Comments on: Leopard will open the Mac OS X floodgates (and embarrass Microsoft)

Microsoft is in trouble. And with the release of Leopard, it looks like it will only get worse for the software giant.

[Kings X Rocks!]

Not likely...

As much as I admire Macs, it's still a niche market.

Why? Because it's designed for home users. YES, I HEAR YOU...there are Macs in the office, but they don't play very well with the Microsoft Networking conglomerate that is in use in most corporate environments.

I think Mac users are just incredulous about the fact that the vast majority of PC users in the world WON'T choose their niche OS. They just can't get past it.

Hell, it don't matter to me. Put me in front of an OS, and I'll figure it out. One does a better job that the other in some cases...and one is free. I don't think the creator is going to size you up based on your choice of OSes...

And, give credit where it's due. How many variations of software/hardware was Windows written to "tolerate"? Tons and tons. If you think about that task alone, it's unbelievable.

Apple didn't want the aggravation, so they chose to control their environment more.

Open the Mac OS X floodgates...that'd be cool...but it won't happen.

[nahallacman]

well what CAN you do on a mac?

There are many things you can and can't do on a mac. If you love *nix then a mac might be a nice interface between you and your server closer. If you like photoshop or some such thing (which, by the way, I have never actually seen the claims that photoshop or CS3 in general runs better on a mac. It simply cant compete with the hardware capabilities of my PC that I bought for less then I would a new mac.) The only other group of people I recommend macs for are senior citizens and college people who want something to look cool without knowing how to do anything whatsoever (go posers!)
Let us still look at what Vista has done RIGHT
DX10 anybody?
Have you SEEN how good games like Supreme Commander looks?
Sure Microsoft has all its evils
and Vista will probably just turn out to be another ME.
but has everyone forgot how well XP works?
SP3 will have a few flaws at first (as with every update on every system ever made) but once they get worked out XP will simply be the most effective OS on the market.

Also lets look at something here. How many OS's has Apple released in the last few years? 3? How many has microsoft released? 1? at 150$ a pop on a mac os THAT STILL HAS NOT MADE HUGE IMPROVEMENTS OVER 10.3 why constantly upgrade? Plus you need a whole new computer every time you buy it! Personally I don't have 6000 to be throwing around on computers every 6 years. Yes yes I know old macs can run new OS' but they simply just don't run them with all of the new features.

Ah but I digress. Why get a mac? They try to run too much of a business exploiting their buyers. At least microsoft tries to exploit other companies not the end user.

[jscott418]

I switch to Mac and never looked back

I needed a new laptop 3 years ago and switched to Mac. I do not find much I
could not do with OS 10 that I did with windows XP. Now that I have a Intel
Mac and have moved to Leopard I still find myself more and more impressed
with how smoothly migrations can be. I remember all the problems going
from Win98 to XP and I sympathize with Vista user's. Even the fortune 500
company will not support Vista. They find too many driver issues and software
compatibility issues to even consider it. I realize this is not all Microsoft's
fault.
Some of it has to go to software companies and hardware manufactures. But
it does not help the user who struggles to get a new OS which is suppose to
improve their user experience only to make matter's worse.

[wayvirgo]

The first 9 versions of MacOS were laughable...

So much talk about how MacOS X is the greatest thing ever, and yet everybody is so quick to forget about the prior 9 versions of MacOS X. Sure, they looked nice, but under the hood was trash -- unstable, proprietary, etc. Basically everything you should never want your OS to be.

So, FINALLY, they gave up! And who could blame them? So they tossed their old worn out source code, and just bolted their pretty face onto an already developed operating system, and finally, they had something half way decent. Granted, it took a lot of work to pull this off, and they have done a fine job of it, but I think it was too long in coming.

And just for the record, here's the 2 points that pc users will never get over: 1.) having to pay for service packs and 2.) the inability to participate in a fully functional network with centralized login verification.

The second point is also a general failure of *nix, which if they could just get beyond that, corporations might allow for a greater rollout of non-microsoft OS's.

But this especially applies to Macs -- somebody please relay this message to Steve Jobs: If you're ready to stop fooling around and get some REAL market share, release the Mac OS client for Windows NT domains, providing full Active Directory membership with all of it's benefits and privileges, and watch Apple finally get somewhere. Finally.

The reason that I say this is because currently, adding a Mac to a Windows network is far more trouble than it is worth, assuming that you run a tight network. Therefore, the added expense goes beyond the pricey hardware and software to include support overhead due to integration issues. If, instead, the Macs did everything possible to good guests on a network, and actually do their network tasks BETTER than their PC counterparts, then business owners would much quicker to make sure that their networks included Macs.

[rajadhi]

Why compare an OS to a FIRMWARE?

This Windows vs Mac battle has been going on forever. No matter what you hear about the marketshare, all you hear is how greats macs are and how bad windows is.

Macs are great indeed. So is the firmware on my microvawe! never fails! Comparing a software that controls a closed-eco-system to an open-eco-system OS is just wrong!

Of course Macs will crash less, there will be less problems - in fact, if there are such issues with Macs that shows incompetancy of apple!

They should be able to write a software that works on their own hardware. How many different device drivers does it have to support? a handfull?

Give some credits to microsoft for bringing out the greatest consumer operating system lineup of our times. It works well with nearly infinite number of hardware configurations, nearly infinite number of devices and compatible running nearly infinite number of software. You just can't compare a marathon to a jog in the park!

Just don't be another loser who's trying to justify your over-priced-firmware purchase and give some credit to Windows coz it deserves it.

I mean think about it realistically? Leopard's got improved mail application, a backup software and an application launcher? I mean are you kidding me? If it was microsoft or any other company for that matter, it's matter of upgrading the mail application or the back up software. A new OS means an improved software platform! not just mere shell improvments.

Ever thought why wouldn't Apple release their OH-SO-GREAT MAC OS to run on non-apple hardware? I mean if they are so confident that it's so good and secure, they can simply release it to run on third party hardware can't they? They can easily beat Windows out of the market since according to apple fan boys "Windows is the worst thing happened to this world". I mean, if they do that, won't the OS market share go otherway over-night?

But they wouldn't coz they know if they open their precious little OS up, it'll be just as bad or lot worse than windows! Windows is an OS that was beaten, broken in and patched zillions times. It's a proven peice of code. Where as mac os is a tiny little screamer who thinks he's all that coz he sits in a lttle box. Noone cares to break the till of a fish and chips shop when they can break a bank.

I know I will get half a million hate-messages from apple fan boys! but seriously think before you write!

[rleon]

So, please tell me

What are the highlights of Vista?
Why should people upgrade?
Do you have all the drivers working?
Where do you get your definition of firmware?

Macs are compatible with most printers, HDs, Video Cameras and even your
beloved Vista, XP and even more: Linux

You are right, you will get lots of name calling... but you really deserve it!
Your posting is the dumbest in this thread.

[patchman10]

Author is a self proclaimed Apple Fanboy

He has been on twit with leo laporte ....most of his time he used to bash vista. He said installed vista for a "Short while" now he thinks that makes him qualified to write this nonsense.
I dont understand why Cnet allow somebody with his own agenda to be plugged on thier so called "unbiased" web site.
Nothing this author says rings true.

Even Many apple fans are embarresed by this guys comments. I would love to see Paul thurott or ed bott put this guy in his place..But most posters are doing just fine...

[X-IT-Dir]

Silly Assertions About Apple's OSX

I don't know where the numbers came from for OS sales, but they sound suspect to me especially without reference to where the numbers came from. Anyway, obviously the author of the article is a fervent Mac Head. I hear a lot of this nonsense.

You can have the greatest OS in the world and still not win the war. History is full of tales of superior technologies that did not prevail.

I'm not a Windows lover and I think that some of the other posters correctly pointed out the difficulties that Microsoft faces trying to remain as backward compatible as possible to please it's large business user base, while at the same time supporting a huge number of hardware permutations both periperals and cpu.

It's true that Vista is an abismal OS that truly should not have passed beta. It is slow, poorly documented, and buggy. In fact I was so unimpressed with it that I sent my brand new top of the line Lenovo back when they couldn't resolve issues related to OS/Hardware incompatibilities, but you've got to have a wider perspective to understand where Apple fits in the grand scheme.

That said it is simply silly to say that suddenly the bulk of users, and remember the majority of Microsoft's software is sold to business, are going to suddenly drop all of the Windows based infrastucture that their businesses currently rely on day-to-day and start buying Macs that A. Do not provide the Software or Hardware infrastucture necessary to run a business on (there isn't even a real DB that will run on a Mac), and B. Increase costs because the infrastucture would be sole sourced given that Apple is the sole producer of the Hardware and it's OS will not run on alternative competitive hardware.

Microsft's real competion is not Apple in the infrastucture arena, it's Linux. And it currently has no true competion on the business desktop. Google is just another competitor, just like IBM, Linux open source, Sun Microsystems, Apple and others.

Apple only has, optimistically, 3-4% of PCs, but in the real world of IT dollars spent it's share is much smaller because it does not provide infrasture class architectures or really very much software. The world really runs on data centers, and large networks and in that arena Apple is a knat.

Now OSX may, and I say may, be a good OS. If it is, it should be, it is based on good old open source BSD Unix that was "borrowed" by "The Woz" as the basis for the Next operating systen upon which OSX is based. You see, Apple couldn't write a decent OS to save it's life. So they used an already available rock solid OS as the core for OSX. And by the way, dear author, Apple left a hell of a mess behind when they abandoned their old OS architecture (up to 9 I think) and moved to OSX. Many users were left with unusable programs because compatibility with the older OS's was limited and porting data was not a high priority for Apple.

Now back to business; What OS would a major software company write its latest technology software for? Apple with a paltry 3-4% of the market and very little business influence or Microsoft upon which most businesses rely and therefore will buy their software? If you said Apple I'm afraid you need business school training and several years of psyco therapy.

So until someone with a more authoritative business and IT back ground such as say, Gartner Group, Meta Group, or Deloitte Consulting say that Macs are the way to go, I'm afraid I'll have to put your opinion in the Apple Rant column.

Good luck

[TiminOkinawa]

Recent Mac Convert, & I would never go back.

I purchased my latest laptop with two things in mind. One I needed a new
laptop to work on as the old HP was 5 years old and no longer upgradeable.
Two I wanted ease of use and reliability. I chose the Mac Book Pro, with Vista
released and having major problems reported, and the impending Leopard
release I chose Leopard as my future. I don't regret it for a second. The OS X
Tiger is great to look at, stable, virus free, faster, and not glitchy as was my
experience with years of Windows products. I am now waiting on delivery of
the Leopard OS to arrive and will gladly plunk down my money for the
upgrade. Though the features aren't "revolutionary only evolutionary" as all
the articles say, I can't wait to pay the cash for it. No versions or upgrades to
buy and Apple waited, even delayed the release to make sure they didn't ship
a Beta version with a SP2 price tag attached. Apple has several things they
are doing right and while they may never take over from Microsoft, they will
gain signifigant market share in the near future. They now have Apple stores
with knowledgeable reps, the halo effect from iPod & iPhone users (I am one,
it was the clincher on ease of use) and satisfied users like me to spread the
word. I have already convinced 3 of my friends to purchase new Macs simply
by showing what my Mac Book can do. The business community will not
readily fall, however the first strides will be made in the personal use arena.
As more and more people get used to using the Apple computers, that will
change also. Office is availble on the Mac & with Boot Camp or Parrallels
Windows can be run on the new Intel Macs also. (Don't forget Anti virus &
spyware protection). I still have to use Windows PC for work & I hate the
clunky glitchy system. If you took away my Mac Book Pro & offered me a
Vista machine for free or made pay for a new Mac, I will gladly buy a new Mac
everytime, it is a joy to use. That is why Mac will gradually increase as
Microsoft slowly sinks....but it will take a while.

[Nigel Ashton]

Beyond Their Control

The single best news is that Micros**t is slipping in its ability to control
people. They are really beginning to wake up!
They cannot make people like a dog's dinner OS like 'Vista', and even better
still, they cannot make people buy it. It's riddled with DRM from the bottom
up and looks like it was designed by committees of completing startup design
firms.

My boss JH bought all Dulls for the studio office. They are junk, plain and
simple. He got them on the advice of his brother-in-law who works IT for,
you guessed it: Dell. Every three days a call has to be made to tech help for
some idiotic reason or other.
After one year he's still making the payments but they are out of date.

The horribly raucous server looks like it was designed and built in 1992 and
the XP it runs is a pathetic reprehensible mess. The idea that so many
Windows users consider it preferable over Vista is a sad sad thought indeed.

When the last computer arrived, there was an audible groan in the office
when they saw the box. It was given the appropriate user name 'POS' and
lived up to its name. The 3rd party software we are forced to use is
abominable, with vast reams of manuals and hopeless support. We
photographed 3000 kids and had to key in the data manually when the XP
based software was down more that it was up.

Why am I telling this dire tale? Because the studio also has several Macs. No
calls to tech support, no virus software to continually check and recheck, in
fact, they just simply work.

Now JH is starting to see the light; how much the Dulls are REALLY costing
him, and how much easier it is to do everything when you're not saddled with
Windows.

THIS is how the situation will improve. One person at a time waking up.
I don't care if it is Linux or Apple who gets the lion's share of the market;
Linux for business, Apple for consumers and creatives.
But please please, anyone but Micros**t.

[johnvndnbrk]

Given the content of the authors article, this is one of the strangest responses I've read ... I too dislike Dell notebooks and since we are not on any one subject must admit that I cannot stand Liver - it is sheer fear factor food, nothing more!

[johnvndnbrk]

Hello - I have been an on and off user of Windows Vista in 2007, having installed Vista Ultimate only to switch back to WinXP - four times. In your article, though, what do you mean by "Microsoft needs to focus its attention on what it does best"? Microsoft's development tools are excellent and continue to get better. Visual Studio 2k5 and MS SQL Server 2k5 are a couple examples, and I am very impressed with Visual Studio 2008 which is still in beta but w/b released 1st Q of 2K8. Office Ultimate 2007 has some nice enhancements too. There are some very nice features in Vista, such as the new Networking software, IIS 7, Multimedia offering, and system monitoring support.

There are probably many other noteworthy Vista enhancements, some of which I am sure run as services in the background and are more subtle than others. We may all be surprised with the next release of Windows which will probably ferret out the good from the bad. In the meantime we can use the rather solid and mature Windows XP OS. For those of us who remember Windows ME or Microsoft BOB we know Vista isn't the first screw-up - it is quite a bit larger in scale than the others, but will hardly be the make or break of MS you've attempted to portray. As for the Apple Macintosh and their latest OS release I will take your word it is an excellent operating system. I haven't touched a Mac in over 20 years and given the fact I have been developing software programs for a good part of these 20 years, I think this alone is quite telling on the Mac's lack of business acceptance.

Thanks!

John

[thsp]

I was looking for Leopard information and instead get an article bashing Vista. What is that about?!

[brendonkdm]

Well, I attempted to update my Vista installation with SP1, as recommended by Windows update. After much huffing and puffing, it kept on rebooting my machine to no avail. Restarting in safe mode, it bumbled on for another hour or so through "Stage 3 of 3", then after "completing', decided that it could not install the service pack after all and eventually rolled it all back. I have to agree that Vista is a pile of.... - wish I had Mac now!

[meeshell_is_speaking]

first i just want ot say that ive used both mac and vista. mac was nice but i didnt find it user-friend like i did for vista. its great that everyone has their own opinion but must we really be so mean about it. personally, vista fits my lifestyle more, its less-expensive, works great for me, and i like the fact that it asks premision for a program to start. i feel safer. mac is a good system for people who have money and have more technology involved jobs. when it gets down to what really matters, are you willing to spen around $1,300 on a laptop that you will probably only have for a few years?

[sponsx]

You embarass yourself when you assume that anything macintosh will do will ever embarass microsoft.

[tnooble]

I use Mac OS X Leopard at work, I use XP Pro and Ubuntu at home on my dual boot desktop, and my girlfriend's laptop uses Vista. I don't like Vista, mainly due to the fact that the amount of RAM required to run it is twice that of XP and DX10 isn't a big enough incentive for someone with a mid-range computer to "upgrade." I love XP Pro, it's taught me a considerable amount about online security, something that most Mac users have never had to learn about. Because of this, I don't have to worry about viruses, trojan horses, or hackers. I also never have to deal with annoying ads or popups again due to browser of choice and some particular mods that make it more secure and give the user more control over what content they download when they visit webpages.

Mac OS X is nice, at first I loved it, but it has several very annoying problems. First, typing can be a huge hassle as Mac keyboards are set up so that extra letters are typed upon the release of keys if you type too fast. This has never happened to me on XP Pro or Ubuntu (I rarely use Vista, but I haven't experienced it on that either), and I've switched keyboards three times at work (all Mac keyboards) with no success.

Secondly, there are several bugs when searching, mainly that Spotlight just doesn't even work. Also, when I use the Find function (different from Spotlight) to search servers I am connected to, it won't show files that exist, and when I manually navigate to those files, the file will disappear as soon as I click it. Also, when I try to change the text in the Find text field, it won't let me modify the text, I have to close the Finder window and open a brand new one, then have to completely go through setting up which folder I want to search in, which is a huge hassle for me since I need to find files hundreds of times in a single day. So all in all, Mac OS X Leopard might be pretty and it does have some neat features, but they really need to get their act together for functional things that are important to being used in a business setting than their little Spaces (which is something that's been around on *Nix boxes for over a decade) or their dashboard and widgets.

Yes, Windows has a lot of flaws, but at least most of them are capable of being overcome by learning to be a smarter user. While the spotlight not working was fixed by rebuilding preferences, the other problems do not have fixes as of yet (I've spent countless hours searching support forums on both Apple's site as well as other very well known tech sites). The only way I could get around the search problem is by hopping into a Terminal window (which has now been disabled on my account on my work Mac) and search using shell commands and then copying files through FTP. Way too much of a hassle just to find and copy a file, if you ask me.