New Microsoft Ad Campaign Targets Mac Prices

[Pnut13]

This is another thing......why is it when Windows appologists come on they say "oh it needed drivers for it to work" and "that took so long for the Manufacturers to update drivers" (Note it is never MS problem, even though it is their system) that this was not an issue with 95,98, 2000, xp??? Could it be that the different windows companies, Sony, Acer, HP, etc are in collusion that they want to get peopel to buy new and newer printers, cameras etc????so when you jsut factor on top of me needing a new 3 in one on top of more memory, new graphics card that they all make money?????


Why???

 

[3282868]

This is another thing......why is it when Windows appologists come on they say "oh it needed drivers for it to work" and "that took so long for the Manufacturers to update drivers" (Note it is never MS problem, even though it is their system) that this was not an issue with 95,98, 2000, xp??? Could it be that the different windows companies, Sony, Acer, HP, etc are in collusion that they want to get peopel to buy new and newer printers, cameras etc????so when you jsut factor on top of me needing a new 3 in one on top of more memory, new graphics card that they all make money?????


Why???

Uh-oh. Careful, you're gonna be called a fanboy (or worse, a zealot! *gasp* oh no! not THAT?!)

 

[BenRoethig]

OK, then OSX is not a true operating system, because it's a GUI layer on top of Darwin.

You don't boot into Darwin and then launch OSX.

 

[Yoder54]

Also, grass is purple and bicycles have wings.

You must be referring to that high-grade bud out of Northern Cal. And yes, do some and bicycles will sprout wings and fly.

 

[doohsun]

I use both mac and pc

I saw this ad and it didn't appeal me at all. Microsoft will always be 2nd to Apple. When it comes to marketing they really stink. They're just lucky to have a wider range of brands that uses their operating system. I bet you if apple made they're OS available to everyone they would just dominate the market and windows will be extinct just my opinion. Well one thing people need to realize is that pc will always be cheaper with bigger screen but for someone that travels like a student or business professional you think they really want a big screen? of course not they want something smaller and want it to be more power as well. If you add those 2 features they're not much different from the macbook pro pricing. For Apple macbook is treated as an entry level so when you jump to a macbook pro that will always be treated at a professional because when it comes down to it who wants to do graphics and video editing on a smaller screen you need atleast a 15" or 17" to do that... and plus their casing is more sleeker. Pc notebooks will always be bigger, thicker and heavier doesn't matter what they do. Apple will always beat them by design.


Nice try Microsoft lol

 

[diamond.g]

This is another thing......why is it when Windows appologists come on they say "oh it needed drivers for it to work" and "that took so long for the Manufacturers to update drivers" (Note it is never MS problem, even though it is their system) that this was not an issue with 95,98, 2000, xp??? Could it be that the different windows companies, Sony, Acer, HP, etc are in collusion that they want to get peopel to buy new and newer printers, cameras etc????so when you jsut factor on top of me needing a new 3 in one on top of more memory, new graphics card that they all make money?????


Why???

It is very similar to how Apple is going to force you to upgrade to the latest OS to get the GTX260 to work in the Mac Pro. They are all companies. Trying to win your money. Some do a better job than others.

 

[diamond.g]

You don't boot into Darwin and then launch OSX.

So all that CLI stuff that gets outputted when you hold CMD+V during boot isn't Darwin loading before the GUI boots? Seems that is after the EFI boot portion...

 

[Anuba]

This is another thing......why is it when Windows appologists come on they say "oh it needed drivers for it to work" and "that took so long for the Manufacturers to update drivers" (Note it is never MS problem, even though it is their system) that this was not an issue with 95,98, 2000, xp???

It's like this...

Drivers that were developed for Win95 worked in 98 (Win98=Win95 with some bells and whistles).

In parallel with Win98 they had another system called NT, which Win2K and WinXP was based on, so when people switched from 98 to 2000 there were already functioning drivers that had been developed for NT.

But with Vista they took a major leap and introduced an entirely new driver model without any predecessor, which meant that makers of hardware drivers suddenly had to do more work than they had for over a decade. Even if Vista wasn't completely new, so many things had changed that it was a little bit (not similar to by a long shot, but a little bit) like when Apple went from OS9 to OS X. And if you were around back then you would remember how shaky things were both with hardware drivers and software, in some cases it tooks several years (*ahem* Quark Xpress *cough*) before things were back to normal.

Since Windows 7 has the same driver model as Vista, there won't be any driver craziness this time, it'll be more like going from Win2K to WinXP.

Yes, years of working on computers has trashed my vision, but I still see colors well. It is the 'Blue SOD.' It comes with the typical dumping memory, warnings, contact your admin, and what not. I to was shocked when I saw it for the first time. It started after an update, and despite roll-backs, etc. it is still there.

Weird. Does it give any clue as to what it is that crashed? BSOD info is cryptic to say the least, I don't think even Microsoft's own engineers can read a BSOD text and go "Aha!"

I should add that I just started using Mac's three years ago...now there is no looking back. I will continue to have a Windows box at home just to keep up with the OS, but that is the only reason.

Sounds similar to my timeline (4 years ago... though I used them occasionally at some workplaces before that). I didn't get the big "switcher epiphany" thing though, it was more like trying out a different brand of shampoo -- did its job OK, just like the other brand, nice to have clean hair and all but not enough to make me break out in a Tom Cruise on Oprah number.

 

[-hh]

You, sir, are severely papering over some big issues with owning a Mac. Look, I go against the grain in my company and run a Mac as my primary machine. My own, personal, Mac, although the company does in rare instances allow people to have a Mac. Largely this is because Apple is a major customer of ours and it looks good.

This is a large organization with around 5,000 people.

Chester, NJ, eh? IIRC, there's an AT&T office out that way.

FWIW, I grew up a few miles north of Chester...up Rt 513, north of the old Bell Lab "telephone pole farm".

Macs are not officially supported because of site license deals, and not fitting within the infrastructure.

That certainly sounds just like what TeamMojo was talking about...a "corporate user held hostage by Exchange, Active Directory, and their IT department".

All users have to hinge off their domain accounts, which OSX won't help you with. So when our passwords expire every 60 days, we have to frantically find a lab machine on the domain to change passwords. Let alone all the problems getting access to domain resources like file servers and printer shares.

That certainly sounds just like what TeamMojo was talking about...a "corporate user held hostage by Exchange, Active Directory, and their IT department".

Then there are the applications we are required to use that just don't exist on the Mac -- Microsoft Project, Visio, etc....And even if we use Entourage, it doesn't do everything that Exchange/Outlook can and we end up missing things Windows guys are using.

Understood, and while that's not quite what TeamMojo was talking about, for at least MS-Project and MS-Outlook, the responsibility for cross-platform applications still lies with the software developer, Microsoft.

(And yes I know about the alternatives but they aren't the real thing and never properly interoperate 100% with the real thing).

Understood, but let's also recognize that some of the tools that our Corporate 'Leaders' impose on us is often more for someone else's benefit, rather than our own.

For example, I have to also locally use MS-Project and it is so horrifically bad at doing real PERT-based program development planning (not the same as "Scheduling"), that I've resorted to doing the whole program plan development on an old Mac running the even more ancient (1993 vintage) "Mac Project" software.

Whenever I'm satisfied with it being a technically complete plan, I'll have all of the SF, FF, SS, etc, dependencies worked out and I'll simply "port" it over to the Corporate-blessed IT tool by retyping the whole thing...in the long run, its faster & easier, and more importantly, it ultimately delivers a better product.

This is merely one more example of a workaround for when the local IT doesn't give us the appropriate productivity tools in our toolboxes.


-hh

 

[edenwaith]

War Reborn: PC vs. Mac

Wow, lots of comments.

I find it funny how the ad seemed to be more about HP than Microsoft or Windows.

Trying to bring up the old "Macs are more expensive" argument again, eh? Nothing new, of course. Even though the ad tries to point out that PC hardware can be purchased (generally) cheaper, they don't take much notice that it comes equipped with Windows.

What if she had bought a netbook with Linux, instead?

 

[Pnut13]

Uh-oh. Careful, you're gonna be called a fanboy (or worse, a zealot! *gasp* oh no! not THAT?!)

Yeah
You would think that people would have better things to do than go onto a Mac message board and talk about their opinions of how great MS is........but so is the sad world we live in. Give companies that lose money more money to lose. defend a software company on a another software company message board

It is very similar to how Apple is going to force you to upgrade to the latest OS to get the GTX260 to work in the Mac Pro. They are all companies. Trying to win your money. Some do a better job than others.

No i repectfully disagree
I had that 3 in one that never worked on Vista, hooked it up to my iMac anfd it worked
had a Kodak digital camera and that worked.
Apple doesnt force you to buy all new periferals when you upgrade from OSx10.3 to 10.5

(which is ironic that not too long ago Apple users had seperate software packages, etc......oh how tiems have changed)

It's like this...

Drivers that were developed for Win95 worked in 98 (Win98=Win95 with some bells and whistles).

In parallel with Win98 they had another system called NT, which Win2K and WinXP was based on, so when people switched from 98 to 2000 there were already functioning drivers that had been developed for NT.

But with Vista they took a major leap and introduced an entirely new driver model without any predecessor, which meant that makers of hardware drivers suddenly had to do more work than they had for over a decade. Even if Vista wasn't completely new, so many things had changed that it was a little bit (not similar to by a long shot, but a little bit) like when Apple went from OS9 to OS X. And if you were around back then you would remember how shaky things were both with hardware drivers and software, in some cases it tooks several years (*ahem* Quark Xpress *cough*) before things were back to normal.

Since Windows 7 has the same driver model as Vista, there won't be any driver craziness this time, it'll be more like going from Win2K to WinXP.

One program on a Mac as compared to how many pieces of hardware that are almost new and are suddenly not compatable with Vista, going from XP to Vista. People will see this once Win 7 is released. It is not just Roxio Creator 09 either, i have heard of many progs that crash going from Window operating system to the "better" Windows OS

I think that people need to admit that Windows is slower, and their are far far less compatibility issues from Apple to PC. Just admit it, no one will think any worse of you guys if you do.

 

[173080]

What I gathered from that commercial is that she really wanted the Mac but she just couldn't afford it.

"I got everything I wanted", that's not true. She wanted a Mac but settled for a PC. She didn't get everything she wanted. She got something she could afford.

That commercial pretty much implies "If you can afford one, Macs are better."

 

[DUCKofD3ATH]

I couldn't find a BMW under $30K

I'm not cool enough to own a BMW, but I got a Chevy for under $20K.

What a waste of ad dollars. People know Apple is a premium product but they're willing to spend the money for the same reason they buy BMWs: quality, reliability, overall satisfaction.

Microsoft killed their own market with Vista, Apple didn't do it. Until they come out with something better than Vista, people won't be lining up to plunk down money on a laptop unless they really can't afford Apple.

 

[polaris20]

All users have to hinge off their domain accounts, which OSX won't help you with. So when our passwords expire every 60 days, we have to frantically find a lab machine on the domain to change passwords. Let alone all the problems getting access to domain resources like file servers and printer shares.

I use a Mac as my main machine too, and I'm in IT. I suggest you look into Likewise Enterprise, which joins a Mac to AD, and allows caching of profiles, network services access, and control via group policy. Works great with Linux too.

www.likewise.com

Understood, and while that's not quite what TeamMojo was talking about, for at least MS-Project and MS-Outlook, the responsibility for cross-platform applications still lies with the software developer, Microsoft.

Yup, same problem for those folks here that want to use Linux full time, though Mac users are more likely to be supported than Linux is, since MS flat out despises Linux.

Visio is actually the only app I have to boot a VM for, if I'm not near my Win7 machine. Entourage does fine, though I think Outlook still is a little nicer. But that's Microsoft's fault; not Apple's. And I suspect MS does that on purpose. If Office 2008 was 100% equal to Office 2007 on Windows, there'd be less of a barrier for enterprise OS X adoption.


I suspect a lot of your complaints will go away. There's a free version that works well too; just doesn't allow GP control.

 

[Anuba]

One program on a Mac as compared to how many pieces of hardware that are almost new and are suddenly not compatable with Vista, going from XP to Vista. People will see this once Win 7 is released. It is not just Roxio Creator 09 either, i have heard of many progs that crash going from Window operating system to the "better" Windows OS

Quark XPress was just an example. Were you on Macs during the OS 9-OS X transition? I was doing tech support for a music app for Mac & PC at the time, and I assure you it wasn't my Windows issue mailbox that was filling up...

I think that people need to admit that Windows is slower

I think that people need to look at the applications they use before they do any assessment about speed, because the applications are what you will be dealing with, you're not going to be staring at the OS all day.

If you read the recent PCMag review of the Mac Pro Nehalem 8-core, for example, you'll see that they found that many applications were much faster in BootCamp than in OS X itself. Photoshop CS4, for example. The main reason being that the Windows version can address 8 GB of RAM while the OS X version only gets up to 3.5 GB. This is not Apple's fault, of course, it's all on Adobe, but the end user doesn't really care about whose fault it is, all he knows is that he's getting subpar performance in OS X from the application he works with all day.

I use Cubase and Reason a lot, and I could easily switch from Windows to OS X any day since both apps are cross-platform. But Cubase is much more unstable on Mac than on PC. Again, not Apple's fault, but that's not going to ease my problems when I'm on a tight deadline and I have a responsibility to go with the most stable platform for Cubase, rather than call the client the next day with some pathetic excuse about crashes and ask for a revised deadline. Reason performs better on PC, too, if by a narrow margin. Again, not Apple's fault. But I need all the performance I can get. If it's between thinning out a musical arrangement because it chokes the CPU in OS X, or keeping it exactly the way I want it by going with Windows, from both a creative and a practical standpoint Windows would be the way to go.

 

[173080]

I'm not cool enough to own a BMW, but I got a Chevy for under $20K.

What a waste of ad dollars. People know Apple is a premium product but they're willing to spend the money for the same reason they buy BMWs: quality, reliability, overall satisfaction.

Exactly. You get a much different driving experience in the BMW which can be likened to using a Mac. Both provide an experience that goes beyond mere functionality.

I suppose Lauren also thinks flying coach is better than first-class and a Timex is better than an A. Lange & Söhne.

 

[Anuba]

Exactly. You get a much different driving experience in the BMW which can be likened to using a Mac. Both provide an experience that goes beyond mere functionality.

Yeah, except BMW doesn't cheat by manufacturing their cars in China for peanut money. German build quality is why BMW, Mercedes and Audi are respected premium brands in the first place. Would you pay the premium for a BMW made by Brilliant?

 

[gkarris]

Microsoft killed their own market with Vista, Apple didn't do it. Until they come out with something better than Vista, people won't be lining up to plunk down money on a laptop unless they really can't afford Apple.

That would be Windows 7...

 

[bruinsrme]

Yeah, that is strange. They might as well have been advertising time-shares because the end doesn't seem to jive with the message of the rest of the ad.

the PC world usually includes brand relation commercials.
For instance when HP, dell and other PC companies advertise their machines Intel gets to throw their symbol and jingle in
In this case i think MS paid for the commercial with HP benefiting.
HP is MS's prize right now as the touch windows becomes reality.
Just a thought.

 

[bruinsrme]

Yeah, that is strange. They might as well have been advertising time-shares because the end doesn't seem to jive with the message of the rest of the ad.

Yeah, except BMW doesn't cheat by manufacturing their cars in China for peanut money. German build quality is why BMW, Mercedes and Audi are respected premium brands in the first place. Would you pay the premium for a BMW made by Brilliant?

You do realize the US has a couple of full blown BMW factories

 

[Apple iKid]

the PC world usually includes brand relation commercials.
For instance when HP, dell and other PC companies advertise their machines Intel gets to throw their symbol and jingle in
In this case i think MS paid for the commercial with HP benefiting.
HP is MS's prize right now as the touch windows becomes reality.
Just a thought.

If you go to Microsoft's website and watch the video for Windows 7, it talks about how it will be about touch screen. HP is the only desktop computer that currently is all touchscreen. Based on that I agree with you.

 

[polaris20]

I think that people need to look at the applications they use before they do any assessment about speed, because the applications are what you will be dealing with, you're not going to be staring at the OS all day.

If you read the recent PCMag review of the Mac Pro Nehalem 8-core, for example, you'll see that they found that many applications were much faster in BootCamp than in OS X itself. Photoshop CS4, for example. The main reason being that the Windows version can address 8 GB of RAM while the OS X version only gets up to 3.5 GB. This is not Apple's fault, of course, it's all on Adobe, but the end user doesn't really care about whose fault it is, all he knows is that he's getting subpar performance in OS X from the application he works with all day.

I use Cubase and Reason a lot, and I could easily switch from Windows to OS X any day since both apps are cross-platform. But Cubase is much more unstable on Mac than on PC. Again, not Apple's fault, but that's not going to ease my problems when I'm on a tight deadline and I have a responsibility to go with the most stable platform for Cubase, rather than call the client the next day with some pathetic excuse about crashes and ask for a revised deadline. Reason performs better on PC, too, if by a narrow margin. Again, not Apple's fault. But I need all the performance I can get. If it's between thinning out a musical arrangement because it chokes the CPU in OS X, or keeping it exactly the way I want it by going with Windows, from both a creative and a practical standpoint Windows would be the way to go.

Yeah that Photoshop thing is rough. They really need to do a 64-bit version for OS X. I know a lot of people severely pissed about that.

And Cubase is still crap on OS X? Wow, it's been that way for ages. There's no excuse for that, if they intend upon supporting both platforms.

I love Reason!! such an awesome app. I've been using it since 2.0.

 

[Anuba]

You do realize the US has a couple of full blown BMW factories

Yes, for tax and currency fluctuation reasons both Japanese and German manufacturers have opened factories in both the US and Mexico. If you think there's no difference between a Mexican Volkswagen and a German one, check out what the drivers say...

 

[123]

You don't boot into Darwin and then launch OSX.

You should not talk about things you don't understand.

 

[EmperorDarius]

If you read the recent PCMag review of the Mac Pro Nehalem 8-core, for example, you'll see that they found that many applications were much faster in BootCamp than in OS X itself. Photoshop CS4, for example. The main reason being that the Windows version can address 8 GB of RAM while the OS X version only gets up to 3.5 GB. This is not Apple's fault, of course, it's all on Adobe, but the end user doesn't really care about whose fault it is, all he knows is that he's getting subpar performance in OS X from the application he works with all day.

Yes, but still the OS X version will be more stable. Plus that you'll have to use Windows 64 bit to enjoy the full power of Photoshop. And if there's something even worse than the regular x86 Windows, that's Windows x64. Awful. Totally awful.