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Might Windows 7 be a threat to MacOS X?

Eidorian said:
EFI video BIOS is a bigger problem. If you look at OSx86 supported hardware Apple's drivers actually cover a wider range.

http://netkas.org/
Click to expand...

That's an interesting site, but comparing the two arguments above, one can't just throw any old card into a Mac Pro and it automagically works. So there are driver issues on OS X.

Come to think of it though, it's been years since I had a really problematic driver issue. Naturally I've had to load drivers to get things to work, but not a really nasty problem where something has gone flaky.
 
If I remember correctly, wasn't 7 supposed to be the big re-write of Windows, it was going to be the big leap forward...

But it's just Vista with fixes, and tweaked UI and a flashy marketing campaign, admittedly yeah, MS are finally doing what people wanted, fixing Vista, but does that really warrant another £249??

I view Vista as Windows 3.0, and 7 as Windows 3.1, I just can't believe MS are really going to charge full price for an operating system that is essentially the equivalent of Snow Leopard to Leopard: Tweaked UI, performance boost, few new features. But they're still gunna charge full price...
 
Infrared said:
Right...

So you can throw any video card in a Mac Pro and it will work? Oh wait..
you can't. The reason? Most graphics cards don't have any OS X drivers.

The same goes for many other devices. There is no greater driver issue
than a driver not existing. And there are thousands of devices without
OS X drivers (admittedly, you wouldn't want to use all of them).

Even where drivers do exist, they can, somewhat tragically, be worse
than their Windows equivalents.

OS X may be good for many things, but drivers are not one of it's strong
points. Windows, even 64-bit Windows, crushes OS X when it comes to
availability and quality of drivers.
Click to expand...

64bit vista is supported extremely well. Almost any 64 bit capable system wll have drivers for it. People who have issues with 64 bit are using something like xp 64bit which is not nearly as good as 64bit vista.

Schtumple said:
If I remember correctly, wasn't 7 supposed to be the big re-write of Windows, it was going to be the big leap forward...

But it's just Vista with fixes, and tweaked UI and a flashy marketing campaign, admittedly yeah, MS are finally doing what people wanted, fixing Vista, but does that really warrant another £249??

I view Vista as Windows 3.0, and 7 as Windows 3.1, I just can't believe MS are really going to charge full price for an operating system that is essentially the equivalent of Snow Leopard to Leopard: Tweaked UI, performance boost, few new features. But they're still gunna charge full price...
Click to expand...

The comparison is not even close. Apple did some stuf, but the amount of changes to the kernel and base of the system is more than snow leoaprd could even hope to get to. They changed the driver module for the graphics interface, rewrote the GDI workflow (no more system wide lockups, each window is handled independently, can be spread across cpus), reorganized the memory management, makes use of all cores more efficiently for booting, and a lot more changes. And the upgrade price is not that high on windows. You can't count full retail price as thats for systems without an operating system to begin with.
 
Eidorian said:
EFI video BIOS is a bigger problem. If you look at OSx86 supported hardware Apple's drivers actually cover a wider range.

http://netkas.org/
Click to expand...

Yes. Perhaps I should have written "one reason" rather than
"the reason".

And it is true that Apple's drivers can be forced to work with
unauthorized hardware, to cover that wider range. But that's
a lot of faffing about and the drivers aren't necessarily going
to be optimized for that particular hardware.
 
belvdr said:
The one item that most people seem to miss is that hardware also plays a part in the use of either OS.

I don't see the need to spend almost $1,000 on a laptop for my wife. She uses it about 3 times daily on a Dell Inspiron 1525 with a Celeron processor. It's just Facebook, email, and Skype. And it cost somewhere around $300-350 (can't remember the exact number now).

So, folks like me say no to Apple, because of hardware pricing not due to any OS differences.
Click to expand...
I've suggested a Dell Vostro to a coworker. They just need Skype and IM. It's a little more rugged than the Inspirion line in my opinion.

belvdr said:
That's an interesting site, but comparing the two arguments above, one can't just throw any old card into a Mac Pro and it automagically works. So there are driver issues on OS X.

Come to think of it though, it's been years since I had a really problematic driver issue. Naturally I've had to load drivers to get things to work, but not a really nasty problem where something has gone flaky.
Click to expand...
Quite true you're bitten by EFI BIOS first and then drivers.

Schtumple said:
If I remember correctly, wasn't 7 supposed to be the big re-write of Windows, it was going to be the big leap forward...

But it's just Vista with fixes, and tweaked UI and a flashy marketing campaign, admittedly yeah, MS are finally doing what people wanted, fixing Vista, but does that really warrant another £249??

I view Vista as Windows 3.0, and 7 as Windows 3.1, I just can't believe MS are really going to charge full price for an operating system that is essentially the equivalent of Snow Leopard to Leopard: Tweaked UI, performance boost, few new features. But they're still gunna charge full price...
Click to expand...
Actually the upgrade price for Windows 7 is $49 for Home Premium and $99 for Professional. We might play it up but Microsoft is being quite modest about it in general.

Infrared said:
Yes. Perhaps I should have written "one reason" rather than
"the reason".

And it is true that Apple's drivers can be forced to work with
unauthorized hardware, to cover that wider range. But that's
a lot of faffing about and the drivers aren't necessarily going
to be optimized for that particular hardware.
Click to expand...
True it is treading some thin ice on driver support there but it's possible.
 
The General said:
It might reduce the number of people switching from PC to Mac, but it's a lot tougher to get someone to switch from Mac to PC than from PC to Mac.
Click to expand...

dbwie said:
+1. It may reduce switchers to Mac, but probably not increase Mac to PC switchers.
Click to expand...

Except that a current OSX user can just buy Windows 7 and use it on their Apple hardware & this change won't show up as anything but a sale to Microsoft (i.e. nothing for HP, Dell etc). Don't need to go out and buy new equipment, just use that "always perfect" Apple setup you currently have.

What will be interesting about the Snow Leopard update is what happens to the pre Intel Mac users. When it comes time to upgrade/replace, will they just stick with a Mac or will they take a look at a Windows PC as they could be one, two or more OSX versions behind the Intel based OSX version. The further behind you are the more changes there are the more open you can be to something different.

The other thing that is hard to measure, where the retail sales of Windows 7 are going. You have the upgraders from non upgradable Windows versions (full version), upgraders (upgrade), OEM copies (new systems), Mac users (upgrade for VPC), Mac users (full new to VPC), Corporate licenses (both)etc.

For OSX, the channel is much smaller & easier to figure out, any retail boxed copy sold = upgrade, all other copies are OEM (new systems). The $29/49 price tag though really should encourage all Intel Mac users to upgrade and quiten the complainers about pricing.

Personally I don't expect Windows 7 to have a major effect initially, things might hold steady, but if the user base accepts it, the Corporate world finally decides to ugrdade from XP and the mainstream media generally respond well to it (as opposed to straight out lampooning it) then Apple might struggle to win over as many converts and may lose some, could just balance out.

This being said, should the corporate world not accept Windows 7 I think Apple has potential to improve dramatically in that area. With so many corporate machines still running XP (my company is one) and many having waited so long to upgrade their systems, there is a good chance that when they do finally do the upgrade they could move over to the Apple world.

Ok, so there are plenty of corporations that won't switch but even if Apple made inroads of 5-10% of the possible market they will do extremely well in hardware sales. Regardless, there is plenty of old equipment out there that really needs to be replaced.


Quillz said:
Actually, no, he's totally right. 32-bit computing is limited to a maximum of 4 GB of memory.

Leopard is 64-bit and thus can address more than 4 GB of memory. Windows is sold in 32-bit and 64-bit editions, so naturally the 32-bit version is limited to 4 GB.
Click to expand...

And in reality Windows 32bit versions are limited to around 3.2GB of usuable RAM assuming you have 4GB installed. Hence why alot of systems with a 32bit Windows OS go out the door these days with 3GB RAM max. The 64bit versions generally go with 4GB.
 
jbernie said:
What will be interesting about the Snow Leopard update is what happens to the pre Intel Mac users. When it comes time to upgrade/replace, will they just stick with a Mac or will they take a look at a Windows PC as they could be one, two or more OSX versions behind the Intel based OSX version. The further behind you are the more changes there are the more open you can be to something different.
Click to expand...

Yes. Another thing: in many other markets (e.g., the banking sector or
energy supply) customers who have previously switched are more likely
than others to switch again. In other words, people who switched at
least once tend to be more fickle than others. Apple should not take
switchers it has acquired for granted. Complacency is the fail option.
 
Eidorian said:
Actually the upgrade price for Windows 7 is $49 for Home Premium and $99 for Professional. We might play it up but Microsoft is being quite modest about it in general.
Click to expand...

That's not so bad then really, but still, what I was trying to get at was the fact that MS promised 7 would be the new beginning for Windows, but it's just same old same old with a pretty UI and glitzy marketing...

I really wish MS would drop windows and focus on a unix operating system, although I guess that would mean any virus written for windows, could also work for mac, which would suck, ok MS, keep your windows as it is, we're fine with unix without an aero interface over it :p
 
Schtumple said:
I really wish MS would drop windows and focus on a unix operating system, although I guess that would mean any virus written for windows, could also work for mac, which would suck, ok MS, keep your windows as it is, we're fine with unix without an aero interface over it :p
Click to expand...

You should read up on your history of the Windows NT OS. At least one of the major players programming wise was from DEC and worked on VMS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler
 
I will likely purchase a PC with Windows 7 when it's available. This is more based around the fact that I'm an avid gamer, who works in the game industry, and I need a PC. Boot Camp sucks.
 
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