“One of the oddest facts about the Wintel versus Unix (including Linux and the Mac) debate is that the Wintel proponent practically brag about never having actually used Unix while the most committed Mac/Unix advocates have generally used both If in reality the Unix products really are better, faster and cheaper, why is it that we’re always on the defensive, having to justif our choices against a Wintel default,” Paul Murphy reports for LinuxInsider.
“Review, for example, the information collected under the Macintosh Justification heading by Macintouch.com. There are seven subsections, each containing a number of success stories, purchase and use rationales, and more or less personal analyses of the costs and consequences that go with a Mac decision,” Murphy writes. “Read this stuff quickly and you’ll see that most of the contributers obviously have experience with both Wintel and the Mac but prefer the latter because Wintel consistently costs more and achieves less.”
Murphy writes, “Look more carefully, however, and you’ll see that the underlying reason in almost every case where the Mac lost out to Wintel doesn’t have anything to do with rational arguments based on cost, performance or functionality. Instead, Wintel proponents are shown as consistently fudging such arguments as rationales for decisions already made and getting non-IT executives to justify signing off on those decisions mainly by overweighting the argument that Apple’s market share has long since entered the insignificance of single digits.”
“In effect, Wingots seem to shout ‘We’re winning’ loud enough to convince the people around them that it’s true, and indeed you could fill a good-size book shelf simply by quoting analysts and commentators who’ve publicly written Apple off over the years,” Murphy writes. “It’s true, of course, that Apple’s share of new desktop sales runs only a bit over 3 percent right now, but the conclusion these commentators draw from this is wrong because the 3 percent is a measure of revenue dollars to PC sellers, not hours of usage by customers… In other words, it’s Wintel’s rapid upgrade cycle that’s been getting progressively more and more out of line with norms for industrial or retail electronics products, and therefore not falling interest in the Mac, that’s behind the numbers. Think about this for a minute: If PCs remained usable as long as Macs do, industrywide total revenues (aka customer costs) would be nearly two-thirds lower.”
Full article with much more here.
MacDailyNews Take: Amen, Brother Murphy.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple shows strong Mac shipment growth, market share gains in fourth quarter 2004 – January 19, 2005
Can Mac mini help Apple win back double-digit market share in the personal computer market? – January 16, 2005
Report: Apple gained significant market share of computer industry during past quarter – January 12, 2005
Analyst: With growing Mac market share, Apple has to start acting like a grown-up company – December 27, 2004
Is Apple’s market share really that important? – October 18, 2004
job security
Be very careful… shining bright lights on those trolls might make them multiply, because apparently it doesn’t kill them!!
Nice article from Paul Murphy, for Mac users. Why was it on LinuxInsider? (ECT also publish MacNewsWorld and TechNewsWorld).
Seen this game before, get the Mac zealots and the Linux zealots to war
LinuxInsider = LinuxInsider, ask the Linux geeks.
More newspeak from ECT
I love the story about “Dr. Bernie”. I know so many people who have a similar attitude: as soon as you mention that your Mac experience is better than their Windows experience, they shut down and accuse you of something akin to trying to convert their first-born to Satanism.
“In effect, Wingots seem to shout ‘We’re winning’ loud enough to convince the people around them that it’s true”
If we aren’t careful, we could replace “Wingots” for IiPodiots”. We’ve seen enough people blindly drinking the KoolAid…
One statements says it all:
“IT staff make money on failure, not success, and are therefore motivated to push Wintel”
People prefer Windows because of its strong leadership and moral values.
So where is “NoMacForYou”…. and that guy who posts under different screen names…. but loves to use the word “pumper” for some odd reason ??
I get a kick outta reading posts from both of these standup comedian wannabes…
zupchuck, I agree, we do have to be careful being iPodiots. However, iPods work and work well. Windows is seriously flawed, as Murphy demonstrates.
I disagree with Murphy’s generalised statement that I.T. people make money on failure though.
I think some do work that way (especially contractors) but many don’t. I for one don’t. I am much more satisfied in seeing software I’ve designed and built get out the door and into users hands, than spending my life being bored shitless working on some useless project for 2 years which gets canned in the end because it still doesn’t work. Maybe I’m unusual?
Mac Dood: Im right here, fudge packer.
Regarding the article. Intel does fudge their results..Just like Apple, AMD, IBM, Sun, Transmeta, Cyrix (used to), Etc…. Its general Marketing practice to make your product look better than the competition. If it weren’t for intel making the x86 architecture, most systems today would be on PPC or some RISC flavor of chip. Unfortunatly, MS didnt have a choice but to go with Intel. If they (MS) had their way during the Compaq / DEC days we (WinTrolls) would be alot better off. Just ask any IT guy who actually got to use NT 4 on Dec Alpha or RISC…At the time, it was solid as a rock.
“IT staff make money on failure, not success, and are therefore motivated to push Wintel”
That I dont agree with. The success of my IT department has generated major revenue’s for the company by keeping everything up and running. I think this statement may be true for some IT Consulting firms, But not for large fortune 500’s where the cost of changing to a new platform is more callenging and alot more lethal from a business standpoint to the organization. Thats like saying oh yeah, here we have 3000 systems running Windows…Lets take down the PDC/BDC, watch the users squirm, and then we’ll just buy more. If that is the case, then the companies with these problems need to evaluate what the hell IT is doing. On the other hand…Sometimes making a decision like this is more influenced by the sales guy who gives a kick back for your signature. Thats the bottum line.
I finally got around to checking back and the Bill Gates CES Keynote is finally back online. I just watched the whole thing and I really can’t see how the windows apologists can explain this performance away. I could have accepted one or even two failures of the software to run correctly in the demos (shit happens) but this really was ridiculous.
In front of the whole world Bill gates was not able to start a simple slide show. And not just once did this fail. After several minutes (I am sure with the techies scrambling wildly) they told him to try it again and it failed AGAIN. In fact the remote that Bill was hyping as the great innovation because you only needed one never did work at all! Then in the next demo the guy could not access the internet to show how you could program your media center remotely. And finally it all culminated with the guy doing a car racing demo bottoming out with the Blue Screen of Death. My God!!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/ces2005/default.mspx
Oh and as far as this goes:
“If PCs remained usable as long as Macs do, industrywide total revenues (aka customer costs) would be nearly two-thirds lower.”
That is staight bullshit as the Macs here at work have a lifespan of roughly 5 or 6 yrs, same applies to the pc’s. Ive even seen a couple PC’s laying around (still working) that must be at least 8 yrs old..
Okay, NoMacForYou – I’ll bite –
By “still working” when referring to those “couple PCs” did you mean actual, productive machines at which people could sit down and get some real work accomplished?
And how often have the PCs in your shop have needed their innards replaced or “upgraded” due to failing parts or new software requirements as opposed to the Macs?
How many original-parts PCs are still in your shop as opposed to Macs with their original configurations?
Just curious…
I would say that some 10% of the 4500+ PCs we have, Parts have been replaced. and for the most part, Our PC and Macs get sent to Charity after about 5 yrs. The old G3’s only lasted about 3 yrs. The Old PCs im refering to could be worked on “Actual Work” meaning Email, Excel, Word, IE and so. Would you attemp to run Photoshop CS with OS X.3 on a G3? No. Would I attemp to Run PS CS on a PC thats 5 yrs old running Windows 2000? Probably not. The fact is that PC’s and Macs last about the same time.
“[…] And finally it all culminated with the guy doing a car racing demo and bottoming out with the Blue Screen of Death.”
Actually, I can’t blame Microsoft for that.
a) It wasn’t a Microsoft product.
b) It wasn’t a shipping product–it was a beta, at best.
c) As I understand it from people who know, it was a debug screen meaning the program had crashed (think MacsBug). The whole machine had not crashed. Which means they were using a “developer Xbox”.
The rest of it, yeah. Some of the Windows apologists will note that the remote wasn’t a Microsoft product, either. So the big question is, why didn’t they give Bill another remote and let him try it again? And if the remotes are so bad, doesn’t that speak to the functionality of the whole system?
Not too mention, did anyone get a little unsettled at how Bill Gates looked so…Machievellian sitting hunched over in the lazy boy, with his hands arranged fingertip to fingertip? And when the demo went bad, he seemed pissed off, and then flamed and crashed without a decent recovery.
Contrast that to the quick quips and effective jokes that Steve Jobs makes if a demo goes awry (the endless looping PDF, the frozen screensaver).
No MAc For You Wrote:
I would say that some 10% of the 4500+ PCs we have, Parts have been replaced. and for the most part, Our PC and Macs get sent to Charity after about 5 yrs. The old G3’s only lasted about 3 yrs. The Old PCs im refering to could be worked on “Actual Work” meaning Email, Excel, Word, IE and so. Would you attemp to run Photoshop CS with OS X.3 on a G3? No. Would I attemp to Run PS CS on a PC thats 5 yrs old running Windows 2000? Probably not. The fact is that PC’s and Macs last about the same time.
Yes indeed I use Photoshop CS on a G3 (700 mhz) and X.3, and it still smokes my co-workers Dull 1.8 Ghz Pentium.
I guess you don’t have a damn clue about what you are talking about.
Let me tell ya, I still RUN PS albeit on OS9 on a 1998 Beige G3 300 mhz overclocked to 400, and still is used for minor video editing and minor graphic and web design. I guess I can still squeez two more years out of it, befor goes as a full file server!
You suck!
what’s happening is that rivets are starting to pop and seams are starting to blow all over the place. Important people like Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal are making dark remarks about Windows, and today he said this:…
“If my e-mail from readers is any indication, more Windows users are thinking of switching to Apple Computer’s Macintosh models than at any time in a decade. A significant minority of Windows users are so fed up with battling viruses and spyware, or so impressed with Apple’s iPod music players, that they are seriously tempted to jump to the Mac.”
The Wall Street Journal! Not some blog coming out of a college campus.
And this is the lead paragraph to Mossberg’s piece In the Wall Street Journal on switching from Windows to the Mac Mini. And for Windows there is no relief or fix in sight. You have to believe that this is causing Bill Gates a great deal of psychic pain.
Apple has once again pulled ahead, technologically, but this time Apple will not squander its crown jewels like Sculley did almost 20 years ago. And even the man in the street is starting to notice that the emperor is wearing no clothes.
Over twenty years ago two insanely fluke deals between Microsoft and IBM and Microsoft and Apple firmly placed Microsoft in the lead, and made Bill Gates the Accidental Billionaire of the universe.
Were they shrewd deals? Yes. Can you live on them forever? No.
Will Bill ever miss a meal? No. Microsoft will still be around for a long time. But the slide down has started.
And so it begins…
david vesey
“The success of my IT department has generated major revenue’s for the company by keeping everything up and running.”
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, NoMacForYou, imagine what your IT department could have accomplished if it didn’t have to devote so much time to keeping everything up and running.
I use both Mac and Windows, speak with both Mac and Windows enthusiasts, own both Apple and MS-based products.
There are idiots on both sides. You know this to be true.
I prefer using OSX, but… it’s far from perfect and I have crashed it just as much as I’ve crashed XP. If Windows programs could run on OSX, I’d completely switch over though.
I use both Mac and Windows, speak with both Mac and Windows enthusiasts, own both Apple and MS-based products.
There are idiots on both sides. You know this to be true.
I prefer using OSX, but… it’s far from perfect and I have crashed it just as much as I’ve crashed XP. If Windows programs could run on OSX, I’d completely switch over though.
I can’t believe this thing was even published..
Okay.. mac users.. careful what you wish for.. cuz you’re about to get it in about 3 months..
In other words, it’s Wintel’s rapid upgrade cycle that’s been getting progressively more and more out of line with norms for industrial or retail electronics products, and therefore not falling interest in the Mac, that’s behind the numbers. Think about this for a minute: If PCs remained usable as long as Macs do, industrywide total revenues (aka customer costs) would be nearly two-thirds lower.
~~~
SOMEONE FINALLY ADMITS IT WOW
I must be dreaming
In my experience, if someone is using Windows, there is no point talking to them about Macs; they have made their decision and it would be too embarassing to back down from it. Sometimes these people ask me for computer advice, like how to edit videos but I have to tell them that I can’t help because I am not familiar with their operating system. This is not completely true; of course I am familiar enough with Windows to know that editing movies on it is far more complicated than it should be.
The old saying “Build it and they will come” is the best way to make people switch. Now that the Mac mini is here, many will surelly come.
>Sol wrote: I am familiar enough with Windows to know that editing movies on it is far more complicated than it should be.
I have the exact opposite experience. When I edit videos (not movies) on WinXP, it’s quite easy. I’ve used Premiere/PremPro/AE, Avid XPressDV, Canopus Rex/Edius, Vegas Video, Ulead MediaStudio Pro. With the exception of Avid and AE, they are all pretty straightforward. The lesser programs are even easier for the average person.
That being said, I do just about all of my editing on a Mac using Media100 for simple cutting and FCP/Motion/AE for the more fun stuff.
– – –
Sol… out of curiousity, what Windows apps have you tried that are “far more complicated than it should be”?