[Macworld]

Post your comments for Microsoft's 'Apple tax' needs a refund here

[context]

For a guy who doesn't trust numbers, you sure do a lot of number crunching herein.

[ronincali3002]

How fun! That guy must work for AIG on the side. His "methods" are equally as faulty, and as "faulted" as AIG's.

[larryv]

Fire with fire.

[JScott]

Its true the article has a lot of number crunching but I think it only illustrates the point. You can massage numbers to back up any point you want to make.

[Rhywun]

“This gap [in user experience] will likely close up when Microsoft introduces Windows 7 late this year.”
No it won't--I've used it. If anything, Windows 7 is less intuitive than ever. Documents go in the "Document Library". The Control Panel is more cluttered than ever (and spawns more windows). More apps are being treated to The Orb and The Ribbon--whoops, so much for being able to find any commands. The taskbar wants to be the Dock but implements it clumsily and omits its best functionality such as badges. The hard drive on my piece of junk HP (well, it IS one year old) continues to grind constantly just like it did under Vista. The list goes on and on.

[CheeseHead]

Windows people have been distorting the facts like that forever. I'm surprised they didn't add some memory from the Apple store. I think people are getting smarter and aren't falling for gimmicks like this anymore. I still laugh at Ballmer's iPhone comments about not having a physical keyboard and pushing a $99 Motorola Q.

[mslavick]

These numbers are funny. The author assumes software will be used (duh) on the Mac--he includes a $99 upgrade price for iLife, $149 for Microsoft Office, $70 for Quicken, and even a mysterious $70 "other software" fee. And yet--no software on the PC's! Nothing! What fantabulous software is included with those computers that this family will never need to purchase anything else?
I don't know much about graphics cards, so could someone tell me why the same graphics card would cost $90 more for the Mac?
I'm surprised they didn't throw in the Apple TV and Time Capsule as well.

[lwdesign]

This is part of Microsoft's very amateurish attempt at making their products look good by making out that Mac users are morons who only buy into the Mac because it looks "cool". It's an ad campaign that's based on a lie, so it loses my respect immediately.
It brings to mind one of the I'm a Mac ads where John Hodgman is sitting at a table counting out a huge stack of money for advertising Vista, and a pitifully small amount for R&D and fixing Vista's problems. When the Mac guy says "Do you think that's enough for the R&D and fixing, PC replies "You're right, we'll put it all on advertising." This campaign is the best Microsoft can do. They can't state their user interface is:
a) friendly
b) easy to use
c) secure and free of malware and viruses
d) fun to use
e) easy to fix
So instead of fixing all of these things to provide a better user experience, they ignore all that and they come up with ads that say "if you only want cool, buy a Mac". I have no respect for an ad campaign based on falsehoods. Marketing becomes bad marketing when it attempts to trick people into buying something based on a lie, or in this case a series of lies.

[hedgeland]

Um, just take a look at the guy's website. Either it's been hacked or it's a complete holdover from 1991. Whatever the price of cool is, this guy has never paid it.
http://www.ndpta.com/
Verdict: Another worthless "analyst".

[DogHouseDub]

A former boss told me "Using price comparisons as a marketing tool is the last gasp of a dying and desperate company".

[flybynight]

Great article, Dan!

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

"Another worthless analyst"



Let's arrange a retention bonus of, oh, how about $4,500,000. Oh, MS prolly already paid him that much.

[darkelf]

and half the links on the page are local file URLs...
file:///C:/Program%20Files/Yahoo%20SiteBuilder/sites/Test/FujitsuReorgs.html
uhm, nice. very helpful.