dponmac Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Whenever you bring up Apple and Microsoft in a conversation, things usually tend to get heated. But is there really any point? After seeing Apple release Boot Camp, I don't really think that was a shot to Microsoft, MS will never see any market share drop with Apple allowing XP to install on their hardware. So that makes me wonder: Who's jugular is Apple going for? Obviously MS is a software company, and Apple is a hardware company, but you can't seem to get 2 threads into an Apple forum without seeing "Apple totally r0xors1! M$ is for n00bz!!!". But now that apple has bridged the OS gap somewhat and XP and OS X can live under one roof in perfect* harmony(awww), are we going to start seeing Dell and HP and other hardware company hate threads now?!! *the term perfect is used loosely and will not be void if the following happens under this "roof": BSODs, stop messages, spyware, virus, system hangs, system crashes, being turned into a zombie, loss of hard drive, CD/DVD will not be returned to you in orderly manner, Clicking on the "order now" button to enlarge your {censored} size, your little brother downloading mass amounts of pr0n and rendering your system useless. finding out that your mother has installed the latest version of netnanny only to slow down your pr0n usage, spilling your favorite beverage all over your keyboard, being pwned in a game of WoW by a 12 yr old switzerland girl by the call name of [l33tc14n]annahilatordoodoopie, and any other error that could possibly go wrong with your OSX/XP system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouch Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 Apple is to Microsoft as Bar Napoli is to Pizza Hut (bar napoli being a hot little italian restaurant near where i live) but i know whereabouts i'd rather eat! Apple is still a premium hardware company and dell is primarily business/bargain-bucket and i don't see that changing in the forseeable future. But i'd rather see a small company that continues to innovate and produce kick ass products, than a big company that mass produces the same old {censored} as the next guy. I don't think Apple is persuing microsoft's consumer base, - i think if they went purely software and developed for PC they could probably give micrsoft a run for their money (and when you've got as much money as microsoft that's saying something) but as you astutely observed apple is indeed a hardware company disguised as a software company and i'm going to predict that they will delve even further into the consumer electronics line - phones, palmtops (bring back the newton dammit!), mp3, portable video etc etc. If they can repeat the success of the ipod in any of those areas then time has proved that the likes of sony, motorola, palm and others should definitely watch out for Apple! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 We have to remember that Apple is first and foremost a HARDWARE company cleverly disguised as a software company. So as a hardware company, its biggest competition comes from Dell, HP, the other hardware companies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amdprophet Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I think that Mac OS X users will still flame Windows users and vice versa. They are both still operating systems that people like to argue about. Arguments over Macintosh hardware and PC hardware will keep rising (I've already seen it start happening). There really is no competition between Apple hardware (performance) and a custom PC for the same price. The custom PC would win hands down (as long as the builder knows what he is doing), and I have proof now because of boot camp + numerous benchmarking applications. The Intel Core Duo's really aren't that powerful and I was dissapointed to find that out the other day when I benched a few of the new Macs. The style is still lovely, and performance is still fast. So they're still great little machines, just overpriced for performance as they always have been. I guess I should stop writing now seeing as I totally went off topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbz Posted April 10, 2006 Share Posted April 10, 2006 I think we're all forgetting a very important point: Sure Apple is a hardware company, but it is wrong to say it is disguised as a software company. Mac os X binds together all that is mac. It always has. Apple made the user interface what it is today. There, huge invovations have been made. They are also a hardware company: look at the ipod. However, what would the ipod be without the matching UI and clickwheel? Nothing. Apple is both a hardware and software company. Their hardware rocks, and the software is made because nothing out there matches the products to give an Apple experience. That said, they ARE trying to steal market share away from Microsoft. They have more than 70% of the legal music download market (forget where i heard it...somewhere on thinksecret...). Are they getting sloppy? Unless offering more and more music and newly added videos is sloppy, I wouldn't think so. Apple wants more people to buy Macs. They wouldn't mind ppl buying a dell AND a Mac, i'm sure, but that isn't financially viable for most people. So they came out with boot camp: that way you only need one computer, and it'll be a Mac. Although in the end, Dell isn't really a competitor: Dell goes for the cheap computer experience, wheras Apple is "premium" quality. HP, Sony: these are competitors. And Microsoft in the sofftware department. As far as consumer electronics (which i think will be the next huge step for Apple through the touch-screen ipod and iPhone), again, HP and Sony. Apple is going for a new business model. Sort of like a Sony and Microsoft hybrid. That can't be accomplished without software, or more consumer electronics. -Urby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 There really is no competition between Apple hardware (performance) and a custom PC for the same price. Except that doing a custom PC and installing OS X on it makes an inherently unstable system because you have to patch it, but we're getting off onto another tangent. Mac users don't but Macs so they can run Windows (even if Apple releases BootCamp, I think a small percentage of users will actually use it). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amdprophet Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 Except that doing a custom PC and installing OS X on it makes an inherently unstable system because you have to patch it, but we're getting off onto another tangent. Mac users don't but Macs so they can run Windows (even if Apple releases BootCamp, I think a small percentage of users will actually use it). May or may not be true. Everyone I know with a Mac Intel has boot camp right now, including my teacher. If you have the abilitiy to, why not? It opens up the gaming world for mac users. Mac OS X on my PC is perfectly stable for me, some applications won't run though because of the lack of drivers. More and more drivers are coming out each day now and I think within a year Mac OS X will be running 100% on PCs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dponmac Posted April 11, 2006 Author Share Posted April 11, 2006 That said, they ARE trying to steal market share away from Microsoft. They have more than 70% of the legal music download market I don't think that counts as Apple stealing MS' market share. I think MS would have had to have hold of the legal music download market first for Apple to steal it away. I believe Apple's timing of the release of its iPod was crucial in this matter because LEGAL music downloading was still very new, and Apple took advantage of that by bundling iTunes with its iPod making the music purchasing experience very easy for the user. I think thats one of the reasons why they own that market. I'm not even sure how interested MS is in this market anyways. I've heard of them releasing some program like itunes but i dont think its taking off. MS has always seemed (in my experience) more of a business app focused company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts