My friends at Microsoft are understandably aquiver over renewed possibilities of a Yahoo takeover, what with billionaire investor Carl Icahn pushing to replace the Internet search company’s board of directors. But while they’re at it, they might want to spend a little time focusing on their core business, where Mac sales have recently surged 32 percent year-over-year, compared to just 12.2 percent for the Windows-dominated industry as a whole…
Ironically, however, it may be Microsoft driving customers into Apple’s hands. Ongoing jitters regarding bugs and performance in Windows Vista a year and a half after its launch are believed to be driving would-be Windows upgrade customers towards Macs, which are considered by the analyst to be less problematic, simpler, and more secure.
“Thus far, user satisfaction ratings for Vista have been weak, and startup times for Vista have been known to be much slower than the Mac OS X,” Bachman says. “Thus, more than 50% of recent customers buying Macs in Apple retail stores are first-time buyers.”
Personally, I’ve always been a Mac partisan, but our region does rely on Microsoft’s continued success to provide an awful lot of jobs, so I’m hoping their response goes deeper than just an ad campaign. I’m just sayin’…
Vista is a piece of shit. What’s new? Microsoft products have always had more bugs than eastern Washington in August.
@1
Not any more than any other software, Roger. Even Macs have bugs. Is Vista all it could have been? Obviously not. That doesn’t mean that everything MS has ever released is the same way. That’s like saying that BBG is an idiot, therefore all Dems are idiots.
YES!
Q: What’s the sound of MSFT’s price jumping off a cliff?
A: YAHOOoo..
Puddy,
Yet, you claim you’re voting for a Democrat for president this year. Does that mean you would knowingly vote for an idiot for president?
For whatever reason, using a Mac is generally a joy, not a pain. It does bring with it a certain superiority complex, as using something that is designed to accomplish what you want and do it in a friendly way (Macs are way PC friendly these days) is groovy.
Sort of like being a Democrat. Not perfect, but better. And no need to remake the rules or spend 90% of one’s time justifying the choice instead of just moving forward with the product you decided to go with in the first place because you paid attention to the details.
z/OS is secure and useful, but not on your desktop. Mr. Gates was both lucky and predatory. Worked out well for him, and in a lot of ways for the rest of us also.
Microsoft only stole the windows idea after Apple stole it from Xerox :)
Microsoft’s basic problem is that its management still thinks it’s blazing a trail introducing personal computing to the unwashed, techno-illiterate masses. They’re still firmly convinced they know more about what their customers want than their customers do.
Apple surging 32% is still probably less than MS’s 12% gain. Apple’s market cap is Nokia(a cell phone company) plus Sony(a music vendor). Computers don’t really enter into it.
“Microsoft only stole the windows idea after Apple stole it from Xerox”
Apple licensed the GUI and extended it beyond what Xerox did (and that license made far more money for Xerox than their GUI entry, the Star). Microsoft ripped it off from Apple.
Oh, and Apple’s market cap is THREE TIMES Sony’s. Who’s the boutique brand now?
Proud Leftist@5:
Again you don’t pay attention do you. Still skipping over PuddyFacts. Well that’s too bad. It shows you are still a moron. I am not voting for president this year. Pay attention in the future. I realize it’s hard for a 16%er like you.
I decided Obama’s position on Partial Birth Abortion, Late Term Abortion and his saying being pregnant is a curse in YouTube snippets plus him saying he was for the second amendment before he was against it in the WA DC (thrown out) and Chicago (next to be challenged) gun bans were over the top. I put up with his Jeremiah Wright and Michael Fleger fiascoes.
Now if you notice Obama is for Faith Based Orgs, leaving the troops in Iraq, etc. things that Markos Moulitsas is against and I also posted those “exploding progressive head” pronouncements. I see you missed them too.
I use both, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. I get frustrated with Mac because as a power user there are a lot of dials I either can’t twiddle myself or can’t find. I get frustrated with Vista because it does not seem to understand its own Standby feature (I recommend disabling Standby), and I sill have to scour the Web for drivers from time to time.
People, especially those who are now touting Windows XP, forget that the first version of Windows XP had some problems of its own that were fixed in its subsequent service packs, signficantly improved with SP2. Vista SP1 is out and it’s what Vista really should have been. But if you buy the pre-Service Pack version of a major operating system release, you should expect that some previously unknown bugs will arise, and this is true on Mac OS releases as well as Microsoft ones. Mac OS X sucked in many ways when it was released, and people are experiencing unexpected shutdowns with Leopard (I have not yet installed Leopard on my Mac but will soon).
I blame the computer manufacturers as much as anyone for OS problems, particularly PCs for Vista. Building software support that works perfectly for every possible off-the-shelf hardware configuration is, as you might expect, impossible.
Bottom line: You should just use the computer you like, whether it’s Mac, Windows PC, Unix/Linux, or whatever. Consider Vista Ultimate. I’ve been using the Media Center feature to connect my XBox 360 to my computer and TV. Cool stuff.
The best advice is probably what it always was, which is, find the programs that work best for what you want to do, and then buy the computer that runs them.
Otoh, it can also be argued that Macs are the conservative choice, since modern ones can run either OS X or Windows, so you win either way.
Comparing AppleDos to MSDos
Comparing the two ocmpany’s OS is very hard to do since they are marketing to different segments.
1. Market Niche Apple markets to a niche that is not upset by a continual pattern of obsolescence because they WANT to always buy the new thing. In some ways Macs are fashion statements.
MS markets its DOS to a universal customer base that expects to have legacy applications run and old hardware work as well.
2. Apple focuses on a single hardware base it controlls AND charges a very large premium for.
3. Apple while claiming to be innovative has largely focussed on bringing UNIX to a proprietary OS,
MS has its own distinct OS.
4. MS Dos runs a huge set of apps, many of which do not exist wi in MacOS.
5. Apple’s OS focuses on consumer sales. Itr is pretty .. like an Italian car.
MSOs focusses on functionality.
6. The security features in MSDos are too rxtensive. There is also an irritatig effort to imitate Apple DOS. Like many Windows users, the first thing I d is soend an hour or so returnomg to the interface I like, classic.
Apple lacks these features and gets away with that because it has a small market share.
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Bottom line
A new puter with VISTA will work fine and run more applications than a Mac. It will also cost a lot less, perhaps 1/3 less.
The Mac will run a lot of apps and the Maxstores are fun.
Paying a LOT for dual OS Macs
I have considered this. There are huge problems that most Macistas ignore:
1. Cost .. start with a Mac surcharge of 1/3, add the cost of retail Vista and the cost of buying duplicate programs.
2. Memory/RAM Both OS’s need address spaces. If you need a 4 gig Mac or a 4 gig PC, a dual machine will require 8 gigs (not qite). Try buying that in a Mac body!
Bottom line, dual boot is attractive but very expensive. Last time I tried it, it was cheaper to buy a second PC.
Actually, I am far more irritated with Microsoft Office 2007, than I am with Vista. The tabbed interface metaphor is clunky and counter-productive, in my opinion. I’ve been using Office apps for many, many years and this has been a major productivity hit for me. Far more so than the OS upgrade.
Since I don’t play games, I like the free Linux Ubuntu at home. I can do everything I want to, with open source software.
Powerpoint 2003 is a pain. I cannot copy and paste text without losing the formatting. And if 2007 is worse???
16 I-burn
Interesting. I switched to 07 because of a compatibility problem. The new interface cost me several hours. Once i got into ti I ofund that it was more intuitive than 03 BUT, like a mac, ibn practice it was harder to find out how to do thinsg that were no obvious.
One of its worst features is the tiny, hard to see customizable tool bar. It works, but is very hard to see and more limited than the oled customizable tool bars were.
“Again you don’t pay attention do you.”
Not to you, we don’t.
Stephen Schwartz, your indictment of Apple is delightfully thorough, but you forgot to mention that —
– All Apple mice are manufactured in a factory filled with weaponized anthrax, and have no buttons whatsoever. The psychic bond between the user and their Mac is strengthened by the user learning to “click” using their mind alone.
– The head of Apple, some guy named Jobs, has a kind of messianic quality and is probably a Satanist, possibly the anti-Christ in a turtleneck.
– All Macs are limited to 640K of memory because that’s all anyone could ever need (as Bill Gates famously said).
– UNIX, although considered by many to be a mature thirty-year-old operating system upon which most of the Web is based, is in fact a terrible fraud. It’s real name is Alex, and he has really small balls.
– Although Apple sells millions of Macs (not to mention iPods and iPhones), no one actually uses them, instead they attach the boxes on to their walls as a competitive measure of “with-it”-ness for purposes of displaying social status. This conspicuous display of wealth has replaced the traditional methods of measuring ostentatious cigars, erect penises, and other phallic symbols.
I think it’s clear: my facts are not only just as factual — no — *more* factual, than yours, they are also funnier and better-typed. So just sit there with your PC, and wonder why you expect as little from your investment as you would from a Democratic Congress.