Comments on: Will Windows 7 Hurt Mac Sales?

By: joe620

joe620 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:00:48 +0000

I don’t see much change. A year or two from now Windows will still own the OS market and Mac will still pretend like they do.

By: Tech

Tech — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:59:04 +0000

Microsoft has to do something. They keep losing market share to Apple.

By: JDoors

JDoors — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:49:34 +0000

Mac are gonna sell at whatever rate the market for Macs allows. The real question is: How are Mac sales going to affect the sales of Windows 7, since so many Macs are set up to also run Windows?

By: Backlin

Backlin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:20:09 +0000

Marc pretty much has it on the money as far as I’m concerned. The majority of Windows 7 sales are going to be through pre-assembled systems, and the amount of garbage-ware varies from manufacturer. Of course, that can’t compete with Apple’s zero amount. Asus so far is the only manufacturer that hardly includes garbage-ware on their machines, but there was a bunch of proprietary software that loaded on first boot, so the effect was still felt, kind of. Boot times were still slower than they could be. A quick upgrade to Windows 7 on my EEE changed that though, since the drivers that were included nullified the need for these proprietary programs, mainly the Bluetooth software.

By: tom b

tom b — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:36:44 +0000

Windows has three main problems: 1) confusing, inefficient, awkward UI 2) poor performance and stability 3) poor security.

The latter two points are consequences (in part) of MSFT’s failure to upgrade to UNIX during their Years of Opportunity, 1995(Win95)-2000(release of OS X). To be sure, MSFT was busy fending off the DoJ and Bill Gates was busy retirement planning– they were distracted. Win 7 is still not UNIX, and, though the performance gets back to Win XP levels– that’s nothing to brag about. They’ve had a lot of time to get there.

As for the UI; MSFT is still MSFT. They think like geeks; not like power users.

“I’d still rate Snow Leopard as the better OS, but the gap between the two platforms is smaller than it’s been in a long time;”

Disagree. Snow Leopard added LOTS of performance features; they’re just not being tapped just yet, since SL just came out.

Also, adoption of Win 7 will be better than 90% through new computer purchases– it will be slow.

I think, overall, the trend lines won’t waver one way or the other much.

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:44:04 +0000

I’d say it depends on the crapware that manufactures insist of weighing down Windows with. That for me is my biggest complaint.
Why the likes of QuickTime and Adobe need to run on start-up is beyond me (I delete the offending files and they still run fine!)

By: IcyFog

IcyFog — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:35:35 +0000

According to this, http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/13/history_suggests_windows_7_launch_could_boost_mac_sales.html
in the last 10 years Mac sales have increased every time Microsoft releases a new OS.
There’s also this, http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/16/apples_snow_leopard_bests_windows_7_in_speed_tests.html, Snow Leopard is faster than Windows 7.
As far as backing up data in switching from Windows to Snow Leopard, for $99 one can buy the One to One and Apple specialists with transfer the data for you, in addition to other helpful services. http://www.apple.com/getamac/faq/
http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/
Not to mention that Windows 7 is still Windows that comes with all its legacy problems – registry, virus, certification, etc.
The choice between the two is crystal clear to me.