Submitted by “The advent of Vista and Mac OS X, along with the ascension of Linux, add new dimensions to a long-time controversy. Now more than ever before, the Mac OS is the most cost effective operating system of all.”
“The advent of Vista and Mac OS X, along with the ascension of Linux, add new dimensions to a long-time controversy. Now more than ever before, the Mac OS is the most cost effective operating system of all.”
In RELATED STORIES from that site:
-Eight Reasons NOT to Use Linux in the Enterprise
-Seven Financial Reasons to Use Linux in the Enterprise
-Seven Financial Reasons Not to Use Windows
-5 Business Reasons for Adopting the Windows Platform
I guess next week they’ll post “Seven Reasons Why You Should NOT Use Mac OS” and they’ll have something for everybody…
Edited 2007-08-03 16:01
It was a package of six articles from the start: the premise of “only look at the bottom line,” both pro and con, for each OS.
They’re all there; you just missed the last one:
Seven Reasons to Think Twice About Macs in the Enterprise
http://www.cio.com/article/127101
Here’s the link to all of ’em at once:
http://www.cio.com/article/127552
What a crap article.
The arguments are so far out, it is unbeliveable.
One example:
-“Before that, I was fortunate if I could get 12 or 13 months out of a Windows PC. It usually got corrupted long before that,” he explains.-
Let me see, my fathers old maschine was my machine, P3 1 GHz with 512 MB ram, running windows 95 ! It is very old, and was retired after his cat tipped a cop of coffee over it.
My old machine, is 2.5 years old, still running the original preinstalled Windows Mediacenter, and trust me i really f–k up my system.
As the first poster points out, that website is pure and simply full of crap.
Agreed.
I’m still regularly use my old Dual Celleron 500MHz – It’s now more than 6 years old and still going strong. In fact I can count on one hand the number of times Windows had crashed and I’ve not even needed to do a reinstall once.
It really is a pity articles can’t be modded down for being inaccurate or just down right crap
Edited 2007-08-03 16:28
A while back there was a test done on whether chocking the registry full of garbage would actually result in a significant slow down. The result was – no, it didn’t.
The problem is that you have vendors pushing the idea so strongly that “there is a problem with your PC’ that people end up believing that they actually do have something wrong.
You could say the crap being sold to fix up non-existent Windows problems is akin to the pharmaceutical industry who make up so-called ‘disorders’ to leech money out of people – “ooh, I’m shy, I better get some medication!”, “ooh, I sometimes get nervous! better yet some medication!” – its pathetic to see it in action. Same situation occurs in the IT world unfortunately.
Along those lines, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if half the viruses floating around out there were programmed by unscrupulous anti-virus software companies…
Edited 2007-08-04 06:55
“A while back there was a test done on whether chocking the registry full of garbage would actually result in a significant slow down. The result was – no, it didn’t. ”
And you are guilty of just what you accuse the author of doing. While a registry full of garbage may not have a huge impact on XP when it is up and running it will have a much different impact on getting XP up and running.
I can’t cite any studies, which you do not link to anyway, but from personal experience in cleaning up PC’s for people I can attest to greatly improved boot times after cleaning out a garbage filled registry. Most of my friends also fix computer stuff for a living and to a person they all tell me they have the same experience.
So if you don’t like the article and feel it is inaccurate, then critique the article. I think the author did a better job of explaining her position than you did in your rebuttal. Lots of innuendo do not a rebuttal make.
Actually, both the article and you are correct. Some users make sure their PC is secure and then they keep it clean and dont install and uninstall millions of pieces of crap. Other users like me
do that and crash their computer every 4 months or so. At least i dont have to reinstall every four months now because i have a mac.
Actually I do install and uninstall millions of pieces of crap just like millions of other Windows users do.
I agree with both of you. In general I find that site to be a load of buzz words will very little real word, not to mention information systems understanding. If they display very little IS understanding, they have no computer science knowledge. I fear that is the way IT is going this days. I have one IT majoring friend who displays both great business sense and excellent technical understanding; yet, I have another IT majoring friend who thought it was cheaper to ship mass things via plane rather than train and doesn’t know what a buffer overflow actually means. Maybe I am jaded because I am CS major who works as a software dev and a UNIX administrator, but there is very little worth OS News posting on http://www.cio.com. Do CIO’s really swallow all that bullshit or do they see through?
Edited 2007-08-03 17:42
Im confused, are you guys saying that Windows is MORE cost effective than Mac (or anything else?) or are you just making the point that you or your relatives have Windows installed machines that never had a virus issue and never had to be reinstalled for any reason and thus proving the article to be utterly false? My point is that by calling the article “bullshit” because it is inaccurate to your particular life experience, you are sort of of making the same mistake the writer of the article did by implying a particular issue experienced individually must therefore be true for everyone. The question to ask, if you want to get any worth out of the time you spent reading the article, is that if the idea of having a virus infected machine or an operating system that could become corrupt over time is something that is a real possibility for a Windows users to experience VS someone who purchases a Macintosh.
To voidlogic. I very much empathize with your fears. I did a double major of Mathematics and CS and have been in the field now for almost 20 years, doing everything from financial programming to being an IBM drone for POS systems. I have always had a love of technology, and sometimes fell into the trap of judging people based on there technical ability. As it seems from your post that your just starting, I can tell you that all your suspicions about the large number of people entering the IT business not really having a love for computers is for the most part accurate. I used to think it correlated to the time Bill Gates entered the Forbes List, and that these folks just followed the money. My advice , if you care, is to not let it bother you. In fact force yourself to ignore it. Just be glad that computers are now helping everyone and are part of EVERYONES life, which does include of course – the jerks out there. A good book to read is iWoz, he has a true love and deep understanding of technology (an engineers engineer) and he has a love of people and the idea of what computers can do for everyone.
Edited 2007-08-03 19:44
“I did a double major of Mathematics and CS and have been in the field now for almost 20 years, …”
You are so superior, and us OSAlert readers are not worthy of you
That quote kind of stuck out for me.
Seriously, you would have to be pretty stupid to completely replace your pc every time you get some malware.
And a little common sense goes a long way when preventing that (ie. no “Free ipod if I just click here!!?! OH BOY!!!”, or “A free game in my email called i2jahfd233.exe?!?! I am SOO playing that!!!”, or the ever classic “WHAT?! My computer may be in danger if I dont run this attachment called killviruses.exe?!”). I mean come on… I have had my windows system running for 4 years and have not had a single case of malware or viruses.
Dont become so uptight.
The only time a Mac was a better system was in the 80’s when the Classic had a really badarse hi-res monochrome display and a GUI OS. I actually have one of these old Macs from the 80’s: Mac SE/30.
PCs were 16-bits back then and ran in real mode DOS or some cheesy Windows 1.0 version–real mode DOS underneith. Color was pretty poor then with “Marry had a little lamb” style graphics at 320×200 4-bit CGA.
Edited 2007-08-03 20:24
Agreed, that argument is weak. I am a Mac user and I can attest that there is some excellent PC hardware out there. I have had 2 Dells and 1 HP and all have lasted me more that 3 year without having to reinstall the OS. That article really didn’t play up to the real strengths of the Mac.
Didn’t read TFA, but OS X is definitely not cost effective if you use it in a server environment. Want to upgrade to Java 1.5 in OS X 10.3? Well, you’ll need to upgrade the OS! Sounds great, if a little expensive in a cluster environment… except we can’t upgrade because the primary application (iNquiry) that we use the system for doesn’t allow us to upgrade the OS.
Not to mention this OS X cluster has had some bizarre problems aside from all of this. OS X is the most painful UNIX like system to admin remotely as well. ARD is somehow broken on the machine, so there pretty much is no remote admin for certain tasks since not everything can be done easily (or done at all) on the command line.
Edited 2007-08-03 16:11
The current system requirements for iNquiry are OS X Server 10.4. In other words, you won’t upgrade an iNquiry built for a specific OS but you want to upgrade the OS around it. I’d be extremely surprised if there weren’t NT server applications whose support options excluded moving them to Windows Server 2003.
Long story short: unlike desktops, servers are dedicated machines and as such are generally supposed to be frozen configurations barring patches and security fixes. When an OS upgrade comes, the expected cost must include upgrading software as well.
Your other complaints about managing the server are noted and have been echoed by other users.
My primary complaint regarding not being able to upgrade isn’t about iNquiry, but how Apple handles the Java port. I understand the “frozen configuration” methodology, but there is no good reason not to allow modern Java ports on OS X <= 10.3 on a system they sold as being “enterprise class”.
Edit: I look forward to wiping the whole system and putting Linux on it, and hopefully transitioning iNquiry over to a much larger Linux x86_64 cluster sometime next year.
Edited 2007-08-03 16:50
Unlike other OSes, Java on OS X includes bindings to OS-specific frameworks. These bindings change between OSes: Apple just dropped Cocoa bindings which would be problematic for legacy 10.3 applications that used them.
Apple’s mantra is that problems are usually proportional to the number of configurations, so I can see why they don’t backport Java to 10.3.
Is it inconvenient and irritating at times? Yes.
With Java being opensourced, what that should mean is an opensourced built and maintained version which allow you to remain with your chosen version of MacOS X without losing out on updates and security fixes.
Should, but we will see if that happens. I agree it is a good thing and the potential is there, but is the demand? While my problem is irritating and (as has been admitted) would not likely happen had another unix system been chosen, I simply don’t think there is the demand there for it. Also, unless things have changed, I believe Apple’s patches to Java are still closed, so there would likely be quite a lot of work involved.
Apple has a license to Java, and may do with it what they please. They’ve been good citizens, in that they’ve often shared some of their advancements to the VM and such back up-stream to Sun.
However… none of the OS X specific changes have been merged upstream to Sun, as Apple owns that code, and has a license to the platform, trademarks, and verification tests. So yeah, their stuff is all closed.
I haven’t read all the licensing stuff in OpenJDK yet, but my guess is that it will somehow exempt existing licensees. I don’t expect Apple to OSS their java changes anytime soon at all.
Yeah, that is as I thought. At any rate, I’m glad that Apple has at least stopped the marketing hype with regard to enterprise class systems; hopefully this will mean less people being baited in to buying them. This is strangely ironic, since OS X 10.5 is actually finally starting to look descent feature-wise (why the hell did a 64 bit port take so long?). Then again, I would still never willingly choose it. For most features (if not all) Solaris, Linux, or one of the BSDs could do everything that OS X can and much more, and they cost less ($0?), and they have better support options if you want to buy them (at least Solaris and Linux, I don’t know about the BSDs).
I have to agree! I have used Apple servers since the release of A/UX 3.0 and my conclusion is that Apple doesn’t understand the server market.
They don’t seem to understand the need for continuity. A/UX was replaced with a slightly modified AIX, with no easy upgrade path, then this AIX thing was dumped with no upgrade path what so ever. Now we see similar problems with Java in modern MacOS-X. We had a painful upgrade of mail software from 10.2 to 10.3, and the list goes on.
Other problems in MacOS-X server is that common free software packages used, often lacks parts that are useful or even essential for maintenance from the command line.
Sometimes they remove features from commonly used free software packages, just to add them back in some Apple specific way. I wouldn’t object if this somehow improved usability but often this is not the case. The only result is that HOWTOs and other information on the Internet on how to manage that particular package becomes useless, unless it is specifically written for MacOS-X.
If you use CLI administration and manually edit config files, they GUI sometimes just overide the changes you made. This would be more or less acceptable if it was enough for you to just choose not to use the GUI if you had made changes to config files from the command line. Unfortunately this isn’t enough, as Apple bug fixes have a tendency to wipe out such changes as well.
I fully agree with the article that it makes financial sense to use Macs on the desktop, but as a server you are much better off using Red Hat or some other server oriented Linux distro.
Businesses are generally cowardly when it comes to the concept TCO and will do whatever they’re told. I worked in an embroidery farm during the 90s when my employer decided (on the advice of his golf buddies) that Apple was sinking and blew thousands of dollars on replacement PCs, paying consultants to convert stacks of HFS-formatted zip disks to Windows-formatted zip disks… In the end he gained no productivity. We had no technical support personnel (other than myself in a nonofficial capacity) or outsourced services to improve.
In most cases, it’s a repeat of “nobody got fired for buying IBM” sheep mentality. Linux is durable for servers, great for personal use, but dead to most third-party business commercial software. OS X is a good choice if the software you need was written by people who don’t code in VisualBasic.
Realistically, the future of alternatives to Windows in the businessplace is emulation/virtualization to run Windows-only apps until vendors get their heads out of their asses.
I can’t speak for the “enterprise” sector because I don’t have experience in that area. For most of my working life I have worked for small businesses or non-profits and now I own my own business and for us Macs are pretty much the logical choice. Yes, I do wish something like Linux could be a viable alternative for what we do. I do run a local Linux server in my office for internal testing but our desktops and laptops are Macs that also have Windows installed (on our Intel based machines). Part of our work is web development and it’s easier to test across the various browsers on OSX and Windows.
We also appreciate the time we save not having to deal with the more cluttered UI of Windows, the relative stability and in my networking. Most of my work is in the Adobe Suite and they are some features thatI pretty much have to use Adobe because of professional printer’s requirements, etc.
It also basically more of a pleasure to work in OSX than anything else and I definitely don’t plan on upgrading to Vista in my virtual environment until I absolutely have to – i.e. A customer that need support for a Vista only piece of software, etc.
ok yes osx is prettier than windows, but give me a plane cost effectiveness is NOT one of the reasons.
With osx hardware obsoleted 2x if not even faster than windows pc hardware, i mean hell i have a 500mhz 256mb ram running xp, that was upgraded from win 95 years ago.
You can’t call something cost effective, when even the smallest of programs cost something, i mean hell even some P2P programs cost money on osx, then theirs all the nickel and dime stuff like safaritabs, that wold be nice and helpful but i aint paying no cash for something so small give me a break!
hell even a decent blog software (by decent i mean good) costs money (ecto) while windows live writer is free, the fact is software on osx for the last few months i have been using it is the main reason i dont like it, its alot harder to find native, osx apps, that are FREE, and im not talking office im talking the small things.
I bought a 7500 PowerPC in 1995. TCO to upgrade its hardware to continue keeping it current through OS X 10.2 in 2002 was still lower than replacing it, and that included adding a G4 cpu, USB card, CD burner, 37Gb HD and 256Mb RAM. Chief reason for replacing it in 2002 was that XPostFacto wasn’t available yet for 10.3 and that 10.3 was the first OS which actually needed a video card.
Conversely, a friend’s multimedia PC built maybe two years ago was built from a tiny Soyo board with onboard ethernet, video and audio. The builder decided the VIA A/V chipsets were inferior and used up two of the three PCI slots replacing their functionality with better cards. The third is already used by the TV tuner card; when the ethernet chip eventually fries itself (as is common on Soyo boards), my friend will have to buy a USB-to-ethernet dongle.
Upgradeability is a consumer’s responsibility.
Edited 2007-08-03 16:47 UTC
I’ve generally found that Mac freeware outclasses that for Windows, but perhaps it seems like that when one is more familiar with their OS. I’m often amazed at what software I see windows users paying for (sftp clients, virus protection, defragment tools, dev tools, etc). Again, perhaps it’s just about knowing where to look and what you’re looking for. (Fwiw, safaritabs is not only free but open-sourced.)
If I may, for a quick list of almost 10,000 free pieces of software:
http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/apps?sub=100&w=1
As to the hardware, I still happily run my 500MHz G4 with no complaints. It actually runs best/fastest on the latest 10.4.10, no hardware upgrades needed, and will run fine on Leopard. How well does a 500MHz PC run Vista?
Also, I’ve priced up the 8-core 3GHz Xeon system I have here, not available at all from PC vendors yet, and even allowing 2.66GHz it is thousands of dollars cheaper than the PC-only systems, even where available. It should also be mentioned that Macs are also PCs, often a very valuable cost-savings when you need both.
>hell even a decent blog software (by decent i mean good) costs money (ecto) while windows live writer is free, the fact is software on osx for the last few months i have been using it is the main reason i dont like it, its alot harder to find native, osx apps, that are FREE, and im not talking office im talking the small things.<
http://coolosxapps.net/
That should help you out. Not everything on there is free, but a lot is.
I think “Seven potential benefits of OSX” would be more appropriate, considering the EVERY system has it’s strengths and weaknesses. And again, it is highly dependent on the type of the user that you are, and the type of work that you do.
“The initial hardware costs were pretty much the same as for Windows PCs. But Macintosh has turned out to be much more cost-effective, due partly to its scalability,” according to Przemek (pronounced “Chemek”) Wozniak, IT manager of the Toronto, Ontario-based manufacturing firm.
Nice how they find someone named “Wozniak” to quote, eh?
The Apple computer was first created in 1976 by a man by the name of Steven Wozinak. He built this computer in a wooden box.
Actually, it is Steve Wozniak that created the Apple I. Spelling is the same.
However, I will agree that Wozniak != Wozniak.
He built this computer in a wooden box
…and charged an arm, leg, and half of your first born for it.
So in what world is a $2000+ mac cost effective, when Linux is free to download or cost $60ish for the proffesionel version on SuSE on in a box?
Edited 2007-08-03 16:35
You’re buying new Hardware for your IT Department. You’re not “switching” operating systems on the pre-existing hardware.
These kind of articles tend to have one big problem… you never understand what they mean by saying PC.
it’s difficult to understand when they talk about OS vs OS, hardware vs. hardware or philosophy vs. philosophy.
It seems like an article about macs being less cost effective than windows, but then… I don’t think this is clear.
The point is, the mac is just one of the many vendors selling pcs, just that they sell them with their own os, but that sure is not reason enough to just throw all the rest in one big pot and pretend they’re all the same. The world out there is much more complex than just mac vs. pc. And it’s sure getting more and more complex with linux getting better… with pcs getting different, before we had desktops, laptops and servers, now we have UMPCs, Media Center PCs and so on adding to the list… though admittedly this is maybe not so important from a business point of view.
Anyway, this article feels like the reality distortion field is fully in action here!
I go and get me a Mac today – after all the real estate guy from Atlanta said so….
Why is OSAlert posting articles from websites like CIO? This website is clearly geared towards the businessmen in the computer industry. I don’t think many readers on OSAlert are in upper management of large high tech firms.
A large number of businessmen also read OSAlert. This site isn’t geared towards only hobbyists.
(Much as I wish there were more articles about OS technologies.)
Most cost effective?
Windows is cheaper because the PCs it runs on are cheaper. GNU/Linux can be even cheaper than that.
You can buy an equivalent spec PC for up to half the cost of any Mac.
That’s actually not true: for the equivalent spec, many Macs are actually cheaper than PCs, it’s just that you don’t have the same degree of flexibility over the spec with a Mac.
You can buy an equivalent spec PC for up to half the cost of any Mac.
That’s actually not true: for the equivalent spec, many Macs are actually cheaper than PCs, it’s just that you don’t have the same degree of flexibility over the spec with a Mac.
Here we go again… *rolls eyes*
Actually that is tru to some degree.You’ll have a hard time buying a PC with the same specs as a Mac Pro for less.Didn’t believe it either….
In the US maybe. Here, Macs are way too expensive.
“Here we go again… *rolls eyes*”
Roll your eyes all you want, but it won’t change the facts. I bought my Power Mac four years ago and as part of the process I spec’ed out similarly equipped systems from Dell and Alienware. The Mac actually came in cheaper by several hundred dollars. And at the time I was a Windows user so I had no particular bias in favor of Apple.
You are making the same mistake most people do. Apple does not compete in the low end market so while it is true you can buy a PC far cheaper than a Mac, that is not true with equivalent systems. But I am sure this will not convince you if you already have your mind made up.
My experience is that buying high end, whether PC or Mac will ensure many years of service. But in my case, buying the Mac the last go around has proven to to be more cost effective. Very few four year old PC’s will prove to be capable of running Vista without major upgrades. My four year old Power Mac will be able to run Leopard quite nicely with no upgrade costs other than the OS.
> Apple does not compete in the low end market so while it is true
> you can buy a PC far cheaper than a Mac, that is not true
> with equivalent systems.
Yes, it is true with equivalent systems as well. I can put together a PC that will run circles around The latest MacPro, and cost far less. And it will have more RAM, a bigger hard drive, and a better video card.
Citations, links, proof, anything beyond “I can do this, trust me, it has to be true”.
> Citations, links, proof, anything beyond “I can do this, trust me,
> it has to be true”.
* Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 Ghz with motherboard
* 4 Gb RAM (four times what the Mac Pro has)
* 500 Gb SATA hard disk (double the hard disk space of the Mac Pro)
* nvidia GEForce 8800GTS 640MB (far superior to the 7300 GT that the Mac Pro comes with, as well as more than double the video RAM.
* Dual 20x DVD-RW drives (The Mac Pro only comes with one. And it is only 16x)
* Antec Sonata III case with 500 Watt power supply
Total cost? $1252.40 USD
That’s right around HALF of what the Mac Pro costs.. (The Mac Pro is $2499 USD) And the system I just speced out for you is vastly superior to the Mac Pro. Although the processor is slightly slower (2.4 Ghz, as opposed to 2.66 Ghz. An insignificant difference), the extra specs of this system more than make up for it. The system I speced out has 4 times the RAM, double the hard disk space, a far superior video card both in terms of speed, and the fact that it has over double the video RAM of the Mac Pro. And you get two DVD-RW drives, which are faster than the one that comes with the Mac Pro.
PC hardware prices have plumetted since Apple came out with the Mac Pro. But Apple has not lowered their prices.
btw, the system I speced out is one I put together at http://www.mwave.com. I have bought a lot of stuff from them, and am very happy with their service.
As I said, and have now proven. Apple can’t even compete in the high end market. They can’t even come close.
Edited 2007-08-04 00:04
Um… that’s not a high-end Mac Pro—that’s pretty low-spec for a Mac Pro, in fact.
> Um… that’s not a high-end Mac Pro—that’s pretty low-spec for a
> Mac Pro, in fact.
Even the base Mac Pro is considered a high end machine by Apple standards. But ok. You want me to load it up so that it has specs somewhat equivalent to the system I speced out? The situation is only going to get worse though.
The price of the Mac Pro is now $5,075… Now it’s over 4x more expensive than the system I built. For roughly the same level of capability.
I configured a machine at newegg with pretty much the same specs as the base Mac Pro at newegg and it costs roughly $1900. So the Mac Pro is about $600 more. More expensive indeed but not twice the price.
And not having to build and configure the machine yourself can be worth $2-300.
Actually, I forgot the second CPU and the GPU. So the same configuration as the base Mac Pro on newegg adds up to $2700. Which makes the Mac Pro cheaper than building your own.
However, there’s no doubt that you can build a cheaper machine using different hardware especially if you buy cheaper CPU’s. But you have to compare the prices with equal hardware.
That’s debatable, but the important point is that not everyone needs a computer that’s the equivalent of an expensive Mac. For most office tasks even the cheapest modern system is more than adequate. A Mac may be a better and more powerful machine, but that extra power just isn’t needed by most people.
A Mac may be a great choice in certain niche markets, but Apple don’t make products that are ideal for a great many mainstream uses. When looking for a home or office computer, the limitations of the iMac or Mac Mini, and the high price of a Mac Pro, become very significant issues.
Personally I think it’s a shame that Apple don’t offer a relatively low end system like the Mac Mini, but with more of the flexibility demanded by many home and office users. Such a system wouldn’t necessarily have to feel ‘cheap’ in the way many low cost PCs do.
That isn’t accurate in my experience. I’ve found that a four year old PC such as a Pentium 4 or Athlon can run Vista quite reasonably. The only upgrade that would probably be necessary is RAM, which is a pretty cheap and easy upgrade. How much RAM did a low end Mac have as standard four years ago? Not enough to run the latest Mac OS X very well I’d guess.
Of course there’s nothing stopping you from running XP for years to come on your older PC. The vast majority of applications are bound to maintain compatibility with the older OS while it’s still popular. It’ll be quite a while before all those XP installations in businesses and homes around the world have been replaced by Vista.
totally agree. my girlfriend is planning on buying a pc in the next month or so. the budget is kind of tight, but i still advocated apple, as imho its the best os out there for someone who doesnt care HOW it works, just that it DOES work.
The specs were just too radically different for it to be viable.
Buying from a big chain, we have the very decent http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS100…
for 770$, that will run vista just fine (although, I am going to push her to up the ram to 2gb).
While over on apple.ca, the lowest end MacBook (http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/66…)
sells for 1250$
That is a 480$ difference for the priviledge of running OSX. Not only that, but you lose 2.1in off the screen (the toshiba is even widescreen, which imho is the way of the future), and 40gb off the hard drive.
That is wayyyyy too big a difference to be viable.
That is a 480$ difference for the priviledge of running OSX. Not only that, but you lose 2.1in off the screen (the toshiba is even widescreen, which imho is the way of the future), and 40gb off the hard drive.
You do realize that the MacBook is much smaller right? Smaller laptops are more expensive.
Actually, the MacBook is certainly not overpriced if you compare it to similar laptops. It’s about the same price, sometimes even cheaper.
To me it’s not about losing 2 inches of the screen, it’s about having a much more portable and lighter computer which I actually don’t have to think twice about carrying with me everywhere. And on top of that, it’s a good looking lovely computer that just works, it has a comfortable keyboard, an very nice trackpad (two finger scrolling is awesome) and one of the best operating systems on the market.
Oh, and the MacBook is widescreen too.
The MacBook Pro however, is overpriced compared to the competition. I’ll give you that.
Edited 2007-08-04 16:02
You must be American if you *REALLY* think that Apple computers are reasonable priced AT ALL!
I can buy a friggin’ CAR with the amount of money that they charge for a brand new Intel-based Mac Pro here in Brazil! No matter how you try to put it: THIS IS WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!
Even a lame G4 sells for about the price of the most powerful x86 rig that you can find around here and that’s the reason that Macs are seen mostly on advertising agencies here and many still have old G4s or even Performas: because it is too expensive to keep up with it.
Believe me, as I would love to acquire Apple hardware and keep saving money whenever I can to buy a second-hand Mac: No matter how sexy OSX might look to people here, nobody other than really wealthy people wants them. Hell, you seldom see iPods on the subway, trains, buses or streets but you will see lots of devices from other vendors simply because they are affordable or that the price is just right.
Apple consciously priced itself out of the Brazilian market and I suspect that this is true for most of Latin America.
If you want to use your niche elitist product and have to keep telling yourself that you saved money and that the investment was worth, fine. But in the meantime please, spare us from the bullshit.
“If you want to use your niche elitist product and have to keep telling yourself that you saved money and that the investment was worth, fine. But in the meantime please, spare us from the bullshit.”
If you have to resort to name calling you have already lost the argument.
What I said was true. I spec’ed out various systems and for what I needed the Mac was a bit cheaper. All the name calling in the world won’t change that.
Incorrect.
Take a peak at Techbargains, for example.
You can get a Core 2 Duo system with 1 GB DDR2 SD-RAM, 320 GB HDD, and Windows Vitsa Home Premium for about $530 plus shipping.
http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=9/po…]=15:276/popup40[]=20:386/sortby=priceA
For about $160 you can get a fancy 19″ widescreen LCD with < 8 ms response time. If you already have a decent screen from your previous system, you can forget about this.
http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=37/p…]=150:1400/sortby=priceA
There is even a fairly decent 17in LCD for $19.99 after rebates.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?&ref=cj&pfp=cj&pro…
So say $690 plus shipping for a nice computer and monitor or $550 with that cheap monitor plus shipping. In the latter case, its still cheaper than the weakest Mac Mini, which is priced at $599 I believe.
A cheap iMac with half the HDD capacity, RAM, and a 17″ screen (thats probably simular to the $20 one) for about $977 plus shipping.
http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/vendorIds%5B]=129/page_id=9/popup10[]=15:276/sortby=priceA
Edited 2007-08-03 19:46
Sure, ok. Excellent. Now all you need to do is take care of the ‘equivalent spec’ and you’ve got a point.
Having a home computer and work computer are COMPLETELY different. The initial cost a computer in a work environment is the smallest cost when it comes to TCO. The largest cost is support, meaning those people you pay to keep the computer systems up and running. The fact that those that post saying, “I can buy a cheap PC and put Linux on it for free so it costs less” clearly don’t have a clue.
I actually work at a company where we have Windows, Mac OS X and Linux computers. We have software that we use to track the calls that we get about all computer issues. We track them by type of problem and also which OS they use.
FACT: People with OS X have the fewest support calls based on number of calls per person.
FACT: Windows is second.
FACT: Linux is third (meaning most support calls per person using a particular OS). This currently makes Linux the most expensive platform to support.
A few notes.
We use one brand of computers for both Windows and Linux. Obviously we use Apple computers for Mac OS X but we are looking at Apple computers to run Windows and Linux on them as a replacement for the current “Windows/Linux” hardware OEM.
We check very carefully with the OEM to make sure all the hardware is supported by Linux. That isn’t the support issue for Linux. It is the time that it takes for doing any kind of maintenance or adjustments of settings or installing applications and getting icons where they can consistantly find them. All of these are the reason that Linux costs more to support. This is getting better through training and users getting used to Linux but it isn’t close, support $ wise, to the lower costs that we have with OS X computers.
For each new model of computer we have techs that are VERY versed in the OS they are installing. These are not green pimply kids off the street, “hey I’ve got Linux at home so I know how to configure it for business uses” kind of techs. Once we get a working configuring that conforms to our specs we create an image of that hard drive. This is installed on all computers that we buy (replacing the OEM install). This keeps things consistant and reduces support costs greatly.
Again, it is incredibly obvious that none of the posts are in position where they use all three OSs in a business environment where they are the ones that create the images or manage the support of them. Just because you use something at home or you use it at work and have built a PC at home doesn’t mean you have a clue about support and support costs.
… I often prefer to read the comments than the article.
Me too.
Sometimes there are good articles tho’, too.
Lets see… $100 for even relatively minor OS upgrades. Vendor lockin. Overpriced hardware (Mac versions of video cards cost on average double what the PC version of the same card costs… All because even the x86 Macs lack a BIOS)
Yeah… Really cost effective there… NOT…
Hmmm. I just got 10 point upgrades for free?
i have a 11 year old Powermac 7600 that still works
And I have an old IBM PS/1 model 20 that still works, but what does that prove?
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But it does still work. A whopping 640 BG of RAM with a 20 MB HD and dual 3 1/2″ floppy drives.
And the old quote “there are none so blind as they who will not see” is true. Few people in any discussion enter with an open mind. Their preconceived ideas keep them from locked into where they are. Many people here will not believe you because they don’t want to believe you.
I am not a Mac zealot as I switched from Windows about four years ago. I also have an IBM running PC-BSD. Both systems are tools and as such, if something better comes along I will make the switch. At least I am open to the idea that there might be something better.
Recently our company’s VMware virtual machine test server (running Debian Etch) hardware failed (it was 10 years old and the capcitors on the motherboard dried up). So we started looking for replacements.
Tried to get bits for a commodity PC that would fit in a 1U rackmount. Hard to do in New Zealand (where we’re based) without a lot of effort and waiting for shipping.
So we looked at Sun gear. Their low Intel-based stuff was surprisingly cheap, so we placed an order but it took a couple of days for their sales guy to get back to us, so we looked at other alternatives.
In the mean time we looked at the specs of a Mac-mini. Did the same stuff as the Sun (Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz, 2GB RAM) and was about the same price. Come in a timy little form factor that was extremely quiet. So we got one. Rather than put it in the noisy server room we ‘ll just plonk it on a corner of someone’s desk. After looking at the pre-installed Mac OS X where everything just worked we nearly cried wiping it off to put Debian Etch on (but we needed a Linux kernel with vserver so we had to).
The Mac Mini is a great little machine that definitely served our needs as a SMB developing Java J2EE on mostly Ubuntu desktops (with one Windows holdout). You might want to consider this if your company doesn’t require an enormous server farm.
Also, we were extremely impressed with the little remote control that came with the Mac Mini. Our company director saw it and decided that a MacMini makes perfect sense in his TV lounge (‘den’ for you US fellows?). Though Apple haven’t completely won us over, personally I’m gonna use my Playstation3 for the same purpose (BluRay movies look great, as to regular DVDs ‘upscaled’ to 1080p by the PS3 firmware!). None chance of a MS MediaCenter PC being there since even the xbox360 that sounds like a turbojet taking off in comparison.
I really enjoy these types of articles for several reasons. They do provide some interesting perspectives. They also bring out the zealots.
In this case the zealots are on the Windows side. Just as you have people who can see no evil in Apple, you have people who can see no good in Apple.
Come on people, an OS and a computer are tools. Each has its good and bad points. this is being written on my IBM PC using PC-BSD V1.4 beta. I could have just as easily written it on my four year old Power Mac running OS X. I could have also done it with XP running in a VM.
Financially, OS X has been far cheaper for me to use than Windows ever was. I have had to purchase far less software and the software I did have to purchase was cheaper than the equivalent XP software was.
Anyway, all the author is saying is that OS X can be cheaper to use than Windows. And there are probably many cases where this is true. It was true in my case. And I did enjoy the article.
> Financially, OS X has been far cheaper for me to use than Windows
> ever was. I have had to purchase far less software and the software I
> did have to purchase was cheaper than the equivalent XP software
> was.
Well, I use Linux… I haven’t had to purchase any software. I haven’t hard to purchase any OS, and I haven’t had to purchase any OS upgrades. And the hardware cost was about 1/2 of what an equivalent Mac would have cost me.
And as an added bonus, I don’t have to put with AppleCare when I need support. And having dealt with AppleCare in the past, I can say they are the among absolute worse customer service experiences I have ever had in my life with any company.
Edited 2007-08-03 22:15
I work for a company who was named to the CIO 100 this year (whatever the hell that list is). Even our own CIO chuckled when he found out…he hates both the site and their monthly periodical. I don’t know anyone who takes them seriously…it’s more of a networking (in the social sense) type of place for IT execs to hang out and slap each other on the back from what I gather.
I’m ready to give Mac OS a try anytime as long as I can use the hardware ‘I’ pick.
And by the way, I have absolutely no friend who owns a Mac and I know the same is true for 99.99999% of my friends. So how do you expect people to rush Mac OS when they don’t have any around and they can’t even try it on their hardware, unlike Linux and some others ?
Screenshots, cool ads, nice design and such articles are far from enough.
Soooo… you don’t even have one friend?
Btw,
Just for fun, I upped the specs of my system. Here are my changes:
* 6Gb of RAM
* 1 Terabyte of hard disk space
* Quadro FX 5500 1GB GDDR2 video card.
I’m still only at $3,598.26, which is $1,500 cheaper than the Mac Pro… And my video capabilities now far exceed anything Apple can even provide. Apple doesn’t even offer a video card that high end for the Mac Pro.
We can continue this if you would like. But Mac is going to just keep losing. Like I said, I’ve already speced out the video card to higher than it is even possible to go on a Mac Pro.
That’s a mobo that supports multiple core 2 duos?
Hmmm… Are you in the habit of building more RAM into your computer than it can use? Maybe you are in the habit of putting high end graphics cards into servers? Me thinks you are talking out your rear I/O.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39288396,00.htm
The right equipment for the job is always more econimical, and it is always a bad investment buying the wrong equipment for the task. In our shop we use Mac’s for production. The bean counters are happy with their XP machines in their offices, and proud they saved a few bucks. Personally I think we would save more with systems management costs if we used all Mac’s, rather than splitting the IT requirements. In business we capitalize our new hardware, so after depreciation there is really no cost difference other than maintainence. Our Mac’s cost us just under 20% of our total systems maintenance, yet we run 4X as many Mac’s as we do XP machines. All the necessary software we need in the office is available for Mac, and training 3 people would not be expensive. We would be dollars ahead after the first 6 months. If it was up to me alone, we would be all Mac.
Excuse me for thinking in a business sense, rather than as home / gamer user. I thought that was what the article was discussing. We are not a big business, but many business’s of similar size would benefit greatly from using Mac. Bigger organizations likely would not.
I also have a Mac. And I enjoy working on it.
But, I’ve not consumed so much of the Apple kool-aid that I buy into any of the rhetoric that Apple machines are competively priced with PCs. They simply aren’t No matter how you stack it up. You pay a very heavy tax for the privilege of using OS X legally.
Can someone please tell me what the writer was smoking while typing the article? Quite clear she’s biased.
This article is trash.
Folks – wait for my upcoming article…
“Eight Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Give a $hit What OS You’re Running (since you’re gonna die anyways)”
Isn’t quite sad to think about how many laid off and out of work tech workers there are in the US, and this fool is getting paid for this.
Somebody seriously needs to write an article called “Top ten reasons how clueless people get hired to write worthless IT articles”
I think if you can not do your work (or play) on your computer without a virtual machine running Windows then you are wasting time and money running Mac OS or Linux. Once you spend a few hundred dollars to buy VMware and a copy of Windows you might as well just run Windows. Don’t get me wrong because I am a linux fan but when I run Linux I only run Linux.