Cupertino versus Redmond (and Armonk)

Microsoft = shift software on as much tin as they can at a high margin. Microsoft don't give a toss about the hardware ... just the license seat. Don't worry about the optimization. Unfortunately for Redmond this margin has been rapidly eroded over the last 2-3 years with Open Source and Apple's move back into mainstream on the back of all things i Series. Another problem Redmond has is the sheer number of lines of code it has to write to support all adapters on all motherboards on the x86, x64 and Itanium platforms.

Apple = shift hardware at a high margin with the added bonus of a trusted OS and the backing of mainstream tech bods. Apple get double bubble. Apple only have to support their line of hardware in code and can control it. Apple's model is like IBM's with Mainframes/Z and P series kit. Apple won't port Mac OS to standard Wintel because that is one of their trump cards. Macs are bought for Mac OS. Port it and my £200 PC will run it.

I buy a PC now to play a FPS type game and I can pick up a 4 core i5 with OS for about £400. I've just paid £2000 for an iMac 27". Six years ago I paid a similar amount of money for a Dell XPS. I wouldn't pay over £400 for a Wintel box now. All my Wintel boxes run Linux in a VM for real work or I use Cygwin in a CMD prompt. For games my current bent is that I'd just buy a Xbox or PS/3 and be done with it and use the iMac for work and proper stuff and the Wintel machines are now becoming delegated file servers. Machines with SATA slots I can plug terabytes into. The Wintels are still there but I'm in the process of deprecating them. Only one has a screen plugged in - the rest are VNC'd. When you buy a Mac, it's not just the aesthetics and the hardware. Other vendors can do that but Apple have complete control of the OS AND the Hardware.

Windows 7 is an improvement but I still find that its Networking and collaboration is still way, way behind its natural predators. DirectX improvements in 7 over Vista are noticeable but all the other business type bug bears of Vista are still manifest. In short - if you want games - buy a Xbox with a Win 7 Directx update on it.

It speaks volumes that the Magic Mouse is the only thing I've found to fail on Win7 Bootcamp. Why would Apple want to write a driver for it? The Touch tablet mouse is a great selling point for the latest line of Macs and Snow Leopard. The Mini Div port too - why do you think there is no DVI support there? They want you to plug a new Mac Book Pro in there ... not an ageing PC with DVI out and an Uber graphics card. HDMI support? Apple are not soft. They know their target market and it is Dicks like me who know how to dot the i's and cross the t's How to put this stuff together themselves and assemble a barnstormer of a machine ... as I said they know their target market. They know I'd just buy a Mac. I've owned one since 1987. They know their market and no matter how low their place went under Sculley ... the fanbois still kept buying ... then came the i Series :-)

whaddajamean

'Chagrin of the fanbois'. I thought they were so happy with their OSX they shouldn't need Win7 on their gold plated desktop ornament..

Oh wait , that's right, there's no apps for that right ?

I remember the 'old days' (before OSx) of mac. The fanbois were ranting and raving how their os was so much better than all the 'Microsoft' stuff out there. And when you asked : and what applications do you use with it. Microsoft word, Microsoft excel , Microsoft powerpoint , microsoft internet exploder (apple didn't have a browser back then)... que 'eye roll' ...

Is this dual standards?

Am I understanding this right? Apple are trying hard to allow you to install W7 on Apple hardware whilst at the same time trying to stop people installing Leopard on non-Apple hardware?