Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Irrelavent. OSX is a competitor to windows and apple has marketed it as such (I'm a Mac/I'm a pc commercial) and they were specifically targeting Vista. I don't see how not being able to buy it and put it on a machine of your choice suddenly makes them completely different and non-competing products.

Actually it is quite relevant, the target audience does matter since you're looking at direct competition. If I owned a Dell machine, had a bad experience with Windows, saw the OSX ad, can I simply spend $30 and get OSX on my machine legally (in accordance to the EULA), no. So in terms of OS choice, OSX doesn't apply since I can't just buy the OS, I'd need to spend at least for the cost of a Mac mini (costing hundreds) or thousands for any other Mac computer.
 
Shops ? What about consumers ? ;) (yes, I doubt they'd install Arch on LVM for me with the proper filesystem configuration, while respecting my favorite lv/vg naming conventions).

Sorry, ambiguous choice of terms. By "shops" I meant users, not retailers. A "Linux shop" is a company that runs Linux on lots of systems.


A big part of the DOJ case was about Microsoft forcing OEMs to only sell windows, to include it on every PC sold no matter if the consumer wanted an OS-less or a different OS, and to not sell competing OSes.

Didn't the menu I showed have a "no OS $0.00" option?

Or are you arguing that a web store that only shows the options that 99% of the users want is somehow a problem?

Consumers buy Windows or an Apple with Apple OSX. There is virtually no market for Linux for consumers.
 
Consumers buy Windows or an Apple with Apple OSX. There is virtually no market for Linux for consumers.
Or an Apple (Mac) with OSX plus Windows for bootcamp/VM. :p

You make a very good point about how Linux appears to have less of a market impact for typical consumer use. There are some that play with some of its flavors but where Linux is working hard is at the backbone of some service or company.

When I was contracted to work at several banks, stock brokers/investors were looking for ways to get stock market information as fast as possible and be able to react in the least amount of time. In Japan those machines comprising of the backbone are not running OSX or Windows, both were determined to be "too slow" and thus the adoption of Linux came to fruition. You'll see PC or Mac client computers but they're still operating on a Linux infrastructure.

Most PC and Mac users won't understand what kind of tools are out there for Linux, those familiar with the "apt-get" command knows just how many tools are actually out there in those repositories. Linux users that're less savvy with the CLI will resort to using the Synaptic agent instead.
 
Actually it is quite relevant, the target audience does matter since you're looking at direct competition. If I owned a Dell machine, had a bad experience with Windows, saw the OSX ad, can I simply spend $30 and get OSX on my machine legally (in accordance to the EULA), no. So in terms of OS choice, OSX doesn't apply since I can't just buy the OS, I'd need to spend at least for the cost of a Mac mini (costing hundreds) or thousands for any other Mac computer.

You keep saying the same thing, so I'll respond in kind... Not being able to buy the OS and install it on your choice of hardware does not make them non-competing products. Even Apple disagrees with you. They themselves have put macs up against PC's in general and Windows in particular. That puts a pretty big hole in your theory.
 
You keep saying the same thing, so I'll respond in kind... Not being able to buy the OS and install it on your choice of hardware does not make them non-competing products. Even Apple disagrees with you. They themselves have put macs up against PC's in general and Windows in particular. That puts a pretty big hole in your theory.
I keep saying the same thing because you appear to miss the entire point. Apple has not ever, marketed OSX as a standalone product to compete against Windows because a PC user can't (rather isn't supposed to) simply go to the Apple store and buy OSX, go back home and install it on their PC computer. Microsoft has not ever marketed a single machine as they don't make computers. Apple on the other hand have always marketed the Mac computer (with OSX) in order to get PC users to make not just an OS switch but a completely new computer investment, citing your "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" ads.
 
I keep saying the same thing because you appear to miss the entire point. Apple has not ever, marketed OSX as a standalone product to compete against Windows because a PC user can't (rather isn't supposed to) simply go to the Apple store and buy OSX, go back home and install it on their PC computer. Microsoft has not ever marketed a single machine as they don't make computers. Apple on the other hand have always marketed the Mac computer (with OSX) in order to get PC users to make not just an OS switch but a completely new computer investment, citing your "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" ads.

No I get your point I just think its pointless and irrelavent. Apple may not have marketed OSX as a stand alone product but they have marketed their products as competitors to windows. That makes your point about them not being competitor wrong. Period. So you can reply and say the same thing for a 6th or 7th time, the conclusion you come to will be just as wrong as it was the first time.
 
No I get your point I just think its pointless and irrelavent. Apple may not have marketed OSX as a stand alone product but they have marketed their products as competitors to windows. That makes your point about them not being competitor wrong. Period. So you can reply and say the same thing for a 6th or 7th time, the conclusion you come to will be just as wrong as it was the first time.

Windows is a stand alone MS product, the machine it's installed on is not. All of Apple's "competing" ads are about Macs which are both machine and OS. Apple has never once said that if you're tired of Windows, all you need to do is buy OSX. They need the consumer to buy an entirely different machine.

Apples and oranges. Just because you say it's irrelevant, it only applies to you alone and doesn't make it factual.
 
Windows is a stand alone MS product, the machine it's installed on is not. All of Apple's "competing" ads are about Macs which are both machine and OS. Apple has never once said that if you're tired of Windows, all you need to do is buy OSX. They need the consumer to buy an entirely different machine.

Apples and oranges. Just because you say it's irrelevant, it only applies to you alone and doesn't make it factual.

Just because you say it's relavent, it only applies to you alone and doesn't make it factual.

See what I did there?
 
Didn't the menu I showed have a "no OS $0.00" option?

Or are you arguing that a web store that only shows the options that 99% of the users want is somehow a problem?

Sure it did, in 2012. In the 90s, before the DOJ intervened, that wasn't an option. And again, you're showing the business section, not the consumer section.

Consumers buy Windows or an Apple with Apple OSX. There is virtually no market for Linux for consumers.

Sure there isn't. How much of that is due to Microsoft intervention in the 90s, vendor lock-in and monopoly abuse though ? Thank god the DOJ/EU intervened to help restore the scales a bit (just a bit).

Now we just need to be vigilant of every move Microsoft makes so we don't get history repeating itself (and other companies in the industry, namely both Apple and Google trying to gain too much control over new emerging markets).
 
Sure it did, in 2012. In the 90s, before the DOJ intervened, that wasn't an option. And again, you're showing the business section, not the consumer section.

......How much of that is due to Microsoft intervention in the 90s, vendor lock-in and monopoly abuse though ? Thank god the DOJ/EU intervened to help restore the scales a bit (just a bit).

Indeed!
 
Sure there isn't. How much of that is due to Microsoft intervention in the 90s, vendor lock-in and monopoly abuse though ? Thank god the DOJ/EU intervened to help restore the scales a bit (just a bit).


Let's remember that Apple can do all of the nefarious things that you think that Microsoft did - but legally.

Wait until some government agency decides that Apple has a monopoly in some market (tablets, smart phones, music players, music stores, ...) and watch the smack-down that follows.
 
Let's remember that Apple can do all of the nefarious things that you think that Microsoft did - but legally.

I think ? Nope, sorry, It's not "I think", it's the DOJ/EU knows what Microsoft did. And if Apple does happen to do the same, I'll denounce them just as I denounced Microsoft.

Wait until some government agency decides that Apple has a monopoly in some market (tablets, smart phones, music players, music stores, ...) and watch the smack-down that follows.

Happily. If Apple does go down that path, I will not hold them any differently than I did Microsoft all those years ago and still do.

You should know me better than that by now.
 
I think ? Nope, sorry, It's not "I think", it's the DOJ/EU knows what Microsoft did. And if Apple does happen to do the same, I'll denounce them just as I denounced Microsoft.

Valid point - "you think" was a mistake, I should have just said "what Microsoft did".

But, Apple is doing the same (leveraging market power) is several areas. Legal, until they get branded with the "M word".
 
Valid point - "you think" was a mistake, I should have just said "what Microsoft did".

But, Apple is doing the same (leveraging market power) is several areas. Legal, until they get branded with the "M word".

Except they don't yet hold the same level of market power that Microsoft does. If tomorrow Apple tells Best Buy to sell only iPads and no other tablets, Best Buy will happily show them the middle finger and return their stock of iPads to them. Same if Apple refuses the iPhone for a carrier (see Verizon).

It's not like when Microsoft was threatening PC OEMs with pulling their Windows reseller licenses, which would have basically bankrupted them.

But like I said, if they ever get there and abuse that power, I will happily get rid of my Apple stuff and move back to my open source roots, just like I did in the late 90s even after having read Petzold and invested quite a bit of time in Visual Studio over it.
 
I think I found where this idea came from.

Props to Microsoft for designing something different instead of just copying, unlike other manufactures. ;)

Its real different. Here is a product available today from the Apple Store. It really sounds familiar.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/H9460LL/A?fnode=MTc0MjU4OTY
H9460.jpeg
 
This is a ******** argument. Is an OS a product? Of course. Does it do anything by itself? No. You need hardware to go with it. Hardware with an OS is in combination, a usable product.

Can any consumer go into a store and have a choice of a computer WITH an operating system? Yes... side by side in a lot of stores. Corporations? Sure... same thing with numerous IT suppliers.

Can you buy OEM hardware and put together a system with a choice of operating system? Sure.

You give reasons why so often Microsoft is the choice in that case; that OS X isn't licensed for non-Apple branded hardware, and that linux is largely unsupported and/or unsuitable for end users.

These are not reasons why Microsoft Windows is a monopoly. They are big self-limitations competing operating systems put on THEMSELVES.

Microsoft has every right to make a profit on their operating system. If their OS did cost too much, then people wouldn't buy it, because there are other ways of achieving, relatively speaking, the same result. You don't HAVE to buy a Microsoft system, but there are compelling reasons to do so, such as backwards compatibility, and hardware independence that's obviously very popular in the market place.

Microsoft has been in a monopoly position since the nineties. They have maintained near 90% or more of the market since then. This is what a monopoly is defined as. They control the market and was caught preventing PC manufactures from including competing software. That completely different from Apple, because the are the manufacturer. They can put what ever they want on their macs because the make them. They can sell what they want in their stores. Dell and other were prohibited from using a different OS or even web browser. The compelling thing about Windows was it was heavily marketed by multiple companies at cheap prices for throw away computers that were good for a year two if you were lucky. Windows stole often from Mac OS but spent 50 times as much on adds. Before the I'm a mac campaign, which Mac computer commercials did you see?
How compatible with Windows 8 be?!!
 
Microsoft has been in a monopoly position since the nineties. They have maintained near 90% or more of the market since then. This is what a monopoly is defined as. They control the market and was caught preventing PC manufactures from including competing software. That completely different from Apple, because the are the manufacturer. They can put what ever they want on their macs because the make them. They can sell what they want in their stores. Dell and other were prohibited from using a different OS or even web browser. The compelling thing about Windows was it was heavily marketed by multiple companies at cheap prices for throw away computers that were good for a year two if you were lucky. Windows stole often from Mac OS but spent 50 times as much on adds. Before the I'm a mac campaign, which Mac computer commercials did you see?
How compatible with Windows 8 be?!!

Right... Because Apple allows you to configure your Mac with your browser of choice right? I've actually seen plenty of Retail PC's with google chrome installed in addition to IE. You really should be sure the examples you use actually support you instead of incriminate Apple.
 
Right... Because Apple allows you to configure your Mac with your browser of choice right?

Apple is not in a position of monopoly, nor have they been found guilty of using said non-existant monopoly position in operating systems to create a new one in web browsers.

Microsoft's reality is different from Apple's. You can't compare them.
 
You keep saying the same thing, so I'll respond in kind... Not being able to buy the OS and install it on your choice of hardware does not make them non-competing products. Even Apple disagrees with you. They themselves have put macs up against PC's in general and Windows in particular. That puts a pretty big hole in your theory.

Apple competes against Microsoft indirectly but primarily they compete against Windows OEM's such as Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo etc. Apple doesn't market their products as Computer + Operating because the blur the two into the idea of a 'computer' with no differentiation between the operating system and hardware hence they do likewise with the PC where they treat the hardware and operating system as a single entity with the moniker 'PC' being used.
 
I've been using a windows 7 based tablet HP SLATE 500 for a while. I will tell you this it is way better then the iPad & Playbook, I own both.

I really think windows based tablets are the way to go. Yes windows 7 isn't perfectly optimized for a tablet but still works better then the rest. I can only wonder how much better Windows 8 will make it...

BTW the "metro" user interface is only an option that is one click from brining it to the normal windows view.

I'm just curious on the RAM and battery life...


I will be in line for this...
 
I've been using a windows 7 based tablet HP SLATE 500 for a while. I will tell you this it is way better then the iPad & Playbook, I own both.

I really think windows based tablets are the way to go. Yes windows 7 isn't perfectly optimized for a tablet but still works better then the rest. I can only wonder how much better Windows 8 will make it...

BTW the "metro" user interface is only an option that is one click from brining it to the normal windows view.

I'm just curious on the RAM and battery life...


I will be in line for this...


Something must've been wrong with the HP Slate I test at my job. Unpinch to zoom in IE... [5 second pause] SLAMS everything huge and unreadably zoomed in. Pinch back to shrink it down. [5 second pause] SLAMS everything unreadably tiny. Saying Windows 7 wasn't perfectly optimized for a tablet is a huge understatement. I couldn't imagine using the Slate over an iPad for 99% of anything I'd actually want to do on a tablet. Not to mention not wanting "TABLET INSTALLING UPDATES... DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER" every other day.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.