New Microsoft Ad Campaign Targets Mac Prices

[Beerfloat]

Cheaper hardware and a good user experience. Apple is the one that should be worried....

I'm just not sure that rolex is that worried when there are swatches going on sale somewhere, you know? (I'm bored with car analogies).

Also note that Lauren was excited by the looks of the HP computer. If that isn't a slap at Apple design, nothing is.

Some girls like the look of Crocs too. Probably says more about them than about the shoes..

 

[3282868]

Jesus, it doesn't really matter that much -- the end performance is the measuring factor regardless of what components you use, and a $6000 hand-built PC could fart and melt a Mac Pro.

No... not really...

 

[kabunaru]

No PC could beat a Nehalem Mac Pro right now.

 

[Eidorian]

No PC could beat a Nehalem Mac Pro right now.

Sadly we're not getting a Nehalem variant of Skulltrail.

 

[iCantwait]

i dont care what any of you say. THIS IS A BLOODY GOOD AD. ticks all the boxes

 

[AidenShaw]

No PC could beat a Nehalem Mac Pro right now.

You won't be able to say that by mid-week, of course.

(Those of us with protos of octo-Nehalems could say more - you do know that Intel's been demoing the 3.2 GHz Nehalem chips, right?)

And what about this 64 core Windows server or this 960 core Windows workstation?

 

[kabunaru]

you do know that Intel's been demoing the 3.2 GHz Nehalem chips, right?)

I haven't been reading news lately.

 

[Beerfloat]

64 processors
2 TiB RAM (2048 GiB)
192 PCI slots

http://h20341.www2.hp.com/integrity/cache/342431-0-0-225-121.html[/INDENT]
Not even close to the fastest Windows system...

That box actually has pretty lame x86 performance though, and x64 is out.

Not much for running off the shelf Windows software, that machine

 

[inaudible]

64 processors
2 TiB RAM (2048 GiB)
192 PCI slots

http://h20341.www2.hp.com/integrity/cache/342431-0-0-225-121.html​

Not even close to the fastest Windows system...

And, by the way, HP's been demoing the 256 core model with Windows 7 Server OS...

is that a joke? you want to talk value -- those start at about $265,000

(even then, that thing couldn't hold a candle to "roadrunner" at los alamos -- if we're talking pure computing here...)

yea, i think i have much better things to spend my $265k on... like a house...

the mac pro is one of the fastest (if not the fastest) CONSUMER machine on the market right now.

 

[Scottgfx]

Good lord, people can get awfully passionate over a computer. To each his own.

I was kinda trying to say that earlier. I went through all of this crap on the "Amiga Echo" on FidoNet, back almost 20 years ago.

One arguement I heard over and over from one guy was how he could buy a SGI Iris Indigo and have better graphics with it's higher-res 256 color screen.

You want to scream Apples and Oranges, but just wished the guy would buy his computer, go away and be happy. Instead, we had to hear how the Amiga's 4,096 color palette was inferior, blah, blah, blah.

We also prided ourselves on having a computer that used the same processor tech as the Mac, but paid less. Well, those costs added up after awhile. I had a CPU that I paid $1000 for originally. I ended up putting another $14,000 into that same computer over 5 years. I bought several 24bit graphics cards, CPU upgrade cards, software. Had I just bought a Mac, would it have been cheaper? Perhaps. I did enjoy the system, I still have it, it still works.

When Commodore went bankrupt, I considered what my next move would be. I pretty much resigned myself to buying a WinTel system. In 1994, the company I worked for bought a Mac, and put me on the system. I was frustrated with it for the first 6 months. I lacked some features like true multitasking, did some things different. After that I realized something. I wasn't spending large amounts of time working on "Startup-Sequences". I wasn't uninstalling and re-installing drivers to make a 3rd party graphics card work. The thing just worked and made me more productive.

PCs and Macs have both improved over the last 15 years. We all benefit from the competition.

I saw the passionate debates then, and I distilled it down to this. People, especially when they've spent thousands on a computer, will defend their decisions and don't want to consider the thought that they made the wrong one.

In the PC, Mac debate, it really comes down to if the computer you bought is working for you. I know a guy who keeps an ages old Celeron based e-machines. It's really a piece of crap. But hey, it works for him. Who are we to tell him otherwise.

 

[kabunaru]

is that a joke? you want to talk value -- those start at about $265,000

I should have said the Nehalem Mac Pro is the "fastest affordable windows machine on the planet".

 

[AidenShaw]

I should have said the Nehalem Mac Pro is the "fastest affordable windows machine on the planet".

Actually, the 3.2 GHz Core i7-965 in a PC tower would blow the Apple Maxi-Tower away on any task that doesn't scale past 4 cores. No challenge.

Besides, on Tuesday no Apple will be the fastest anything - so enjoy the next two days.

is that a joke? you want to talk value -- those start at about $265,000

(even then, that thing couldn't hold a candle to "roadrunner" at los alamos -- if we're talking pure computing here...)
.

Not a joke - the earlier post claimed "fastest Windows system" - and clearly not true. (And I don't believe that roadrunner runs Windows, so that's a pure tangent).

 

[Anuba]

I think that this ad (as with most MS ads) is pretty lame, but if Apple responds, say, by reducing their prices, well, heck, I'll take that as a win!

The beauty of it is that they can't really respond, and MS knows it.

Apple won't lower the prices, and neither can they refute the claim.
What could they possibly say?

They can't respond with the truth, which is that they are extraordinary blood suckers who go a little beyond "normal" corporate greed.

They can't say "yes, our users do buy our machines for the cool factor" as this would only confirm what MS said in their ad.

They can't provide some sort of demonstration that justifies the pricetag by showing how much "more" you get, because no conceivable demo of an MBP 17" could convey any message that explains the $2100 discrepancy between their machine and the one that "Lauren" bought. What are they going to show? The $79 tinkertoy called iLife? Ooooooh. Sorry, but for $2100 you can get Adobe CS4 Web Premium plus another laptop. iTunes, Safari? See, those are free downloads for Windows. OS X itself? Well for $2100 it would have to fly people to the moon, not merely be (subjectively) "better".

 

[smithmjer]

"Lauren" is a tool...

She doesn't know what she's missing.

 

[yizzle0912]

A completely unscientific, biased view:

I went to the HP site and configured a similar laptop to the 17" MBP, with interesting results...

HP dv7t series: 949.99
Windows Ultimate: 120.00
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz: 425.00
Free Upgrade to 4GB memory
Free Upgrade to 320GB HDD
Upgrade to Mobility Radeon 4650: 150.00
Wireless N and Bluetooth: 50.00
Extra battery: $100

System Recovery DVD: $19
Norton Security: 2years 69.00
Roxio "PhotoSuite 9": 39.00
Adobe Premiere Elements 7: 69.00

2080.99
-150 rebate
Total: $1930.99

The dv7t is a 17 inch laptop, thicker and heavier than the MBP; it seems to be HP's top-of-the line "entertainment laptop". It has eSATA, Firewire, ExpressCard, standard Webcam, DL DVD burner, etc.

Here's where I justify the added options: I added Ultimate, as the feature set seems more similar to OS X, and added the same processor as the MBP. The Radeon 4650 is closet thing they have to the MBP's 4600M. I added the extra battery to make up for the dv7t's 2.5 hour battery life. The Recovery DVD comes with OS X; I added Norton (probably a necessity for Windows); Photosuite and Elements partially make up for iLife.

Ultimately, that's the price that you'll pay for this feature set. Note that the HP has slower RAM, possibly slower graphics, much less battery life, no Gigabit ethernet, is fatter and heavier, and has an ugly polycarbonate case. And for $69 more, you can get a MBP. It comes down to this: for the consumer who doesn't need the feature set (and just needs a big display), the HP is a decent deal. But the MBP is in no way a ripoff.

 

[Freyqq]

Heh yeah except that you're talking about a consumer CPU which doesn't support more than 1 single socket per motherboard, nor ECC memory for that matter.

Not in the slightest bit anywhere close to a Mac Pro.

ECC memory is about half as fast as regular memory. It just has error correction, which is worthless on a consumer computer...more for servers

 

[HLdan]

Konfabulator.

Actually that's not true. When Apple showed Tiger at WWDC they intro'd the widgets. That same day many of the bloggers stated that Apple stole the widgets idea from Konfabulator. Sorry but it was the other way around. Apple had to clarify that the widgets came from NEXTSTEP which Steve Jobs worked at and the widget idea was given to Apple long ago.
Konfabulator did not get a proper license from Apple to sell the widgets so Apple had no choice but to come after them.

This isn't the same thing as picking on the little guy as Microsoft is doing in this latest ad. Microsoft Windows dominates and monopolizes in the computer industry. They are so threatened that Apple is going to take over in computers like they did with the iPod that they have to create shameless ads. Apple has under 10% marketshare in computers but nearly 90% marketshare with the iPod and iTunes. Do you see Apple creating ads to bash the Zune, iRiver , Creative Zen or the Sony Walkman? No. Why? Because Apple already has the dominating marketshare so there's no need to act threatened like Microsoft does.
The ad itself is good (even though it's got noticeable flaws) but the whole thing screams "insecurity" of the competitor Apple.

 

[3282868]

The beauty of it is that they can't really respond, and MS knows it.

Apple won't lower the prices, and neither can they refute the claim.

Examining Apple's desktop lineup, Apple doesn't really need to lower prices. The Mac Mini and iMac use mobile processors, while the Mac Pro uses a server grade processor. Apple would only need to produce a desktop, mid-level machine to compete with Windows systems. This would counter Microsoft's claims while gaining market share.

Secondly, if Apple introduced entry level systems to compete with comparable Windows systems, Apple would gain interest in that market (predominately high school/college students and young professionals) who would later become the professional demographic who would gladly pay an extra premium for top end systems.

 

[Anuba]

Wait, who says it sucks for windows? I remember once upon a time when Apple had the fastest Vista laptop available, haha. Not the case anymore, I'm sure. But I'm not sure where the experience would be lacking in Windows on Mac hardware, being that it's just a PC with Mac software.

Well, there are plenty of threads about it so I don't want to hijack this one... but, to make a long story short, on unibody MBP's, BootCamp doesn't handle fan control under Windows, which leads the machine to run so incredibly hot that it eventually crashes and shuts down to save itself.

Then there's the glass trackpad, which I've heard lots of conflicting stories about, but they all seem to end with crashes, freezes and general mayhem.

There are a few other issues with BootCamp as well that make the Mac a crippled PC, such as the buggy Apple keyboard driver which screws up firewire performance, which means that people like myself who use firewire audio devices to make music in Windows, will get tons of crackling, dropouts and glitches in the audio. You can tinker with it and disable the keyboard driver, but then the keys get mapped all wrong.

Until these issues are addressed, an MBP may be sufficient for taking Windows for a quick test drive, but not for any serious work.

 

[Freyqq]

A completely unscientific, biased view:

I went to the HP site and configured a similar laptop to the 17" MBP, with interesting results...

HP dv7t series: 949.99
Windows Ultimate: 120.00
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz: 425.00
Free Upgrade to 4GB memory
Free Upgrade to 320GB HDD
Upgrade to Mobility Radeon 4650: 150.00
Wireless N and Bluetooth: 50.00
Extra battery: $100

System Recovery DVD: $19
Norton Security: 2years 69.00
Roxio "PhotoSuite 9": 39.00
Adobe Premiere Elements 7: 69.00

2080.99
-150 rebate
Total: $1930.99

The dv7t is a 17 inch laptop, thicker and heavier than the MBP; it seems to be HP's top-of-the line "entertainment laptop". It has eSATA, Firewire, ExpressCard, standard Webcam, DL DVD burner, etc.

Here's where I justify the added options: I added Ultimate, as the feature set seems more similar to OS X, and added the same processor as the MBP. The Radeon 4650 is closet thing they have to the MBP's 4600M. I added the extra battery to make up for the dv7t's 2.5 hour battery life. The Recovery DVD comes with OS X; I added Norton (probably a necessity for Windows); Photosuite and Elements partially make up for iLife.

Ultimately, that's the price that you'll pay for this feature set. Note that the HP has slower RAM, possibly slower graphics, much less battery life, no Gigabit ethernet, is fatter and heavier, and has an ugly polycarbonate case. And for $69 more, you can get a MBP. It comes down to this: for the consumer who doesn't need the feature set (and just needs a big display), the HP is a decent deal. But the MBP is in no way a ripoff.

herein lies the difference between mac and pc. PC is diverse enough that you can buy exactly what you need. For mac, your stuck with cookiecutter builds. If theres something extra you dont need, your stuck buying it. Say you want a mac with a 17 inch screen, but you don't need dedicated graphics or a fast processor (aka the ad)...your stuck with the macbook pro regardless

 

[smithmjer]

It comes down to this: for the consumer who doesn't need the feature set (and just needs a big display), the HP is a decent deal. But the MBP is in no way a ripoff.

Very true. Don't forget the pain and suffering involved in owning Vista. They should be paying us to use it.

Mac is more expensive but you get what you pay for...and then some!

 

[Beerfloat]

Actually, the 3.2 GHz Core i7-965 in a PC tower would blow the Apple Maxi-Tower away on any task that doesn't scale past 4 cores. No challenge.

Tssk tssk a 3.2 vs a 2.93 Core i7 is hardly blowing away, and that's just picking and chosing benchmarks. One could say that on some fictional 8-core task the Pro is going to kill the HP Integrity too and that's just as meaningless.

As for Tuesday, it remains to be seen if equivalently specced dual Nehalem competitors will actually end up being cheaper.

One thing is for sure though: They won't be able to run OSX.

 

[APPLENEWBIE]

Is there something wrong with you?

A man of few words. Thanks!

 

[bfc]

You're talking about the package manager in the system, right? Yeah, there was no install for flash there that I found. And regardless, flash worked on the stock browsers, but some of us like to use browsers that are actually good, and so if the grand old package manager thing can only be used for applications that people decided are good enough to be in it (conveniently, what I got was in there, but there was no flash package outside of installing it manually as I described). Your point is sort of valid, it was my own ignorancy (possibly), but someone who is computer illiterate downloads this browser, goes to watch Youtube, and it tells them they need to download Flash, they click yes, and it takes them to macromedia's website. The resulting downloaded file would have to be installed manually. AND, even if they did go check in their package manager, if what they needed wasn't in the centralised add/remove programs app, then they're basically stuck with "Meh, I guess I can't watch youtube on this."

I'm not sure if anybody called you on your BS yet, but, I'll do it anyway. Ubuntu has had the ability to autoinstall Flash through the browser since at least version 8.04.

So, I'll call you out on your claim of ever installing Ubuntu, especially not in November as you claim.

 

[Beerfloat]

ECC memory is about half as fast as regular memory.

You may want to read up on the actual performance penalty

It just has error correction, which is worthless on a consumer computer...more for servers

It's never worthless, and the Pro isn't a consumer computer.

Otherwise that was a terrific post.