is microsoft being left behind?

carl_the_sniper wrote: In a related note, I was on the apple website today and did you know that for a mac pro, to upgrade from 2 gigs of ram to 4 gigs of ram, it costs $500? Freggin $500? What the hell? You can buy entire computers (with four gigs of ram) for that price.

Mine cost me me $100, although that was the last version.

This page says you're wrong though...only $150.

Other two (higher) versions come with 4 GB's stock.

*EDIT* Also, you're buying a crappy laptop if it's $500.  I can play Crysis on high on my laptop (and I cry knowing that Apple's newer laptops have GeForce 9600's, and I'm stuck with my 8600), and it's more portable than any of my school textbooks.  Not for everyone, maybe, but you get what you pay for ($2011, in my case, which I think was very well spent).


Edited by ParielIsBack - 09 November 2008 at 9:38pm

Well, it's nice to see that they may have learned their lesson from the last release. Vista was utter crap when it first came out and it's just barely able to match XP in reliability and speed now. They should have just given Vista the axe and spent the extra resources on Windows 7.

Either way, I plan on looking into linux more closely when I have the time to really learn all about it. Although Vista is tolerable on my laptop, I'd like to see how that thing runs with a lightweight OS on it instead. I truly hope they don't bloat the crap out of Windows 7 before release and god help them if the first release is as problematic as Vista was.

I'm basically just echoing what other people have said at this point, but I don't think Microsoft is going anywhere in the foreseeable future.

Apple has cut into Windows market share a tad, but many experts feel that Apple has achieved market saturation...where anyone who wants a Mac computer already owns one, and new sales basically only account for existing Mac customers buying new machines.

Linux has really come on strong, so much so that all the big companies are offering machines running user-friendly distros, particularly in their low powered netbooks. And of course, not having to put Microsoft's cut on the price of a new computer is attractive to companies already selling machines with razor thin margins. However, I still don't think that Linux will become really mainstream for average non-geek users. The netbook issue will be moot soon, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 will be sufficiently lightweight to operate on a low powered PC.

And really, all of this is just a bunch of nerds bickering for something to talk about on a Sunday night when there's nothing better to do. As we become more accustomed to the idea of cloud computing, which OS you are using becomes less important.

ParielIsBack wrote: carl_the_sniper wrote: In a related note, I was on the apple website today and did you know that for a mac pro, to upgrade from 2 gigs of ram to 4 gigs of ram, it costs $500? Freggin $500? What the hell? You can buy entire computers (with four gigs of ram) for that price. Mine cost me me $100, although that was the last version.This page says you're wrong though...only $150.Other two (higher) versions come with 4 GB's stock.*EDIT* Also, you're buying a crappy laptop if it's $500.  I can play Crysis on high on my laptop (and I cry knowing that Apple's newer laptops have GeForce 9600's, and I'm stuck with my 8600), and it's more portable than any of my school textbooks.  Not for everyone, maybe, but you get what you pay for ($2011, in my case, which I think was very well spent).

This page says otherwise

I don't know what your second point had to do with anyting.

Darur wrote: There isn't enough development for the OS by, for want of a better word, professonal developers for most companies to want to deploy Linux for the bulk of their computer using staff.

thats actually one statement i entirely disagree with. Red Hat, Novel, etc. provide very professional buisness offerings that are very stable and they offer tech support assistance as well which is actually all they are charging you for for the os.   and they only charge you once - no matter how many copies you have running. compared to buying a windows lisense for every computer a company has, its honestly a better solution. doubly so now that microsoft office will be supporting the Open Document Format natively, because there are no concerns of document interoperability problems.

carl_the_sniper wrote: This page says otherwise I don't know what your second point had to do with anyting.

I read MacBook Pro, I guess.  The Mac Pro is not a laptop, it's designed for very high end graphics applications.

I have never met anyone who's even considered buying one.  Mac makes money by selling laptops, not desktops. (Although this isn't apparently entirely true, according to the facts on this website.  Apparently it's more like 1.7 laptops to desktops, at least over the last year.)

My second point was that people who spend money on computers generally do not buy $500 computers.  Computers that inexpensive make up a relatively unimportant part of the market, and Apple has never tried to court them.

Glassjaw wrote: You can purchase quality for not ridiculous prices. Just have to know where to look.

I agree.

I don't think $2000 was ridiculous for what I got either, though.

If I had wanted to build a desktop with the same specs, and have a Windows-only machine, I would have cut the price by at least 50%.

But I didn't.  A lot of people seem to agree that the MacBook Pro is a good laptop, and I definitely do.

oreomann33 wrote: This is what Microsoft is working on. Apple will be out of business if they pull it off.

Wow, there were a lot of spelling errors in that document.

Also, "the cloud" has ceased to be a new concept.  Just because Microsoft can make its software cloud-friendly doesn't mean it's going to increase its market share much.  Partly because it's so big already.

Saying that this will put Apple out of business is like saying that the Cake Party winning means no one here eats pie anymore.  I clearly ate pie at least twice in the past 6 days, therefore, this cannot be true.


Edited by ParielIsBack - 10 November 2008 at 1:53pm

carl_the_sniper wrote: Nevertheless, the ram is still $500 for a two gig upgrade regardless of what computer it is built on. ($200 is kinda rediculous also) Your second point continues to be comnpletely irrelevant.

Well, you can continue to think that.  That's why you're not going into business though.

Not every item on the market is made for you.  There are people who will, and do, pay $500, or $1500 for the RAM upgrades in Mac Pros, and they are generally people who make a good amount of money doing some sort of graphic design, video editing, etc.

As I said above, it's not a computer designed for mass market.  Apple doesn't need a second mass market desktop; this one is aimed at businesses that do high end graphics work.  It's a totally different dynamic than consumers.

ParielIsBack wrote: carl_the_sniper wrote: Nevertheless, the ram is still $500 for a two gig upgrade regardless of what computer it is built on. ($200 is kinda rediculous also) Your second point continues to be comnpletely irrelevant. Well, you can continue to think that.  That's why you're not going into business though.Not every item on the market is made for you.  There are people who will, and do, pay $500, or $1500 for the RAM upgrades in Mac Pros, and they are generally people who make a good amount of money doing some sort of graphic design, video editing, etc.As I said above, it's not a computer designed for mass market.  Apple doesn't need a second mass market desktop; this one is aimed at businesses that do high end graphics work.  It's a totally different dynamic than consumers.

My entire point was that the ram prices are rediculous, not that the fanboys would pay it (which is definately true)

Benjichang wrote: There's nothing you can do on a Mac that you can't do just as easily on a Windows machine. If you think the extra price is justified, then get a Mac. If not, Windows works just fine.

That's pretty much the bottom line right there. I get a giggle out of fanboys who pay nearly twice as much for everything because it's associated with Apple.