In other words, they found that Macs typically last sixty percent longer than Windows/PCs...

Two years ago I bought a Gateway. Within six months the hard drive crashed. They sent me a refurbished machine to replace that computer, and it did not work because it had the wrong hard drive in it. I sent it back, and they fought with me to replace that hard drive, insisting I was going to have to be $200 for it, despite the fact that I had bought ample insurance to cover this sort of thing. They did end up replacing it without my paying the $200, but the machine was a dinosaur. For instance, it wouldn't stream Netflix movies, etc. Gateway's customer service was horrible, and it cost me $100 just to send it back for them to fix their faulty product.

A year ago I finally replaced it with a Hewlett Packard. I purchased $300 of insurance to prevent the same experience. Within a few months the monitor was flickering, and three keys had come off. I took it into BestBuy to have these problems addressed, and they told me it would take FOUR weeks to fix them.

Finally a week ago that computer died, and I purchased a new Compaq, which I now know is actually a Hewlett Packard, much to my distress. I don't expect it to last more than a year.

My career was in publishing and I always had Macs, even when I started my own business. I loved my Mac more than my husband!

When I purchased these recent computers, I wanted a Mac but could not afford it. Now that I see the statistics on their durability, which matched my experience with them years ago, I wish I had gone ahead and spent the extra money. I have no faith in PCs anymore, and I've never liked them.

Elphaba

[bytebear]

Wow, I am on a Gateway laptop as we speak. It is 3 years old. and never had a problem.

[Dravin]

I built my machine myself, it's going on... 5ish years now (though the monitor is newer). Can't comment on customer service, wouldn't surprise me if Apple is far better in that realm.

Not that I helped steer it away from it or anything, but I have a sneaking suspicion this thread is about to become dueling anecdotes. :)

It's the same argument that Macs are somehow less susceptible to viruses, but the fact is there are far more virus writers attacking PCs than Macs.

Apple's code has some security advantages going for it that Windows doesn't so it isn't just a numbers game, though I imagine the numbers do help/hurt.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Dravin

[marts1]

Technology has been available for years to make many things last much longer then what they do. Most if not all of these things have been tossed aside, either because of greed or it would harm the economy, not everyone wants to be a farmer. It wouldn't surprise me the same goes for computers.

[Tarnished]

Obviously you do not follow the tech sector.

Dell's Profit Margin is 2.71%

HP's Profit Margin is 6.8%

Apples Profit Margin is over 20%

In the most recent quarter Apple's Mac sales have jumped 43% year over year while the rest of the industry - PCs - have languished.

Apple's retail stores are the most profitable retail stores on the entire planet. Their revenue per square foot dwarfs all others including high-end jeweler Tiffany's.

You missed it but it bears repeating:

On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he'd do if he was in charge of Apple Computer, Dell founder and then CEO Michael Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

A little more than a month later, on November 10, 1997, new Apple iCEO Steve Jobs responded, speaking in front of an image of Michael Dell's bulls-eye covered face, "We're coming after you, you're in our sights."

Today, Apple is the 3rd most valuable company in the US, worth over two hundred billion with Microsoft dead in their sights.

It took eight years to catch Dell. Today Apple is worth 7 to 8 times what Dell is. Apple could buy, literally buy, Dell with cash on hand and have a bunch left over to for other major acquisitions. They could buy Sony with cash.

So, Faded, what's "Mac's biggest problem in terms of competition?"

Obviously, you're what I've often referred to as a Mac worshiper. Mac worshipers believe in Mac like cultists believe in their cult leader or extremist political ideologue believe in their respective ideas and leaders -- Nazism is a good example.

I already know that I'll catch nothing but grief, insults, condescending statements and patronizing from a Mac worshiper. I've often wondered why this phenomenon occurs. Mac worshipers view everyone who does not also worship Mac as inbred inferior swine who haven't the intelligence to successfully tie their own shoes. These unconverted must be educated in the superiority of Macintosh, though it is unlikely the will heed the will of the true Operating System.

I don't expect to hear a balanced viewpoint from you on the matter because you're a Mac worshiper. Hey, there's worse things in this world, right?

What Macintosh lacks is market share.

This is not a comment on quality. By all accounts I've heard first hand, Mac makes a more reliable, less buggy machine. But in terms of volume and market share, Mac is posing no real threat to Windows virtual monopoly at all.

Unless the facts and percentages have radically changed and I never heard about it, Mac still has a paltry 5% market share. And like Ferrari, they choose to continue to market their product only to those wealthy enough to afford them. That is why they have a 5% market share.

There are some small advantages to having a 5% market share.

1.) Hackers writing viruses don't target your product. Their goal is to do as much damage to as many computers as possible. Weighing the option of targeting Windows vs targeting Macintosh is barely a decision at all. OF COURSE a virus will be coded to target 92% of computers and other devices! OF COURSE a virus creator isn't going to bother with mere 5% of the computers out there. Why should they? We'll never know how resilient to virus attack Mac is unless and until they see a significant increase in their market share. Current trends don't seem to paint a picture of Mac overtaking Windows ... pretty much ever. So we'll probably never really know how virus resistant their OS really is.

2.) If you go from 5% market share to 6% market share, you've experienced a 20% growth in market share! In the overall scheme of things, your 20% growth is next to irrelevant (1% increase). But its easy to feel good about the 20% number because it sounds better.

3.) Mac worshipers will do studies proving that your customer base is smarter. This fact is a natural by-product of the price of your product, so it doesn't exactly mean anything, but your faithful followers will do these research spots anyways.

[Faded]

Obviously you do not follow the tech sector.

---

So, Faded, what's "Mac's biggest problem in terms of competition?"

Obviously, you're what I've often referred to as a Mac worshiper. Mac worshipers believe in Mac like cultists believe in their cult leader or extremist political idealist believe in their respective ideas and leaders -- Nazism is a good example.

I already know that I'll catch nothing but grief, insults, condescending statements and patronizing from a Mac worshiper. I've often wondered why this phenomenon occurs. Mac worshipers view everyone who does not also worship Mac as inbred inferior swine who haven't the intelligence to successfully tie their own shoes. These unconverted unwashed masses must be educated in the superiority of Macintosh, though it is unlikely they will heed the will of the true Operating System.

I don't expect to hear a balanced viewpoint from you on the matter because you're a Mac worshiper. Hey, there's worse things in this world, right?

What Macintosh lacks is market share.

This is not a comment on quality. By all accounts I've heard first hand, Mac makes a more reliable, less buggy machine. (It's general lack of upgrade-ability and personal home customization would drive me crazy, but most computer users never open their case unless forced to.) In terms of volume and market share, Mac is posing no real threat to Windows virtual monopoly at all.

Unless the facts and percentages have radically changed and I never heard about it, Mac still has a paltry 5% market share. And like Ferrari, they choose to continue to market their product only to those wealthy enough to afford them. That is why they have a 5% market share.

There are some small advantages to having a 5% market share.

1.) Hackers writing viruses don't target your product. Their goal is to do as much damage to as many computers as possible. Weighing the option of targeting Windows vs targeting Macintosh is barely a decision at all. OF COURSE a virus will be coded to target 92% of computers and other devices! OF COURSE a virus creator isn't going to bother with mere 5% of the computers and devices out there! Why should they? We'll never know how resilient to virus attack Mac is unless and until they see a significant increase in their market share. Current trends don't seem to paint a picture of Mac overtaking Windows ... pretty much ever. So we'll probably never really know how virus resistant their OS really is.

2.) It's easy to make your numbers look bigger than they are.

If you go from 5% market share to 6% market share, you've experienced a 20% growth in market share! In the overall scheme of things, your 20% growth is next to irrelevant (1% increase). But its easy to feel good about the 20% number because it sounds better. Numbers on growth are always reported relative to how big you were at the beginning of the year/decade/etc. When you're a super-midget, a two inch increase in height is HUGE. It's less noticeable for a 12 foot tall monster like Windows.

PC OEM's selling 5% more computers this upcoming year would represent a 4.6% increase in sales of all types of computers across the entire market. Macintosh computers selling 40% more computers this upcoming year would represent a 2% increase in overall computer sales. PC makers increasing sales by 5% represents more than twice as many actual computers as Macintosh increasing sales by 40%.

It's easy to make your numbers look good, but you have to put it into perspective compared to the overall market.

3.) Mac worshipers will do studies proving that your customer base is smarter. This fact is a natural by-product of the price of your product, so it doesn't exactly mean anything, but your faithful followers will do these research spots anyways.

Snow you can throw us all sorts of numbers and sing the praises of Mac -- I think there might even be a hymnal for it -- but under their current business model, Mac's market share will continue to be so tiny that they are next to irrelevant statistically. Unless they can make their product more affordable, that is never going to change. Too bad because I'd love to see somebody topple Bill Gates Snake-Oil Peddling corporation from it's virtual monopoly, even if I do hate Macs almost as much as I hate Windows.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Faded

[Mahone]

Okay - you got me. Whereas Linux enjoys a market share of eight tenths of one percent, freebsd comes in at a mighty one one hundredth of one percent... hardly worth mentioning.

The percentage of users that use it is irrelevant. My point was, PC users have far more choice than what you said they have.

Seriously? You wonder why that is? It's not that tough. Apple is focused on creating and controlling the entire computing, or music or phone, experience. They control the hardware, they control the OS and seek to extend oversight to applications so that the integrity of the system is maintained. Were it not so, Apple experience might be less like it is and more like a Microsoft experience.

I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of letting apple tell me what hardware and operating system I can have on my computer. It is, after all, MY computer. I rely on myself to make those choices. I know what works well together and what doesn't. I want to make the decisions on what goes into my computer, on my computer, and what I do with it, not apple. Maybe someone who doesn't trust themselves to make good choices in that respect will choose a company to do it for them, but I certainly won't. The same concept applies to DRM, which is why I said I don't have anything which requires this vile technology. It's also why I jailbroke my iPhone - apple had locked it down so much, that they took away a good half of its potential functionality. As an example, the iphone refuses to let me have two exchange accounts attached to it. There is no logical reason for this, it just won't do it. I can force it to link to two exchange accounts (and I have done), but that means modifying one of the plist files on the OS of the phone. This can only be done by jailbreaking it, as apple don't want me changing any system files on my own phone. Again, I want to decide what I do with my computer, my phone etc and how I do it. I don't need a company to tell me what is best for me. I am perfectly capable of doing that myself.

1. A moment ago you were arguing that there were alternatives to Windows but now you claim that Microsoft has exclusive control over the OS market. Which is it going to be?

Playing with semantics again. It's a commonly used word to describe how microsoft have the (by far) largest userbase. Quite frankly, there are so many tasks that people do with their computers, requiring specific software that won't work with any other OS, that "monopoly" isnt far off accurate. Technicially however, there are other available choices. It just depends entirely on what you want to do. But you already knew this?

2. You're simply wrong. OS X is enjoys plenty of success in the OS market. There is nothing prohibitive preventing others from entering the market - witness Linux and freebsd.

Other than my use of the word "monopoly", (which is debatably correct, depending on how you look at it), nothing that I said was incorrect.

3. You are wrong again. Microsoft is in trouble, not for having a monopoly, but rather for legally abusing it's market dominance.

Yet the same rules do not apply to microsofts competition. Has apple been forced to make people change browsers from safari? Both apple and microsoft ship their OS with their own browser only. By your logic, why were microsoft only picked on?

Are you getting after me because I use words correctly - according to their meaning?

Absolutely not. What I was doing is clarifiying this for other readers. The word "virus" is often used interchangeably with trojan, worm and malware nowadays.

Six years ago they claimed that Windows was more secure than you thought and that Mac OS X was worse than you ever imagined.

Oh - the horror!

Says the person who gave a source from 2001.

Since that perilous alarm was sounded, can you tell me how many PCs were infected - in the wild - and how many Macs? Let me put it another way. A 2001 study showed that viruses cost industry about 17 billion year. Let's allow for growth and inflation and conservatively say now is over 20 billion. Of that, how much is attributed to the worse than you ever imagined OS X?

link

All 20? 10? Zero? Do you know the answer?

There is just no point in even discussing those statistics. 9 years ago? Windows XP had only just been released, and the first version of OSX had barely been released that year. 9 years is a very long time in the tech industry.

Are Mac users smarter?

Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings.

The study also said Mac users tend to be more Web savvy, with more than half having been online for at least five years. And the Mac faithful are 58 percent more likely than the overall online population to build their own Web page and also slightly more likely to buy goods online, according to the report.

...Nielsen/NetRatings said that 70.2 percent of Mac users online have a college degree, compared with 54.2 percent of all Web surfers.

Are Mac users smarter? - CNET News

A study from 2002 - old and most likely not applicable anymore, if it ever was. I personally think most people have a mac because of the hype. The adverts seem to imply it's "cool" to have a mac. Personally, I want what is going to be of the most use for me. Not what is considered to be cool. That is what I consider to be logical.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Mahone

[Mahone]

Actually I didn't. I opened up Dell desktop section of their website and there it was.

What, the first page you came to? And you assumed that was all that was there? That's a typical apple mentality for you.

Wonder where they got that idea?

http://www.synthtopia.com/news/05_05/images/Apple_iMac_g5.jpg

http://cedmagic.com/history/imac-2002.jpg

As usual, Apple innovates and PCs copy - poorly.

http://www.cyberindian.net/wp-content/images09/dell-inspiron-zino-desktop-back.jpg

How creative - I wonder where they got that?

Poorly is your opinion. I don't care who did it first, that's not my concern. What is my concern is what options I have when I choose my computer equipment, and which is the best deal for me.

Care to comment again on how Apple can't compete?

Absolutely. They do not have -anywhere near- the variety of potential choices that PC users have. I already said it once, it doesn't hurt to say it again though. Apple can't compete in this particular area.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Mahone

[Mahone]

Is OSX really as secure as the fanboys would have you believe? - from 2009 Neowin.net - MacBook hacked in seconds, again - via Safari exploit

Once again, I'll say that a large proportion of people out there simply want a low spec computer, to do basic web browsing, word processing, watching movies and other basic non-intensive stuff. You just can't get a good value mac for those needs.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Mahone

[Faded]

I'm a video game addict. This video sums things up pretty well for me:

[Faded]

Okay - you got me. Whereas Linux enjoys a market share of eight tenths of one percent, freebsd comes in at a mighty one one hundredth of one percent... hardly worth mentioning.

Okay so you're willing to belittle Linux for having about 1% of the OS market share. Macintosh has 5%. Ooooo, 5 times as big!! Now that's something to brag about!

Seriously, by the same logic your using to call Linux irrelevant, Mac is also irrelevant. Can we at least agree that the market share doesn't say jack squat about the quality of your OS?

Seriously? You wonder why that is? It's not that tough. Apple is focused on creating and controlling the entire computing, or music or phone, experience. They control the hardware, they control the OS and seek to extend oversight to applications so that the integrity of the system is maintained. Were it not so, Apple experience might be less like it is and more like a Microsoft experience.

Being control freaks is one of the biggest reasons that Apple went from being the foremost dominant personal computer to being a carnival freak side-show in the computer industry.

Perhaps their overwhelming need for control is a bad idea?

[Dravin]

I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of letting apple tell me what hardware and operating system I can have on my computer. It is, after all, MY computer. I rely on myself to make those choices. I know what works well together and what doesn't. I want to make the decisions on what goes into my computer, on my computer, and what I do with it, not apple.

Amen. I also like my tower thank you very much. It may not be as sexy as some of the things out there (the Dell or Apple all-in-ones) but if I want to throw in extra hardware a tower is more accommodating for something like that. Show me an all-in-one and I have two thoughts:

#1: Pretty!

#2: How the heck do you upgrade that?

[Faded]

Amen. I also like my tower thank you very much. It may not be as sexy as some of the things out there (the Dell or Apple all-in-ones) but if I want to throw in extra hardware a tower is more accommodating for something like that. Show me an all-in-one and I have two thoughts:

#1: Pretty!

#2: How the heck do you upgrade that?

A few years back, after a long hiatus from taking Macintosh's seriously, my wife and I wandered into an Apple store. We were in the market for a new computer at the time, so I figured it wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

For about $400, there was this stripped down thing that looked like an over sized door-stop. No keyboard, monitor or mouse, horrible specs, etc. Basically a worthless piece of crap. I think this was Apple's token effort to offer up a computer for well under $1000.

Moving on, everything was over $1000 and virtually everything had no tower. No, Macintosh in their wisdom crams the hard drive, graphics card, processor and everything else into the monitor. There is no room to add anything of course and I'd be terrified to actually mess with the thing -- oh the horror stories I've heard!

So I asked some questions, and when it became apparent that I was more interested in a machine that could be customized, altered, upgraded, etc, the salesperson brightened and said, "Oh sure, we have that!" He proceeded to point me in the direction of the Mac Pro. Starting price? About $4000.

We both walked away convinced that those people were insane.

[Moksha]

Are Mac users smarter?

One of the curses of age besides baldness, fatness and poor eyesight, is the ability to remember that the initial Mac users were a self selected group: Those who feared the challenge of learning a command line prompt and anything to do with programming. Statisticians at the time noted these students received poorer grades on average (but I imagine being art students, they could draw straighter lines). Along the way, working with hypertext and encapsulated postscript forced these Appleites to learn some programming and wise up.

Did not Barry Goldwater have a vision that these artsy types would become wiser as the graphical nature of Windows dumbed down the masses of PC users and eventually pass them or was that something from the Arizona cactus buttons?

Anyway, I imagine Mac users are heap smart.

[Snow]

Obviously, you're what I've often referred to as a Mac worshiper. Mac worshipers believe in Mac like cultists believe in their cult leader or extremist political idealist believe in their respective ideas and leaders -- Nazism is a good example.

Say - a bet you're a Stalinist. You are, aren't. You want to marry Joseph Stalin and have his babies - don't you.

Really Faded. It's simply stupid to use the cult / nazi argument. Did I mention how dumb it is? I've been a PC owner and user since before 1990 straight thru to today. I can use whatever system works best.

Please - no more stupid stuff.

I already know that I'll catch nothing but grief, insults, condescending statements and patronizing from a Mac worshiper. I've often wondered why this phenomenon occurs. Mac worshipers view everyone who does not also worship Mac as inbred inferior swine who haven't the intelligence to successfully tie their own shoes. These unconverted unwashed masses must be educated in the superiority of Macintosh, though it is unlikely they will heed the will of the true Operating System.

See - here, not only is your point really dumb, it's not honest. I don't think you are inferior, or inbred or a pig. You just don't know much at all about computers - specifically Macs - so you resort to really character assassination instead of discussing the merits of the computer - OH, and then you shameless claim that it's Mac users who are doing what you just did.

I don't expect to hear a balanced viewpoint from you on the matter because you're a Mac worshiper. Hey, there's worse things in this world, right?

1.) Hackers writing viruses don't target your product. Their goal is to do as much damage to as many computers as possible. Weighing the option of targeting Windows vs targeting Macintosh is barely a decision at all. OF COURSE a virus will be coded to target 92% of computers and other devices! OF COURSE a virus creator isn't going to bother with mere 5% of the computers and devices out there! Why should they? We'll never know how resilient to virus attack Mac is unless and until they see a significant increase in their market share. Current trends don't seem to paint a picture of Mac overtaking Windows ... pretty much ever. So we'll probably never really know how virus resistant their OS really is.

1. Proof please. Do you think I have to wait very long for it?

2. Regardless of the reasons, PCs are prone to viruses and the annual cost is in the billions.

2.) It's easy to make your numbers look bigger than they are.

If you go from 5% market share to 6% market share, you've experienced a 20% growth in market share! In the overall scheme of things, your 20% growth is next to irrelevant (1% increase). But its easy to feel good about the 20% number because it sounds better. Numbers on growth are always reported relative to how big you were at the beginning of the year/decade/etc. When you're a super-midget, a two inch increase in height is HUGE. It's less noticeable for a 12 foot tall monster like Windows.

PC OEM's selling 5% more computers this upcoming year would represent a 4.6% increase in sales of all types of computers across the entire market. Macintosh computers selling 40% more computers this upcoming year would represent a 2% increase in overall computer sales. PC makers increasing sales by 5% represents more than twice as many actual computers as Macintosh increasing sales by 40%.

It's easy to make your numbers look good, but you have to put it into perspective compared to the overall market.

Dell EBITDA = 3.26 Billion

Dell Operating Margin = 4.55%

Dell Mkt Cap = 20.20 Billion

Apple EBITDA = 14.11 Billion

Apple Operating Margin = 28.61%

Mkt Cap = 201.53 Billion

Apple, if it had as poor a strategy as Dell, or Acer or Toshiba or HP - those 4 companies whose market share is greater than Apple's 5th place share, could flip a switch, lower their prices, increase their market share and instantly become less successful like Dell, Acer, Toshiba or HP.

Who has the superior strategy?

3.) Mac worshipers will do studies proving that your customer base is smarter. This fact is a natural by-product of the price of your product, so it doesn't exactly mean anything, but your faithful followers will do these research spots anyways.

Proof please. How long do you think I'll have to wait for that?

Snow you can throw us all sorts of numbers and sing the praises of Mac -- I think there might even be a hymnal for it -- but under their current business model, Mac's market share will continue to be so tiny that they are next to irrelevant statistically. Unless they can make their product more affordable, that is never going to change. Too bad because I'd love to see somebody topple Bill Gates Snake-Oil Peddling corporation from it's virtual monopoly, even if I do hate Macs almost as much as I hate Windows.

They are so insignificant that they could buy any most PC company or tech company they wanted, most of them with cash on hand. How's that for insignificant?

Edited March 20, 2010 by Snow

[Snow]

I built my machine myself, it's going on... 5ish years now (though the monitor is newer). Can't comment on customer service, wouldn't surprise me if Apple is far better in that realm.

In the computer industry, Apple ranks, again, #1.

Apple Tops Consumer Reports Customer Service Survey

March 11th, 2010 at 10:45 AM - News by Jeff Gamet

Apple earned the top spot in a recent Consumer Reports computer tech support customer service survey. Apple managed to earn the highest rating overall, and also landed to top scores in laptop and desktop computer tech support.

Consumer Reports polled over 7,000 subscribers to find out how they ranked the online support, phone wait times, and phone support staff, along with whether or not their tech issues were resolved.

Apple earned an 87 out of 100 ranking for its desktop computer support, earning the company a "Very Satisfied" rating. The company's laptop score was 86 out of 100, putting it well ahead of Lenovo's second place score of 63.

In comparison, Dell earned a desktop support score of 55, HP came in third with 53, and Acer earned a score of only 39. For laptops, Toshiba came in at 60, Dell at 56, and Acer landed again at 39.

[bytebear]

It's funny how you have completely ignored HP, the #1 PC manufacturer in the world, not to mention that their printers are by far the best. Period.

Oh, and Apple is ranked #4, behind HP, Dell, and Acer. They were ahead of Acer for about a month, but then Acer acquired Gateway/eMachines and dripped back to #4. And, at least before the merger, Gateway was ranked #1 in customer service. Don't know how they are now. Of course, most PC users just see a tool, unlike Mac users who see some sort of grand art pieces, so of course their satisfaction will differ. The simple truth is, Apple users are loyal to Apple, where as PC users have no allegiance to Dell, HP or Acer. Oh, and when your support staff is minuscule compared to your competition, and you have ripped them off by a prifit margin of 500% (based on your numbers), you can afford to have better customer care.

oh, and when you throw out these stats, could you give a source, since you are prone to pulling them from a decade ago.

Edited March 20, 2010 by bytebear

[Snow]

The percentage of users that use it is irrelevant. My point was, PC users have far more choice than what you said they have.

Yes - quite so. Freebsd's whooping one one hundredth of one percent is highly relevant and offer ever so much more choice to the consumer than I gave them credit for. I apologize that I had only accounted for 99.99% on the non Mac OS pc market.

I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of letting apple tell me what hardware and operating system I can have on my computer. It is, after all, MY computer. I rely on myself to make those choices. I know what works well together and what doesn't. I want to make the decisions on what goes into my computer, on my computer, and what I do with it, not apple. Maybe someone who doesn't trust themselves to make good choices in that respect will choose a company to do it for them, but I certainly won't. The same concept applies to DRM, which is why I said I don't have anything which requires this vile technology. It's also why I jailbroke my iPhone - apple had locked it down so much, that they took away a good half of its potential functionality. As an example, the iphone refuses to let me have two exchange accounts attached to it. There is no logical reason for this, it just won't do it. I can force it to link to two exchange accounts (and I have done), but that means modifying one of the plist files on the OS of the phone. This can only be done by jailbreaking it, as apple don't want me changing any system files on my own phone. Again, I want to decide what I do with my computer, my phone etc and how I do it. I don't need a company to tell me what is best for me. I am perfectly capable of doing that myself.

Congratulations. Your behavior is both immoral and illegal.

You do not own the boot ROM code and embedded software. They are licensed to you by Apple through terms and conditions you agreed to by using the iPhone.

Choosing not to do business with a company whose terms you do not like is one thing. Agreeing to those terms and then being dishonest about it is another. I trust you are not LDS.

Playing with semantics again. It's a commonly used word to describe how microsoft have the (by far) largest userbase. Quite frankly, there are so many tasks that people do with their computers, requiring specific software that won't work with any other OS, that "monopoly" isnt far off accurate. Technicially however, there are other available choices. It just depends entirely on what you want to do. But you already knew this?

For somehow who is calling me out for neglecting to mention one hundredth of one percent you sure don't mind playing fast and loose with descriptions when it suits your purpose.

Other than my use of the word "monopoly", (which is debatably correct, depending on how you look at it), nothing that I said was incorrect.

Wrong and wrong again. You claimed that the laws of competition were different for Microsoft because they are a monopoly. That is untrue. You made it up. Restrictions on Microsoft software bundling are a result of legal rulings due to Microsoft abusive practices - but hey - it's your claim. Prove it.

Yet the same rules do not apply to microsofts competition. Has apple been forced to make people change browsers from safari? Both apple and microsoft ship their OS with their own browser only. By your logic, why were microsoft only picked on?

NO - Apple has not been forced to unbundle it's browser because it hasn't engaged in illegal antitrust abuse. Apparently you do not follow the news:

"Microsoft was formally charged with monopoly abuse by Europe's top antitrust authority, the European Commission, over the way it bundles the Internet Explorer browser with Windows.

The move follows an unsuccessful attempt by U.S. authorities nine years ago to strip Internet Explorer (IE) of its unfair advantage over competing browsers. European authorities were more successful in their prosecution of Microsoft over similar antitrust offenses five years ago, fining the company over €1.6 billion and ordering it to change the way it does business." (By Paul Meller, IDG News Service January 17, 2009)

Says the person who gave a source from 2001.

There is just no point in even discussing those statistics. 9 years ago? Windows XP had only just been released, and the first version of OSX had barely been released that year. 9 years is a very long time in the tech industry.

Ah - you missed the [very obvious] point. The alarm about Macs and the reassurance about PC was sounded years ago. Since that time computer viruses have cost PC users tens of billions of dollars and cost Mac users, well, zero.

A study from 2002 - old and most likely not applicable anymore, if it ever was. I personally think most people have a mac because of the hype. The adverts seem to imply it's "cool" to have a mac. Personally, I want what is going to be of the most use for me. Not what is considered to be cool. That is what I consider to be logical.

Okay - I'll bite. What is your evidence it is no longer true. Could you post it please.

[Snow]

Okay so you're willing to belittle Linux for having about 1% of the OS market share. Macintosh has 5%. Ooooo, 5 times as big!! Now that's something to brag about!

Read again. I belittled Freebsd. I acknowledge that Linux had a market share that meant something - 80 times that of Freebsd.

Being control freaks is one of the biggest reasons that Apple went from being the foremost dominant personal computer to being a carnival freak side-show in the computer industry.

Perhaps their overwhelming need for control is a bad idea?

Ah - you mean a carnival freak side-show that is the 3rd or 4th most valuable company in the US and fast gaining on the number two company.

Hey - cool! I just noticed that you didn't call me a Nazi. You're making progress.

Edited March 20, 2010 by Snow

[Snow]

It's funny how you have completely ignored HP, the #1 PC manufacturer in the world, not to mention that their printers are by far the best. Period.

I haven't ignored HP. I mentioned them just a few posts up. HP is a good company some good products. Their operating margin is 9.84 compared to Apple's 28.61% which is one way to illustrate the commodity nature of the Wintel industry. Where products are assembled box commodities with little differentiation, competitors are reduced to competing on price rather than quality and features. Even a successful PC company like HP has to sell 2-3 times what Apple does in order to earn as much - that's the nature of the commodity market. That's good for customers who don't demand quality and features but bad for business.

However - for you fans of corporate battles and strategy - HP is prepping for the release of their tablet in answer to Apple's iPad. On the face of it, you'd think that HP has everything going for them... the market's largest mfg company, compatibility with the "monopoly" operating system, mainstream cpu, etc. Care to cyber wager who is going to take the world by storm - Apple or HP?

Oh, and when your support staff is minuscule compared to your competition, and you have ripped them off by a prifit margin of 500% (based on your numbers), you can afford to have better customer care.

Chicken and egg - Apple's philosophy is to provide an exceptional experience and it is that complete experience that drives their profitability. Profit is the product of their quality and customer service, not the other way around.

oh, and when you throw out these stats, could you give a source, since you are prone to pulling them from a decade ago.

Look up at the post above this.

The citations are as current and March 11th 2010 and the most recently completed fiscal year. The customer service source is listed and the financial numbers are from Yahoo finance.

Edited March 20, 2010 by Snow