Craig,
You don't have to tell me that the Power PC is XXX megahertz fast, and that MACs are easier to use. That has 0000 to do with Apple's ability to effectively market their products and grow both revenue, profits and shareholder value.
The MAC/Windows argument is a decade old and I think the market share numbers are more important at this point than some survey on ease of use. I was trying to make a point. I'm an average consumer that works for a rather large company that used to use ALL MACs not too long ago. I'm also a senior manager that finally got SICK of a Powerbook 5300 that took 30 seconds to open Excel (we also have an 8500 with all kinds of memory that is not much better), that crashed all the time, and that I send back several times to have repaired with no avail. I'm an average consumer that got sick of being 1-3 revisions behind in Excel/Word/Powerpoint and could not get MANY business and manufacturing software packages on the MAC that were available on the Windows platform. Craig, I don't need 10,000 packages on my desktop, but I do need the ones to RUN my business, and there are frankly, very few available on the MAC, and the ones that are on the market are usually several version behind. I've been through the agony trying to find apps on the MAC. It wasn't fun. Finally, I'm very happy with the WinTell machine that opens Excel in 3 seconds, and the OS doesn't FORCE me to use the mouse if I don't want to and that cost less money!
My point it this. CPU speed has little to do end user performance. More and more people every day are voting with there wallets on WinTell, Apple's market share continues to decline, and the snowball is just getting started. If you were a software developer, would you write your software for a PC or MAC? For every MAC customer you have 10-12 on the PC. Tough decision, unless of course, you want to clone you business model around Apple's.
I like the MAC, In fact my 97 year old grandfather uses one everyday to get on the net and send email. I'm just trying to be pragmatic about it. DEC/Alpha has proved that a great chip has nothing to do with success. It's all market share and volume. Both of which Apple has little, and is loosing what they had.
Do what you will with your money on this one. I still think it's a better short than long. I don't think you will think that 15 was such a great deal if the stock is at $5 someday! (but at lease you can average down :*) )
Brian |
