Apple is now bigger than Microsoft

Clipsey said:
Out of the two, my money is on Google :D
This company will easily be the dominant force in 10 years above both Apple & MS.
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Not so sure myself. Googles advertisement / privacy stuff is enough to push large businesses away.

They also have a lot of ground to make up to produce an OS as good as OSX or W7.
 
A PC BSODs when it has one of 2 things:

-A hardware failure

-Something the user did/installed

A 3rd but far less common reason is buggy drivers/software but I cannot remember the last time that occurred and ultimately - the user installed it.

Simples.

As for profits. Microsoft has a hold on the enterprise world Apple could only dream of. How much Apple stuff do you see Microsoft catering for on their devices/products? None.

There is a reason the iPhone now supports Exchange ActiveSync.
 
According to the FT (markets section) MS are still larger than Apple (NASDAQ close May 26th 2010):

Windows.png


The BBC link gives no source for their figures (in the ops link).

Interestingly the FT are also pushing the story shown on the BBC link yet on their markets section the market capitalization for Microsoft is higher (228 vs 223)?!
 
digipeep said:
Google needs cloud computing to take off, I suspect it's still 3 years away but when it does, PS3, 360, Windows, etc will fade away.

Google has the ball in her hand at the moment, but she hasn't got a firm grip on it by a long shot.
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Good lord man, what are you even talking about? All the comments I've read so far (from page 1) make absolutely no sense. DOS is still core of windows 7? Bill is still heading MS? Everyone gets BSODs? Google needs cloud computing to be successful?

Im not sure if you are actually trolling or what.
 
Personally I just use what is best for the job, if someone asks me what is best to do some graphics/printing work on I will probably tell them to use a Mac, if someone just wants to surf the internet and isn't looking to break the bank, a low end windows PC is fine, if I want to do some scientific software I am probably going to boot up a linux partition or just code on whatever I am using and test it on a unix cluster somewhere, every machine has its pluses and minuses and the sooner people stop arguing about it the better.

The flip side of this argument for me, if you think its easy why don't you go away and do it yourself? Windows is actually fairly good in terms of code and workability, the only times I have ever buggered up my computer are when I have been doing something stupid, Macs on the other hand tend to protect the user from stupidity a bit more and don't have to worry about the billion and 1 configurations that Windows does, so its all just swings and roundabouts in the end really.
 
digipeep said:
When you are in the business of making money, growth is everything. Microsoft have absolutely no prospect of growth, their business model still relies on a bit of software that their founder wrote in the early 80s. Windows 7 still has DOS in it's core operating system. They just can't shake it out of their system.
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I thought 7 was built on the NT kernel?
 
I see the fanboy wars haven’t really erupted yet, now I see why, the thread stated in the middle of the night.
 
PardonTheWait said:
I'll be 100% honest here.

I'm 25 now. I went to college when I was 17 to learn design. Since then I have done the six months or so at college, 2 years as a Mac Operator at a local paper, a year as a Mac Operator at a print firm. Then I went to work for Apple. I did about six months purely on the sale floor, then a year doing around 30 hours a week of training on both the store's Macs and Macs that people brought in. In short, I have 'met' probably 800+ Macs. Then I went to a reseller and have been there since September, so that's another 9 months of sales, training and tech support.

I've seen a Kernel Panic about four times - certainly less than six or seven. It's very rare, and when it happens it's usually because the Mac is very ill indeed.

In my work I was and am chummy with hundreds of customers - consumers and pros. I was also and still am chummy with a fair few Apple technicans. I know the ugly side of macs, I know what's right and what's wrong.

Apple make only one product that I really don't believe in and don't trust, and that's the Time Capsule. They are utter pants and die for fun. Everything else varies from acceptable to awesome, mostly erring towards the awesome. And I've been on all the sides of the fence - consumer, professional user, and Apple employee.

Don't mistake me for a fanboy either - I have some very strong opinions about Apple Retail that I wouldn't dare to divulge in 'public', but I do believe in their products, and I took some convincing. I only started to think they were worth having in the average person's home when Tiger came out, until then I felt they were fantastic for graphics/pre-press/production work but severely lacking for home users.

I do agree however that the Kernel Panic is absolutely the most offensive and aggravating way for a computer to fail. The whole things tops, then a grey background, then the image you've posted slowly stomps down the screen in about ten steps. It makes me rage.
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I work in a office with 4-5 mac users. there is a kernel panic from one of them 2-3 times a week!

There are 8-9 linux users, I don't think we have ever had a kernel panic in the 4 years I've been here. Indeed, some of have an uptime of well over 1 year.

There have also been massively more hardware failures with the Macs than the PCs. Mostly due to overheating.

We work our computers hard and run demanding apps and software 24-7. I think Apple hardware and OSX just can't keep with such professional demands.
 
JonRohan said:
Not so sure myself. Googles advertisement / privacy stuff is enough to push large businesses away.

They also have a lot of ground to make up to produce an OS as good as OSX or W7.
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Possibly just a problem with perception. My understanding is that the professional Google Apps has no ads and does not use your data for anything else. Also I think Google's strategy up til now has been to convert lots of smaller to medium size enterprises first. That or they knew they couldn't get any of the big guns to change yet anyway.
 
I'm not surprised really, Microsoft is a bit of a dinosaur now - when was the last time it did anything truly innovative? They just seem to be constantly playing catch up with other companies they are envious of, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully.

Examples:- Sony is making money from it's PlayStation console, we'll have a bit of that with Xbox. Google is making money from its search business, we'll have a bit of that with Bing. Apple is making money from its iPod product, we'll have a bit of that with Zune.

It's almost like MS has lost direction and doesn't know what it is any more. At its peak, MS was almost exclusively an OS and Office software provider - it did this very successfully, too successfully it might be argued. I still think this is Microsoft's core business and what it should concentrate on. IMO there's significant opportunity for innovation in this area as smart phones and cloud computing start to take off. They should close down or sell off other divisions that are not adding shareholder value - e.g. their Online Services division (hotmail, Live etc) which hasn't made a profit since 2005 or their Entertainment and Devices division (Zune, Xbox, Windows mobile) which has had very mixed success.

Apple by contrast knows exactly what it is and have found a business model that works very well - producing high value, stylish consumer electronic goods that sell for a massive premium. They have exploited this to the maximum and good luck to them.
 
csmager said:
You've said this about 5 times in this thread, and it's just garbage.

Windows 3.1 and 9x were built on DOS. Windows NT was not. 2000, XP, Vista and 7 are all NT derivatives.

NT does have MS-DOS emulation, but this is being phased out completely in x64 editions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTVDM
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This. Windows 7 is derived from WindowsNT - which stands for New Technology... There is no DOS in there..!

Another point I wanted to make was that many people are looking at MSFT from the PC point of view.

I am a young (intelligent?) enterprise architect with a massive global technology company who has a very strong relationship with MSFT. Microsoft is much more than Windows and makes the vast majority of its money from the enterprise. Windows client, Windows Server, Office and Exchange are all world leading products that the majority of businesses base their businesses on - there is no way that other providers can match the levels of support that MSFT offers at the moment or even looking into the next 5 years.

I agree that Microsoft will have to change it's approach to line up to emerging technologies and historically it has been slow to do that.

I agree that Microsoft is not a company that paves the way in technology any more, it follows, but it follows well.

I agree that Apple has some amazing products and are taking market share at Microsoft's expense, but when the whole world runs Windows, any other OS will take share from MSFT.

Microsoft is dead? I disagree.
 
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PardonTheWait said:
I really do think that if you really got stuck in with a Mac, you'd see what I meant. I also know that you probably never will, and you'll continue searching for negatives.

But honestly - if you could just try it, properly, you'd see. It's just... nice. It's warm and fuzzy and easy. It's pleasant.
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Funnily enough I did recently get stuck using a Mac (Mac Book Pro I believe) and pleasant isn't quite the word I'd use, it was perfectly competent for most things yet it just felt weird. Now no doubt some of that has to do with what I'm used to but it wasn't the intuitive system for me that so many tout it as. The battery life is great and the screen is pretty good but I couldn't get on with the trackpad or the way that MacOS shields you from what is going on - for what it is worth I also dislike the way Windows is going in this regard.

I don't have a great deal of fondness for many of Apple's business practices either or the 'blind spot' that many people seem to have regarding it being ok when Apple does it but it would be uncompetitive if Microsoft were to do the same thing. However with all that said if people want to use a Mac then fair play to them, it's not a system that I'd use out of choice but there's little reason now to choose a Mac over a PC or vice versa in terms of basic functionality.
 
csmager said:
You've said this about 5 times in this thread, and it's just garbage.

Windows 3.1 and 9x were built on DOS. Windows NT was not. 2000, XP, Vista and 7 are all NT derivatives.

NT does have MS-DOS emulation, but this is being phased out completely in x64 editions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTVDM
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thank god someone called this iDiot on this!

i can't help but think that he thinks that the command prompt means that windows still uses DOS.

digipeep, did you know that Linux, UNIX and MacOSX all have command prompts too?

Pár Examplé:
Command prompt in linux (BackTrack3 to be precise):
2wn451l.png



and the Command prompt (two of them even!) in Windows2000
in this case, it's being used to Run a program that can't be run with a idiot friendly GUI called SNORT - a network intrusion detection sytem.
neyzj8.png


but I suppose Mac users wouldn't know anything about that :rolleyes: you all find the idea of computer security some sort of insult to your divine Macs which cannot be harmed by mere mortal men.
 
Vinni3 @H|H said:
I thought 7 was built on the NT kernel?
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Correct. As was Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

XP still had a DOS emulation console, but it was just a tool for some limited backward compat. Since Vista, all the remaining traces of DOS compatibility were removed. Even XP x64 removed all traces. Fundamentally though, the "Windows is built upon DOS" statement became old hat the moment Windows 9x/ME faded away.

Some people still refer to the Command Prompt in Windows nowadays as the "DOS Prompt". This is a misnomer. It's a 32-bit command line that has the same look'n'feel as DOS did, but it isn't DOS.

Windows NT is probably the most modern kernel in widespread use today. It is light years ahead of any Unix-based OS in terms of operating system design. Technically NT is a micro-kernel. Though Microsoft did punch some holes in it back in the NT 4.0 days which meant it became more of a hybrid kernel. But with Vista they started removing some of those punched holes. For instance the audio stack is now entirely user-mode based. It doesn't run in the kernel any more. Even the graphics stack has moved a large chunk of its code back into the user-mode now, in the form of the Desktop Compositor. Give it a couple more releases and the NT kernel will be a true micro-kernel again.

This is of course as opposed to the Unix philosophy of a "monolithic" kernel. Whereby the kernel's responsibilities consists of pretty much everything. If a Unix kernel developer could have the kernel make sliced toast, he would chunk it in there for good measure. He wouldn't care that the toaster trips out the circuit breaker every once in a while...


The other guy is clueless. Ignore him.
 
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