jrmhng
July 9th, 2008, 01:10 AM
Hey All,
Let me start by saying I dont want to start a MS/Apple bashing thread so if you are a fan boy please refrain. Also let me state my position on the issue. I’ve used MS PCs for most of my life and haven’t tried any of the recent Steve Jobs-ian apple products.
What really struck me was how similar a Wintel PC and Mac are becoming. There were a few things that actually differentiated the two platforms.
• Macs were Power PC and Wintel PCs were x86. So there was a difference in their hardware structure
• Macs, while were never ‘safer’ from a theoretical point of view, as a matter of practicality, it didn’t receive much attention malware writers while Windows did.
• OSX was a true UNIX operating that had the multiuser environment down packed. Windows moved closer to a multiuser environment with the merging of the 9x and NT codebase but did not have a robust interface to it and most users just ran as adminstrators
Now
• Macs and PC’s run on the same x86 architecture
• Macs are receiving increasing attention from malware writers
• UAC in Vista makes Windows provides a much better interface into the multiuser paradigm
• Virtual machines make it possible to have both OS on the same machine
So it seems to me like while each system has a different business ecosystem (Wintel having accessible platforms with different companies doing a specific value add activity while Apple takes ownership of almost the almost the whole process from design to distribution) the end result becomes increasingly similar.
I read a recent comparison at http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/thread/1004417186.aspx that showed Macs were more expensive across different product lines, it makes me wonder, what does Apple do that makes Macs worth the premium? Do Macs actually add that much tangible value to the end user or is it more an issue of marketing and pseudo product differentiation?
Again, I’m asking for an objective view on this and don’t want to start a bashing thread. If you are presenting a particular point of view, please actually back up what you are saying either with some third party evidence or do a comparison or analysis you have done yourself.
Cheers
Jeremy
Let me start by saying I dont want to start a MS/Apple bashing thread so if you are a fan boy please refrain. Also let me state my position on the issue. I’ve used MS PCs for most of my life and haven’t tried any of the recent Steve Jobs-ian apple products.
What really struck me was how similar a Wintel PC and Mac are becoming. There were a few things that actually differentiated the two platforms.
• Macs were Power PC and Wintel PCs were x86. So there was a difference in their hardware structure
• Macs, while were never ‘safer’ from a theoretical point of view, as a matter of practicality, it didn’t receive much attention malware writers while Windows did.
• OSX was a true UNIX operating that had the multiuser environment down packed. Windows moved closer to a multiuser environment with the merging of the 9x and NT codebase but did not have a robust interface to it and most users just ran as adminstrators
Now
• Macs and PC’s run on the same x86 architecture
• Macs are receiving increasing attention from malware writers
• UAC in Vista makes Windows provides a much better interface into the multiuser paradigm
• Virtual machines make it possible to have both OS on the same machine
So it seems to me like while each system has a different business ecosystem (Wintel having accessible platforms with different companies doing a specific value add activity while Apple takes ownership of almost the almost the whole process from design to distribution) the end result becomes increasingly similar.
I read a recent comparison at http://discuss.extremetech.com/forums/thread/1004417186.aspx that showed Macs were more expensive across different product lines, it makes me wonder, what does Apple do that makes Macs worth the premium? Do Macs actually add that much tangible value to the end user or is it more an issue of marketing and pseudo product differentiation?
Again, I’m asking for an objective view on this and don’t want to start a bashing thread. If you are presenting a particular point of view, please actually back up what you are saying either with some third party evidence or do a comparison or analysis you have done yourself.
Cheers
Jeremy