InformationWeek Reviews Vista vs. Mac OSX

[Bill Marriott]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196800670

As someone who picked up a MacBook in November, I can wholeheartedly agree
with the conclusions in this article.

 

[Brian W]

There's nothing like a totally unbiased review... And that's nothing like a
totally unbiased review.

 

[Alias]

There's nothing like a totally unbiased review... And that's nothing
like a totally unbiased review.

BS. The only thing that holds people back from buying a MAC is the price.

Alias

 

[MICHAEL]

BS. The only thing that holds people back from buying a MAC is the price.

Alias

Perhaps, that should be *most* people.

If I wanted a MAC I would buy one, I don't want one.
I've thought about it, and a couple months back- I almost
bought a new MacBook Pro. It was a compulsive thing.
Luckily, I realized how very little I actually wanted an Apple
product.


-Michael

 

[Bill Marriott]

Maybe, but it's pretty easy to call someone you disagree with "biased."
You'll have to give a little more meat than that to persuade people the
author isn't spot-on. The examples he gives are really good ones, especially
with respect to UAC.

I had not owned a Mac in more than 10 years. I bought my MacBook because I
needed to test sites on Safari and software under Mac OSX. And because it
could run Windows -- either natively via BootCamp or as a virtual machine
with Parallels. (And it does so, beautifully.) Nevertheless, I'm finding the
call of Mac OSX to be quite seductive. I find it cleaner, faster, less
obtrusive, and better integrated than Vista.

Moving to Vista will require, for many people, additional investment in new
hardware and upgrades/replacement of software and utilities, etc. Given
that, it's quite reasonable to migrate to Mac OSX instead. Maybe I'll be
more keen on Vista when my sound card, fax modem, scanner, database
software, RAD tool, and graphics applications work properly with it. (Mac
OSX already runs them just fine today. Well, okay, not the sound card.)

 

[Bobby]

The only thing holding me back from a Mac is most of the hardware that I
have that will not work with it and most of the software that I use that
will not run on it.

Apart from that, the Mac is great.

 

[Alias]

The only thing holding me back from a Mac is most of the hardware that I
have that will not work with it and most of the software that I use that
will not run on it.

Huh? What hardware? MACs come with their own hardware. What software
that you can't get for a MAC?

Apart from that, the Mac is great.

I still think it's the price that holds most people back, compared to
the price of a PC.

Alias

 

[Jeff Gaines]

There's nothing like a totally unbiased review... And that's nothing like
a totally unbiased review.

In what way? I think it's pretty honest, and it reflects all the issues I
have with Vista. Be good if MS read it and bring out SP1 within the next
couple of weeks.

 

[MICHAEL]

Some of what you say is true. However, "for many people",
their first encounter with Vista will be on a new computer-
they aren't going to have to worry about doing anything different
than when they bought a new computer with XP on it. They'll
have to get used to a new OS, but so did everyone else when they
moved from Win98.

The fact of the matter, users don't have to do anything, especially,
not right now. There is absolutely nothing wrong with staying with
XP until they decide to buy another computer. As part of new computer
purchase, Vista will be a bargain. And, XP will be supported for a few
more years. There's no rush, there's no need to buy any additional
hardware or upgrades.

Really, it's not "many", but *most* users will not experience Vista until
it's time for a new computer. If they rush out to buy a new computer
just to get Vista, while there was nothing wrong with what they had-
oh well, their choice. They certainly don't have to.


-Michael

 

[Dale]

Apple really does need to look at profit margins in manufacturing hardware
for 5 per cent of the market versus potential profits for selling just the
OS and perhaps garnering 10 or 15 per cent of the market. Microsoft's rapid
rise and Bill Gates rocketing from broke college drop out to the richest man
in the world is plenty of proof that the profits are in shipping 2 dollar
CDs for 200 dollars, not in shipping 1000 dollar hardware for 1500 dollars.

Dale

 

[Alias]

Apple really does need to look at profit margins in manufacturing
hardware for 5 per cent of the market versus potential profits for
selling just the OS and perhaps garnering 10 or 15 per cent of the
market. Microsoft's rapid rise and Bill Gates rocketing from broke
college drop out to the richest man in the world is plenty of proof that
the profits are in shipping 2 dollar CDs for 200 dollars, not in
shipping 1000 dollar hardware for 1500 dollars.

Dale

Good point.

Alias

 

[Bill Marriott]

I still think it's the price that holds most people back, compared to the

price of a PC.

The price is not an issue.

MacBook 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, built-in cam; 4+ hr battery life;
13.5-in 1280x800

....exactly the same price as the Dell XPS M1210 (6V610-DYCWLS1) and you get
a bigger screen and a DVD burner thrown in for good measure.

 

[Bill Marriott]

Some of what you say is true. However, "for many people",

their first encounter with Vista will be on a new computer

And if their new computer is a Macintosh?

Look, when you buy a Mac nowadays you are getting an Intel processor and
industry-standard components like nVidia or ATI graphics cards, etc. You can
buy a Mac and devote 98% of the hard disk to an NTFS partition and you've
got a more-than-excellent Windows PC. That's my point. I got the MacBook not
because I wanted to jump ship, but because it was the best-priced,
best-spec'd hardware at the time. I planned to run Windows and only drop
into Mac OSX when I needed to do compatibility testing.

Even Vista runs on it.

But the point is... once you start working with Mac OSX, you'll have second
thoughts about just how much of that drive you wanna devote to Windows.

they aren't going to have to worry about doing anything different
than when they bought a new computer with XP on it.

A *lot* of existing software and hardware doesn't work properly on Vista.
That is a huge expense upgrading applications.

Really, it's not "many", but *most* users will not experience Vista until
it's time for a new computer. If they rush out to buy a new computer
just to get Vista, while there was nothing wrong with what they had-
oh well, their choice. They certainly don't have to.

When it comes time to buy a new computer, the most rational choice may not
be to get a Windows-Vista-based PC. It may be to get a Macintosh PC and run
Boot Camp. That way you have the benefit of a nice, new operating system on
your flashy new hardware, that still runs all your old stuff.

 

[Kerry Brown]

This is not true. I was actually looking at an Intel based Mac until I
worked one for a customer. They were trying to install a new Epson
all-in-one that said it worked with macs on the box. The salesman sold it to
them with the Mac. In the process of getting it to work I found out how true
the following statement is:

Everything is easy to do on a Mac because if you want to do something that
isn't easy to do it is impossible to do so it can't be done.

 

[Dale]

And even better if Vista SP1 contained WMP 11.5

Dale

 

[Bill Marriott]

By contrast the HP All-in-One printer I got for free with my MacBook
installed in about 30 seconds, worked perfectly and the driver weighed in at
~200MB less than the one for Windows. I don't see how Epson's screwing up a
driver is a reflection on the Mac. A screwed up driver is a screwed up
driver. Are you saying that on Windows you'd be able to disassemble and
recompile it or something?

 

[Kerry Brown]

In the long run this statement is not true:

"There are nearly an infinite number of ways to compare complex beasts like
operating systems. I'm going to skip low-level issues, like comparing driver
architectures. Most people just don't care about things like who has the
superior kernel. People care far more about the parts they see and work
with, so that is what I'm going to deal with here."

While most people don't consiously care about the kernel or driver
architecture, in the end how stable and secure the kernel is, and how good
the driver architecture is will determine the fate of Vista or any OS. If it
turns out to not be secure and/or stable and there are problems with driver
availablity and stability then this will have a dramatic affect on what OS
is perceived to be better by most people. So even if they don't care about
it consciously in the long run it will determine which OS will be more
successful.

 

[Bill Marriott]

Um, ok, if you say so. He's just saying he's not covering that in the
article, which is fine by me. I'm sure that's a worthy topic for another day
or even another author. In any event, he doesn't award that aspect to either
one, and it's not one of the "conclusions" I'm talking about.

Nevertheless, the idea that the kernel ultimately determines success is a
geek fantasy. It's the whole ball of wax. Usability, technology, industry
support, marketing, consumer inertia, and so on.

(But if you want to talk about architecture, how about EFI over BIOS, the
journaling HFS file system, BSD underpinnings [known for its stability and
speed], leaner resource usage, and other advantages the Mac seems to enjoy?)

In the long run this statement is not true:

[...] "Most people just don't care about things like who has the superior
kernel. People care far more about the parts they see and work with, so
that is what I'm going to deal with here."

[...] even if they don't care about it consciously in the long run it will
determine which OS will be more successful.

As someone who picked up a MacBook in November, I can wholeheartedly
agree with the conclusions in this article.

 

[Alias]

The price is not an issue.

MacBook 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, built-in cam; 4+ hr battery life;
13.5-in 1280x800

...exactly the same price as the Dell XPS M1210 (6V610-DYCWLS1) and you get
a bigger screen and a DVD burner thrown in for good measure.

Perhaps with lap tops, Dell and Apple are similarly priced. Not so for
desk tops, although I use white boxes which are even cheaper than a Dell.

Alias

 

[Bill Marriott]

Right; have to grant you that -- you're not going to find a $199 barebones
add-you-own-CD-ROM-drive hobbyist bundle from Apple any time soon.

I build all my own desktop PCs too; but I don't think one can build their
own laptop yet. Not in any meaningful way.

And the problem with the iMac and Mac mini is there's no place to stick your
EVGA 8800GTX KO, let alone TWO of them!

If it weren't for my need to replace a decrepit Fujitsu notebook I might
never have witnessed the allure of Mac OS X firsthand