Datasheet

Chapter 1: Why Switch? Demystifying the Mac Mantra

an embarrassment, Microsoft spent more years and more billions to rework it

into Windows 7. During the same period, Apple has been devoting its energy

to improving its OS X operating system from the user’s perspective. While

Windows 7 and Windows Vista were gestating, Apple released six improved

versions of OS X, code-named Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard,

and now Lion. (Someone at Apple likes big cats.) Perhaps Windows 8 will

close the gap. We’ll see.

Considering All Aspects —

Advantage Apple

Apple has adopted strategies that give it important advantages over the

competition provided by Microsoft. The following sections explore what you

need to know about each one.

One neck to wring

Microsoft sells its Windows operating system to dozens of companies that

make personal computers. This practice has benefits in that competition

among these PC vendors keeps prices down, but it also means that Microsoft

has to support a bewildering variety of hardware designs and components.

This support includes not just all the variations now being sold, but also

products that are no longer being sold but are still in use, including PCs

made by companies that have left the business. Outside a brief flirtation

with licensing in the mid-1990s, Apple has maintained complete control of

the design and manufacture of products that use its software. This vertical

integration greatly simplifies Apple’s development efforts, allowing it to bring

out new versions of its operating system much more often than Microsoft has

been able to.

Vertical integration also has benefits for customers in terms of reliability and

service. If you have a problem with hardware or software, Apple has a strong

incentive to fix it. With the computer, operating system, and much of the soft-

ware supplied by a single vendor, Mac users don’t have to worry about being

shuttled from company to company (“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to contact

Fly-by-Night Software to solve your movie-editing bug; it makes that applica-

tion”). Any problems with the extensive suite of software that comes with a

Mac are Apple’s problems. There’s only one neck to wring.

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