| by Joe Leo, Columnist | October 20, 2006 |
continued... from: page 1
Other analysts say that with the newer Intel Macs being able to run Windows natively, who's to say that these new Macs being purchased aren't really being used to run Windows, and the Mac OS is sitting unused. Again. Come on now. Why buy a $2000 Mac laptop to exclusively run Windows when you can get a PC one for $599?
Let's digress here for an unrelated, yet related moment. Does anyone find it odd that competitors and other non-competitors strive to copy Apple's techniques, designs, innovations in order to survive and or co-exist? It's because Apple is the leader, and those that lead stay on top, leaving the others to follow them and trail behind.
When's the last time you walked into your local major electronics chain and found a printer that matched the latest "innovation" or product from Dell, Sony, or even HP? The HP Deskjet series has always seemed to reflect Apple's latest and greatest, from the all-white iBook, or EPSON's Stylus line which matched the colors of the iMac.
How about those external hard drives from companies from Maxtor to Western Digital? The ones that have come out on the market have primarily had a casing reflecting the latest pro Mac line at the time, from the PowerMac G4's "graphite" style, to the more recent aluminum casing of the PowerMac G5 / Mac Pro models.
Case in point, let's take it to the next level that directly relates to this story, and bridges the gap between the original angle and the one we digressed to-- Microsoft's "next generation" operating system, Windows Vista.
Anyone and everyone living on Cupertino's side of the world immediately dropped dead or had a sudden case of the uncontrollable giggles when they heard and/or saw the news. Some even thought they were reading a review of Apple's current operating system in the pages of their not-so-favorite PC magazine.
With Vista coming very close to release in the next few weeks for the business and tech world, and a little after that for the home user market, we're beginning to see more of Vista's features under the hood. Instead of screenshots/stills that show what Vista will do, we can actually see it in action with video clips released since then, and what we see is very sad.
"Gadgets," (sounds like Widgets) and open windows that get out of your way and arrange themselves in a line so that you can see what you're doing. And get this? A built-in suite of digital applications from photo editing and instant online printing and/or photo book creation, as well as the ability to make fantastic home movies.
Um, well, uh... isn't that Mac OS X? And the "iApps" that have been on the Mac since the days of OS 9? Yes, and no. It's Windows Vista, Microsoft's original innovation that will bring, "...clarity to your world, so you can more safely and easily accomplish everyday tasks and instantly find what you want on your PC."
Oh, so it's Windows Spotlight. Microsoft goes on to say that Windows Vista will be a "breakthrough computing experience." Yeah, like the apple that broke through Sir Isaac Newton's window in our rewrite of history.
A renowned journalistic institution has even made that same observation. Their review in their magazine last week, which was just in time for this article, states that Windows Vista, "...features tighter security, slicker visuals and friendlier--one might be tempted to say Mac-like--applications for managing photos, movies, and music."
Even Apple is taking it all in stride, and they've known about Redmond's scheme from the beginning. At the Macworld Expo earlier this year, banners and signs up around the convention center displayed "Mac OS X Leopard: Introducing Vista 2.0"
According to various sources, Vista will retail for $399 brand new out-of-the-box, or less than that if you're upgrading. The caveat here is that analysts don't believe people will be making the jump that soon, not wanting to shell out all that money. The bigger picture here is that corporate/business/IT will be the first to follow that move.
After having put in a lot of resources-- from money to hard labor --into stabilizing their systems from the recent move to XP from previous version(s) of Windows, and finally finding some footing/ground into somewhat getting the upper hand on the situation, IT folks aren't ready to totally overhaul their companies' systems all over again. It'd be just one big headache.
Here's a suggestion for you home users. Save your $399, or less for the upgrade, and put that toward a new Mac mini. Toss out all your PC peripherals except that for which you would use with your mini, and get the original version of "Vista" already preinstalled on the computer! (And run your XP things via Boot Camp).
Microsoft and PC companies are beginning to see their downfall. From Microsoft's recent declining share of the internet browser world (with competition from both Apple and other non-Apple browsers) to the PC companies' share of the computer market with formerly ranked #1 Dell losing its title to HP.
Though while Apple clearly does not have the number that its competitors do, gravity is shifting, and there is a ripple effect being caused by Apple's climb back up the tree. (We wonder what type of computer user Sir Isaac Newton would have been... we'll never know, but we'd like to think, being the intelligent/logical guy he was, that hands down it would have been Apple!).
SOURCES:
TIME Magazine, "Vista Wide Open"- p.86, Vol. 168, No. 16 (10.16.06)
Apple.com, "Apple... Ships Record 1.61 Million Macs" (10.18.06)
MacNewsWorld.com, "Strong Sales... Bolster Apple's Q4 Profit" (10.19.06)
Microsoft.com, Windows Vista
