I'm curious why you think the switch to Intel makes the Mac more compelling to the other side. Personally, I find the Macbook in particular an attractive product (which is why I bought one and subsequently Apple stock-- ouch :) ), but as a satisfied Windows user, I don't think the Intel Mini is any more compelling than the G4 one was. OK, perhaps a little more compelling because of Bootcamp, but the Intel switch in and of itself did not change anything...
First, you are not the typical PC buyer: it sounds like you weighed your needs, the pros and cons, and made a choice. That hasn't been the norm for PC buyers for 10+ years. The best way I can explain why I think the Intel move is a game changer is to look at the PC customer types from which the move should allow Apple to acquire customers:
Type 1: Talked into (or talked themselves into) needing a PC. Most people have been conditioned into thinking that Wintel=PC and that this is good and normal. Anything else is weird and should be avoided. Even though much of this crowd will only use the computer for solitaire and web browsing, not being a 'true' PC would knock out Macs out of the running. After all, there are 10's of thousands of applications for Windows that they *may* want to use someday. Intel-based Macs provide the needed safety blanket since, if they need to, it will run Windows though it probably never will.
Type 2: The not-terribly-price-sensitive-PC-buyer. Just wants a PC for Windows/Linux/whatever and doesn't care about OS X. Macs seem cool to this customer and they're not too much more expensive than a PC. Hmmm... they can buy a Mac and just boot it up into Windows. No muss, no fuss. In businesses, I think execs in particular will fall into this category. Who knows, they might actually try OS X and like it. Regardless, a sale is a sale.
Type 3: Doesn't really care for Windows but either it's what they are used to or they have a specific need for (business or personal including hardware, apps, or games) which will require windows a good chunk of the time. Dual boot or virtualization will handle that need depending on whether they need speed/absolute compatibility (Boot camp) or flexibility (Parallels.) This is the group I see the most significant and vocal growth coming from. OS X on PPC often did not address this group given the poor performance of emulation (Virtual PC is a great product owned by MS... emulation just sucks performance-wise and has limits from a compatibility standpoint.)
(Yeah, there are more. There's a type 4: the Unix user. Guess what: the bulk of the ones that Apple will get know about OS X and already have a Mac. There is also a type 5: the corporate user/IT department but that's further down the road.)
Type X: Any combination of the above. Being a 'real' PC lets them take a chance on a Mac for whatever reason. If it doesn't work out, they can always go back to Windows/Linux/whatever.
In general, removal of the voodoo-like comparisons which have raged between the Apple/IBM/Motorola and Intel camps for years (creating confusion and hurting Apple sales IMO) is a good thing. At different times, different architectures ruled. Now, the average customer can compare an Apple to a Dell or whatever and see the true price differential and base the decision on it's merits rather than FUD.
Apple is doing a great job of eliminating the reasons people have had for *not* switching to Mac. Additionally, they continue to provide compelling reasons *to* switch. I think it's just a matter of time before this pays off in a big way... |
