Microsoft has more to fear than a $1,000 Mac
Microsoft has a new advertising campaign and, as Gordon Haff of the CNET Blog Network argues, this one has the potential to nail Apple to the wall.
Even as Microsoft tells the open-source world to stop competing with it on price and instead focus on value, Microsoft is blitzing Apple with a new advertisement suggesting that your next laptop purchase should be all about cost.
Microsoft needs something. As recent data from Net Applications suggests, Apple is eating into Microsoft's market share in the operating-system market, even as Firefox chews into Microsoft in the browser market.
Browser Market Share Data, February 2009
(Credit: Net Applications)The more market share Firefox takes from Internet Explorer, the worse things will be for Microsoft, and not merely in browsers. The browser is the key to operating-system independence: the more applications that one uses in the cloud, exposed through a browser, the less need for Windows, paving the way for Apple and Linux.
Apple's design aesthetic prevents it from putting its weight behind Firefox, but this is short-sighted. Apple needs Firefox to succeed, and it is unlikely to be able to drive as big a wedge in Microsoft's market share with Safari, which, while growing, lacks Firefox's potential.
Of course, what's bad for Microsoft is also bad for Apple. Someone needs to counter Microsoft's clever new ad with a shock to both Microsoft's and Apple's system: why pay $1,000 for a laptop at all when, for the price of a free Firefox download and super low-cost hardware running Linux ($100 or less), you can get all of the power of the desktop and the Web? Hardware and the operating system become afterthoughts, at that point.
But that's not really a marketing message about which either Apple or Microsoft want you to think.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
2. Web-based applications come at a price. If you are a heavy user, it's a safe bet that you will waste at least 5 minutes a day on data upload/download. That's at least 20 hours a year. Multiply it by your salary (time-and-a-half if you are doing it after hours:) ) and you'll see that this is not really cost-effective.
3. As one character in a fiction book by Stanislaw Lem said, whatever a small program can do on a large computer, a large program can do on a small computer. Therefore, an infinitely long program should work without a computer. Guess he was the founding father of the Internet-as-a-platform concept...
A major switch of os would need to happen in schools first and bussness for when the students leave school and expecet the same environment. untill then windows will contenue its domenace, IMHO.
In short, Apple makes money on hardware and Microsoft makes money on software. You will pay a premium for Microsoft software (Windows, MS Office, Vistual Studio, etc...), just as you would with Apple hardware. The person making the actual purchase has to decide which of the two is more important and how it fits their purchase (hence budget) requirements!
you make it sound like firefox runs in a vaccum... does that not need hardware as well?
thats the single reason why people pay more they get a superior O.S
now if Apple were selling a windows computer then that statement would be true
infact they are lot of Pc brands that sell on sticker price {looks at sony,alienware}
So don't be spreading the Ballmer ******** logic casue it makes no sense
just like the MS ads !
Infact If I pay for the Look I woudn't have bought a unibody Macbook
cause I dont like how it looks !
but I did so because I get a O.S thats 10 times better than vista
The article also fails to point out that while PCs often cost less up front, you will be nickled and dimed to death once you begin to use the thing. MS Office (required in the real world) is several hundred dollars, antivirus software (definitely required for a Windows PC) requires yearly subscription fees. Want to make a movie or compose some music? The Mac has world-class software for these things installed free from the get-go - Windows requires you to pay for inferior alternatives.
And when it comes time to upgrade you can actually sell your old mac which retains value better than any other computer.
What Mac users know and others are learning is that the Mac is actually cheaper in the long run and delivers a much better experience. Don't be fooled - people who think Macs are just pretty PCs are just plain wrong. The software at the heart of the Mac makes it a totally different computer even though the chips inside are the same.
That's typical disinformation from a clueless fanboi.
The iPod is plug-and-play on today's Linux.
As Bright Hub blog observes, "Linux has become so good at detecting and auto-mounting devices like iPods, you might think you were using OS X or Windows instead ... And not only is connecting and disconnecting the device easy, you will be surprised how much more you can do with your iPod in Linux than you ever could in OS X or Windows."
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/linux/articles/22601.aspx
http://tinyurl.com/5fnhv2
it's funny how you ignore his entire argument about better software
and talk about Linux compatability with iTunes etc.
Can I run OSX apps on linux ?
software written for every major platform {OSX windows and Linux} and that alone is worth the Money you invest on a Mac !
it's not just the apps but the way they work too
also you wont be saying that if you have used OSX apps
I use apps from all platforms but the majority of them run on OSX
from my experience the apps written for OSX are vastly superior to windows apps in terms of UI and simplicity
when I download a OSx app Most of them are so elegantly designed that I can figure out how to use it without reading websites or help files
There's just more you can do with a Mac which is why I people will continue to buy them ! plus they are quality products too !
So we are renewing Anderson's predictions from the early days of Netscape where he said they were going to make the OS irrelevant? Of course, shortly after that he cashed out a huge portion of his stock and then went running to the DOJ to complain about Microsoft when they couldn't deliver on that boast, and Miscrosoft spent billions improving IE and eliminating Netscape's lead in browsers.
Maybe the cloud's time has finally come. Back then people didn't have the bandwidth to make web based computing viable.
However, for quite a while there is going to be a good market for products that provide a good trade off between price and functionality.
You can get some surplus hardware and slap together a Ubuntu box for with a monitor for less than $300, but you'll be pretty limited in functionality. It's a great value as long as it's functionality covers the things you want to do with it. However paying an extra $100 for a more functional Windows desktop that can also run Ubuntu, or $500 for a low end laptop does gain you significant functionality for a relatively low price.
$230 will buy you an iPod Touch, which can do an impressive number of things for the price. Is it a better value per dollar than a windows laptop? It is if I just want to check Facebook or download a song off iTunes. However, if falls short very quickly on general computing. It also locks up considerably more than my Windows PC does that I use considerably more.
This is a totally dumb sentence using misleading and dumb words like "hardware running linux for $100 or less" and "ALL the power of the desktop and the web". I wonder if cnet.com and his article will come up on this less than $100 desktop running linux and firefox. PC or Mac, people generally use their desktop for other things as well and have other hardware like printer, etc to get "ALL the power of a desktop".
This is a totally dumb sentence using misleading and dumb words like "hardware running linux for $100 or less" and "ALL the power of the desktop and the web". I wonder if cnet.com and his article will come up on this less than $100 desktop running linux and firefox. PC or Mac, people generally use their desktop for other things as well and have other hardware like printer, etc to get "ALL the power of a desktop".
The iPhone/iPod is outselling every competitor, and not by a little bit. Their app store has spawned dozens of competitors and copy-cats. Why? Because it's failing, or because it's bringing in millions of dollars in revenue. If Microsoft weren't threatened by Apple, they would never have spent millions of dollars on an ad campaign to advance the notion that, "We may not be sexy; we may not be better; we may even suck; but we're cheaper."
You people need to grow up.
Apple doesn't care that you hate them or like them. They don't care if you like their products or loathe them. The have almost as much money in the bank as Google and Microsoft, and with no debt. Why do you think that is? Because they made fortunate errors?
Why, with all their money and resources, does Microsoft continue to compete against a company like Apple.
You're all very silly people with trivial concerns and adolescent arguments. Then again, that's what makes the Internet run.
Keep on doing what you're doing. You provide sideshow entertainment for the rest of us.
Guess what? The ad campaign in question isn't about smart-phones or music players. The ad campaign in question is about personal computers.
Ironically, the ad's focus on price can come back to bite Microsoft, later this year, when Windows XP is orphaned and Windows 7 must compete against economy netbooks preloaded with Linux.
Microsoft boasts of how Windows runs 70% of netbooks, but that means Linux has 30% (a percentage affirmed by several top OEMs). That's a remarkable share of a booming market where most consumers have been brainwashed to equate "PC" with "Windows."
Note that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently publicized Linux as a bigger competitor to Windows than Apple...
http://tinyurl.com/debyky
yeah its called apple's need to control everything. they are worse than microsoft
I just read this on netbookchoice.com and thought you'd be interested:
Mark Croft, the Director of OEM Worldwide Marketing said: ?We have a couple of the OEMs continuing down a path to be very aggressive on price. It puts the pressure on everyone. We?re anticipating opening price points to reach about $200 at least in the US market this holiday season, and another $50 maybe for Nvidia Ion machines.?
?Some of them are trying to make $10 on this device or $20, and some are just trying to sell a unit and break even. Some of the OEMs absolutely have an opening price point but they really have the objective of persuading the customer that if they pay a little bit more, they get significant extra functionality, whether it?s in the hardware specification or the software and experience. No two are the same.?
http://www.netbookchoice.com/2009/03/31/windows-7-to-herald-the-200-netbook/comment-page-1/#comment-114
Do you think these figures are accurate? How can Microsoft expect manufacturers struggling to make $20 on a device to pay $50 for Windows?
- by SkateNY March 31, 2009 10:46 PM PDT
- The point is moot. People who like using Macs will continue to do so. People who like using Windows PCs will continue to do so.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(31 Comments)The debate has come down to this: Which company will aliante their customers to the extent that they'll be willing to switch to an alternate OS?
Microsoft appears to be leading in this competition. Otherwise, why tell us that Apple is better, but we're cheaper?