> Don't get snarky here. Who?? Me?
> In the Windows world, the competition is between the makers of the > machines that run the OS. Apple makes its machines, so there is no > competition in the machine arena. I don't think that is necessarily true. Apple and PC makers do compete with one another, although I would say it's more Apple competing with them than vice versa. My response was aimed at Tom who thinks that giving consumers a good bargain is a bad thing. In his book, $$$ = quality; it's largely an exercise in snobbery. There is some correlation with price and reliability, but not always. In real estate, it's location, location, location. You aren't necessarily getting a better built house, just one in a better neighborhood. With cars, it's cachet and performance, often at the expense of reliability, but not always. You can get very relaible, but poorly performing cars (and ZERO cachet) for very little money. In my experience, I can get as good, if not better, reliability with Dell business models that I can with Apple, at about a 30-40% lower cost. > Most Mac users have at least some degree of experience using Windows > equipped computers, but few Windows users have ever had their hands on > a Mac to any practical degree. In the latest ad, "G" says that Macs > are "sexy" and great on aesthetics but they have little computing > power compared to a Windows machine. Perhaps he has used Macs in the > past and personally found them to be highly anemic for computing > purposes, or he is the victim of BS. I think these are throw-away lines to invoke the name of the competitor that is the target of the ad. He could say that they're made by snake-handler and sold by cattle rustlers, the goal is the same. > So, for the sake of this particular message, let's put aside the > talk of wide choices in the make and model of the machine and focus > instead purely on the OS. Are the "buyers" who are being targeted in > any ads for any computer making their choices based upon the OS or > based primarily upon the machine? It's clear to me that the MS ads are targeting a prime mover in a tight economy: money. It's also clear that these ads are (finally) a response to the omnipresent Apple ads that have run unchallenged for years. It's no secret that computer sales are down, including Apple's, so I have no doubt that MS is working with HP in order to move more HP product and more PCs in general. MS has other ads that deal with features and ease of use of Windows itself. > If prices for Windows computers > were up there with Macintosh prices, would sales of Windows machines > decline? I'd say yes. > Or, if prices for Macs fell to those of most PCs, would > Windows users move to the Mac OS? Probably. > Also, since Windows machines are so > much cheaper, as well as allegedly being better than or at least > equivalent to Apple machines in quality. why don't Mac users switch? You said not to get snarky. I'll have to abstain. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
