Apple planning its own Windows 7 pitch: Buy a Mac instead
Despite positive reviews for Windows 7, the upgrade process for the
millions of people still using the older Windows XP won't be simple.
Unlike the shift from the newer Windows Vista, the move from Windows XP to Windows 7
requires a clean installation -- which means backing up data before
installing Windows 7, then restoring data and reinstalling applications
after the new OS is on the machine.
As we noted earlier this week, the Mac blogs have been having lots of fun poking fun at the process. And now Apple itself is looking to capitalize on the situation.
"Any user that reads all those steps is probably going to freak out," Apple executive Phil Schiller tells BusinessWeek's Peter Burrows in a story getting lots of attention in the tech world today. "If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"
Apple is looking to build on the Mac's existing momentum. Numbers released yesterday by the IDC research firm showed Mac shipments rising to 9.4 percent of the U.S. market in the third quarter, from 8.6 percent a year earlier.
According to the BusinessWeek story, Apple is expected to highlight the complexity of the XP-to-7 upgrade process in upcoming advertisements. Burrows reports that the company also "will likely make the case that Macs are less susceptible to viruses and are best suited to its popular iPods and iPhones."
Kevin Fleming on October 16, 2009 at 01:40 PM
Mac vs. Windows discussions are always fun. For some it's Bears vs. Packers kind of loyalty, for others it's a saints vs. sinners dichotomy. I use both systems. We have up to 6 different users at home. When we switched to the Mac last year, I quit having to come home at lunch and fix the damned PC when my wife wanted to use e-mail and something failed. Now, a serene silence as to computer repairs on the weekends. Leave the PC to me alone, and it's fine. Add more folks, and PCs suck the life out of you.
A final note: Insulting people who don't use your machine has never been a successful strategy, except in counting coup.
Mark on October 16, 2009 at 01:53 PM
Josh,
True, yet when I bake a cake from scratch, I don't grow the wheat either...
Alas, my micro soldering skills are not up to par, but I was just saying that to say I feel comfortable working my way around a Windows computer.
Ern,
You forgot about loading the 600MB HP Suite software for the printer...
I agree with you, the argument that problems coming from the installation of a $100 OS are not enough to make someone go out and buy an $1100 and up laptop/desktop. It does, though, remind people that Apple's are, arguably, easier to use, and that Apple has just released their own new OS and it gets people discussing it in Comments to blog posts about the ad campaign. So someone, who is debating whether to switch to the new Windows OS might just say, "you know what, I need a new computer anyway (someone with the XP OS probably has had the computer for longer then a year), might as well start over with a MAC instead of starting over with the new Windows OS."
J on October 16, 2009 at 01:53 PM
Dustin is clearly an idiot, and knows nothing of Mac OS X, or UNIX, or LINUX, or...
Not sure what he knows, but he's not putting it on display in his comment.
James J. on October 16, 2009 at 02:08 PM
Windows apologists are amazingly reminiscent of the Roman god Janus.
When the comparison is with Macintoshes, or the topic turns to malware, the line is to however subtly insinuate that Macintoshes are for stupid people (those "not ready for the 21st century"), or that if you succumb to a virus it's your own [expletive] fault and you shouldn't be using a computer.
When the comparison is with Linux, it's "OMG command line eek math is hard...".
So which is it, already?
Brice McIver on October 16, 2009 at 02:09 PM
Doesn't seem like concentrating on the XP-to-7 upgrade process is a fair comparison. The same comparison for a Mac would be an upgrade from their 2001 OS (Puma) to current OS (Snow Leopard), which is not even possible since Puma was for the PowerPC platform and Snow Leopard is Intel platform only.
John C. Randolph on October 16, 2009 at 02:09 PM
" I want to tell them that Macs are just as vulnerable to viruses as any other operating system."
So, you enjoy being wrong?
-jcr
David Gillies on October 16, 2009 at 02:11 PM
There are some hilarious comments here: "NOTHING OF ECONOMIC VALUE IS EVER DONE ON A MAC". "Computers without command line user interfaces make no sense." Yes, because graphic designers work for free and the Terminal application is a figment of my imagination.
I'm with Larry and Shannon Love: my time is too valuable to be spent futzing with computers. My job is to make computers do things, not cajole them into working the way I want. It is a fact that a lot of people are still using XP. It is a fact that to a large number of users the lack of a quick upgrade path to Windows 7 is going to be a major headache. If I can go from Dapper to Hardy on my Linux box without a clean install, then Windows users should get the same convenience.
For me, one of the greatest selling points of a Mac is I can take the tens of thousands of lines of Unix code I've written in the last twenty years and for the most part compile it unmodified (except maybe for a few tweaks to move from SVR4 to BSD). I also like that I get Apache and PHP (and Python, and bash, and emacs...) as part of the default install. I can take a PC from bare metal to a full LAMP server in an hour or so. Building a WAMP box makes me bleed from the eyeballs. The lack of an XP to 7 path is just another example of this.
CB on October 16, 2009 at 02:12 PM
"I don't understand Macs. Never did. Computers without command line user interfaces make no sense. I feel like I've been robbed of most of the functionality of the machine, or that it's a machine with no flexibility and less functionality."
Macs have a command line interface. They've had one for 10 years now. Macs are UNIX boxes with a nice GUI slapped on.
Mike Thompson on October 16, 2009 at 02:31 PM
Apple (Steve Jobs?)made the decision long ago to leverage a neat (but not totally original) OS into obscene hardware profits. Their choice to make... but they could have been the dominate desktop and laptop and made a lot more money. However, Apple folks, including employees, tend not to know a lot about computers, just how to operate a Mac. That's OK until you need some computer knowledge to do things like get bellsouth.net email to work with an iPhone. I figured it out in about 15 minutes but at the iPhone class I attended was a woman who had spent 4 hours at the Apple Store with the kiddies working there and another two hours on the phone first with AT&T tech support and then Apple tech support. Their solution? Get a gmail account! Sometimes knowing what your product is all about is a good thing. A couple of 'em took serious offense when I told her that it was "a computer problem... something Mac people know very little about."
Slocum on October 16, 2009 at 02:46 PM
"The cost difference is an illusion."
No -- it's not. I've got a little Dell Mini 10 that I travel with. Cost me less than $250. Runs XP and my apps very well. Apparently it will also run OSX just fine for those people who are willing to take the trouble to roll their own 'hackintosh' (though, personally, I'm not interested).
What's the Apple equivalent to a $250, 10", 2 lb netbook?
Glenn Howes on October 16, 2009 at 03:00 PM
I would think the question is a matter of whether the campaign is a success or not depends on how you quantify success. It won't be that Apple takes away all of Microsoft's market share. It might even be that they get through the quarter without losing market share, or without having to drop margins to maintain. Apple's had a good ride taking advantage of Microsoft's lost years, with steady market share growth, and exploding profitability. And you can tell, that they'd like to maintain the perception that Microsoft is pushing loser products for as long they can get away with it. That's certainly a cheap way to get ahead if they can get away with it.
But eventually, Apple will have to succeed by producing software and hardware that people perceive as superior, or they will be gradually forced to lose their enviable profit margins. I, for one, think they have it in them to continue to offer a superior product, and I hope they get off the childishness which is the more recent "I'm a Mac" commercials.
Promote service: I've had a great experience at my local Genius Bar having problems resolved.
Promote quality: The unibody construction of my MacBook can't be beat.
Promote the EcoSystem: iPhone+Mac synergy
Promote Advantages of the OS: Time Machine for a small example is great. Lack of malware. Lack of all those worthless add-on programs PC vendors slip onto your machine.
Stop this whole PC freezes all the time, PC's got a virus, Nobody likes Vista. Those are all exaggerations, while the positive things I listed above are real advantages that users appreciate.
Mike on October 16, 2009 at 03:01 PM
My turn to share predjudices ..
I am a software developer with about 10 years experience. I learned on Unix and now do most of my work on Windows. I bought my wife a MacBook for Christmas.
My take: for software development, Unix is king. Easy to understand and it just works. Not much of a market though.
Windows is the cheap plastic solution. It works too, but its like doing all your shopping at Walmart. And like Walmart, its everywhere.
At first my wife didn't want to use the Mac. Now I can't get it away from her. IMHO, one of the best designed and implemented hardware/software combinations I have ever seen. Expensive, but if you can afford it, worth the price.
My current Windows version is XP and I have no plans whatsoever to upgrade unless forced to by a credible threat of painful death. For personal use, Linux and Mac are more than adequate for me. At work, my employer foots the bill so I use whatever he tells me to.
Rex Luscat on October 16, 2009 at 03:06 PM
Frew says
>>I don't understand Macs. Never did. Computers without command line user interfaces make no sense. I feel like I've been robbed of most of the functionality of the machine, or that it's a machine with no flexibility and less functionality.<<
I guess a Un*x shell isn't up to your requirements for a command line user interface.
hugh on October 16, 2009 at 03:36 PM
Wow Larry, software engineer for two and a half decades? I can imagine how confusing mean ol' Windows can be for a COBOL programmer such as yourself.
Daniel Henderson on October 16, 2009 at 04:44 PM
Hey Frew,
"I don't understand Macs. Never did. Computers without command line user interfaces make no sense."
In 1999, that was true, Macs didn't have a command line.
But in OS X, which us Mac users have switched to in the past decade, there's a program called Terminal.app
It lets you build Ruby on Rails apps, use ssh tunneling, run whatever version of Apache you want, and do all those other command line things. It's very powerful, and since it's unix, it works on the internet very very well. You can even rename files and look at what is in your directories, if you want.
Sol on October 16, 2009 at 04:53 PM
Frew: "I don't understand Macs. Never did. Computers without command line user interfaces make no sense."
Ever since OS X, the Mac doesn't just have a command line -- it has a full bash shell. It is drastically more powerful than the standard Windows command line. To put it into perspective -- every time I get a new Windows box, I install TCL LE (used to be 4NT and before that 4DOS) and the Cygnus GNU tools for Windows. OS X's default bash shell is every bit as powerful as those combined, and better integrated into the system.
JIMV on October 16, 2009 at 05:08 PM
"Mario on October 16, 2009 at 12:20 PM
"Instead of wasting about 4 hours of your time to upgrade to a $100 software in these troubling times, spend a cool $2.5k on a Mac Pro instead!" That'll go over GREAT."
Mario...I spent about $400 replacing data and programs as well as over 20 hours, on my Vista machine this year when it picked up a virus that completely shut the machine down. I had to wipe the hard drive and reload everything...
My IMAC has never, ever had a single minute down due to a virus...seems like a no brainer to me.
Astro on October 16, 2009 at 05:55 PM
Probably a dumb question, but here goes:
With all the hype about Win7, if it's so good why couldn't MS design its installation app so that it analyzes all the non MS programs and tells the home user to install a flash drive with xx gigs of memory and then have Win7 do the backing up automatically? I'd bet that most of the critical files for home users add up to less than 16 gigs. For the price of Win7 they could have included a flash drive with enough gigs to handle some pretty major apps and associated data.
Eric von Michigan on October 16, 2009 at 06:20 PM
Frew:
OS X, being Unix-based, does have a command line available. Just run Terminal, and you're at a Unix prompt. I use it all the time. Sometimes it's faster for me to kill -9 something instead of finding "Force Quit". ssh, ping, vi, cal... all that functionality's already there. I've been using Unix for almost as long as DOS/Windows, and I still find myself typing "ls" instead of "dir" when I find myself on a PC with a command line.
Granted, most Mac users don't even know or care that it's there, but for those of us who would otherwise feel robbed of functionality, it works beautifully.
Rich on October 16, 2009 at 06:49 PM
W1ck3d is sooooo right. The reason Macs don't get infected or attacked as often is because, well, why would I risk jail time and huge fines to hack or infect systems that only make up a fraction of the user base of the worlds computers. The more popular Macs become the more they WILL be attacked. So maybe you Mac users should be careful about evangelizing so much.
Dandapani on October 16, 2009 at 06:50 PM
Uh, no Win7 for me. I have run Linux (RedHat and now Fedora) for years. LOL.
Elam on October 16, 2009 at 07:47 PM
Just bought my first Mac after 25+ years of Windows and ~10 years with Linux.
The laptop(13.3 pro) is a real pleasure. The laptop is sleek and sexy and so is the OS.
Macintosh is smarter than Microsoft. Flat out. If I'm going to use a computer for 8+ hours of my working day, then I want it to work smart, not stupid. Microsoft has made dramatic improvements with Windows 7, but I can't help but think that they spent billions of dollars over 7 years and they can't incorporate something as useful as Expose?
Microsoft is also at a competitive disadvantage in that if they tried to produce both a mainstream hardware and software computing platform, they'd get smacked down by the DOJ. That's how Apple succeeds. They make the hardware work very well with the software. The 1-2-3-4 finger functionality of the gigantic Macbook touchpad is just fantastic.
For all those interested in trying a Mac, but not wanting to pay bookoo bucks, should try a Mac mini. Around $600-700. You can also purchase Mac's refurbished, with the same warranty as a new Macintosh, from the Apple store for around %15 less than stock prices.
PacRim Jim on October 16, 2009 at 09:59 PM
I would never buy a Mac because I don't want to be associated with blindly fanatic Macoids. To them, everything associated with Windows is evil. Simple minds make poor company.
Pat on October 16, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Most of the arguments being advanced here are silly and pointless. Let me try to address a few.
> "The upgrade process for the millions of people still using the older Windows XP won't be simple."
This is true. But it's a non-issue, because people don't do that anyway. Very few people buy Windows off the shelf and install it on a computer they already have. The overwhelming majority of Windows sales are OEM licenses, preinstalled on a new computer. That's how people buy Windows.
If you're using XP on your current machine and it works fine for you, there's no compelling reason to upgrade . . . unless you're ready to buy a new machine. And if you do that, the in-place upgrade procedure is not a concern for you.
> "If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"
There are certainly valid arguments for switching from Windows to Mac, but this is not one of them. The process of moving all your applications and data from Windows XP to a Mac is NOT simpler or faster than migrating from XP to Windows 7.
> "The cost difference is an illusion."
That depends on what you buy. One commenter compared "the entry level 13-inch MacBook Pro" costing $1199 with "a fully loaded Dell laptop running Vista (~$800)." That's interesting, but my family can't afford either one. To provide them with computers, I have bought refurbished or off-lease machines from Tiger Direct, taken advantage of rebate deals at Staples, and in one case (my own "new" desktop machine) bought a computer posted on Craigslist.
I haven't paid more than $200 for a desktop machine, or $400 for a laptop, in at least a decade -- with the exception of the machines used by my son, who is a hardcore gamer and is earning a degree in computer science at N.C. State. (He helped pay for those machines.) The rest of us don't need "fully loaded" or cutting-edge machines; we just browse the Web and check e-mail.
My wife and I recently got our first laptops: two identical Acer netbooks running XP, which I bought as refurbs from Tiger Direct. Mine cost $240. By the time my wife decided she wanted one, the price had dropped to $220. These machines do everything we want them to do. So you can see why the notion of paying $1200 for a MacBook, or even $800 for a Dell laptop, never tempted us.
> "So, if you're time has no value, then by all means, buy a PC."
Do you say the same thing to people who change their own oil or build their own decks? Taking a do-it-yourself approach is perfectly valid choice. You've chosen not to do that with your computers, and that's perfectly fine. But insulting everyone whose choices are different from yours is just silly.
My time does, in fact, have a monetary value, but I have a job that doesn't offer paid overtime, so I can't actually sell more of my time than 40 hours per week. I've also pretty well maxed out my salary. My wife is in a similar position. So, if money is tight, but I have the spare time, it makes all kinds of sense to do my own tech support instead of paying a premium to have someone else do it for me.
My time isn't worthless. But I have more spare time than spare money. I'm glad that you have plenty of cash for $1200 computers, but many of us do not, and you may have noticed that there's a recession in progress. Show some respect for people who make different choices because their needs aren't the same as yours.
And, by the way, it's "your time", not "you're time".
> "Mac... Computing for stupid people."
Computers and operating systems are tools, and different jobs require different tools. Macs are excellent machines, and if my financial situation were different, I would probably own some. In a previous job, I used a Mac for my work (technical writing), and I liked it quite a lot. My entire department used them, and they were all smart people. My son's girlfriend (an art-and-design student) uses Macs, and she's smarter than I am.
I've never seen why some people feel the need to hate and insult anyone who doesn't use the same computer and OS they do. That sort of behavior just makes you look insecure and defensive about your choice. Why are you so threatened by people who make choices that differ from yours?
> "The reason the hackers don’t bother writing viruses for Macs is because NOTHING OF ECONOMIC VALUE IS EVER DONE ON A MAC."
Incorrect. Macs are currently not a popular target for viruses because they are too small a share of the market. Today's viruses are designed primarily to create botnets that can then be used for spamming or denial-of-service attacks, and that requires a LOT of computers. Virus authors go after Windows machines because there are more of them. If Macs were to become a majority of the market, the virus authors would switch their preferences and go after the Macs.
And the claim that nothing of economic value is done on a Mac is baseless. Talk to anyone who works in graphic design or advertising, for example, and they'll tell you that the Mac is the platform of choice for those occupations.
Computers and operating systems are tools. Choose the tool that best fits your own needs, and respect other people's right to do the same.
Koblog on October 17, 2009 at 03:59 AM
A challenge: take a Mac G4 or even G5 that you paid, oh, $4,000 for (not including any software or peripheral hardware) and "upgrade" it to the current Mac Sleet Kitten OS -- or whatever the de rigueur cutsie feline is being pushed.
What's that? Can't do it? Wrong processor? Incompatible motherboard? Need all new software? All your hardware is instantly obsolete?
Windows is complicated, but Microsoft tries like crazy not to obsolete everything you own.
Jobs has no problem telling you, "Macs are so easy! All you have to do is throw out everything you now own and buy all new stuff. Guaranteed to work!" He's been doing this since he obsoleted his "must have" Apple II to reveal the first Mac with no memory and it revolutionary 9" black and white screen, and its $100 mouse that cost him $5 to make. At the moment, I literally have a backyard full of old Mac hardware and software covered with a tarp to keep it out of the rain because I'm tired of storing the old crap.
If you threw away your whole PC and all its software every time you upgraded, it would work equally as "easy."
I am so over Jobs and his huckstering.