[rgreen4]

[quote name='mistoffolees']
>

quackadilly said:

> Yeah....I'm single sourcing when I upgrade my computer any time I want with whatever hardware I want. Or when other people have DOZENS of PC vendors to choose from...

The point is that when you Mac bashers keep screaming that it's terrible to buy Apple products because Apple is a single source are advocating an OS that comes from a ...... single source. Why is it so terrible to rely on a single source if it's Apple, but OK to rely on Microsoft as a single source?

It's not the OS that is the problem with single sourcing but the HARDWARE! On top of which you have a very limited amount of hardware, and many time non standard connections. Apple laptops now are coming with a Mini-DVI rather than the HDMI connector which of course requires an adapter to connect to a standard cable.
But back to the topic of this discussion, the ability to install the lastest versions of the two OS'es on older hardware. I have an almost 6 year old HP business class desktop with a 3.2GHz P4, integrated video and audio. On a spare 40GB HD this evening I installed the 32bit version of Windows 7, and it recognized the video without any problems. Only the audio does not work, but I have not yet looked for drivers. BTW the installation only took 8.5GB. Snow Leopard will not be installable on any Mac older than 2006. I remember all the hoopla about Vista having problems with older hardware, but Snow Leopard can't even be installed.
Ninety percent of the world uses MS on hundreds in not thousands of manufactured and custom machines. About 7 percent (almost 10% in the US) uses OS/X on one brand of machine. Revel in your belief that the Mac and OS/X are superior, but ask Sony how their "superior" Beta fared in the market place.

[quackadilly]

OMG the Beta! What a flop.



Quick question about Windows 7.

I tried putting it on one of my computers and the window to choose the language never showed up.....harware or software issue?

Loads just fine, but gets "stuck" before the language window shows......

[patterntangle]

hang on, you say the video doesn't work when you install windows 7 on a 6 year old machine??? is that a typo or do you just like destroying your own arguments?

also, your analogy with Beta is a bit silly. Apple once did let people make clones and it actually hurt business so they stopped it and have gone from strength to strength so even though you're trying to make out it's a bad business plan because of Beta, you're actually bringing to light that the opposite is the truth.

[quackadilly]

I'm guessing a typo of some sort. He said the video was recognised....I would assume finding the manufacturer drivers for the video is the problem.....i.e. HP's website.



You know why it hurt business? Because Apple is overcharging customers all around. These clones are put together cheaper (a more realistic cost) and it takes away from Apples overall revenue. "Strength to strength" ??? What are you talking about?



Right now, yes, it would be a bad business plan for Apple to let other companies pre-install OSX, because they have virtually no marketshare......they would not likely get the required OS sales to offset the lack of hardware sales. Plus, there would be so much work needed to be done to support all of the "new" hardware for OSX......and you would see a marked decrease in system performance and stability......then after gaining marketshare, you would start to see viruses, lots of viruses.



So maybe being strict with hardware is the only way for Apple to survive right now.

[rgreen4]

Thanks for the catch, I have edited the post to reflect the fact that the audio does not work. I posted that in the wee hours of the night. Video is recognized and works find. (BTW - The Vista upgrade manager did not like the Intel Integrated Video chip when I ran it two years ago).
Actually I think the analogy to Beta does work. A manufacturer has a non-standard machine that operates differently than all the other brands out there, and keeps banging it's head against the wall with a supposed "superior" machine, yet can't get market parity with the competing design manufactured by a wide variety of companies.
If you showed that statement to Marketing students in the mid-80's they would immediately identify it as Sony and Beta. If you showed it to Marketing students today, they would immediately identify it as the Apple and Mac.
The day I walked into a store and saw Sony branded VHS tapes, I knew they had thrown in the towel. Shortly after that the announcement was made that they were switching their machines to VHS.
The first step was for Apple to put Intel processors in their computers. After all those years of how much better the Motorola/PowerPC chips were when compared to Intel, that was the first crack in the dam.

[asiafish]

rgreen4 said:

Thanks for the catch, I have edited the post to reflect the fact that the audio does not work. I posted that in the wee hours of the night. Video is recognized and works find. (BTW - The Vista upgrade manager did not like the Intel Integrated Video chip when I ran it two years ago).

Actually I think the analogy to Beta does work. A manufacturer has a non-standard machine that operates differently than all the other brands out there, and keeps banging it's head against the wall with a supposed "superior" machine, yet can't get market parity with the competing design manufactured by a wide variety of companies.

If you showed that statement to Marketing students in the mid-80's they would immediately identify it as Sony and Beta. If you showed it to Marketing students today, they would immediately identify it as the Apple and Mac.

The day I walked into a store and saw Sony branded VHS tapes, I knew they had thrown in the towel. Shortly after that the announcement was made that they were switching their machines to VHS.

The first step was for Apple to put Intel processors in their computers. After all those years of how much better the Motorola/PowerPC chips were when compared to Intel, that was the first crack in the dam.

Thats a real oversimplification. Beta players could not use the same content as VHS players, which was their downfall. Macs can use the same content, meaning websites, documents, audio and video files etc. as Windows machines with very few exceptions that simply don't apply to the vast majority of normal users. So what if I can't open an Autocad file on my Mac natively in OS X, I've never even SEEN an Autocad and wouldn't know what to do with it if I did.

VHS and Beta were mutually exclusive. Media for one simply would not work on the other. With PCs and Macs today, they are largely compatible with one another. My office is mixed platform Windows Vista and OS X, and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever which type of machine you happen to be using. Printers all work, as do network shares and every document that comes in or goes out with the singular exception of WordPerfect, which we see at most once or twice per quarter, almost not worth the bother on either platform.

I like Vista quite a lot and 7 promises to be even better, but neither will attract serious Mac users in any significant number just as Snow Leopard won't attract many serious Windows users. Face it, most people are wed to their platform and only consider a change when something goes terribly wrong. Microsoft learned its marketing lesson from "Vista Capable" and its stability lesson by releasing when the hardware wasn't ready. Since 7 uses mostly the same drivers, the transition from Vista to 7 or even XP to 7 benefits from 3 years of drivers that just weren't there when we all went from XP to Vista. Of course, OS X never has that problem as Apple strictly controls the entire ecosystem, which is one of the main reasons why Apple's launches tend to be smoother than Microsoft's.

I'll buy both, but I am under no illusion that Snow Leopard is anything but a major leap forward and that 7 will be Microsoft's best OS to date. Which will be better depends entirely on what the final products are like, which none of us yet know, and on the many variables behind the keyboard.