Apple trumps Windows PC makers in customer experience study - Page 2

Just for fun, let's say that Apple proposed and paid for the study. Does that mean the Forrester is in the business of providing "studies" that confirm whatever the client wants?

If so, wouldn't they be commonly regarded as a PR firm, instead of a research firm?

Then shut up, stop surfing the internet while you're at work, and don't read articles like this ever again.

What does Apple do for me? It (my Mac) enables me to be self-employed.

Could a PC do it just as well? Yeah, probably. But I don't care.

I do not like any Pc and any Mac...

Well I work with my Pc and have fun with my Mac. My work Pc is a grey, ugly Dell, my Macs are aluminum and shiny white. So when I say I agree that I'm happy/more happy with my Mac.

When I relate to PC (Dell, HP an others) I relate to something I have to do, everyday boring stuff, work.
When I relate to Mac I relate to recording music in logic and PT and having fun.

What I'm trying to say is that my opinion is clearly coloured by other things then facts about hardware even if I'm a bit of a tech geek that loves clean design and form.

(What I'm not trying to say is that Pc's are automatically boring and macs are fun)

It would be nice to see a customer survey only for say OS X server and Windows Server users/customers. and see the result.


Cheers

Ahhh, Linux! I like that, too.

Unless you meant hardware . . . which pretty much leaves blenders and vacuums.

Any company that would publish a study like this and not credit the sponsor has zero credibility! Assuming they do have some credibility, Apple was not mentioned in this article as A sponsor.

This appears to be one of several in a series on the "Customer Experience Index for 2008". While this does not rule out a sponsor, I would suspect that the $700+ price tag on the report indicates where they get their money!

KRR

Yeahh!!

Can it run OSX?

Sorry Quadra, I didn't see your post..

xxxxx

This can be easily resolved by selecting the downgrade XP recovery DVD option when purchasing a Thinkpad on Lenovo website, even as of today. It is no news that Microsoft has privately extended the XP license with PC builders despite the official expired date, Jan 31 2009, which is still enlisted on Microsoft's website.

Speaking of high quality hardware, the only thing I can complain about the X200s is the TN screen display quality that comes with a high price tag, other than that it's perfect.

This study only goes to show that Macs provide a better user experience than PCs that has the notorious Vista built in. It will be really lame if Apple takes this as a triumph. Only those stock analysts who barely understand or even barely use Macs will make a big deal out of it.

I'm sure there'd be a way to install OS X on it.

Yeah Apple has been sponsoring all the studies putting them in front for customer satisfaction from their OS, to their computers, to iphones, to ipods.

Personally I find it funny that Microsoft is really worried about Apple. They have twelve times the market. I can't think of any dominant company that names a competitor with that much less market share. Why give the free advertising to the competition.

Announcing your degree is comp sci isn't exactly validating your statement (sounds kind of cocky to me). BTW, it's not cocky nature to not want the BS that a lot of people have had to deal with regarding Windows. However, it is pretty cocky to assume that people are cocky for wanting to use something other than Windows. Also, Microsoft choose to go the route they went and it is no excuse for it being the wreck that it is sometimes (i.e ME and Vista. XP was ok but it took many years just to become livable for most people). Of course, that's just my opinion, so try to take it with a grain of salt instead acting "cocky".

It's always a good idea to get advice from an expert.

shut up!!


I'm so sick of these brooding fanboiz coming onto a non brooding forum and talking up their mp3 players, go to your own brooding forum.

leave us upbeat-ers to our iPodzzz!!11!!! etc.

[/sarcasm]

Then why exactly are you posting on an Apple fan site?? Have we all become so bored in life that we need to post something about nothing??!! What gives??

Starting at $1,739.99 according to Sony.

It really bugs me when people who wouldn't recommend a Mac are accused of having never used one. I have used a friends 24" iMac plenty of times, and whilst it's a very nice piece of kit, there's no way I'd recommend anyone spend about £500 more than a similarly specced Dell desktop as the Mac doesn't do £500 more worth of stuff. If someone came to me and asked me to recommend a computer that did something the Mac excelled at (which is what exactly?) then I'd recommend a Mac, but for just about everything else, a Windows PC achieves the same thing, for much less, and I don't like to see people wasting money pointlessly.

And Macs are vulnerable too in terms of usability and customer experience. Within 30 minutes of getting my friends iMac out of the box, Firefox had crashed and wouldn't force quite. We had to switch the thing off by the power button as it had completely locked up. It's also taken my friend over 6 months to get the Mac to successfully share its printer and files over the network with a Windows PC (partly because she hasn't had a lot of time to deal with it, and partly because it didn't 'just work' as we were expecting it to - took a lot more configuration than that in the end). The Windows PC was able to share its files with the Mac without any problems, however. (probably helped by the fact we already knew how to do this, and 2 or 3 clicks later everything was shared).

Needless to say, I wouldn't really say the Mac has shown itself to be worth over £1000. It hasn't really done anything spectacular yet, and certainly nothing that has made use think 'wow, that's great'. It browses the web, writes emails, does office documents and chats on IM just as easily and efficiently as a Windows PC, and if that's all you're interested in, the price isn't justified.

One thing you missed, in my opinion, is that if you suggest to purchase a Dell now, then the person will have to shell out several hundred bucks when Windows 7 comes out... This will, probably, reduce the price gap quite greatly. And then the person will have to buy the new version of Office or something...
With a Mac, the same person, next year, will be able to buy the "Apple software box" with the new OS, iWork and iLife at a fraction of the cost.

Unless, of course, the person wants to keep the same configuration and SW for the whole life span of the PC, which is legit but not that smart in my opinion.

I work in an architect office and we have some Mac Pro G5 which run Leopard and the latest ArchiCAD version flawlessly. Now, THAT was an investment. We also had some PCs (in the meantime we phased them out) and we couldn't even get Vista to work properly on them...

OSs advance (yep, even Microsoft!) and take better advantage of the HW you have (64 bit for instance) but if you have to spend about 400 USD (figure I made up, not seen anywhere, but I guess it will come close to that) for a new OS then paying 500 USD less for a PC isn't going to make it exactly "a lot cheaper".

To be precise:
500 USD less upfront + 400 USD (very approx) for Win7 is a 100 USD difference. If you add the cost of Apple's new OS (150 USD) then you get a total difference, in a year, of about 250 USD, which about half of what you mention...

They only have to shell out that money for Windows 7 if they want Windows 7. Unless there's something that the new OS does that the old one doesn't, then most people will just stick with what they've got. That's why there are still so many Windows XP users! Even XP has no problems with doing just about everything you could want, so for most people, buying Windows 7 will not be a high priority.

Some in this thread have asked about Forrester, primarily questioning the validity of the survey.

This may help.

From Forrester's corporate fact sheet, which you can download here.

http://www.forrester.com/rb/research
_______________________________
About Forrester
Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company
that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business
and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 19 key roles at major
companies providing proprietary research, consumer insight, consulting, events,
and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 25 years, Forrester has
been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day.
For more information, visit www.forrester.com.

Corporate Facts
Founded: 1983 by George F. Colony
Headquarters: 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Employees: 1,068 (as of September 30, 2008), more than 411 of whom are
research professionals
Ranked: In the top 75 on Forbes' 200 Best Small Companies list for five
consecutive years
Number Of Client Companies: 2,718 (as of September 30, 2008)
_____________________________

Is Apple one of those clients? Most likely.

Are MIcrosoft, HP, Dell, etc. also clients? Most likely.

Would Forrester risk its reputation, risk losing many of its other 2,717 clients, who are "global leaders in the technology industry" by putting out a survey just to make Apple look good?

I doubt it.

Addendum: Some may wish to interpret the line "Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day," as meaning they issue reports favorable to clients in order to make them "successful."

Hardly. Objective research reports, such as this one, are valuable tools for all their clients, can make all their clients more "successful". Those that did not do well in the survey are as interested in knowing how they did as Apple is. One needs to know how they are doing in order to make improvements. When it comes to Apple, the company just has less to do (there is always room for improvement) than the rest when it comes to customer satisfation.

Addendum II

In looking through the Forrester site, I came across a description of one of their services that not only further explains why it is to their advantage to assure their surveys are unbiased, but points to how significant ranking high on a survey of this sort is to a company like Apple.
___________________________________

One of your biggest challenges is evaluating and selecting vendor products and services. That's why we created the Forrester Wave — our call on a particular market or technology. Whether you're investing in application server platforms or content management providers, the Forrester Wave makes it easy for you to make well-informed decisions.

The new Forrester Wave offers:

A detailed analysis of vendors' products and services based on transparent, fully accessible criteria.
A powerful Excel spreadsheet that allows you to easily compare products and get in-depth data and analysis about each one.
Tools to develop a custom shortlist based on your company's unique requirements.
____________________________________

In short, the very people who make major purchasing decisions are also Forrester customers.

Addendum III:

I understand that regardless of all I've provided regarding Forrester, some will question the validity of the survey based on the assumption that Apple paid for it.

Nonsense.

Apple may well have paid for it. Apple knows that it ranks high in customer satisfaction. If Apple felt reiterating that fact would be to its benefit right now, it would make sense to ask Forrester to do a survey. GIven Apple's track record on the subject, they were taking very little risk by asking for a current reading.

Apple, if they paid for the survey, simply made a smart marketing decision: to have an independent research firm issue an unbiased report that reminds everyone that Apple ranks high in customer satisfaction, and that the companies who are featured in the latest Microsoft anti-Apple ads rank low in customer satisfaction.

Addendum IV

The Forrester Research report covers a broad range of companies, not just computer makers. It's unlikely that Apple paid for it.

Let me get this right. I purchase a notebook but should select to "downgrade" to an OS that officially expired??? It is hilarious that even regular buyers (not large corporate purchasers with complicated infrastructures) should consider "downgrading" to an (expired) XP more than two years after Vista was released. In any case, my experience with XP was not that great either (sleep function never worked for me the way it should: work with various programs, close lid=sleep, open lid: back to work in a few seconds - repeat same process several times per day for a week without any glitches; I challenge you to find any XP/Vista machine that can achieve such a feat).

My Samsung Q210 with Vista works just like that . Sleep mode is fine. Same with my desktop PC, and my Media Centre PC.

I love it when folks admit that they are totally controlled by the actions of others. I would buy or not buy a product on the foundations of the product, not the perceived attitude of the company.

That's ridiculous. Apple had Chinese (and Japanese Kanji) handwriting recognition technology in 1995. As far as I know, they own that technology. All they need to do is update it for OS X.

Z540's are long gone from being sold on Sony's site.
If MacConnection resells new PB G4's should anyone care they were once "starting at $1799 according to Apple"?
As has been pointed out many times, anyone who cites or pays (unless they need one immediately) anywhere near list price for current new Dells & HPs even direct, or new but dated Sonys, etc is clueless. Just as thinking auto list prices must be plunked down, except for (the analogously) elite brands. MSft is screwed adwise; mentioning this would PO the HW suppliers.
$1299 - $1172 leaves enough to buy a retail Leopard, 'cept for no switchable GPUS, no card reader, no HDMI audio, & WiFi which doesn't work currently with 10.5.6.
Far, far better screen (even slightly better than the MBA's), 78% MB's weight.

You are being way too generous (and rational) in your response to the M(i)SF(i)Ts who sign up in places like AI just to troll, and then disappear back under their bridge.

No offence dude but do you realise how absolutely dumb this argument is?

You are dissing the Mac because of:

1. a problem with a third party app that you installed
2. a problem with Windows networking

The first complaint about Firefox is pretty stupid, but the second one just shows you know nothing about the situation at all.

Macs share on the network without the user needing to do *anything* at all. If you have a mixed network environment, just turn on the Mac and all the Windows computers just show up *automatically* in the finder and you can share or drag and drop files automatically right out of the box. A windows computer on the same network *cannot* see the Mac or share it's files by default as you have to install a special SMB protocol on the Mac and flip a bunch of switches so Windows can see the Mac.

This is a Windows problem, not a Mac problem. You have it exactly backwards.

Macs use open-source Bonjour protocol out of the box so networked devices can automatically be aware of each other and use each others stuff. It's Windows that doesn't support this kind of thing, not the Mac. That's why Apple tries to install Bonjour on the Windows computers when you download Safari or anything else. It's trying to "fix" the f*cked up Windows computer by installing some reasonable level of networking support so windows users can have the benefit of modern network discovery protocols.

[\\QUOTE] I'd RATHER work for Apple thanks to their integration of hardware and software to make their products better than the rest And no challenge to make a OS that works with limited hardware? You obviously have had no experience at all writing drivers then, have you? The stuff that Apple is doing is amazing BECAUSE it is difficult to integrate hardware and software so well, and even RIM can't do it as well..[/QUOTE]

Well said! That is Apple's true strength - an integrated, well thought out SYSTEM! Only Microsoft and PC hardware have tried this one size fits all philosophy. All other computer systems were like Apple in terms of integration.

And apparently it is too big a challenge for Microsodt to get it rightcok all that hardware, since they "ain't got it" yet....

"Mac" even told "PC" (in the ad) "it's not your fault, there are a thousand kinds of hardware out there you have to work with."

I am an engineer, and I design systems, though not computer systems. Throwing a bunch of software out there and hoping it works with all kinds of hardware is NOT a system. It might work when you buy it, but with changes down the road, who knows? I can tell you HP doesn't "waste" much of their time on machines they've already sold... You should buy a new one, huh?(sarcasm)

No no no silly. The reason XP was so widely used was many are still under the impression Vista is broken. Fact is, SP2 fixed all these issues.

On another note, I have some die hard Apple friends, (I'm die hard but don't always by the latest and greatest), but they do, no matter what. I found it interesting that they are excited about Windows 7. The thing that is surprising about these guys is that they do a lot of media stuff from a consumer POV, meaning playing vs creating (more what I do) and they love what Windows does.

Add to this that many IT firms are talking about upgrading to Windows 7 from XP is a huge thing for Microsoft. As a beta user, I find it to be pretty cool and runs much faster on older hardware than Vista does. Also, if they address some other missing features, I think Windows 7 could do really well. Also a bit surprised about MOBILE 6.5, looks really good.

Anyway, the more competition Apple has the better. I think they really need a netbook. I think the possible $200 machine with a 2 year data plan is NOT out of the question, this way Apple really starts to control the MOBILE EXPERIENCE, problem though is that 4G is still a ways off and like the iMAC, consumers won't see this as cheap with the data plan and therefore, Apple wouldn't get that much marketshare. Could be wrong though. If they get even half of what they did with the iPhone user base, Apple will be doing pretty good.

Still need some more high end REFRESH. Machines lately updated are surprising still slow. Macbook, Mini, iMac.

Also interesting that Apple has those 10" screens they purchased.

Does installing Bonjour on Windows make it possible for Windows to see Macs by default in Explorer, or is this purely for iTunes Sharing option?

What a surprise!

Any Mac owner knows this! Don't forget resale value! A 4 year old Mac is still worth something ! Just look at eBay. I risked a mere $160 for a G3 iMac (6 years old at the time) in Oct 06 to try a Mac. I still use it and love it and have an Aluminum MacBook & a new iMac when quad cores come out.

I'll admit to knowing very little about it, but all I do know is as soon as the Mac appeared in the house, networking was a huge hassle which it previously hadn't been when it was another Vista PC in its place - it certainly didn't just work! Regardless of where the fault lies, it still gave the Mac a bad first impression - Apple should make it so that it does 'just work' with Windows PCs.

Inkwell on OSX only supports English, French and German. I tried it with a wacom tablet last week. The chinese recognition on iPod touch is lights year ahead. SURPRISE THE HELL OUT ME! Hopefully the technology will be in Snow leopard and we can use the trackpad to write, somehow.

Its mainly a software issue. Dragon Natuarlly Speaking a great voice tech and has improved alot over the years. There is a mac edition. Ink was not developed by Apple, although i dont know if they own it now. The market is very small and the tech is not good enough for us to interact naturally with our computers yet. So its probably not a top priority for Apple or MS. It really a third party, midware, research item. With Wubizixing input you can enter most kanji with 5 strokes. So hold on to your qwerty.

http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/wubi/xing.html

It's $90-100 for an OEM copy of Windows. You can't buy it in the stores, but you can get it online from retailers like newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...srchInDesc=oem

Either that, or buy the upgrade copy of 7 from somewhere like Best Buy. But almost no one buys the full retail copy of Windows, unless you just don't know any better or for some reason want it, because of licensing quarks, but a phone call fixes that too.

Another thing not being taken into account is..:

Most Mac users have chosen to be Mac users. They are enthusiasts and their approach to computing in positive.

But big number of Windows users are forced to use/learn Windows as they have to use them at work. People in general are lazy and don't like to learn new skills (Homer Simpson syndrome?) if they are not enthusiastic about them, resulting negative approach to computing. And people with such approach will complain about anything and everything. But the thing there is: I don't think too many - if any - of them would change attitude even if being exposed to Macs; as long as it is something they have to do, rather than something they want to do, their starting bias will eventually produce negative response.

I can't prove this theory, as with all our customers we haven't got any using Macs as main choice. In fact, I'm aware of only one company's manager using Mac as his own choice, and 3 designers working for small publishing company and using Macs as well. Obviously, all of them are on higher end of food chain than ordinary clerks, secretaries, general staff... of whom many would prefer not to use computers at all if possible. \

I am an avid Mac user. Have been for years, went the way of the pc for a moment and now back to Mac.

That having been said, I have to say this report is an interesting manufactured propaganda to counter an equally not well manufactured propaganda.

Yes, there may be proof the MS/HP ads are faked, but take into account people are stupid and not everyone reads apple insider or even follow the links from google news, so MS/HP are only providing the additional justification for the uninformed whom cannot pay the premium Macs are retailed at.

To be honest, if my wife didn't have a computer purchase plan are her place of employment, we wouldn't have our 24 inch 2.8 Ghz iMac extreme, that came out just before the 3.0 Ghz update.

So MS/HP have done something that is underhanded.

So what?

It's to be expected. If you make a substandard product but want it bought you put more into advertising it than making a better product.

BOSE anyone?

All of that not withstanding, Apple makes mistakes too, so lets not all be fanboys.

Example: Why do none of the Macs come equipped with an HDMI port? Because Apple wants us to use their proprietary Mini Display port? What is that? A DVI port with a different connector?

it doesn't transmit sound, and neither does the DVI. What? Use the headphone jack? What about surround sound?

What's the point of digital surround without the ability to listen on it with anything other than headphones? What's the point of all those HD downloads in iTunes if you can't fully experience them? Most Flat panel televisions come with a PC serial port. That can't be utilized with a Mac. With ANY Mac, except maybe the Pro.

That's sort of like castrating your customers, isn't it?

Most PCs are now equipped with HDMI out of the box as a standard peripheral now, so why not the Macs?

Now, before anyone says it, I know the answer: Buy an apple TV.

But that's about as shady and underhanded as MS/HP, isn't it?

My point is mud will be slung by both parties, about as freely as they were in the last election, and in the end it will mean nothing as its all just a show. People will still by Macs because they can afford them and wonder why people agonize over windows and PCs.

People will still buy PCs because they're cheap and sneer at us "ELITISTS" who can afford to buy Macs.

Ultra geeks will still buy and build their boxes and run many flavors of LINUX on them.

And ALL of these people will still buy or salivate over iPods or iPhones, and connect them to their Macs, PCs, or work Macs or PCs.

And Ultimately NONE of this will get Matroska files to run on my PS3, because Sony knows THAT WILL CUT INTO BLU-RAY SALES.