Re: A2Central News

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <apple22-B93EEE.09145320092006@news-rdr-02.rdc-kc.rr.com>,
Greg Buchner  <apple22@mn.rr.com> wrote:

> In article <1158732928.366476.11380@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
>  "mdj" <mdj.mdj@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>> 
>>> As a rule, the underdog mentality is required to get strong emotional
>>> commitment--kind of a defensive thing.  The top dog can't be bothered.
>> 
>> I always thought it was an insecurity thing, since the platforms offer
>> essentially equivalent functionality - the Mac crowd has to justify to
>> themselves their choice to spend (in some cases) considerably more
>> money on a tool the does exactly the same job as a cheaper one.
>> 
>> But I guess being the underdog makes one insecure :-)
> 
> But, Mac's are no longer considerably more expensive that comparative 
> Dells.  (I use Dells because they are supposed to be the big low priced 
> PC manufacturer.)  If you go and spec out similar machines on either 
> site, Apple comes in really close.  Lower in some setups, really close 
> in others and sometimes only a little bit higher in price.  Now yes, you 
> can build your own PC for less, but, like you can't build your own Dell 
> (with Dell's support and warranty behind it), you can't build your own 
> Mac.

On the Mac side, you can't build your own Mac, not even without the
warranty from Apple....  on the PC side you do have several choices
(buy some other brand than Dell, or build your own).  On the Mac side,
Apple has chosen for you.
 
>> I mused recently that Apple's platform shift puts them in a potentially
>> interesting position. Where they to capture a lions share of the
>> market, they could find themselves on the receiving end of an
>> anti-trust lawsuit from a competing vendor (like a Dell or HP), since
>> Apple having exclusive rights to Mac OS X gives them an 'unfair'
>> competitive advantage.
>> 
>> Now that would be an amusing little tussle ;-)
> 
> If I was Apple, my response would be: "We're not stopping them from 
> putting the money, time and development of their own OS."  :-)

Actually there is such an OS already -- it's called Windows XP... :-)

And it's most likely just a matter of time before Linux gets ported
to the Mac as well.

In the future, someone will probably make OS-X run on PC's as well,
it's just a matter of rewriting the lowest layer (the layer closest
to the hardware) of the OS.

And when all this has happened, an interesting semantic problem
will pop up: exactly what is a "Mac"?  Is it the Mac hardware?
Or is it OS-X?

And when a Mac (the hardware) runs Win-XP (or Vista) natively, is
it still a Mac?  Or is it a WinTel machine?

Perhaps the Mac will end up as a PC brand among other brands, such
as Dell, HP, etc?

> Greg B.
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