Tech | December 08, 2008 | 34 comments

Snow Leopard Endangers Vista

source: http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/11/19/apple-msft-leopard-tech-enter-cx_bc_1120apple.html

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justright
Apple's new OS X could force Microsoft to dump its beleaguered operating system.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and Steve Jobs feels fine. With the U.S. Federal Reserve now predicting a recession that will last well into next year--and others predicting much worse--sales of ammunition, spam and gold coins are surging.

Oh yeah, so are sales of the Apple chief's Macintosh computers.

Apple owned 9.5% of the U.S. PC market during the third quarter, according to tech tracker Gartner. Look at where beleaguered consumers are putting their dollars, however, and Apple's performance is even more impressive: The company grabbed 20.1% of the U.S. retail market in October, according to NPD Group. And Apple is on track to sell between 2.4 million and 2.7 million Macs for the quarter ending in December, up 13% from the year-ago period, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

Microsoft's Vista, meanwhile, is tottering. Operating income for Microsoft's mighty client division actually declined to $3.3 billion for the quarter ending in September from $3.4 billion during the year-ago period. Part of the problem is that businesses tend to switch to a new operating system all at once, and many are choosing to wait. General Motors chief techie Fred Killeen has even said the auto giant may choose to skip Windows Vista and wait for Windows 7, due in 2010 or 2011.

Apple, meanwhile, is preparing to release an operating system focused on Vista user's biggest gripes: speed and stability. A slide show presented by an Apple executive at the Large Installation System Administration Conference last week seems to show that Apple's next operating system will appear in the first quarter. With Apple now selling one of every five computers at retail--and an even bigger chunk of the notebook market--could the move push Microsoft into making Windows XP more widely available?

Read more here:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/11/19/apple-msft-leopard-tech-enter-cx_bc_...
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34 comments // Snow Leopard Endangers Vista

  • chivideoguy
  • Sons_Of_Liberty
    • 0
      Sons_Of_Liberty  
    • chivideoguy:

      First to say "your in a idiot"!

      1 Microsoft holds 90% of the market place, duh.

      2. Linux is gaining more ground than MAc, yes in fact it's actually true :) Google it if you don't believe me.

      3. The whole I'm a MAC and PC sucks game is over, people know what to expect now from MAC and what from Windows, and most users are going to choose Windows (which works everywhere), and Linux (because it's FREE)

      Now, it doesn't take rocket science to know that Jobs has pushing hype since day one. MAC is good, and will old it's own niche in the market place, but it will NEVER become mainstream.

    • 3 years ago
  • plusaf
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  
    • plusaf:

      Not mine but the European courts who take a much dimmer view than ours when it comes tolerating companies like MS.

      Besides, where's your proof that they're not? Until just recently MS dominated the OS market worldwide. Or is there another explaination why a company, that produces a crappy operating system and bloated software is the predominant operating system in the world?

    • 3 years ago
  • colinclark
    • 0
      colinclark  

    • Okay I seriously love Mac's but if they release another new OS next quarter I might lose my mind. Leopard is still running great, with very few problems. The last thing I want is another forced upgrade. A huge segment of the market is still using Tiger anyway.

      I run three computers. One is an iMac running Leopard. The second and third are laptops running Vista and Ubuntu. I really have to say that none are perfect. Vista is really slow and pisses me off. Ubuntu isn't very user friendly unless you're a programmer. OS X is probably the best, but I don't know if I could stand to upgrade again next year. That would really piss me off.

    • 3 years ago
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  

    • Microsoft is a monopoly regardless of what the US court system says. Like all monopolies they got arrogant and then sloppy. It's only a matter of time before their predominance in the PC market is broken forever.

      This will be the best thing that ever happened to the computer hardware and software industry. It will allow inovators to get into the market without automatically being crushed by the economic and political power of MS. Expect some great operating systems to be released in the next 10 years.

    • 3 years ago
  • tir
  • NoGodsNoMasters
    • 0
      NoGodsNoMasters  

    • Actually I think the last nail in the coffin for Vista was the announcement of Windows 7. As for Snow Leopard I think it's just a stall tactic on the part of Apple so they can seem cutting edge every year. What they are really waiting for is the launch of Windows 7 so they can counter it with Mac OS 11.

    • 3 years ago
  • AdrianBikes
    • 0
      AdrianBikes  
    • Image

    • Those guys talking about Linux and Ubuntu are right. Although I've never worked my self to installing Linux (due to gaming and don't know if all my favorite programs would work on it.)

      But Apple is the opposite of Open-Source. They're a closed OS AND Hardware. At least you can create your own PC instead of dishing out what Apple asks for.

      You can put Windows on a Mac, but forget it if you want to run Macs on anything other than those thousand dollar system.

      I stick with my PC. Built it for about $500 and has the power of a $1000+ retail machine. Of course my XP Pro had 5 finger digital discout....

    • 3 years ago
  • AveryMoore
    • 0
      AveryMoore  
    • AdrianBikes:

      If you lived through the 50's it was a time when cars had expressive and useless fins and young men had two basic addictions

      - tinkering with their car to juice it up

      - never losing their favorite comb, adorned with excess Brylcreem.

      By the 80's, when computers became available in mass quantities, and that in itself was a shock, something similar happened.

      Now young men and old would gather to swap stories in User's groups or basements and look under the hood to demonstrate how hours were spent tweaking CPU's [protected with refrigerator coolants] swap out power supples, video cards, drives, controllers, all of it just to say - this baby is mine and in perfect harmony [almost] with everything I think I need up to now. Maybe.

      Though combs had been deemed irrelevant, something else unexpected happened.

      In the fifties, if the car failed, the date would wait.

      The mandatory sequence: Car first. Girl friend second. With computer addiction the same thing could have happened - but there was a twist.

      The girlfriend visits - "You mean you haven't figured out how to dual boot your OS/s? Want me to show you? Move over, worm."

      With MAC? Think Ferrari.

      Lowly humans need not bother themselves to know anything about the Divine OS or fabulously overpriced proprietary hardware purring under the covers. They just have to want to shoot and edit full length feature films, or work for Pink Floyd.

      "New car, caviar, four star daydream... "

      Two different worlds.

    • 3 years ago
  • justright
  • AveryMoore
    • 0
      AveryMoore  
    • AdrianBikes:

      justright!

      I've had 4 MACs, nearly bought a dual processor G4 on an film-editorial software dare. Why not learn something new, for only 5 grand, or so?

      Then I thought - whoa!! I'm not a musician, I don't have a film I want to edit - before retiring I was a systems analyst in banking.

      It's odd. Assembling, delousing and reassembling PCs - is, strangely more annoying, yet fun, and finally more gratifying, than what it looks like from the outside.

      Over the years I worked with many PC techs. Every one was constantly irritable, impatient, volcanically rude, and hated PCs with such ardor that when they went home - what did they do? They fiddled all their spare time away with PCs.

      As to the MACs - the data fork architecture was a brilliant idea.

      Years ago I knew a MACaholic who ran a corporate network through his MAC laptop. He waited till his tech-challenged bosses brought board members to meet The Network Genius and see the hugely expensive Great Big Server that ran things. They did.

      The board was extremely gratified that some smart assed hard-nosed thrift-conscious geek knew how to save the company money. His immediate bosses however never forgave him. Conversely he just didn't care. He had proved what the MAC was worth, based on stability, and what he knew it could do.

      The fact that MACs are so hard to damage with viruses is a huge plus for any business, as in design, manufacturing, engineering, architecture and so on..

      But honestly, when you lack the insecurity of needing to boast about owning a Ferrari - what's the damn point of spending more to get one?

      To put it in totemic animal terms the MAC is a purebred cat. Eventually you will come to understand that It owns you. There is no choice. It outperforms its rivals. You'll conform.

      The PC - a shaggy dawg.

      Throw a stick? Ask casually about 'a ride in the car' - the tail is wagging and there's that near paralytic with fervor classic look - "right NOW? We 're all going outside - RIGHT NOW! My GOD!""

      Two different worlds. More than enough room for all the fanatics who can find their way into the maze.

    • 3 years ago
  • justright
    • 0
      justright  
    • AdrianBikes:

      Avery,
      Good analogy, and believe me I know the differences I ran a few labs at the college, some macs and some windows. In one I had trouble with the machines, in the other I had trouble with the people, guess which is which?

    • 3 years ago
  • diode
    • 0
      diode  

    • vista honestly isn't even that bad, for the tremendous multitasking i do on it during a daily basis, it hasn't had any problems yet.

      besides, apple markets the hell out of their products. anyone seeing more msoft commercials than apple ones are living in redmond, washington.

    • 3 years ago
  • jkretchy
    • 0
      jkretchy  

    • In just four years, Jobs has taken a huge bite out of the Microsoft monopoly. This Washington Post article from 2004 has Apple at a mere 2% market share worldwide. What a monumental shift, I hope it keeps up.

      From the article::
      "Apple's share of the personal-computer market is as low as ever, if not lower -- current figures put Apple share at around 2 percent worldwide. Even in some markets in which Apple has long been a dominant force, such as education, Apple has lost traction."

    • 3 years ago
  • bigloutech
  • AveryMoore
    • 0
      AveryMoore  

    • Vista: classic 'Bloatware.' An arrogant and expensive insult made worse by not working as advertised.

      In this technologically debased Age, where legions of Dilberts, those hapless engineers, frantically patch together management's latest failures merely to satisfy the insane objectives of marketers - every crash and incompatibility freeze confirms this product was

      A/ unnecessary
      B/ uncompetitive, even with XP-Pro
      C/ insanely priced
      D/ a marketing and engineering mistake so gross that it compared beneath the level of Ford's infamous "Edsel."

      For too long Microsoft's de facto philosophy was eerily reminiscent of Lily Tomlin's annoyingly dense character Geraldine, from Laff In, saying - "We don't Care. We don't have to. We're The Phone Company!"

      With Microsoft? "Got a problem? Pay us! Can't figure our 'user-friendly' interface? Take our courses! Pay us!"

      If Linux would slap on a neat Windows-styled user interface, there is no need to buy Word or Excel when SUN offers a complete "OpenOffice" for ZERO DOLLARS.

      Competition from Apple? With only 20% of the market?

      Until Linux learns how to really hammer sales of Mac and Microsoft's latest versions of sludgeware, more "improvements" will be designed to force users to buy more hardware, to run software they don't want, or really need.

    • 3 years ago
  • dirtyemowords
  • krush_productions
  • classic124
  • arcticspirit
  • justright
    • 0
      justright  

    • I know a number of people that have switched and even more that will (some still running windows on their macs). I think this competition will be good for all and push microsoft to make a much better system.

    • 3 years ago
  • galwayman
    • 0
      galwayman  

    • Vista sucks! after trying it I switched back to XP! just has too many problems! They released it too soon should have been tested longer! will not buy a new laptop with Vista either! Gee Microsoft you blew it bigtime! hope you keep XP on the market until 2010!

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  

    • I like my Vista. It works great. I do not know why so many people complain about it.

      Apple I-tunes does make me angry. Every time they want me to update (about once a week) they try to install safari as well. It is sneaky and total B.S. I am thinking about ditching the I tunes all together because it crashes when I run the visualizer with it.

    • 3 years ago
  • justright
  • likeamazing
  • classic124
    • 0
      classic124  
    • unimatrix0:

      Honestly, I think Vista is a case to case thing. I have a friend who loves it, and I've used it (and i'm a mac user) and it ran pretty well. I know another person who hates it and wishes she never put it on her computer.

    • 3 years ago
  • aDREWh
    • 0
      aDREWh  

    • The only reason why microsoft has done so well is because of all of the computer aplications like microsoft word and powerpoint, etc. If apple really wanted to tear microsoft apart they would make there operating systems capable of running all of Microsofts programs.

    • 3 years ago
  • quixotic12
  • standingchair
    • 0
      standingchair  

    • Linux rocks my rainbow socks!
      No really, its more stable than Windows,
      more secure, better organized, and has hundreds of helpful users who know their stuff. Most applications can run on Linux as well. And... it's free! People don't be afraid, try Linux and see the difference.

    • 3 years ago
  • CalgarC
    • 0
      CalgarC  

    • thats not going to hurt gates... gates owns a part of apple :D its win/win for him... plus apple is not going to see too much of an increase in sales. but ubuntu will see an increase in users :D

      i have converted 6 to linux so far

    • 3 years ago
  • justright
  • justright
    • 0
      justright  

    • With security becoming a bigger and bigger issue I don't see how microsoft can continue without a massive overhaul or complete rebuild.

    • 3 years ago
  • islek
    • 0
      islek  

    • The way I see it, Vista endangered itself. Every operating system is going to have a kink or two to work out upon mass distribution, but Vista is so riddled with problems that it should never have been released until more tests had been run.

    • 3 years ago
  • InformedTexan
    • 0
      InformedTexan  

    • If only the car industry were as forced to modernize as quickly as the software industry. Maybe we'd be closer to the future rather than suffering because of our past.

    • 3 years ago
  • justright
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