Why Windows 7 isn’t competing with Mac OS X Snow Leopard

which is that it can’t. Poor Windows – made by a company famous for it’s incompetence.

My current machine, the last model eMac with maxed out RAM, is getting towards the four year mark but it’s still delivering the goods (Office 04 [dammit!], iLife08, Photoshop, ChemOffice &c.) on Tiger. Hasn’t been switched off for over a week and its twin at the office, on a Windas university network, hasn’t been switched off for a month… just put to sleep each afternoon. My point is that I find no point at present in worrying about what I might be missing out on with 10.6. Dan is overstating for effect his case about upgrading but is not far off the mark.

Well part of the story, and honestly I wish it did not work this way, is that the cheap yucky Windows crap is good enough. It’s good enough for running a browser. Good enough for pulling some photos off a digital camera and posting them to the web. Good enough for a sales rep taking out on the road to do whatever. That is where the consumer market lives.

For now Mac has some traction because you have a lot of people who are still getting burned by XP and horrid security. Over time though, as these issues recede into the past and Win& establishes itself the terms of competition will change.

I am just trying to make these points now so that we don’t have to watch Apple/OSX slip into oblivion again.

A fair point.

Windows is still playing catch up though and I agree with Dan that they’re not really in competition in the same way a lot of people think they are.

The last decade is not a good indication – that is my point. A big part of Apple’s success was based on Windows being so broken. Microsoft had not shipped a successful OS since 2001. I don’t think the Mac side should bank on that level of product development failure to recur anytime soon.

Also remember that Apple’s attention is now divided between a lot of different businesses.

Oh, one more point I forgot to address. If you’re reasoning is that the BestBuy Sony is in a better position due to it shipping more units and therefore gaining larger marketshare you’re only half right.
Just look at Apple and Dell. Dell undoubtedly ships more units and has larger marketshare than Apple due to this. But Apple is worth almost twice as much as Dell, despite it’s inferior marketshare. This is due to the fact that the market in which Dell deals is worth very little. You need huge marketshare for modest value. This is the problem with the PC market which is slowly growing but perversly worth less and less per unit to it’s major players.

Apple couldn’t say this about Dell 10 years ago. Forgive me but I think their strategy is proven, intelligent and sound. They are like the guy who starts the barfight but just watches everyone else fight. Then takes the girl home at the end.

Surely the last decade and Apples growth through significant recession prove you wrong.

Apples past problems didn’t come from expensive high profit hardware. It came from selling an irrelevant product that only had use in niche markets.

Apple don’t need to get into commodity hardware for exactly the reasons you point out. Apple’s business plan is to produce the very best PC hardware money can buy and they would find it very hard to do so if they enter the low value commodity PC market you seem to love so much.

Apple are correct in saying that to kit out a PC to an equivalent spec to Apple hardware almost always works out more expensive for the PC buyer. It’s also not true that an £800 BestBuy special represents as good a value as the more “expensive” Macintosh. It’s due to the wilful ignorance of the general public (for which they are not at fault) that generic PC manufacturers cannot differentiate themselves from each other. Due to this they have a hard time showing the value they as indivduals can represent and people see PCs as just that. A PC. Not a Dell, HP, etc.

For Apple to want to become involved in a profitless, identity free soup-like market would surely only erode what they have spent the last 10 years trying to do. To be known for producing the best PCs you can buy. Both for value and customer service.

PS: By “mac levels of power” I meant that’s what you require to run Windows as well as intended. Not just run. The hardware Apple sells is configured so that the internal components synergise as much as possible for the time. I realise this sounds like BS but it’s one of the reasons Windows Vista runs quicker under Boot Camp than on a similarly specced PC.

P.P.S: Innovations like GCD and OpenCL are not here to save the mac platform. Just help it be the best it can be.

TTFN.

You write: “In order for Windows Vista/7 to run well it requires mac levels of power.” You are deluding yourself. The PCs being sold today as average systems are perfectly sufficient to run Win7. This is the issue. And more importantly, don’t pretend that Macs have a hardware advantage in terms of processing when they don’t. Consumers and corporate buyers will not engage in that fantasy. It’s the same or very similar hardware for 3/4 – 1/2 the price, only a fool would ignore reality. The Mac OS is better but not that much better. When everyone knew Windows XP was so broken it was not an option, Mac’s had a significant advantage but as Windows recovers, Mac’s advantage erodes. So there you have it. Same hardware or better for less money with a decent OS. It is a perfect recipe for losing the weak grasp of market-share that Apple has recently won.

Like most of my friends right now who are on PCs are on old XP machines. They will buy Macs most likely when they get a new machines but for example my Aunt just got a 15 MBP. She paid $1579. She wanted a laptop with a screen larger than 13″. Now I was handling it for her so I told her not to worry about the money and just get MBP, mainly because I knew she could afford it and I didn’t want her or me to have to deal with Windows. But the truth is that BestBuy has a pretty nice Sony for under $800 that would have been from for her from a horsepower standpoint. So, while I could push the Mac’s case here, if you imagine 10 other families making the same set of choices how many would pay nearly 2X as much for the MBP? Now factor in that they have just been told a million times how great Win7 is. This is the marketplace reality that Apple faces.

If you think GCD or some other Apple technology is a significant differentiator, think again. Sure it’s great but it’s not going to make much of a difference to most people. And it depends on developers implementing it. And Open CL is an open standard that MSFT can also implement.

Daniel writes: “Windows 7 won’t help Microsoft win back any significant market share from Apple ” Uh what? This is not the problem. Window still sits on the vast majority of machines. The issue is: how will Apple hold or even expand it’s position. If Apple has a hardware only place, as many of you cling to, it HAS to have a lower-end line, but that line can’t be compromised because the Windows world competes very hard in that space. And that means that Apple can’t be very Apple-like. So that, my friend, is why Apple’s interests may not be like what they seem to be based on past success. Maybe Apple will pull another rabbit out of it’s hat but don’t expect a price differential to be a healthy thing for Apple’s longterm interests, it’s not.