Snow Leopard gets richer, thinner, cheaper than Windows 7

1456810

Comments

  • Reply 141 of 190
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    well folks can debate nomenclature all day but never get to one true answer. it depends how you look at it.



    Windows 7 is actually NT 6.1. Microsoft can brand it any way it wants, but that's what it actually is. Vista was 6.0, and it was a true generation beyond XP 5.x, no question. So Vista and Windows 7 are both NT 6.x. but you are still going to have to pay a lot for the upgrade from one to the next. the market justification for that is the end user experience will be noticeably improved.



    Snow Leopard 10.6 is not as big a jump from Leopard OS 10.5 for Mac OS X as XP to Vista was for NT from end user perspectives. but it is a very consequential jump nonetheless technically because it terminates PPC support and initiates important new processor technologies for the future. those key internal OS changes alone logically warrant the next gen numbering. even if the Finder refinements don't and Quicktime could have been updated separately as a stand alone product. but in market terms it only justifies a modest upgrade price, and that is all Apple is asking. so for once few are whining.



    bottom line, MS is making many PC users pay twice to get NT 6.x right once. that's a real rip. a Microsoft tax!. let the PC whining commence!
  • Reply 142 of 190
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    OK, you bought an home use XP PC in 2006, then you upgraded to Vista in 2007 and now will upgrade again to Win 7 in 2009. so ...



    Vista Home Premium upgrade cost - 160

    Wind 7 Home Premium upgrade advance purchase special - 50

    Total spent on upgrades to get an NT 6.x that works right - 210



    vs. a Mac home user who bought in intel Mac in 2007, then upgraded to Leopard in 2007 and will now upgrade again to Snow Leopard in 2009 ...



    Leopard upgrade cost - 130

    Snow Leopard upgrade cost - 30



    Total spent on OS X upgrades - 160



    so the Microsoft Tax: 210-160 = $50. and Win 7 Home Premium is simply not the equal of Snow Leopard in capabilities (like lacking Exchange support - hah!). so at least add the price for the stand-alone MS Office Outlook 2007 - another 110 - total MS tax now is $160!!



    And it gets much worse for businesses or high end users. if you run the same scenario, and using the family pack prices for Mac while there is no multi user discount for Windows, the totals come out (at least) 410 vs. 150 - a $260 MS tax per computer!



    but few businesses will ever follow that scenario. they'll just buy new PC's instead, most having already skipped Vista anyway. that was smart.



    but any poor consumer who upgraded to Vista and can't afford a new PC now is getting royally screwed by MS. think they will ever catch on?
  • Reply 143 of 190
    kukukuku Posts: 254member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Alfiejr View Post


    And it gets much worse for businesses or high end users. if you run the same scenario, and using the family pack prices for Mac while there is no multi user discount for Windows, the totals come out (at least) 410 vs. 150 - a $260 MS tax per computer!



    but few businesses will ever follow that scenario. they'll just buy new PC's instead, most having already skipped Vista anyway. that was smart.





    Actually business cheat both PC and Mac.



    On PCs they just reimage it with the corp version of windows (usually pay a lot less then they should have. Who count's? Not MS)



    On macs, it's free, because one disc is just imaged and repeated used (Who care's not apple).



    Business don't change because MS is a bastard about support, and the moment you jump vista, you have to do everything from MS suite, down the line in upgrades.



    And it still doesn't fix the bugs. Why bother changing, when a work state is emails and office? Heck business uses actually want to downgrade not only vista, but Office 2007 to 2003. Stupid of MS to change the interface. Business users are the most paranoid when it comes to workflow.



    So you have users that refuse both vista and office, what's left for reason to upgrade?.
  • Reply 144 of 190
    I didn't go through that mess, fortunately. When I purchased Vista, it was Vista SP1 on the disc and it installed fine and I never experienced any problems. I have been using Vista for 14 months now and have never and I mean NEVER had it freeze (requiring CTRL+ALT+DEL) and have never seen a BSOD. And all of this on a PC I built. I am not going to say its the best, I have been running Win 7RC and it is so much more responsive. I just feel that Vista is sometimes given an unfair bad rap..



    On the flip side, your comments don't answer the questions that I presented the author. I actually just read another thorough article comparing the 2 OS and it was actually unbiased and broke down feature for feature. I found that to be a nice read. Apple was ahead in several categories and Win 7 was ahead in several and they were about even in several. I actually learned something from it. Oh, and they clearly stated that Win 7 pricing wasn't out yet and both OS have not been released.



    I don't know if it will be deleted from here, but the article was at Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5285452/os-x-snow...inal-countdown I would only recommend reading if you are not a total Apple on Windows fanboy...





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tt92618 View Post


    Not to quibble, but I would say that Vista was NOT fixed with SP2. And even if it was, what a painful fix! I have an HP 4400 series workstation running vista ultimate. It took me literally 3 days just to get the machine stable enough to work with. Just installing service pack one, then service pack two (because SP2 requires SP1 first) took the better part of a work day. Why should installing a service pack take 2 or 3 HOURS? It is absurd.



    I went through so much nonsense getting the box where I needed it to be just to be functional...



    1) Install Vista.

    2) Install Visual Studio Team Suite. Crashes when connecting to TFS. Try to uninstall and reinstall. Can't uninstall, uninstaller crashes. Try to repair. Can't, installer crashes.

    3) Useless web searches trying to get a solution. Notice also that sound won't work.

    4) Download and install sound driver; sound works.

    5) Install Visual Studio Enterprise hoping some DLL's get overwritten. VS finally works.

    6) Code, code, code. Check in. Can't check in; VS2008 bug.

    7) Search web for solutions. Can't resolve DNS for sites in a spotty fashion - mystifying; every other machine works (Mac, XP boxes).

    8) Uninstall and re-install .net. Check in. Old error gone, now get a new error.

    9) Install .net service pack - about 2 hours.

    10) Install VS2008 service pack - 3 to 4 hours.

    11) Check in works! YAY! Still throwing policy errors but who cares, I can finally work.

    12) Still can't resolve certain web sites. Can't hit HTTPS URL's. Every other machine in the house works fine.

    13) Install SP1 - 3 hours.

    14) Install SP2 - who knows - hours.

    15) Sound broken again - thank you SP2.

    16) Re-install sound drivers; sound works again.

    17) Still can't hit some web sites that every other box in the house can.

    18) Adjust gamma for secondary display AGAIN (for the upteenth time) because Vista keeps resetting it on EVERY RESTART.



    --- And the saga continues. ---



    Look, I use Macs and PC's. I develop for both. I can only speak from my own experience, but that experience is considerable, and this is what I have to say: it completely mystifies me how MS can sell this crap. Honestly, some of this stuff is just pure unadulterated excrement. I spend more time fighting my PC to get it to work than I do actually working, sometimes, and that is just ridiculous that it should be that way. It should NOT be so. My workstations and development tools are supposed to help me be productive, not vex me into the grave early. Anyone who thinks this state of affairs is acceptable or good is just blinded by some misplaced allegiance.



  • Reply 145 of 190
    jupiteronejupiterone Posts: 1,564member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DustinLH00 View Post


    I don't know if it will be deleted from here, but the article was at Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5285452/os-x-snow...inal-countdown I would only recommend reading if you are not a total Apple on Windows fanboy...



    Two gems from this article:

    Quote:

    Networking is waaaaaaaay better in Windows 7 than it was in Vista?you can actually get to wireless networking with fewer than seventeen clicks...



    Quote:

    Have you seen Windows 7 acid-trip backgrounds? Incredible. What's Snow Leopard got? Some stupid purple star thing. Apple background designers needs more drugs, plz.



  • Reply 146 of 190
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DustinLH00 View Post


    I didn't go through that mess, fortunately. When I purchased Vista, it was Vista SP1 on the disc and it installed fine and I never experienced any problems. I have been using Vista for 14 months now and have never and I mean NEVER had it freeze (requiring CTRL+ALT+DEL) and have never seen a BSOD. And all of this on a PC I built. I am not going to say its the best, I have been running Win 7RC and it is so much more responsive. I just feel that Vista is sometimes given an unfair bad rap..



    On the flip side, your comments don't answer the questions that I presented the author. I actually just read another thorough article comparing the 2 OS and it was actually unbiased and broke down feature for feature. I found that to be a nice read. Apple was ahead in several categories and Win 7 was ahead in several and they were about even in several. I actually learned something from it. Oh, and they clearly stated that Win 7 pricing wasn't out yet and both OS have not been released.



    I don't know if it will be deleted from here, but the article was at Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5285452/os-x-snow...inal-countdown I would only recommend reading if you are not a total Apple on Windows fanboy...





    First off, my biggest gripe with Vista is just how slow it is. I haven't used Windows 7 yet, but I can tell you that Snow Leopard will be faster then Vista -- and I wouldn't be surprised if it's faster the Windows 7, but we shall see by the end of this year.



    Second, I read that review, or preview, and I have to agree with most of it: although I think it's kinda weird them saying that Windows 7 has awesome backgrounds, when OS X can just use those -- but I don't really care, because most of the time I find my own backgrounds. So...yea. Snow Leopard, if it's faster and more responsive then OS X Tiger, then it will more then likely be my favorite OS.
  • Reply 147 of 190
    Watching Apple and Microsoft users fight reminds me of the 1990s when Novell admins argued with the Microsoft admins.... Entertaining, indeed!





    I am still waiting for the Apple equivalent of Norton Ghost. I want to backup/restore 10+ machines at the same time.



    What? MacIntoshes have no GUI utility to easily manage/copy default user profiles? Why not?



    Where is the "Microsoft Exchange killer?" No, I do not mean "Outlook killer." I want an Exchange killer. Does Apple understand how many thousands of corporate and government users have their email held hostage on the Exchange server? Can Apple invent a migration plan to get corporate users off Exchange.



    Is Apple afraid to enter the mail server area, as Microsoft could easily kill Apple corporate and higher education sales by halting all future releases of MS Office for the Mac?



    I am sure there are other significant shortcomings of Macs in the office that Apple should address. Please feel free to add to this wish list......
  • Reply 148 of 190
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bourgoises Pig View Post


    Where is the "Microsoft Exchange killer?" No, I do not mean "Outlook killer." I want an Exchange killer. Does Apple understand how many thousands of corporate and government users have their email held hostage on the Exchange server? Can Apple invent a migration plan to get corporate users off Exchange.



    Is Apple afraid to enter the mail server area, as Microsoft could easily kill Apple corporate and higher education sales by halting all future releases of MS Office for the Mac?



    I am sure there are other significant shortcomings of Macs in the office that Apple should address. Please feel free to add to this wish list......



    Rather than kill Exchange they chose to license it directly into the OS. Their iWork apps are already compatible w/Office programs I believe, so you won't need Office on the Mac as long as you pick up iWork. That appears to be the gameplan anyway. Someone in another thread said w/the Exchange change IT departments could easily just give people a Mac Mini w/iWork installed and have all the basics covered.
  • Reply 149 of 190
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nikon133 View Post


    Because there is something horribly wrong with your box..? \



    SP2 took about 20 minutes to install on my old office P4 desktop with 2.5GB of RAM.



    I sorely doubt your system specs are in-line with his system. That alone will change stability and time to fix whatever happens after updating.
  • Reply 150 of 190
    kukukuku Posts: 254member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    I sorely doubt your system specs are in-line with his system. That alone will change stability and time to fix whatever happens after updating.



    The fact that you have to say that is not comforting. Especially when MS was more or less sued for their "vista ready" program.



    The minimum specs are way too low. Vista is indeed bloated in certain angle. Usually not a problem except the extreme backlash they got.



    I can check off my logs for several cases where "It worked just fine in XP, but when I upgraded to vista it was soooo slow". And there was no real solutions, because it was just the requirements.



    Apple has largely avoided this through tight coding and honest cut offs. It fumes a lot of people, but in the end it makes the backlash short. Even the whole quartz hack on rage pro, died a fast controversy.





    Vista is really a Windows Me Type system. It was never meant for business and corporate. It was too fault, too loose, and too annoying for power users.



    Anyone who says "I never had a problem with Vista" has not plug it to anything but their kvm and a bundled printer.



    Once you start plugging things into it, SP1 SP2, it still is a hair pulling experience. It has never been the stuff you expect not to work to mess you up, it's the stuff that has worked for ages, suddenly stop working.
  • Reply 151 of 190
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kuku View Post


    Before you start nodding your head claiming blasphemy, this is a real and true issue effecting MS.



    this article I believe will sum it up, but other articles will do the same thing.



    http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=137088



    Basically Netbooks are low low bargin-bin price, and with it the market agenda that "You're not running a computer, you're running a web browser terminal".



    In came an influx of free linux-esque OSs, because, compatibility is suddenly not important. You don't want it to run MS office, exchange, games, or any other of MS's fortes. Thus it was marketed as "Windows free" and consumers lured by the price and size, accepted it.



    And with that acceptance, grew MS alternatives. Gmail, web based desktop publishing, etc (Essensically, baiting people to stop using MS office and other windows monopoly stuff)



    And this lead to a terrible situation for MS. People wanted Windows free machines, because it was percieved as cheaper and willing to use alternatives.



    (just like iphone killing windows mobile licenses)



    This lead to MS cutting license prices (usually XP) to get them on netbooks, essentially destroying their business models. (MS getting rapped at the own game, funny).



    This isn't usually a problem, software is essentially free if no one buys it. But it is, if competitors also cut off future products like Vista (which won't go on netbooks, because it needs to make money).



    And if Apple decides to go playing a price war with windows 7. MS is basically in a situation of fighting it's own tactics, your revenue stream is being cut from behind, and your business model above has suddenly run into roadblocks.



    It's like loosing your job and paying the mortgage. Even if you got lots of cash in the bank, things can eventually dry up, unless you get out of the situation.



    If people choose to use only browser-based applications, then why would they care about the operating system? I like the "why bother with windows" argument made above, but how do you justify paying an additional $800 for a comparable Mac?
  • Reply 152 of 190
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SSquirrel View Post


    Rather than kill Exchange they chose to license it directly into the OS. Their iWork apps are already compatible w/Office programs I believe, so you won't need Office on the Mac as long as you pick up iWork. That appears to be the gameplan anyway. Someone in another thread said w/the Exchange change IT departments could easily just give people a Mac Mini w/iWork installed and have all the basics covered.



    Until recently, we had one unix mail server, with Eudora and Thunderbird as email clients. Exchange is being forced on the entire organization - just because a couple of executives love the Exchange calendar. I wince every time I have to tell my users to use Entourage when they get a new machine. Yes - it is more convenient to deploy a Mac, just as long as they use Entourage and nothing else. Bye bye Apple Mail! So much for choice.......



    I understand the reasons why Apple keeps iWork and to keep it as compatible with M$ products as possible. Someday, M$ could stop offering Office for Mac.....

    If M$ wants to bash Apple about price, then I would love to see Apple argue about the high costs of running Exchange. Apple really needs to jump into the mail server market. This would cut M$ at its knees.
  • Reply 153 of 190
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Of course the interesting thing is that if people decide to buy iWork and skip Office, MS may lose some money, but they could decide to stop producing Office for Mac. What I'm curious of is how much money would MS save by not having to develop Office for both platforms? Might be close enough that they would just decide to skip it as a cost cutting measure in this economy
  • Reply 154 of 190
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SSquirrel View Post


    Of course the interesting thing is that if people decide to buy iWork and skip Office, MS may lose some money, but they could decide to stop producing Office for Mac. What I'm curious of is how much money would MS save by not having to develop Office for both platforms? Might be close enough that they would just decide to skip it as a cost cutting measure in this economy



    I?ve read some reports that show that MS makes a very hefty profit from Office for Mac sales, so they would be saving some development cost but losing a lot of profit. This was a couple years ago before iWork was any sort of competitor and probably while MS was required to make Office for Mac due to an agreement. Things may have changed.



    SL will allow you to view any(?) Office doc without having iWork or Office installed. Frankly, I have never needed either program suite in years. As a consumer, I use TextEdit which has enough rich text options to suit any needs I have at this point.
  • Reply 155 of 190
    kukukuku Posts: 254member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bourgoises Pig View Post


    If people choose to use only browser-based applications, then why would they care about the operating system? I like the "why bother with windows" argument made above, but how do you justify paying an additional $800 for a comparable Mac?



    Because people that are lured by netbooks are not Apple's target audience.



    Apple doesn't care, because people who buy apple will never even want to consider using browser based apps, or require more.



    For that they can use iphone



    Apple doesn't want to go into that dog fight, which it stay smart by profiting off HW rather then SW.



    MS has no choice. Most of the sales have always come from low end machines. High end machines tend to be corporate, that just resist everything, and MS can only depend on them in cycles, not all year.
  • Reply 156 of 190
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I?ve read some reports that show that MS makes a very hefty profit from Office for Mac sales, so they would be saving some development cost but losing a lot of profit. This was a couple years ago before iWork was any sort of competitor and probably while MS was required to make Office for Mac due to an agreement. Things may have changed.



    SL will allow you to view any(?) Office doc without having iWork or Office installed. Frankly, I have never needed either program suite in years. As a consumer, I use TextEdit which has enough rich text options to suit any needs I have at this point.



    I could only hope that most users have boot camp or parallels in order to migrate away from Windows. Otherwise, why not just skip the Mac and buy a Windows machine? Since most applications will become browser-based, the client becomes increasingly irrelevant. Apple will have to try really hard to kick M$ out of the server room. There must be compelling reasons to use Xserve instead of Windows server 2000x......



    I wish Apple would conquer colleges and universities--not just students, but faculty, staff, and the server rooms as well. Recall that Windows dominates the business and higher education market today, as all the windows 95/98 home users originally wanted to use the same operating systems and applications at work......
  • Reply 157 of 190
    kukukuku Posts: 254member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bourgoises Pig View Post


    Watching Apple and Microsoft users fight reminds me of the 1990s when Novell admins argued with the Microsoft admins.... Entertaining, indeed!





    I am still waiting for the Apple equivalent of Norton Ghost. I want to backup/restore 10+ machines at the same time.



    What? MacIntoshes have no GUI utility to easily manage/copy default user profiles? Why not?



    Where is the "Microsoft Exchange killer?" No, I do not mean "Outlook killer." I want an Exchange killer. Does Apple understand how many thousands of corporate and government users have their email held hostage on the Exchange server? Can Apple invent a migration plan to get corporate users off Exchange.



    Is Apple afraid to enter the mail server area, as Microsoft could easily kill Apple corporate and higher education sales by halting all future releases of MS Office for the Mac?



    I am sure there are other significant shortcomings of Macs in the office that Apple should address. Please feel free to add to this wish list......



    WTF WTF WTF!



    10.5+ is system insensitive.



    You can plug 10 macs together with FW800 and Targetmount yourself imaging all you want.



    you can use a a script copy, drag and drop(make sure you get the invis), or Migtrate to your hearts content.



    And every single program, not MACaddress locked down, will work.



    Mac is like the easiest to Ghost machine ever! It automatically blesses, and auto detects drivers, and boots up just fine.



    Ghost has to be hacked to bits. It can't backup servers, it can't back up SATA drivers, SCSI drivers. And We've been given the still "beta" boot CD, to backup mount on disk



    Even a block level image of windows machine causes problems. It's not disk size scalable.



    And it gets worse if you have dell/HP recovery partitions and other weird stuff.
  • Reply 158 of 190
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bourgoises Pig View Post


    I could only hope that most users have boot camp or parallels in order to migrate away from Windows. Otherwise, why not just skip the Mac and buy a Windows machine? Since most applications will become browser-based, the client becomes increasingly irrelevant. Apple will have to try really hard to kick M$ out of the server room. There must be compelling reasons to use Xserve instead of Windows server 2000x......



    I wish Apple would conquer colleges and universities--not just students, but faculty, staff, and the server rooms as well. Recall that Windows dominates the business and higher education market today, as all the windows 95/98 home users originally wanted to use the same operating systems and applications at work......



    There is no war to be had. Windows and OS X work in completely different ways and in different markets. There is no way for Apple to make any serious inroads into Windows marketshare if they plan to keep their OS tied to their HW. For this reason, we need to look at Apple?s PC side from the HW perspective and compare them to the Dell, HP and others. From standpoint they do quite well and when you consider the average cost per machine and dollar sale you see that Apple win in both of those arenas. HP and Dell, who are number 1 and 2, wish they made as much gross and net as Apple makes. Earlier this year Apple reported that 1 out of every 3 dollars from PC sales in the US went to them. If you consider the +$1000 PCs you get an even higher number and a much higher percentage of sales. I?m sure Apple wants more marketshare in both the HW and OS, but more money is better.
  • Reply 159 of 190
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Of course when you have $30B in the bank, you could afford to try really cutting your margins down. The problem is that if Apple cut their margins closer to PC levels, you might well see machines much cheaper. But let's say Apple decides the experiment was not worth it. Imagine the headlines if "Apple jacks prices up $500 across the board!". That would be a PR nightmare.
  • Reply 160 of 190
    talksense101talksense101 Posts: 1,738member
    Windows 7 will be a major success. There is nothing Apple can do to change that. Of course, if I get a cheap update to Windows 7 ultimate from my Vista x64 Ultimate thanks to Apple...



    OS X is all fine & dandy, but Apple's focus is more on hand held devices and user experience these days. I don't see anything that can increase the market share of OS X significantly. If anything, the hardware pricing ensures that international customers need to think twice about making the investment.



    Linux is a bigger threat to Microsoft than Apple.
Sign In or Register to comment.