Microsoft Pushes Idea of "Apple Tax"

ZD Net ^ | 10/14/2008 | Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

[Loud Mime]

With more people turning to Apple products, and the holiday season just around the corner, Microsoft is keen to emphasize the fact that users looking to switch from Microsoft face the “Apple tax.”

In an interview with CNET’s Ina Fried, Microsoft’s vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing Brad Brooks was keen to point out the hidden costs that face those making the switch. In fact, he outlines four different taxes:

* Choice tax
* Application tax
* Technology tax
* Upgrade tax

[Clinging Bitterly]

Office 2007...

I just bought a little netbook (Acer Aspire One, and I love it) and it came with a trial of Office 2007 so I tried it. Didn't even bother to check on the purchase price, it is crap. Like you said, nothing is in the right place, and some things I couldn't find at all.

I have been using Office 2000 Professional for a long time but it is getting a bit long in the tooth. Lately I have been using more open source stuff and OpenOffice is getting better with each release - it is at the point where it's better than Office 2000 and as good as Office 2003 which I have at the office.

As for Apple "tax" I dunno. OS-X Leopard is the same price as an upgrade version of Windoze Vista, and though Apple would prefer you use it on an Apple PC, it will run on a lot of non-Apple computers. If there was something I really wanted to do that only worked on OS-X I would have no trouble installing it.

[JSDude1]

idiots-since when did the free-market=taxes..? MS you are not the Fed Gov, and you certainly are not “God”.

We also have BHO labling welfare “tax-cuts” as well..only his welfare will only cause more inflation, and a weaking of the dollar (that’s what he won’t tell you!).

[JZelle]

Apple should counter with a BSOD tax.

[El Sordo]

I think the proper term for that is ‘disbenefit’.

[AFreeBird]

The OS didn’t offer the functionality, so the option was to buy a third party app to do it. Small example of the apple tax right there.

Nice try. But I seriously doubt that Apple doesn't offer that functionality on their quite polished GUI.

You're either an M$ troll, or not trying.

[CriticalJ]

I’ve made the switch to OpenOffice and like it. I recommend it to all my friends.

[Wayne07]

You are confusing tracking speed with acceleration. The behavior on the mac is as you move the mouse, or slide across the trackpad, at a steady speed, the pointer won’t match the steady speed, it will accelerate as continue the motion. It is very disconcerting if you aren’t used it. Apple doesn’t offer any setting to enable/disable. So while you might call the OS polished, it is at the price of not being particularly configurable.

[Wayne07]

good link - but it definitely shows how the need for even some small configuration takes you way out of the “mac is easier” realm.

[Wayne07]

I still don't see an easy solution other than what has been recommended to me in the past, which is not free.

http://ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/index.html

[AFreeBird]

That's the issue then, you're not used to it. Fair enough, but the reasons for it working the way it does, is to lessen the amount of scraping (that's what I call it) of your finger over the pad to get from one side of the screen to another.

But based on what I found at The Apple Trackpad: Overview of Technology and Use, you can set it to a One to One which implies to me that you could make it work more PC like, I think.

Personally, I HATE trackpads. I'd like to beat the guy that invented it, or at least placed where they placed it. I have one on my IBM Thinkpad, but it's disabled. I only use the trackpoint which I consider to be far superior to the trackpad - once you get used to it.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Yeah. I like MS Office 2003, a good combination of features and ease of use - but I only have it at work as part of the corporate PC package & if it had 2007 on it I would probably be using OpenOffice there as well. We can pretty much install and run what we want as long as it is properly licensed & doesn’t harm the network.

[TexasRepublic]

Microsnot taxed my patience until I downloaded Linux.

[AFreeBird]

Same here. M$ free since 2003. Which distro you get?

[Centurion2000]

Microsoft Windows Vista

MS Vista: The 1978 AMC Pacer of IT.

[Lurker]

it came with a trial of Office 2007 so I tried it.

Personally I thought making Office 2007 documents incompatible with previous Office version documents was a nice touch....

L

[HungarianGypsy]

LOL! I got rid of my trial of 2007 when I noticed it had done that. I couldn’t access pieces to a story I was working on, so just put everything back into 2003.

[Lurker]

Oh customers love it when I send them a spreadsheet they can't open, a Word document they can't read, or a PowerPoint that won't play.

It adds just the right touch of professionalism...

I'm so glad they fired the idiot who recommended we 'upgrade' to 2007.

L

[Knitebane]

Welcome to the Microsoft-free club, newbie. ;)

(Note my tagline.)

[AFreeBird]

Yea, well, Ma Bell required me to use winders (on some of my machines). To be fair though, I had a Sun workstation (Sparc 20), and we had HP servers running HPUX, and a nice Sun Enterprise Server; oh, and several NetWare Servers. And I guess I was playing around with a Linux box a little too(1999). And way back in the 80's I had at home an AT&T 6300 Plus (i80286). Came with AT&T SRV UNIX (and curses GUI).

So I'm not a total n00b :)

[TaxRelief]

You found one thing on the Mac you could not control completely... there are an infinite number of things that cannot be controlled on a windows computer, so I guess I don’t understand the comparison.