[Nope, a "tax" is simply a fee collected by a government to socialize a public expense. The Windows Tax isn't free to people who plan to use Windows, any more than gas tax is free to drivers who actually use the roads those taxes help pay for. Software costs are not "taxes" in general, they are real expenses. That's why there is no real Apple tax, despite the pleadings of Windows Enthusiast pundits.

Making excuses for Microsoft doesn't solve the problem either. Why anyone would turn the other cheek to a bumbling company churning out incompetent, unsalable products is beyond ridiculous.]

What is exactly is this Windows tax? OEM PC manufacturers have an OEM price for Windows, which they sell to consumers. For example, ASUS sells both Linux and WindowsXP version of their netbooks. The WindowsXP version costs more.

Daniel wrote:
“XP into an OS it can sell on devices such as the netbook. That product category hasn’t yet taken off,”

Acer shipped 2.4 million AspireOnes in the 3rd Quarter. ASUS is probably still the leader with their EEE PCs. ASUS said 70% are WindowsXP.

Daniel wrote:
“big PC makers from HP to Dell to Acer to Sony are all investigating Linux”

So you are saying you would like to see Linux overtake Mac as the second most used consumer OS. ASUS said Linux is 30% of their netbooks. So is Apple going to enter the low-margin netbook category?

Windows 7 is probably a “lean Vista” since it supports Vista drivers. The leap in PC system requirements from XP to Vista was too great so enterprises did not want to upgrade. I read Windows 7 will run confortably on a netbook with 512K memory and 11GB of hard drive space. So Microsoft addressed both netbooks and enterprises wanting less system requirements.

[Go back to 2005 and you can read all about how great Vista was going to be.]

Vista adoption is pretty good. According to NetApplications traffic measurement, Vista gains about 1% every month and XP decreases 0.5-1%. I think Vista is up to 19% MarketShare in October 2008.

I love OS X, but I am not that big of a fan of their computers. Far too much emphasis on aesthetics and form over functionality for my taste. They are smart to not allow clones, because most people would probably switch in a heartbeat.

Computing has entrenchment that cars don’t have. You rip and replace the car, but people don’t like doing that with computers. Changing OSes is like changing the train track gauge, then buying a new fleet of rail cars.

Also, reminder that MS stole.. oops sorry, reverse engineered IBM and MAC for their “windows”. And still steals, I mean borrows more from Apple, and others from MS.

And “windows” is used by most of the world due to marketing that Billy Borg was good at many years ago. He was smart with the OEM/Exclusive type stuff way back when. but now a days, they can’t market themselves out of a paperbag.

Being in the Tech field since 3.1 days, I have seen the rise and soon to be fall of MS. When asked by anyone who wants a new computer, I ask what they want to do and if it is the normal, Email, Internet and documents, I tell them go MAC. Why, cause I still see a MAC system over 6 years old running OSX and still being used. How many PC’s do you have over 6 years old running Vista??? Or even XP? My 4 year olds are having an issue with even XP… yea kind of runs, if you make dinner and eat while it is booting up.

Yes. Consumers are *not* better educated. Some people I know still think that you Macs are completely incompatible with Windows. Most think they aren’t very compatible. When I told someone recently that I own a mac they said, “What? But you can’t do anything on a Mac!”

I’m pretty sure some people I know still think of the Mac like this.

I hear you all out loud!. The bottom line is that 90% of the world desktops still run windows – there must be some solid reasons why “consumers” and “enterprise” still run windows and not the mac.