Dell Says He’d Sell Apple’s Mac OS

[lateo]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,1072719,00.html

Oh please, please, please make this happen Steve Jobs...

[cprise]

1. No way

Not for another couple years at least.

[ananda]

2. y-knot?

Mac OS is SO superior to Windows.

Do it Jobs.

Sue

[ender]

83. because apple is a hardware manu.

apple makes their money on selling their hardware, at a huge markup.

they wont commoditize the product anytime soon.

[queeg]

3. Dell is a Prick

He says stupid stuff like this every couple of years.

[Brundle_Fly]

4. too funny.

and too true.

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Also a RW'er

[lateo]

22. And Gates isn't....?

Welcome to America, Inc.

[LiberallyInclined]

28. gates doesn't support bush on tax cuts-

he believes in progressive taxation, including the estate tax.

[BrendaStarr]

48. The Gates Foundation is moderately progressive.

Last I heard his father, a Democrat was running it.

But if you are going to spend so much money for a computer with Mac OS why don't you buy a Mac? Why buy from one of Bush's best buddies?

[northzax]

68. moderaly progressive?

I'd say it's radical, using locally based sites to prevent and cure disease in developing nations? training local people in medical care, so they aren't dependent on someone else? that's only moderatly progressive?

[wakeme2008]

5. Jobs has to say YES.... Wall Street will kill him

if he turns this down...

[Xithras]

12. Not neccesarily

Remember, up until Jobs came back Apple DID license it's OS to other builders. Jobs killed that off when market research revealed that these "clone sales" weren't cutting into the PC market, but were coming straight out of Apples own marketshare.

OSX rocks, but it STILL doesn't quite have the mass appeal needed to wean people away from their Windows boxes in any large numbers. Think about it...you can buy a brand new Mac Mini for $500 today...that's cheaper than most PC's...and yet Apples market share has only recently begun moving up, and it's STILL slow.

Odds are, anyone buying a "clone" Apple today would buy it in place of a real Apple, not in place of a PC. Since Apple makes their money on the hardware sales, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot to allow that.

IMO, they need to continue working with software developers to further improve the software selection available for the Mac, and make it a truly viable machine for the average householder. Any moves into the clone market prior to that would be suicide.

[wakeme2008]

14. IMHO Jobs shot himself in the foot over this... But having said that

He has to REPORT to Wall Street. And IMHO, I bet tomorrow Wall Street will think this is a GREAT idea... Get those Intel Apples out the door Fast.....

Also IMHO,,, I do not think Jobs expected Dell to do this...

[Neshanic]

15. You have the correct answer....

"IMO, they need to continue working with software developers to further improve the software selection available for the Mac, and make it a truly viable machine for the average householder. Any moves into the clone market prior to that would be suicide."

Exactly...when they make Autocad work on Macs without Virtual PC, then they will see major inroads into the PC dominated engineering/architecture and allied fields.

[realcountrymusic]

19. What?

How many "household" users boot up an AutoCAD app on a regular basis? CAD and accounting are about the only two areas where there are not inexpensive and elegant software solutions that already exist for OSX (oh, and games, which is another story). The move to x86 will make this problem go away. But for all practical purposes, 95 percent of what the world's PCs (and increasingly servers, though the gap is larger) do can be accomplished easily, elegantly, and inexpensively (in TCO) on a Mac.

And as people in my industries (education and media production) know, Macs can do a lot of stuff that is a pain in the ass and expensive and technically inelegant on PCs.

I don't think the lack of AutoCAD apps for Mac (pre-Intel) has made much difference in the Mac market, and I doubt it makes much difference going forward.

RCM

[VegasWolf]

32. I agree with the previous poster. Virtual PC is a poor relative of the

real PC. Forget CAD,try running any interesting games ported to Apple.

[realcountrymusic]

36. So?

Who needs virtual PC? If you rely on CAD apps, use a PC. If you're a gamer, use a PC. I for one love that Macs are not gaming machines. I am easily addicted to computer games (as are my students) and it keeps the temptation at bay.

Comparing XP running under Virtual PC on a Mac to XP on a native x86 box is like comaring, well, Apples and oranges. Compare OSX native apps running on my dual 2/7 GHz G5 cheesegrater with the same apps running on even the fastest 64-bit Windows workstation, and the G5 kicks ass on many tasks, especially anything written to take advantage of Altivec on the PowerPC (can you say Photoshop filters or video rendering?). Not only can I read the benchmarks. I can look at the workstation next to me while I'm applying a Gaussian blur to an image on each one. The G5 smokes an Alienware 64bit AMD workstation on stuff like that.

And not one poster on this thread has mentioned security. Macs, contrary to rumor, are not immune to viruses and spyware, but problems are SO rare. Need I mention the words Service Pack 2 to anyone on this board? Adaware? Spybot? There's a few apps I don't need to run on my Macs.

Anyway, the whole debate is pointless. When OSX is running on a 64bit Intel chip, and Windows Longhorn is *finally* released, then let's put the same basic boxes next to each other running Leopard and Longhorn and we'll see whether we can't dismiss years of internet opinion-slinging. At the moment, it all depends on the work you do, and how much you value your time, and the aesthetics of the interface you prefer. But the following are MYTHS:
1) no software for Mac
2) Macs are slower
3) Macs cost more
4) Macs can't network or share files with Windows

In a fair comparison, none of the above are true.

Period.

[burrowowl]

27. With architects

AutoCad is beginning to loose out to ArchiCad which runs on both platforms.
AutoCad has not really been overhauled and is really showing its age.

[realcountrymusic]

37. rock on

I didn't know that, but it always surprised me that architects didn't demand the same creative computing platform used by majorities in video, audio, and design production. There is no reason in principle that CAD applications shouldn't blaze on the PowerPC platform.

What amuses me most about these discussions, other than the sheer willingness of people who don't know what they are talking about to opine expertly, is the religious fervor with which people will defend Microsoft, in particular, one of the worst monopolist corporations out there (in my opinion), and a shop that managed to have huge market share by sheer force and monopolistic practices rather than any technical superiority. Then people use that market share as an argument that the Windows OS is superior. The real reason more people don't use Macs is because they never have or because "everyone else has Windows." Oh, and because you can get in the door for $400. Two years later, that $400 machine is a doorstop while the Mac you could have bought for $800 would still be firing on most cylinders, and in those two years you are very likely never to have spoken to a tech support person in Bangalore. Or anywhere else.

I made a huge mistake and got my 66 year old mom a Windows computer, since she used one at work sometimes and had more friends who used Windows. Now I work around XP boxes all day, so they don't mystify me and I had forgotten how maddening they could be to someone without tech savvy or endless hours to troubleshoot. I'm my mom's tech support guy, and I've logged hours trying to get the viruses and spyware off, replacing failed components, etc. I'm about to give her a new machine. Guess what it is?

iBook. She's thrilled. And I get to save a fortune in cell phone bills.

[Occulus]

40. That goes for the whole of the gaming industry as well

Without the hardcore gamer market, Apple will not be able to compete, and that market belongs strictly to Windows at the moment. Apple has traditionally neglected this market, to their loss.

[realcountrymusic]

55. Why?

"Hardcore" gamers are a niche market. They buy high end PC workstations, just like the niche market for Apple's expensive workstations in media production.

Anyway, with Apple using standard hardware (esp. video cards) on x86 architecture means that porting over games to the new Macs should be straightforward.

And for what it's worth, the new xBox runs on a . . . PowerPC chip.

rcm

[lateo]

23. But....

The idea that cloning "cuts into your sales" is a canard...just look at Microsoft as an example as to why it works.

[realcountrymusic]

29. actually

Apple's market share for desktops and laptops has continued to decline even as the company has been wildly profitable for the last few years. iPod is a big part of that, and iTunes, and their substantially higher margin. Oh, and those beautiful servers and drive arrays. If you have a PC, there's a good chance you have iTunes and Quicktime, both Apple products. They may be free, but they make Apple a lot of money because you have them.

Mercedes has a small market share too.

Killing the clones was necessary in an era when Apple was primarily a hardware vendor and hadn't yet dreamed of owning the market for digital music players, which didn't exist. These days, it would be a lot less damaging to license the OS to clones, if the clones had to be to certain specs or the clone makers paid for customer support.

Computers are not a religion. The various platforms have advantages and disadvantages, and there is no clear price/performance champion among them, Linux included. I have to buy a dozen computers a year, and work on as many every day.

Oh, and today I mapped my lab macs happily onto an NAS server running XP embedded and sharing via the Windows SMB file sharing protocol. My Macs and XP boxes talk very happily to each other, and they all talk nicely to my lab's Unix server.

Just so many myths out there.

[VegasWolf]

33. Thanks to the magic of standards. Talking with each other is easy,

porting complex applications is not.

[realcountrymusic]

57. Depends

porting complex applications is not (easy).

Porting apps developed for Linux or Unix to Mac OSX is dead simple in most cases. That's why there is so much new software for Mac.

And did you see Jobs' keynote at WWDC? A Wolfram Research developer explained that porting Mathematica from PowerPC to the new Intel architecture involved changing "20 lines of code" and took "about an hour."

The magic of APIs, and the Unix foundation of OSX, make that statement less than completely true.

RCM

[sidpleasant]

65. Bad analogy

Mercedes is bordering on being the poorest quality, least reliable car you can buy. The company's cars have fallen to near the bottom of Consumer Reports' annual reliability rankings. Apple on the other hand has the highest reliability and best customer support of any computer maker according to CR.

[kysrsoze]

49. Wall Street will probably react negatively if he says no...

but...this would be a huge chance for apple to make money again. Why not? They're friggin' going to Intel anyway. They'll make money alone on the OS, but people sometimes want to go for the Cadillac and that's Apple. I don't own an Apple, but I might consider the OS if I can get a cheap one from Dell. Apple hardware is too expensive for me to switch b/c windows machines do the job and I haven't seen much in the way of an advantage (aside from viruses which are pretty well blocked with good software and no longer exclusive to windows machines). People like me need a compelling reason to switch.

[jmowreader]

72. If Apple makes this Wintel-compatible, kiss Apple goodbye

First, how long do you really think it would take for someone to upload his Mac OS X for Intel install CD to the Internet? That's assuming some hacker didn't break into the Apple server and steal the installer.

Second, how many people would really buy Apple's machines if they made this Wintel-compatible? I know I wouldn't; if I can get a PC for half the price of a Mactel, I'll buy two PCs, load both with OS X for Intel, and be able to work on this one while something's building on that one.

[VegasWolf]

6. It still would take 20 years for more than a few application programs to

be available for the Mac. Programmers don't want to write and test
for oddball os's. After 20 years of Unix, how many programs can
you find at Best Buy to run on it? Same for Apple.

Dell would sell his mother if he could find a paying buyer.

[amber dog democrat]

8. I dunno

I have never owned a PC and don't use Windows apps. But then I don't go to Best Buy or Walmart either. I have been using Macs since 84 and see no reason to change.
I would be very leery of Dell for a host of reasons, however. If I had to go with a Windows box, I would build my own first.

[VegasWolf]

9. Well, I was part of the original IBM PC design team in 82-83. You know

where we limited the user ram to 640k because no one could ever use
more than 640k. We actually had three OS's for the first PCs. The
customers chose DOS.

I built my first computer with a wire wrapped board
and an old Zilog processor in the 70's. The clock oscillator was
so slow that I could pick up AM radio staitons off the bus.

I've used all systems and for all its blemishes I still stay
with the PC.

[amber dog democrat]

17. I guess you use what you are comfortable with.

I use PCs at places of employement when I must, but I use Macs when I can .
Hey, I kind of liked the old DOS. the only puter I used in on was an IBM PC in 1982.

[VegasWolf]

26. Good! I feel the same way about Linux OS's! Cheers! nt

[Occulus]

41. Is that considered an "oops" today?

I'm curious- it's obvious today that that limit was just too low by far- but was there anyone back then saying that?

"Ummm, guys... I think 640K is just too low." Was that ever said?

Ah, the days of DOS boot disks to free up memory. I hated them well... :)

[wakeme2008]

10. I will be building a AMD dual core 64 for my Windows box

and plan to do the same down the line for my Apple box.. AMD is a better processor than Intel.. and maybe I just hate Intel :)

[VegasWolf]

30. What clock spped? Heard that 4.28 Gig is max for Intel. nt

[kysrsoze]

50. I would think concurrent processing from multiple processors

essentially removes that limit. Look at the new PS3. They managed to pump out 32x the power of the PS2 through distributed processing. You just have to find new ways of looking at things.

[realcountrymusic]

20. Silly

Name an application for PCs (other than some games, AutoCAD, and accounting) where there aren't multiple, elegant equivalents for the Mac . . . .

If you're only looking at Best Buy, you are looking in the wrong place. OSX is not an "oddball OS." It's Unix. And there are hundreds of thousands of developers working with Unix every day.


RCM

[greyl]

47. FL Studio

that's one. :)

[realcountrymusic]

56. FL Studio?

A Midi sequencer? Are you jiving me?

Apple owns that market for pro musicians. Logic, MOTU Digital Performer, Steinberg CUBase, ring any bells?

I would hate to have to do music production work on a PC. I don't know anyone (it's my business) who does.

RCM

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

24. You don't buy UNIX programs at Best Buy...

you download them off the internet, and there are millions of them.

[realcountrymusic]

25. precisely

I think I get half my Mac software from Sourceforge these days. And for people who don't think there's software for the Mac, here's what's running on my new dual 2.7 G5:

Photoshop
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
Final Cut Pro HD 5
DVD Studio Pro
Microsoft Office
Adobe Acrobat Professional
Peak 4
Soundsoap
Protools
Digital Performer
Flash
Sorenson Squeeze
Filemaker Pro Server
Safari
Firefox
Realplayer
Windows Mediaplayer
Quicktime Pro
Darwin Streaming Server
Amadeus
Raven
DVDxDVD
mySQL
PHP
xWindows
WebCrossing
Apache
Audacity
Motion
plus the usual Apple iLife stuff
plus about a hundred other open source apps, and endless widgets, utilities, etc.
Oh, and windows XP running on virtual PC (I don't know why, I never need it)

No software, my butt.

[VegasWolf]

34. Ya I know how to do that! I'm talking about the customer base that buys

PCs based on application availability. Look at any market
penetration chart. I've had a few wayward employees that wanted
to use Apple, but hell, that's their business.

[cprise]

53. With all due respect, I think you mean games.

Almost everything else has been moved to the web-based or programmable-database paradigms.

Most of the non-game Wintel titles on the CompUSA shelf these days are of the "fix/disinfect my computer" variety.

Anyway... OS X isn't good on a generic PC because it isn't equipped with enough hardware drivers, and supposing it did have a lot of drivers it still couldn't make shoddy hardware work any better.

If Dell ever sells an OS X machine, it will be on very specific systems.

[Occulus]

42. Not quite true

The *nix software is usually free. So, no, you won't find it on the shelf at Best Buy. In fact, I *think* many GPL-covered software would find its license in conflict with Besy Buy's desires in the first place.

Besides, most GPL/open source applications I've used contain the source code. Who's going to seel XYZ App v.1.0 today if someone is planning on building XYZ App v.1.0.5 tonight, and then distribute it online?

[HuckleB]

43. Umm. Nope.

20 years? LOL!

20 weeks is more like it in this day and age.

[jmowreader]

11. Michael Dell seems to be singing a different tune these days!

When Apple was on the rocks, someone at one of the conferences asked Michael Dell what he'd do if he had to run Apple. "Shut it down and give the money back to the stockholders." Now he wants to be an Apple OEM. Hmm...is Gates giving him a hard time, perhaps?

Count on Mac OS for Intel requiring a proprietary chip on the motherboard. Hence, he would have to make major changes to his product line to sell Mac-compatible PCs--assuming he could get the chip in the first place.

And to the poster commenting on the software selection at Best Buy: Best Buy is like any other big box--they sell what moves fast. The programs people buy Macs to run don't turn very fast. Go to Best Buy and you're not likely to find QuarkXPress, InDesign, Illustrator or full-version Photoshop. All are available for Windows as well as Mac. They have whole computers at Best Buy, with monitors and everything, that cost less than a copy of QuarkXPress. You can turn 500 copies of Grand Theft Auto faster than one of QuarkXPress...so they carry GTA and not QXP.

You wanna know why Mac software has always been hard to find in stores? MacConnection and MacWarehouse (now part of CDW). I take my MacConnection catalog in hand. I dial the phone. Tomorrow morning, I have my utility knife in hand opening the box containing the very freshest version of whatever I ordered. It's priced fairly. And there's no 17-year-old kid who can't spell sitting there telling me I'm a loozer for owning a Mac instead of a Windows machine. Why in hell would I want to buy software in a store when I can get it mail order easier?

[Xithras]

13. You are the extreme minority in that

Average Joe doesn't want to mess with going to specialty shops or ordering online...he wants to see a big selection of software at his local Best Buy, or on the "New Releases" rack at WalMart.

[amber dog democrat]

16. Well so am I

I have never been inside a Wal Mart and last time I went to a Best Buy wuz maybe in 1985. I find better alternatives on the web. If you can find it at Wal Mart, chances are I won't want it for other reasons too. I do most of my purchases and research on line.

[jmowreader]

18. Average Joe isn't running a Mac, either

Okay, try this on for size:

There are two kinds of computer owners.

One group buys a computer because he wants to surf the web, she wants to learn about computers, or his kids need it for school, or he needs it to do work away from the office. These people almost invariably buy Windows because Windows machines are cheap and available everywhere. And they shop on the New Releases rack.

The other group buys a computer to do a specific task. This is where you find your Mac users concentrated. You're going to use Quark to set type. You're going to make records with Pro Tools. You're going to design webpages with Dreamweaver. You'll have either a Mac or a really jacked-up PC, and you won't be buying most of your software in the local stores.

Unless you live in a metropolis, the odds of your buying the full version of Pro Tools or QuarkXPress locally--on either platform--are slim. But if I'm doing sound editing or page layout and asking people to give me money, Microsoft Publisher and E-Z Tunes (or whatever they call the cheap-ass sound recording software they sell to people taping their kids' recorder concerts) ain't gonna do it.

A Mac is like any other expensive professional tool: if you must have it, price probably won't dissuade you.

[realcountrymusic]

21. Close but . . ..

Study after study, and my personal experience running a lab full of machines (of all stripes), confirms that Macs cost *less* in total cost of ownership than PCs. You're right that specialized users make up a core Mac market, but not the largest part by any means.

And when Apple's OSX is on x86, marketed by Dell, and millions of people discover its elegance, ease of use, and lower cost of ownership (especially if you value your time and keep your computers for more than a year) fear not . . . OSX and hundreds of Mac Apps will be available in Wal Mart. I still won't shop there, of course.

I can show you the numbers. My Macs cost me less than my PCs to buy, operate, train users, and maintain. And they work better for everything we do. Apple is a total pleasure to deal with for customer support and service. Their hardware is beautifully engineered. And their software -- as you note -- leaves most options for most tasks on the Windows side in the dust. With the Unix foundation, the entire open-source universe is now developing for Mac, in effect. I can download *free* software to do many high end tasks on my Macs for which the only Windows solutions are expensive and less powerful. Yes, Macs are the tools of the trade in professions like audio and video production, and you can spend a lot of money on a Mac (the same users, however, spend a lot of money on 64-bit PC workstations if they need them).

I have 4 little letters for anyone who thinks Steve Jobs doesn't understand "Average Joe" and his technology tastes: iPod.

RCM

[burrowowl]

31. Right On!

The number of Dell et al users who buy the cheap boxes, have to replace HDs, CD-ROM units, motherboards, time on the telephone saying their box is under warrenty, etc.
I have had 2 problems with Mac: my Mac II, converted to FX had a HV Unit problem, was fixed free and my Mac G4 17" display had an inverter go bad, was fixed under wxtended warrenty since this problem showed up after 2-years.
And how much time is wasted in professional enviroments because of Windoze. IT people like it, keeps them employed.
Mac also, like HP and VAX formerlly, has better math algorithms!

[VegasWolf]

35. Yes, and study after study shows Apple market penetration at way less 20%

The customer has decided. Beta max is dead.

[realcountrymusic]

38. false analogy

Betamax and VHS were both consumer formats only.

Apple's market share is actually less than 5 percent, not 20 percent. And Apple's stock has almost *tripled* in the last two years. They make serious money selling computers, as well as iPods, and these days selling software that Just Works.

The analogies to consider are power tools or cars. I suspect Mercedes and Makita have small market shares too.

Beta, by the way, had (still has) a long life as a professional video format. And poor consumers had to spend 20 years looking at the crap that passes for resolution on VHS.

[amber dog democrat]

44. Macs are simply elegant

And that is something I never expect to hear anyone say about anything tied to Microsoft as an O/S.

If I wanted a ball peen hammer, I'd go to Harbor Freight or Sears, but If I am looking for a mandolin, then its a Collings. I am not concerned with what the 'puter sheep are purchasing. Always saw Microsoft as a good defender of weak products. If not that then they acquire someone's solution and then break it prior to a re release.

I did kind of like DOS.

I hate to weigh into this Windows vs Mac stuff because its an endless debate.

But Apple's demise has been greatly exaggerated on many occaisions. As long as they innovate and delight/inspire, they 'll be around. let the folks who write virusus do it to the O/S with the larger market share.

[QC]

52. Some find them elegant, others of us find them cloyingly cutesypoo.

Vive la différance.

[realcountrymusic]

59. Cutesy poo?

The only difference between XP and OSX is that OSX's cutesy-poo stuff looks better, is more tweakable, and actually works. What do you make of the damn tail-wagging dog in the XP search utility? Talk about cutesypoo.

We are talking here about graphic user interfaces, not operating systems as such. If you don't like cutesypoo, you can do nearly anything on an OSX Mac from a command line in the terminal window, if you know your Unix command syntax. And it still Just Works. And that's not cute.

In my experience, Macs are taking over in many hard science labs where everything is Unix. Cutesypoo's (to paraphrase Clint Eastwood) got nothin' to do with it. Unix-Poo.

RCM

[HuckleB]

75. ?

Some are not fans of design I suppose. Still, the colored iMacs, which I presume you are referring to, are but a tiny portion of Mac design through the years.

[jmowreader]

73. Makita has small market share for a reason, RCM

In the market segment that Makita occupies--professional-quality power tools--their market share is less than DeWalt, Milwaukee, Bosch and Porter-Cable.

DeWalt owns the cordless market. They've got probably THE deepest line of cordless power on the market, and it all works splendidly.

Milwaukee specializes in big equipment--10-1/2" circular saws, the Hole Hawg drill, the SuperSawzall.

Bosch makes great rotary hammers and jigsaws.

Porter-Cable? Their fortes are sanders and routers. Black & Decker bought Porter-Cable specifically to get the 690 router and the 333 random-orbit sander. (And then they fucked up: DeWalt just introduced a new fixed/plunge base router set. This is essentially the old PC690PK router kit Porter-Cable has sold the hell out of for the last ten years. Most people would have just painted the 690 yellow, stuck a soft-start on it and put it in a different box; DeWalt introduced a whole new router--which is fine unless you know that 95 percent of all third-party router accessories are made specifically to fit the PC690; none of them will fit the new DeWalt.)

What's Makita got? Nuthin. I mean, their stuff is okay, but if you look at a Makita drill next to a DeWalt, a Makita saw next to a Porter-Cable, the Makita always comes up short.

[realcountrymusic]

77. Umm

Next thing you know someone will say Mercedes makes lousy cars. Oh wait. Someone just did.

My Makita tools outlast my DeWalts and work better. I love them. And my B&D stuff sux.
Just my opinion.

Here we go again. I think it's a guy thing. We have to make out like our stuff is the baddest, computers, cars, tools, whatever.

Live and let live, and may the best stuff find its way into the Museum of Modern Art, where you will already find an early Mac (512KE I think).

RCM

[jmowreader]

84. Umm...

I sell the following lines of pro-grade power tools: DeWalt, Porter-Cable, Milwaukee, Bosch, Ridgid and Makita.

The BEST line of tools I've got in the building is Ridgid. They really did their homework on that stuff.

I buy Porter-Cable. Let's see...P-C chopsaw, P-C router, P-C sanders, P-C circular saw. I'd have a P-C reciprocating saw except that I needed one Right Now, we were out of them and I didn't want to go somewhere else, so I got a Milwaukee. The saw is great, but the red clashes with all that silver and black.

There are two reasons we sell so much DeWalt: the DeWalt people really work with us to get us the right products for our market (if DeWalt introduces something new and they don't think it will sell here, we don't get it unless a lot of people ask for it--one example is the DeWalt cordless angle grinder I once touted here as the greatest threat to cities who use the Denver Boot as a revenue generation device that I'd ever seen. This thing came out. We got some. We sold the FUCK out of this tool for about a month. People were buying twenty and thirty of them at once. Then the bottom dropped out of it. The reason's simple--the only people who were buying them were police, fire and ambulance services, and now all of them have one. They come four in a case, and the B&D rep makes sure we have a case, but that's as far as it goes with that thing. At the other end of the scale is the DeWalt 18v combo kits that contain drills and circular saws. The Army loves those, so the DeWalt guy makes sure we always have 200 of them in stock. Two Fridays ago, the supply officer from the 82nd Airborne walked in the door at 2:30pm and bought all 200. We called the DeWalt guy. He got in his company truck and drove all the way to Tennessee raiding Home Depot stores and the local B&D warehouse to get us combo kits. When we opened the doors at 7 the next morning, we had 200 of those kits) and as many as we need (we're NEVER out of DeWalt--I can't say that about every brand) and in Fayetteville, Billy Joe Bob's mama works at Black & Decker and puts the guards on those saws. This reason will cease next year, but right now it's a big driver. Oh, and there's that wonderful Safety Yellow color that makes it so easy to see the tool when you're trying to finish something up while the sun's going down, don't forget that.

Makita tends to stay around the building for a long, long time...even the Cordless Impact Wrench/Cordless Drill combo kit, which is a great deal, isn't moving. Very few people around here like the stuff. I'm not sure why. Like I said, their tools work but they don't excite. I know Makita's problem: they were first out of the box with cordless tools. When EVERYONE brought out cordless tools, Makita figured that their reputation as the innovators in cordless tool technology would carry them through. It really hasn't.

The most curious line is Bosch. Some of their stuff is great. If you need a sabersaw, just go get a Bosch and be done with it. And their rotary hammers are excellent. But their circular saw? Let me tell you about the fucking Bosch circular saw. Someone at Bosch got the bright idea (and in the abstract it IS a bright idea) to not put a cord on the saw. Instead, they put a male plug so you can hook up your standard orange extension cord. There are two advantages to this: your cord can be as long as you want, and if you cut the cord in half--not an uncommon thing; probably every carpenter in America has cut his saw cord in half at least once--it's easy to replace. The disadvantage is that it's WAY too easy to pull the cord out of the back of this saw. So the logic is, if I gotta use an extension cord anyway, why not use it with a DeWalt or a Milwaukee and just tie the saw cord and extension cord together? We've clearanced off this piece-of-shit saw three times and it keeps reappearing. I think the hole it goes in and out of is haunted.

[BrutalEntropy]

45. hm....

And their penetration on the portable MP3 player market is... what... 75-80%?

What is your point?

Arguing superiority of a product based on market share is illogical. Consumers have proven time and time again that they don't necessarily choose the best or most advanced product availabe (of course, betamax would be a perfect example of this).

The fact of the matter is that buying an Apple is a perfect viable choice, no matter WHAT you use the game for. Given the pending move to intel chips, it will make even more sense to use a Mac. I can't wait to get my x86 Mac. Just think, Virtual PC won't require processor emulation (which will vastly increase the speed). WINE will probably work.

Even as it stands, installing X11 under OS X opens a world of possibility for running software designed for x windows...

[tinrobot]

67. Here's why we don't use Macs in our studio

I own an animation studio. We have 8 seats of Maya and also run 3ds max, After Effects, Combustion and a few others. We use a combination of PCs and Linux simply because they are cheaper, much faster, and more commonly available. We have very little overhead in terms of support costs. Part of that is because my people spend 90% of their time in one or two applications. Getting a machine that runs one application well is a trivial support issue. Besides, our machines don't crash because we configure them right in the first place.

3D animation is very resource intensive, so we're mostly concerned with finding a reasonably priced machine that runs really really fast. I'm sure CAD and Engineering has similar needs. I have nothing against Apple and I think Apple is great for general computing and everyday users, but we're not that market.

Every couple of years we look at Apple. It's getting better, but they are still not there. When it comes to 3D animation, there are still a lot of apps that do not run on Macs. Every application runs on XP, not all run on Apple. Macs also trail in terms of price/performance, raw computing power, support for PCI-Express and high end OpenGL graphics cards.

When Apple goes Intel, the raw computing power part of the equation will go away, so I'm very interested to see how that affects pricing and a few other things we look at when buying. But we're pretty happy with our pipeline and I don't think we'll be changing any time soon.

I do think this move will be a good one for Apple.

[realcountrymusic]

85. Funny

I could proffer exactly the same explanation for why we are moving to an all Mac lab for documentary video production and audio production and archiving, which just goes to show you, different tools for different tasks.

The availibility argument strikes me as a canard. I get everything from the same few suppliers (CDW, Govconnection, B&H, Apple direct) and it all shows up two days later.

For pure processing power, the dual G5s are the equivalent of any -- any -- PC workstation, including 64bit AMDs. What matters is how the apps you use take advantage of that power, and whether ther user community in your field prefers one platform or the other. I don't know anything about Maya and other animation apps. I take your word for it.

RCM

[Lydia Leftcoast]

71. Yes, what Windows computer maker has stores where you

can bring your machine in for free advice from in-person tech support?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. Actually, I'm just the opposite

I use my computer for e-mail, word processing, and websurfing, plus the tiny bit of accounting work that my freelance business needs.

I'm a hardcore Mac user. My first encounters with computers were on IBM PCs before there were many apps and when it was considered necessary for computer owners to learn Basic. But when Mac came out with the first workable word processing programs for Japanese, I went to Mac and never looked back.

Why?

It's because I'm not afflicted with "computer macho," and I want to do things with my machine rather than tinker with it all the time.

Whenever I buy a new cross-platform CD-ROM, the installation instructions for Windows talk about this drive and that drive and run about five or six lines.

The installation instructions for Mac have two lines:

1. Put disk in drive
2. Click on disk image and follow instructions.

Why do all the extra messing around unless you've got this deep-down idea that Macs are "toy computers" that are unworthy of "real" computer users?

[The_Casual_Observer]

39. Mac OS would crash on his piece of shit computers.

Apple would be fools to risk their good rep with shit hardware like that.

[QC]

46. Ever used a Dell?

I'm posting with a Precision 470 workstation right now. Xeon processor and a gig of RAM. Seven programs running smoothly with lots of power to spare.

My workstation also runs Ubuntu quite nicely, and if I ever get curious about MacOS I can skip the imitations and go right to the source--BSD--without having to pay out good money to a billionaire like Jobs. And if I really, really want to do Unix, I can fire up my SGI.

Honestly, if you prefer Macs, that's more than cool with me. But the sanctimony of the Jobs personality cult gets really old.

[Neshanic]

51. Sanctimony describes them perfectly. Their stores...

laid out in museum like space. Grundgy scumbags with attitudes trying to ply the things.

I went to the one in the Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix. Very high end shopping area. I went to the big machine, and looked for Photoshop CS. Not on there. Asked grundge unit one where it was. He said it was not loaded on any of the machines. I asked why. "Policy from Appple."

What? one of the vaunted reasons to buy one of these, and the program is not intentionally loaded? Drop 7 grand in total for all the big stuff, but don't ask us to load Photoshop. After a negotiation session with grundge manager he recluctantly loaded it so I could see how it worked with the Wacom tablet. I have a similar set up on my PC.

No discernable difference.

QC is correct, the Jobs personality cult really gets old. I run Photoshop CS2 Illustrator. Autocad2006, and office on a big mofo Viao. It runs glassy.

[realcountrymusic]

54. I avoid Apple Stores too

They are for the punters. Good marketing, but yeah, they should have a dual G5 loaded and *optimized* for pro software in each of those stores. If they just loaded CS on the spot, chances are you didn't see it put through its paces. There are independent published benchmarks for Photoshop that show a dual G5 smoking the fastest Pentiums on rendering tasks. It may run "glassy" on your Vaio (I actually like those Vaio machines and have several in the lab -- some of the nicest consumer level PC hardware I've seen).

And I agree that the folks working in Apple Stores cop attitudes. I find them annoying as well. But what retail stores do you walk into where you find Photoshop running on a 64 bit workstation for you to try? I've never seen that.

RCM

[1932]

63. They give free out-of-warranty help at the Apple Stores.

Getting in line at the genius bar is time consuming. But what other computer company gives you an opportunity to get free help that could be worth 100s of dollars?

[bettyellen]

74. uh, they charge by the hour for that...

at least around here they do.

[1932]

82. No they don't. At the genius bar, they'll help you out even if you don't

have Apple Care. They're not going to spend hours with you, but they'll run a few tests on your computer and give you their expert opinion on what you need to do. If that doesn't work, you'll have to pay to get the repair done, but they save you the cost of having to buy the products (the software and hardware, like the external fire wire drive) that you'd need to run those tests.

[realcountrymusic]

60. Sure

That's a powerful workstation, and it's fairly priced. All but very experienced users however are not going to be able to just install and try out BSD or any other flavor of Unix on a Wintel box.

I have a few Dells, though now prefer smaller suppliers for workstations, and Vaios for commodity PCs. I have found the company annoying to deal with, and the commodity machines to be shoddily constructed of cheapo parts. (That's why they are cheap.) I've never had more hardware failures than with Dells. But the Xeon workstation is another matter, of course.

But speaking of paying good money to billionaires with cults of personality, it's OK with you to pay big money to Bill Gates for a second rate operating system that leaks like a sieve?

RCM

[amber dog democrat]

78. I have never used a Dell

All of my PC employers either used white boxes or something else.

If I HAD to use a windows machine at home, it'd probably be an HP.
I have unrational hostility towards Dell and won't use his products.
I have worked with scores of former Dell employees that were not too fond of their jobs either.

[realcountrymusic]

80. Hmm

As a former Austinite, I knew lots of Dellrats (many of my fellow musicians, in fact). They liked working there, for the most part. And MD was a pretty good citizen of the town. I don't really know his larger politics, but I hear they can be creepy. Hey, it's not easy being a billionaire these days.

Commodity PCs are commodity PCs. You get what you pay for. Dell makes el cheapo systems and top of the line servers and workstations, so there is no point talking about "all" Dell computers as good or bad.

However, as a former Dell customer for my lab, having owned both cheapo and workstation boxes from Dell, I can report that my experience with Dell's customer service was at the far end of frustrating, and that in general I had *many* more component failures with the Dells than I have had with the Sony VAIOs I now buy for commodity PCs.

But dealing with Apple customer service, which I do only rarely, has been an utter joy. There's a reason they are rated as best in the industry for service. They bend over backwards. They speak English, and either they know what they are talking about or they give *you* credit for knowing what you are talking about if you do.

On the plus side, fixing Dells is dead easy since they use completely standardized components available anywhere, including (in my case) on the trash heaps outside the university dorms at the end of every spring. I just made my annual night raid of the students' trash piles and collected 4 Dell power supplies, 2 good P4 motherboards, a passle o' RAM, and even an 80GB ATA drive in perfect shape. Which reminds me, please remember to wipe your hard drives before you throw them away. I have a whole drawer full of video cards, CDRW drives, etc., but one can never have enough Dell power supplies, since they fail like clockwork.

RCM

[Deja Q]

62. BINGO!

:yourock:

[HuckleB]

76. Yes.

I've worked for two organizations that chose to dump the Dells wholesale out of frustration. The quality is just not there.

[slackmaster]

79. Dell has made good and bad computers

I've worked with many Dell workstations and servers. The Dell workstation I have at work at the moment is horrible. It's stable enough, but hardware acceleration makes animated graphics flicker violently and the audio all plays an octave too high. It makes my Michael Bolton CDs sound like Alvin and the Chipmonks.

For servers I'd stick with HP at the moment.

As for desktop OSs, that's a matter of personal preference.

[phasev]

81. umm Apple is already going to use intel chips

They will be using intel chips.

[funkybutt]

58. Don't do it Steve.

Want Mac OS? Buy a Mac.

[Deja Q]

61. It's an altered version of FreeBSD. And that's already free for PCs.

Michael Dell can go to Hell.

[realcountrymusic]

64. Depends what you think of the "modifications"

Just running FreeBSD on x86 doesn't make a Mac clone. My guess is about .02 percent of computer users would know how to do that, and make any use of the resulting machine.

There are other reasons to worry about Dell selling OSX. But the bottom line for me is that anything that cuts into the monocultural dominance of Windows XP is good. Among other things, that dominance is at the root of the security nightmare that has gripped networked computing in recent years. Windows XP is not superior in any way to OSX. It doesn't cost less. It's less secure. Its advantages largely stem from its market dominance, and have concomitant disadvantages, not the least of which is security vulnerability. I'm not a Mac zealot, though I am starting to sound like one. If someone comes out with a better OS than OSX that runs on less expensive hardware than OSX does with more efficiency and at a lower total cost of ownership, I'm there tomorrow. The reason to support any effort to make OSX, Linux, or Unix a more common operating system is that preserving choices in the marketplace is good. What hardware you use, and what operating system, and what applications, is a matter of personal preference and where you find the best tools for your work. But the discussion is so often based on misrepresentations of the facts. The major arguments usually mustered against Mac OS and in favor of Windows are not based on facts, other than the fact that Microsoft has become the dominant OS through tactics that in the end are Not Good for most computer users. The bottom line is that for almost anything the vast majority of computer users do, a Mac works as well as a PC. For some tasks, a Mac works better. For some, Windows is better. But you should have a choice. And if you haven't even tried a Mac, and base your reasons for rejecting Macs on myths, you are being unfair.

The highly skilled techies who weigh in on these discussions have generally discounted the fact that the huge majority of humans who use or would like to use computers won't ever even think about most of the more complex and subtle factors necessary to make an informed comparison between platforms for specific tasks that require specific resources. The interesting thing about Mac OSX is that it is more transparent and easier to use for a complete newbie or non-techie, but that it is also an OS beloved of people who do science and high end media work on computers. And, as I keep saying, it costs less to own Macs. I used to believe that you paid more for the elegance and power of Macs. After a few years of having to make cold economic decisions about where to spend my budget on technology, I am absolutely convinced that Macs cost less to own over any period of time.

As someone once said of Linux, it's only free if you don't value your time. Snarky, to be sure. But that is exactly how I feel about Windows XP, except it's not even free. If I didn't need Windows to run some of my lab's apps, I wouldn't have it on any of our workstations. But I do, and that's a fact of life.

The ultimate best outcome? You can buy any industry standard hardware and run any of the major OSs on it depending on what you need, with maximum performance. Because I think that's the best of all possible worlds, Apple moving OSX to x86 strikes me as a good move. Once we have that scenario, we'll see a fair competition between Linux, OSX, Windows, etc. And then it will get interesting. That is, I am sure, what the best minds at Apple and Intel are thinking. And Michael Dell seems to have figured this out as well.

RCM
all posts written on a $900 iBook G4 that has been dropped countless times, repaired once by Apple (for free, with no data lost, overnight, no questions asked), and that my mother, who knows nothing about computers except that she has had endless problems with a Dell XP box, covets and will soon receive.

[confludemocrat]

66. Dell is an asshole and big Bush contributor so why should St. Steve licens

OS X to him of all people? Running on intel, the Mac OS is now fully mainstream in its hardware and with Apples innovation and sense of style why turn anything over to the computer equivalent of an american automaker?

[Maven]

69. HA. Won't happen, at least not now...

and certainly not with Dell.

1) The Mac experience is about hardware/software integration. Even if Apple could find a partner willing to pair its O.S. with a specific setup of commodity P.C. junk, they'd also have to set a price point that was high enough so as not to compete *too* well with Apple's own offerings. And even then, you'd basically just have another clone situation, which Jobs isn't fond of.

2) Hardware is Apple's bread and butter. Hardware profits subsidize OS development. No hardware profits = no more OS X, as least as it stands now.

3) It's well-known that Jobs and Dell *hate* each other.