“There seems to be a perception that there is a race between Apple and Microsoft to be the first to bring their new operating systems to the market. This is total baloney there is no race, no competition because the two systems don’t intersect and anyway Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is already probably at least on a par if not ahead of the upcoming Vista. Leopard, when it is released, will likely be way more advanced,” Stan Beer writes for iTWire.
Beer writes, “as far as the competition between Vista and Leopard is concerned, there is none. Steve Jobs and the Apple team have shown enough at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week to demonstrate that Leopard is light years ahead… users will have the option of running Vista on their Intel Mac if they really need to use Windows applications. However, there will be many new buyers who buy a Mac box because it gives them the option of running Windows but who may later decide that they don’t need Windows at home. This is bad news for Microsoft.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve been saying since Apple announced the Intel transition. Beer gets it.
Related articles:
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Apple introduces Boot Camp: public beta software enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP – April 05, 2006
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Why buy a Dell when Apple’s Intel-based computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005
Windows users who try Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger might not want to go back – June 07, 2005
Microsoft CEO Ballmer: Apple’s moved to Intel? Ho hum – June 07, 2005
AS:
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> ) won their case to put other apps on the desktop of their Windows boxes was the day the tide turned. Granted MS is sill a beast, but with fewer teeth. Besides, Steve kept calling them Apple’s friends!
I think MS has less control than you indicate. When HP (or was it Compaq?
Fearnot!,
I appreciate your points, but you’re missing what I am trying to say. My point is not that there aren’t alternatives to all of MS’s crap, but that people have a certain perception of reality.
The fact that you can run Windows on a Mac is certainly a plus. However, if MS cancels Office for Mac, then, sorry, Windows on Mac is pretty meaningless. Take my work as an example. If I had to tell my work that to use Word they had to boot into Windows, and add the cost of Windows to the cost of the Apple hardware, they would just buy Windows machines.
I am sure that Apple, unless they’re idiots, have Office-compatible software ready should MS decide to pull the plug. My point, however, is people’s perception of things. If it’s not MS Word, you have to overcome a lot for people to believe that it’s compatible.
Besides, Pages, as it currently is, is not very good at reading and saving as Word documents–pagination and other styles get lost in translation. And while Flip4Mac has done a fine job, there are a number of situations and Web sites where it simply falls behind or doesn’t work. That said, I completely agree with you about Quicktime. I think it’s stupid that Apple makes a “pro” version of it and charges people for that as well as mpeg 2.
Apple gets their money’s worth, and that they should charge less for updates (like OS 10.x –> 10.(x+1) costing, say, $70, and OS X –> OS XI costing the full $130).
Under which assumption? SPs from Microsoft do not add anything more than the regular FREE OS X updates and security patches. When Vista comes out do you expect to pay less because you own XP already?
Each 10.x is not merely an upgrade, it is touching everything, from core to libraries to applications. The fact that Apple keeps the transition to the new OS to a level so smooth so that a Panther user does not feel out of the water on Tiger it is all to their merit.
Leopard is so much a step further ahead to justify calling then XP the eye-candy refined version of Windows 95? What will Vista be in comparison, with all the features that are on Tiger, the never-will-be-on-par features that Leopard is bringing, the features that have been cut from originally promised… a free XP SP3?
Why pay for Vista since you have XP. What do you get really for the money. I know what I’ll get with Leopard. Heck, Time Machine alone is worth around $100 on the regular market for automatic backup facility.
Microsoft pulling the plug to Office 4 Mac and they pull the plug on a cash cow. It is one of the most $-generating product they have. MBU is one of the (very few) departments that bring lots of money to Microsoft.
It would clearly be a retaliation move but I guess at Microsoft they are quite happy to see what happens with Apple right now. They are not Dell or HP: they are losing market each time Apple is gaining. Microsoft still gets money from everyone.
Heck, even Microsoft reprs sport MacBooks nowadays !
At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the Macintosh
Business Unit (Mac BU) at Microsoft made a number of important
announcements, including continued progress on new, Universal
versions of Office for Mac, Messenger for Mac 6.0 and Remote Desktop
Connection (RDC).
The Mac BU continues our strong commitment to our customers, partners and to the Mac platform. We are fully committed to supporting the new Intel architecture and are hard at work developing Universal
applications of Office, Messenger for Mac and Remote Desktop
Connection. Microsoft and Apple have been partners for more than 20
years, and we recently announced at MacWorld a five-year agreement
between Apple and Microsoft that the Mac BU will continue producing
the award-winning Office for Mac suite.
I guess that kills all speculations…
Office for Mac also is moving closer to becoming a
Universal application now that it is 100% on Xcode!
· Cross-platform compatibility is still a top priority for
your customers; the Mac BU will provide free, downloadable converters
to allow users of current versions of Office for Mac to read the new
Microsoft Office Open XML formats. These converters will be available
following the availability of 2007 Microsoft Office system for
Windows in early 2007.
· The next version of Office for Mac will be Universal and
development is progressing well.
We can put the case to rest.
Next.
Not sure if it’s bad news for Microsoft, since folks will still have to buy a copy of Windows to install on their Macs.
Who should really be shaking in their boots are the Windows box makers — Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway and all the other folks who’ll see their sales drop as people bring in Macs that can run more than just one OS.
Maybe somewhere down the road, Microsoft sales will drop as people wean themselves from their Windows security blanket, and as more websites and programs become Mac-compliant and not just Windows-centric (I still see a ton of websites that say that IE is required for proper functionality). It might take about 5 to 10 years though…
OS X –> OS XI
We are already at OS XIV, it is called Tiger. Leopard is OS XV.
The fact that Apple still calls it OS X is because it marries very well the message that it is a Unix System (X).
I think the ‘upgrade’ confusion is based on the current numbering system for the Mac OS.
Some folks don’t get the difference beetween a number like OS X 10.3.9 and OS X 10.4.0 since they are both ‘OS X version 10’.
Everyone should know that the number after the second decimal is an update to the current system….
The number after the first decimal is a NEW system.
OS X is always version 10.
When will there be an OS XI ? No one knows.
“Apple gets their money’s worth, and that they should charge less for updates (like OS 10.x –> 10.(x+1) costing, say, $70, and OS X –> OS XI costing the full $130).”
Apple does not charge for updates, 10.1.0 thru 10.1.9 for example.
Apple charges for upgrades, 10.1.x to 10.2.x
Current release 10.4, Leopard will be 10.5 there is no “XI” and by then Apple will probably drop the X for who knows what.
How can a so-called Mac user be that ignorant about the Mac OS numbering conventions?
When will there be an OS XI ? No one knows.
Never. It will be a totally different naming.
OS X was convenient because as roman number is ’10’ so that a continuity with the past was still perceived.
There will never be a OS XI. We got rid of the numbering scheme – and made it clear with calling the new version on the second decimal.
Already said too much.
Cheers
Seriously, how many of you out there really understand the naming convention? It’s not rocket science!
Leopard will be 10.5 not XV! XV is 15! Geez!
anybody read the sad comments after the article? Who are these people who actually believe: “To claim that OS-X is superior to XP is to forget all the shortfalls of OS-X (ease of setting up shares to ANY folder on a machine, ease of assigning password protection to shares and printers, the ability to permanently map network resources, and my favorite, try copying an empty folder “XXX” on to a folder of the same name on OS-X (filled with thousands of files), make one mistake by saying yes, and every file is gone!… and I could go on and on…). “
palease.
Humm, you missed the point but never mind.
Fact is that Vista is to XP as Leopard is to Tiger is to Panther is to Jaguar etc. Windows world still sees them instead as the equivalent SP1, SP2, SP3, etc so they spout with critics like “Apple should make the upgrade free as for Windows, hence OS X costs way more than XP because Apple forces users to pay for updates”.
Clearer now? But the real point is that it is Vista that has been so much nurtured to actually be just an SP3 with copied (from OS X) eye-candies and M$ will ask premium price for something that pales in comparison with what brings in a so-called (by Windows world) update to OS X, it the new OS from Apple where only the skin remains visibly similar and amazing new development gets released instead to the users.
yes, noticed on my first post here above. Pitiful. Shows why Windows is so ubiquitous: those who buy it have not the faintest clue of what is the state of the art out of Windoze.
Not having Visual Basic on new versions of Office Mac sucks. I don’t use it much but there are definitely people who do. Are they killing it on the Windows version too? I doubt they are but I don’t know enough about it.
It would seem that the poster who made this comment doesn’t get it and I Quote……
“I think it is the author that “Misses t
Written by Elly Phauntz on 2006-08-08 11:47:07To quote Why, “why do you attack windows, if Mac OS was 90% of the market there would be more security problems.”
To claim that OS-X is superior to XP is to forget all the shortfalls of OS-X (ease of setting up shares to ANY folder on a machine, ease of assigning password protection to shares and printers, the ability to permanently map network resources, and my favorite, try copying an empty folder “XXX” on to a folder of the same name on OS-X (filled with thousands of files), make one mistake by saying yes, and every file is gone!… and I could go on and on…).
The simple fact remains, Apple has a strangle hold on their OS and hardware, one, that in some cases, works in the customers favor (if it was made by Apple, it will USUALLY work on an Apple… (I won’t go into the switch away from SCSI to USB)). On the other hand, if a new technology comes out (especially those that compete directly with Apples own tech) users are usually left out in the cold (for example, it is still difficult to get any printer to work on OS-X, and it has been out longer than XP).
And it is because of all these types of issues, that “most desktop users do not have the choice to use a Mac at work”. It is all about standardization, ease of implementation, and predictability in long term usability. In the case of OS-X, its users have had to pay something like $120 per year to stay current, where XP users have had basically free updates and patches since day one. So, from that perspective alone, the cost of ownership is hundreds of dollars cheaper. “
Someone doesn’t seem to know about how OSX updates work.
>If one were to buy OS X and Windows XP Pro when they both came out and get every new update for each, one would have spent $520 on OS X and $350 on XP.
That comparison only works in Microsoft’s favor because Windows Vista is something like three years late. If it was released as Microsoft originally intended, then Windows would be more expensive. If it’s never released, I guess Mac OS X will have to be “infinitely” more expensive.
Most people from the Windows side don’t realize that $129 is NOT the “full” price, it IS the upgrade price. New Macs come with the latest OS available when first sold. If the OS is upgraded, then it is an “upgrade,” and you pay $129.
The only Mac OS X “new cat” release that was not worth $129 was 10.0 to 10.1, and that’s the one Apple gave away for free via CD to the brave owners of 10.0. Every release since then has been meaningful and worth the $129 (often found discounted to $99 after the intial few months of sales).
Dell should be freaking out…Not so much Microsoft…yet.
They’ll still be important in the work place (for the foreseeable future) and anyone who works at (or needs to work at) home will need Windows.
I really like the idea of running 2+ OS’s on my machine. I want to do that for a little while.