From A PC to Mac

I completely agree. i love my macintosh, and would never even consider buying a wintel machine. But lets face it macs and mac users are a joke to the pc community.

we mac users like having our exclusive little mac community, but if there were more mac users it would equal more money for r&d and more software.

intel and ms pour so much money into marketing and for the most part apple remains silient. occasionally we get a commercial showing off apple's sleek angles and some giddy apple user but these just reinforce the stigma.

apple users have long known that macos is the operating system that allows its users to do more with less work, but wintel users only see the bubbly imac shells and high prices and see macs as an expensive toy for a bunch of eccentrics.

address the price by either lowering prices or showing that a comparable pc system would cost much much more. ive seen these comparisons all over the web on various mac enthusiasts sites.

im still embarassed to whip out my laptop on plane flights because of all the strange looks i get (and lets not even discuss the fact the fact that the first thing any pc user notices today is an incredably slow and unusable macosx).

apple needs to get into computing stores and offer to train employees about macs. I see so many people walk into a computer store walk straight to the macs with smiles and then get led away from the macs by some employees who doesnt want to sell a mac since they dont know anything about them.

lets face it apple makes great computers, but apple is a terrible company. and id otn care if apple comes out with g5s at 3ghz in january it wont matter to non-mac users because macs are a joke and speed and pacakging cant bring respect in a market dominated by ignorant consumers.

From A PC to a Mac

But lets face it macs and mac users are a joke to the pc community.

Higher intelligence is always laughed at by those without it.

As a new user you will find even more things to feel good about concerning your Mac and its interface with your need to express yourself. Take heart, life is grand and more beautiful on a MacOS..... Aloha

What does it take to move to Mac?

I think Macs sell themselves to people when they get tired of Windows shenanigans. In the last year alone, I converted three friends and my mothers off of their PCs over to Macs. They wanted refuge from "illegal operation" errors, corruption issues (like having to reinstall Windows on a regular monthly basis), and general disintegration of hardware issues. They found refuge in the Mac and are all very happy new Mac owners on OS X. Many of them have told me, switching was much easier than they thought it would be and that they are glad that they did. They also frequently mention that they have no desire to go back.

id have to disagree with the macs sell themselves thing. to me when you tell your story of your friends and mother switching it is a testament to the need for an experienced mac user to step in and let these dissatisfied wintel users know that there is a better way.

i think most of us experienced mac users take it on ourselves to "sell" macs to the people we know. but a product in a modern economy should not rely on word of mouth to spread. the company needs to take up this role.

ive got a friend right now we who is considering buying an ibook. three years ago when this friend walked into my dorm room he considered macs the foulest computers around. it took a lot of time to break through that stigma.

apple encourages people to think different but people dont want to think. they woud rather bend over and let microsoft think for them while bill takes them for the a ride. apple needs to get through to these people and open their eyes to what computing should be.

I think that you are completly wrong!!! Apple is a great company! Just look at recent evidence, Apple make a good profit where at the moment many pc companies are loosing a lot of money!! Plus, as you said they look so much better + they are more expensive because they use the best components, therefore, they dont go wrong as often!

As for OS X, I have found it to be perfectly responsive (on an ibook)!

Originally posted by Falleron
they are more expensive because they use the best components...

Click to expand...

Hey, hey!!! the audio i/o is not the best. It is hardly ok.

Mac are about 10% too expensive. It is really an investment rather than an apliance.

If people doesn't have money to buy it Apple may say "If they really want our product they are gonna buy it, use credit then". All thouse cheap suckers thinks like that, that is why they have money.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion I suppose!

define bad

What does one mean by saying apple is a bad company?



Question 1) is apple bad at making products because the cube failed?

i think apple is a good product maker and i think even the cube was a good product even though sales were poor...yes, the cube was not that bad in my opinion and i know few may agree with me there

Question 2) is apple a bad company business wise?

most definitely...let's put it this way, i am glad apple made my ibook and i am also glad that apple inc. is not my accountant or banker...ok?

to say that apple is a good company because they have not lost as much as hp-compaq is a bad comparison and to say that apple is making a profit is not worth a damn if the stock value does not reflect that in any way...remember, apple inc is a publicly traded company and under those circumstances, a company lives or dies by its stock value regardless of net profits...we are not talking about a mom and pop fruit stand here with a single proprietorship business setup

Two years ago... (yes it was far in the past... I'm 13 now)... I started 7th grade (In Switzerland that counts as High School, don't ask me why!) we had to buy laptops. The school recommened Acers... What a hunk of Junk! 20 out of 24 acers where sent back for repair during half of their first year! Some the screen snapped off (not by force just by closing it), others the motherboard started fuming... you can just imagine the havoc.

I had always used PC's but my "primary" school always had macs (I learned DOS at the age of 4, you might not believe it but my dad made me sit infront of an IBM PS/2... I also had fun deleting windows system files... since I didn't know what they where Yes I did spill coke on the machine and destroyed it's time recognition chip and everytime it shutdown it forgot the time!) but I learned how to use the Mac OS, and adored it (I think it was system 7 back then...).

Anyway... I had a Compaq Presario 1260 at the time & when the iBook came out I fell in LOVE WITH IT! I got one immediately... (My Compaq is in a cuboard somewhere, collecting dust) and was made fun of for the first couple of months. They said... "Ha ha ha... It doesn't even have a diskette drive... Ha Ha Ha". As soon as they saw me play Quake (which none of there ****** acers could not do...) they suddenly realezed something... That my Mac could play a game decently and their Acers couldn't do ****! They also realized that my iBook is cheaper than one of those crap acers and was faster, could run word (A Microsoft program)... They also saw that it had enough power to emulate windows...

I have now converted 4 people of class to buy Macs (1 Icebook, 1 Powerbook & 1 Powermac). Noone makes fun of it anymore, and now that they saw my iPod today, the mood has really changed...!

Anyway... I am now a Mac faithful... Saw the real world... And if anyone wants to join me in MURDERING Bill Gates I would love in doing so... (just a joke)...

P.S. Now you know what my signature below really means...

Re: What does it take...[could be worded better?]

Originally posted by Xapplimatic
I think Macs sell themselves to people when they get tired of Windows shenanigans. In the last year alone, I converted three friends and my mothers off of their PCs over to Macs.

Click to expand...

I think that what some people might interpret 'sell themselves' as would be a display at your local Apple Store with 30+ iMacs and G4's stacked up - and people rusing in, grabbing one and throwing cash at the cashier on the way out - all because they saw it in the window.

I think that it might be better said that Apple computers' users sell the Apple brand.

I am a Multimedia Developer - former PeeCee user. A new employee we hired converted me. Our entire graphics department is now Mac based (on an NT network). My old boss now owns a G4. The Java developer owns a dual G4, I bought a Snow iMac for home, my brother bought an iMac based upon my recommendation - and I didn't even own a Mac for home at the time. I work on a PowerBook Pismo 400.

This is all due to one diehard Mac user that opened our eyes.

So, it's my opinion that the point made by Xapplimatic is perfectly valid, and certainly an important one.

Thanks for listening,

Chris George
Edmonton, Canada

early start

dantec

wow, you have really got your act together so early and that is good if you want to be a tech

in two years of being a pc tech in and around silicon valley, i am yet to meet, in thousands of people, a programmer with a computer science degree

i know of one ex-programmer with an associates degree in computer science and an ex-onsite lcd display tech who had his associates in computer science

this is mostly because many programmers i met got paid for the first time, sometimes really well, before they finished high school and the silicon valley recruits good talent, regargless of age...so you got a future

unlike medicine, where you need a mandatory 8 or so years of college, and teaching public schools, which ususally requires 5 years of schooling (with a credential), the IT field wants good people right now no matter how young they are...the IT field is the world's most competitive and today's sales are important because there may not be a tomorrow in this field

just look at teenage and former teenage phenoms named dell, gates, jobs, ellison, and that napster guy

btw, i met a retired and well off programmer in silicon valley...oh, and he wasn't even an american citizen, and he was, let's see, the ripe old age of 21 or 22 with nearly 10 years at companies like ibm ...i don't know how silicon valley gets around child labor laws ;-)

i learned in business school, where i got my BA in human relations (personnel management), that you have to be 15 1/2 to legally work as a full employee at any american business/company as i was when i worked for straw hat corporation

that is mostly why the permit driving age is also 15 1/2 years old in the usa which i think should be raised...but that's another issue!

but remember bill gates was only 14 when microsoft was still called traf-o-data before he and paul allen later applied for a proper corporate status and decided to call their software company microsoft in the 1970s (microsoft's first programs were an antiquated operating system which was used to control the traf-o-date roadway traffic counters you see on today's roads and highways)

...first year profits for the two kids' business was $50,000 (1970s dollars, folks)...i guess bill's parents stopped giving him allowance at that point!

[Edited by jefhatfield on 12-03-2001 at 07:26 PM]

oops, i mean 14

i know the law says you have to be 15 1/2 years of age, but i was two and a half months shy of my 15th birthday when i worked for straw hat coporation

but now that does not matter i guess since the pizzas still came out kind of ok

when i say apple is a bad company i mean this:

apple has by far a superior product... even its failures are brilliant

apple has stayed ahead in r&d despite several times being very close to bankruptcy

despite these two factors apple has failed to sell its machines to more than 5% of the market

any company that has better r&d and better products fails to sell its products and becomes known among its consumers as a joke and relies on its loyal customers to work hard to reverse the stigma that apple itself has created is doing a very poor job as a company.

come on people if i handed you a product that was 10x better than anything else and was at least 5 years ahead of the competition and asked you to sell it, you would have to be a moron if you failed.

im constantly shocked at the lack of an apple presence in the media. i have never seen the ipod commercial. in fact the last apple commercial i ever saw was for the Tibook when it first came out a year ago. but here im going to turn the tv on now and see how long it is before i see a wintel commercial. now i dont have cable so there are only 7 major broadcasting channels but lets see here. ok just flipping through the channels and poof 2 minutes flat and a gateway commercial. we could keep playing but i think ive proved my point.

So is BMW a bad Company?

BMW and mercedies only have 5% of the market combined in the U.S. So they must be even worse companies. I think Apple is great. They have created great products and pushed technology. They have even been called one of the best compaies to work for. A Gay Group (im not sure wich one but its a very big one) Called Apple one of the to 10 Co's to work for due to their non-discriminatory way of doing busness and taking care of their employees. Now MS is a bad company. They are still in Law suites with their employees over medical and other beenifits. For a while they would only highr people for 39 hours a week as part timers so they didnt have to give them medical, detal, vision, vacation, etc. THAT is a bad company

good points evil. but i still think a lot of us just dont want accept apple is a bad company because we love our computers so much.

bmw is known as a luxury vehicle. its a status symbol. and it certainly has respect. any american will tell you bmw makes some of the best stuff.

also the automobile industry isnt the best parallel to draw for manyy reasons. i'll just point out one here. no automobile company has a markey share much better than 5%.

apple on the other hand is a joke in the market. only apple users will tell you apple is the best. if apple wants to market itself as the bmw of computing then it needs to gain some respect.

agreed ms is a bad company but in a very different way.

i think most of us would want to work for apple, hell im not even interested in computers as a career and id still take a job at apple in a second (although i would have to leave after i finish my phd).

apple has a ton of great qualities as a company but the main job of a company is to sell its product (or service) and apple has largely failed at this despite having truly brilliant and revolutionary products.

if apple took 20% of the market and started practices similiar to ms id still say they are a bad company... but in a different way.

Apple is a great company but has some serious issues with marketing... Who thinks those iMac commericals where useless? I don't know anyone who would buy an iMac after seeing it in 360° angels?!?

Apple is also the only company out there developing a OS, apps & hardware. The money might be more tight between all 3 projects than a big overbloated MS who spends so much money promoting how ****** XP is! After seeing that commercial I don't think I really want to fly!

A bit of humor:
To some idiot would thinks that they will spend less on airfares because they can fly if they buy XP!

Well actually ambitions lemon, not any comptuer maker holds very much market share! It is spit between 20 (or more that's all I can think at the moment) competitors.

Lazarus

I can't believe we're discussing Apple being a "bad" company.

This is the company that everyone had written off in '97. No one gave them a chance. This is the company that came back from the dead - the Lazarus company.

I honestly don't believe that anyone back in '97 gave Apple a chance. They were history.

Then the Next team came along and Jobs took the helm and things are looking very different. Jef, of course share price is important to a public limited company, but the fact that Apple is the only major PC manufacturer making a profit right now is significant and reflects well on Apple's senior management.

In fact, Apple's management team are so strong in many areas the organisation is beating Dell at their own game. I fell off my chair the first time I heard Fred Anderson & Jobs comparing themselves to Dell - Apple may have classy marketing, but Dell have classy hardware and management. These days Apple can hold their heads up high next to the big players.

Final evidence I would put forward in favour of Apple's industry leading management is the speed with which they developed OS X - a stunning product which is a strong platform for future growth. Apple had tried for so many years to create a next gen operating system, but it took Jobs and the Next crew to make it a reality.

The Apple of today is a strong, credible, best of breed business - which has done the impossible - returned from the grave to gain market share against a monopolistic collossus.

[Edited by Foocha on 12-04-2001 at 02:51 PM]

re: lazarus

i would liken apple more to the brooklyn dodgers

apple coming back from the dead in '97 was like the '55 brooklyn dodgers who finally beat the hardy new york yankees

but after that, the brooklyn dodgers did not win armfuls of world series like the yankees have ever since

what great gains apple realized with the imac has been almost all but gone mostly with a raping of their stock value from well over a hundred down to what it is today and expensive bloopers like the cube (which i liked anyway) and the 18 months it took apple to develop the paisley and blue dalmation imacs

... and there is no company called apple today that is heading into the 100 billion dollar mark cash surplus like that redmond company up north (heck, bill gates is worth 55-60 billion alone...and this being in the time after the dot.com crash!)

if you asked me two years ago, i would say, "sure, apple will have 90 billion in cash reserves like microsoft", only if their stock hits 150 a share which i was sure it would have done then (i would have even ventured to say that apple could have captured 15 percent of the market and gone in over 200 a share...the sky looked like the limit then for apple and a lot of other companies like yahoo, webvan, amazon, etc.)

the last i heard, apple has 4 billion in cash reserves and their stock is under 20 a share but i don't dare check anymore these days

and comparing apple as the best in a tubful of sinking pc companies is not the best place to be

apple needs to be a finacially stable company again and we can't think because we personally like their machines, that their management of funds must also be good

if i had to do mba school again, i would learn a lot more from apple's legendary financial bloopers than from all the harvard case studies that b-school pushes

apple is like a pitcher who starts his season with a no-hitter and follows his season up with 19 straight losses

i have been a user of apple computers since '82 and it seems to be their trend...hit a home run but still lose the game

look over somewhat near where you live...delorean was the coolest sportscar i have ever seen and the thing kicked serious butt, but that did not make them "financial" geniuses and the company went bust

if apple does well, the numbers will reflect that and their stock will go up...smart people put their money in companies they trust and right now, that is not with apple

so don't listen to me, look at the numbers on wall street for any measure of the "truth"

but what else is new?

so look at companies over the "long" term and don't rest on 4 year old laurels...if you are in high tech like me, you will know that 4 years is like a millenium (but the move to save apple in '97 still qualifies as a great feat, i just wish apple followed up with a couple of more great feats since then so we wouldn't be discussing this topic on macrumors

[Edited by jefhatfield on 12-04-2001 at 07:47 PM]

The problem with some stupid PC users is they think Apple will dissapear into bankruptcy. They do not get it in their small heads that that will not happen. - at least not overnight. I agree with all of you that Apple's Stock is a joke. Why the heck did they split it !!!?!!! Many PC users think that the death of the cube is a sign of warning, that Apple will never sell one more Mac, and the 25 million of us are all doomed!

We need to make them understand (somehow) that Apple is not going to become a past company. Apple needs to do more advertising, but not one of their 360° views of a Damlation iMac. They need to show people about their products. I think their retail stores are a great place to show this.

I personally liked Blue dalmation a lot. But I hated flowerpower.

Truth!!??

Jef - surely you know better than to assume that a bunch of city slickers in Wall Street know anything about the truth.

If the dotcom collapse showed us anything, it showed us that stock markets wouldn't recognise real value if it came up and bit them on the nose.

Wall Streets method for judging the value of a company is the equivalent of a bunch of whispering old ladies gossiping about subjects they know little or nothing about. It's a frightening thought that they hold the global economy by the balls.

BTW - Apple's stock now stands at 22.4, a 3 month high, and is still rising. Effortlessly outperforming the PC sector.

more than 360 degree view of dalmation is right!

mathematics is the international language and the numbers tell the only objective point of view

hey everybody, spin any angle you would like and be subjective like a lot of the posts have been on this thread and all you will do is pretend that a sub-20 a share apple is doing as well as a 120 a share apple...go ahead and convince yourself that one plus one equals three...but that will not change the reality that one plus one equals two

it is true that apple will not vanish overnight, but they have to get their financials in order and like dantec said, they need better advertising...not some 360 degree view of the imac

thank god us mac users (just about everyone i have seen on macrumors) are relatively loyal to apple and i will still love their products even if apple never reaches better than five percent of the market

it would just be nice to see apple hang onto to a real gain for a change much like ebay and microsoft did with the majority of their forward momentum

re: truth

if this was about my personal fulfillment in life or my spiritual point of view, i would not trust wall street as my truth per se

ok, let's be happy about where apple stands right now and make it a non-profit and put it on the puka shell exchange and elect richard hatch as our president and all attend parrothead concerts

while apple is a company on wall street's stock market, apple has to win by their rules and while one hundred cents equal one dollar, we have to go by that basic reality

sometimes i wish apple were a smaller independent business not at the mercy of investors and stockholders

Share price as a means of evaluating company performance

In the dotcom boom we saw a whole lot of overvalued companies (ebay, etoys, Amazon, Cisco, Marconi...)

Now we have the reverse situation with many companies undervalued - namely companies like Apple.

So much of Wall Street's decision making is based on sentiment and superstition rather than cold hard business fact and good judgement. When you add in the volatile effect of day traders you have a dangerously schizophrenic combination.

Of course Wall Street is extremely important. But I challenge you Jef on the assumption that today's share price represents a good metric for evaluating the performance of a business over the longer term. The events of September had a big impact on share prices, and the perceived value of companies on NYSE & NASDAQ, but that does not mean that the management of those companies suddenly became worse.

Better and better

The Apple share price stands at 23.76 at the time of this posting.

Follow this link to see how Apple has outperformed the NASDAQ over the last 12 months.

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/bigc...R+INC&compidx=nasdaq~3291&time=1yr&mocktick=1