[discostu]

Nobody suffers viruses on a daily basis. That would be a grotesque and silly exhageration that you should retract.

What video editing software? Don't use, don't need it, and don't want it. As for it being "free" on your Mac maybe you need to take a remedial tax lesson, the extras in Mac OS are just as "free" as socialized medicine, the system is made more expensive to cover the cost of that and everybody that owns a Mac pays for that software even if they don't use it.

Not living in the past at all. Apple is still the sole source for most of the hardware and the OS, if Mac was king of the heap it would be two monopolies instead of one. The person here with their head in the sand is the one that thinks they get free software on their more expensive computer.

What's Mac's marketshare now? Who's being passed by the world?

[Glenn]

What's Mac's marketshare now?

What is Porsche's market share? What is Hummer's market share? What is Rolls Royce's market share? What is BMW's market share? Need I continue?

[HAL9000]

"Not living in the past at all. Apple is still the sole source for most of the hardware and the OS, if Mac was king of the heap it would be two monopolies instead of one."

You are misinformed. The core of the Mac OS (Darwin UNIX) is open source and can be ported to any platform. Most of the hardware is industry standard and interchangable with PCs. The hardware that is proprietary is the ASICs - and that situation exists for Wintel computers too.

"The person here with their head in the sand is the one that thinks they get free software on their more expensive computer."

I get free software for my Mac all the time. A lot of it is Mac-specific, but a lot of it is Linux software that is simply recompiled to run on PowerPC. Apple provides free software for Macs and PCs, like iTunes and QuickTime. And Apple includes a bunch of applications with each Mac that is superior to what Microsoft includes with Windows.

[Boss_Jim_Gettys]

"What's Mac's marketshare now?"

Another question might be what is market share for Microsoft brand PC's? If you compare units sold for Apple vs. Dell/HP/Gateway/etc., they are not that far back in the pack. Add to that the building momentum of the G5 machines and the enormous success of the iPod, and you have a company that is making lots of money. I just read the other day that Apple is essentially debt free and is sitting on something like $4.5 billion in cash (or roughly $12 per share at a share price around $22).

Finally, if you've never used OS X (especially version 10.3), you really have know idea what you're missing.

As for the "free" software, of course its not free. You are correct that you pay for it in the cost of ownership. However, unlike PC buyers who get a "free" copy of Windows with their hardware purchase, my "free" OS and iLife applications are worth what I paid for them and more.