Posted on 07/25/2011 11:25:09 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple is repositioning to where there is a market. Apple sales of iDevices has been astronomic, and enterprises are starting to adopt them at a very high rate. Lion server has a huge part of it dedicated to managing various iDevices with various profiles. Apple figures you'll buy a Mac Mini server and use it to manage all the iDevices in your organization. They won't make too much on the servers, but it'll make the adoption of iDevices much easier, which means more profit on that end.
It's sad to see the built-in serious enterprise server abilities going away, but that's the reality. Windows and Linux won.
Nope. I started with OS X 10.4, and upgraded to 10.5 and then 10.6, all in-place (a major no-no with Windows). Each time my computer became FASTER and more responsive. Historically, that is not the standard Microsoft experience, with the possible exception of Windows 7.
That fact is that, when it comes to usage and practicality, there is no real need to go with Macs, and that's especially true with the introduction of Windows 7
Except for the fact that you're still stuck with Windows. I use both regularly. Mac is still better.
It’s all a matter of preferences and not of practical experiences.
When it comes to Windows, I have NEVER had a problem upgrading or using any of the OS upgrades for Windows. I’ve never had a problem since Windows 2000, not even one single blue screen of death. But, when it comes to problems with the Windows OS, many of those “problems” were due to badly written applications or user error, yet, too many people were quick to blame Windows.
Like I said in my earlier posts, I have not had any problems with any Windows OS, and that includes from Windows 2000 to Windows 7. And, I’m what could be called a “power user”, since I’m a developer that has used Windows for all of my development.
Practical experience in over a hundred Windows installations and upgrades from 2.0 to 3.1, from NT 3.51 to Windows 7. Admittedly my Mac OS X experience is smaller, 10.4-10.6, then a fresh 10.6 install (hard drive dead). However, my experience tends to be the norm in the Mac world from what I read.
But, when it comes to problems with the Windows OS, many of those “problems” were due to badly written applications or user error, yet, too many people were quick to blame Windows.
Badly written applications should not be able to cause such a problem, and neither should common user error. One of the biggest problems of Windows that relates to application design though is the security model. It sucked very badly, and now sucks much less (although a lot of the sucking less is a kludge). Apple got to avoid that problem by ditching the old OS and applications, moving to fresh OS X, and then deprecating even the old APIs. It limits backwards compatibility, but makes for a far more robust and secure OS.
And, I’m what could be called a “power user”, since I’m a developer that has used Windows for all of my development.
Windows development for about 10 years (other platforms over 15 years further back), user and small business level support for almost 20 years, and enterprise-level administration for over five years. I am MUCH better at Windows than I am at OS X, yet I still like OS X better.
OS-wise, sorry, it’s still Windows over any Mac-OS for me, and that’s because, it’s been the more tried and proven of any OS ever in history.
Macs tended to have fewer problems, but, essentially, what protected Macs was the security through obscurity “feature”.
When it comes to experience with OSes and software of all kinds, I’ve had more than 35 years working experience, on the design and programming and management levels, and most of my experience was on the high-end mainframe, with massively parallel computing. So, you could say I’ve stepped down a little bit by going the route of PC development, but the scope of what I’m trying to do is still on a massive scale.
So, experience-wise, after using most popular OSes out there, I still prefer to work with what I consider to be the best, and which has been proven to work the best with most business and application environments. Macs were intended to work under a limited environment, and for that, they do it well, whereas, with Windows, it’s the jack of all application environments and all business environments.
BTW, many of the problems with Windows also had to do with the many different types of hardware and the many different manufacturers that Windows tried to support. Macs were limited to whatever hardware Apple chose to support, and therefore, they were optimized for very limited configurations, whereas, Windows was designed to support just about anything that was thrown at it, as long as a driver existed to support it under Windows. For what Windows had to contend with, it’s still an amazing product, and that’s something you can’t say for any Mac OS.
In the end, it’s a lot easier to build an OS which doesn’t have to support so much different hardware and so many different makers, and naturally, you’d expect a lot fewer problems. However, XP and Windows 7 are still very good products, which can match and even supersede anything Apple has ever produced.
Macs had a HUGE number of problems until OS X, and then still quite a bit until the OS became mature. What protects Macs is a superior UNIX architecture. 50 million Macs out there, and software installations of only 12,000 have had successful malware written for them. Do you think there were 50 million SQL installations in 2003 when SQL Slammer hit? It infected over 70,000 machines in minutes, bringing down entire networks.
However, XP and Windows 7 are still very good products, which can match and even supersede anything Apple has ever produced.
Now you're just getting ridiculous. XP was okay for its day, and I agree 7 is pretty good. But as a user of both, no, in no way do they supersede anything Apple has ever produced.
You still don’t get it.
Look, Macs have traditionally held somewhere around 5% of the market, and below. As such, it never was a big target for malware creators, and thus, they were in fact, protected by security through obscurity. As they’ve become slightly more popular, they’ve become a bigger target for the malware.
When it come to XP, it was and still is a very good product, and it’s being phased out, not because it’s problematic or full of areas for exploit; it’s being phased out because it was meant to support the older technology represented by Pentium era chips and very limited main memory. With hardware becoming a lot more powerful and with people and businesses demanding “bigger, better, faster”, XP was not going to be OS to support those demands, and so, Windows 7 was devised to support those more demanding systems. In fact, many people still feel that there was no need for Windows 7 and they are opting to keep XP for many more years. Like I said, XP never failed me, and I still use it for about half of what I do, with no fears.
Also, when it comes to Mac OSes, and like I said, when a product is meant to support a very limited set of specs, then it will, of course, encounter fewer problems than an OS that is intended to support millions of applications, and hardware specs that run into the many thousands of configurations. No OS from Apple could ever match XP or Windows 7 for the support that was built into them. That’s why Windows was and is a much more superior product.
Prior to OS X, and back in the dark days when Macs weren't selling well at all, there were over 100 active and successful pieces of malware in the wild. How many for OS X?
Back when IIS was first targeted by malware it had an extremely low marketshare. Very few were using it, Netscape, Apache and others owned the market. Yet people wrote malware for it, and it was extremely successful.
XP was not going to be OS to support those demands, and so, Windows 7 was devised to support those more demanding systems.
Wasn't that Vista? You probably have a mental block on that.
Anyway, you seem to have missed the basic point: With every upgrade, my Mac got FASTER. I didn't need to buy new hardware to run the new OS as is common in Windows, the new OS extended the life of my current hardware. Now that's a good deal.
No OS from Apple could ever match XP or Windows 7 for the support that was built into them.
Yes, Windows has very wide support. In fact, quite often when a popular program was having problems, Microsoft would write a kludge workaround into the OS to get around the problem instead of telling the vendor to fix it. Windows NT code is riddled with these hacks. How's that for quality?
Apple's philosophy is to cater to people who want it to "just work". That means keeping it proprietary so they have control. It also means you don't do anything everybody else can't do. If they won't make any compromises in their OS to get an application to work, then you're either going to find a platform that it will work on, or you aren't going to run it. If that application gives a company a competitive edge, then they'll do whatever they have to to make it work, and that includes showing a primadonna OS vendor the door. Apple doesn't seem to understand that.
Apple just won't compromise and endanger security and stability for a misbehaving program. I can admire that. If you don't use the proper APIs in your own way, if you took shortcuts NOT recommended or documented by the OS vendor, then it's your own fault you program won't work. They took at Microsoft's desire to have marketshare above all, and it hurt the platform.
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