What keeps Steve Ballmer awake at night? No, not Mrs Ballmer’s snoring. And probably not the IBM Lotus portfolio. Linux maybe? Well, someone from Microsoft did once tell me that Lotus doesn’t keep Bill Gates awake at night (hence my comment) but Linux does. Why Linux? Because it starts to break down Microsoft’s halo effect… Linux servers replacing Windows servers will hinder .NET and SharePoint deployments and Linux desktops will scupper Windows and Office, which are Microsoft’s main cash-cows.

If the noise of Steve gnashing his teeth over Linux drowns out Mrs Ballmer’s snoring, what effect is Apple’s popularity having? Regardless of how good Zune media players may be, the cool-ness of wire-lessly sharing media with other Zune owners is dampened by the fact that there may be no other Zune owners within a fifty mile radius. Throw a Zune randomly over your shoulder in an urban area and chances are you’ll hit two iPod owners (one directly, and the second when the Zune bounces off the first person’s head).

What about the Mac versus the Windows-based personal computer? From here on I’ll adopt Microsoft’s moniker for the ‘PC’. According to a comment on Cult of Mac, PCs outsell Macs by ten-to-one. This doesn’t surprise me at all. Macs are more expensive (we’ll have the “you get for you pay for” argument later) – that may not be so much of an impact for the private consumer who will have to save a bit longer or dip into more of the savings to cough up £1,500 for an iMac or MacBook Pro, versus £800 for a good-quality Windows PC or laptop. But in business that amount of extra money doesn’t wash when you multiply it across two, five, ten or fifty thousand people. Companies will look for a massively-discounted deal on some fit-for-business kit… not top of the range but it’ll do the job. And that’s not the business Apple are in, although they have some traction in some market sectors. Some companies are indulging in the idea of consumerisation – the idea of giving an employee a sum of money to choose their own computing kit – but if their critical business applications run on Windows only it becomes Hobson’s choice for the operating system.

This makes me wonder what Microsoft are playing at with their PC vs Mac mini-site. Are they worried about starting to lose the corporate market? Probably not. However, consider the fact that Microsoft get a lot of mileage from the fact that people use Windows and Office at home (and college) and then take that advocacy into the workplace… could a growing number of Macs used in personal life start to chip away at the Windows dominance in the business environment? Maybe, but I also think that Microsoft are targetting those people who may be seduced by Apple’s cool factor… people like me… I was seduced and it was the best £1,500 I ever spent (not including money spent on an engagement ring to secure the hand of the current Mrs Adams).

Microsoft put forward a number of compelling arguments to halt that seduction…

You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless.

Some of that may be true, but you can get a Mac with a built-in SD card reader. Whatever, none of those omissions have bothered me in the slightest.

Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360.

Why would I want to connect my Mac to my Xbox?

Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC. For example, the mouse works differently.

Indeed, that’s why I clicked on the option to make my Mac mouse behave like a PC mouse… so now the mouse works in the way I got used to on a PC. The Mac is a different beast to a PC in many ways, so why would everything work the same? This statement implies that Windows is perfect in every way, and to deviate from that is a step back. And that’s complete garbage, because there’s loads of things that Windows does badly that the Mac does better.

With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network.

That’s a statement totally lacking in any evidence. I’ll give you one example… I have an Archos media player, and it was a hell of a lot easier to set up media streaming from the Mac than from Windows. In fact I wouldn’t even say “set up” because from the Mac it just worked. Windows required some tinkering, encouragement and a small amount of swearing.

If there’s a Mac version of a program you need, you’ll have to buy it again and relearn how to use it on a Mac. [Note the 'If' in italics].

What do users of GarageBand and iMovie for Windows think about this statement?

Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points.

This is clearly Apple’s biggest mistake. They made iPods available in a range of colours but failed to do the same with the Macs, a decision that could ruin the company </sarcasm>. Ironically in this one statement, they mixed the most ridiculous reason (the colour choices) with the strongest factor of PCs… the fact that there is a great variety of choice in specifications, price, vendor and ultimately quality. Apple’s offerings are more expensive and more limited in choice.

But do you get what you pay for? After using an iMac at home for over a year, and now a MacBook Pro when out and about, I’d say yes. Even on a well-specced ThinkPad I’d experience an awful lot of egg-timer in a day. On the Mac everything is almost instantaneous. Bear in mind that on the iMac at home there’s usually two other people logged in and I’m running a lot of applications, but it never goes into one of those disk-thrashing death spirals of unresponsiveness. Yes, it’s better specced than the ThinkPad and it cost more, but that’s why I do say that you get what you pay for and (in my humble opinion) it’s worth it.

Recent Blog Posts

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Acer Iconia Tab W500 Mon, Jan 16th 2012 2:11p Darren Adams One of the great things about working for Microsoft is that there always seems to be things going on to increase the interest levels around products… or more precisely, chances to win prizes. Since I’ve been been here I’ve seen people winning phones, Xboxes, Kinects, armfuls of Xbox games and (most recently) tablets. And I’m happy to say that I was the lucky recipient of a Windows 7 tablet. I had to do a bit of work for it, but it was a welcome reward. The tablet in quest [read] Keywords: enterprise facebook microsoft office outlook skype wireless

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Lync for iOS Fri, Jan 13th 2012 5:10p Darren Adams Following on from last year’s look at Microsoft Lync for Windows Phone, let’s have a look at Lync for iOS. Lync supports the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, but as I only have an iPod I’ll have to leave the iPad interface for another time. As usual, click on the small images to see the full versions After logging in I see My Info, where I can set my status and message, change the call-forwarding and simultaneous ring options, and change a number of other options for multiple phone [read] Keywords: desktop facebook instant message interface iphone ipod microsoft mobile server

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Lync goes mobile Fri, Dec 23rd 2011 7:10a Darren Adams Upon joining Microsoft I was extremely impressed by the fact that Microsoft Lync 2010 with telephony was rolled out right across the whole organisation. There’s no phones on any desks (other than some demo SIP phones) and a headset is part of the standard ‘welcome pack’ along with a new laptop and a Windows Phone. No-one asks if someone can take a Lync call, it just happens. All conference calls use Lync (unless it’s set up by an external party). It’s a way of life [read] Keywords: sametime exchange exchange facebook instant message interface iphone ipod laptop microsoft mobile office

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Nokia Lumia 800 Sat, Dec 3rd 2011 8:10a Darren Adams Continuing with the Windows Phone theme… earlier this year Nokia announced their intention to embrace Microsoft’s new mobile OS. A few months ago, an internal Microsoft event previewed Nokia’s first phones and their ambitious marketing plans. Since then you may have seen a lot of advertising and events such as the Deadmau5 gig on the banks of the Thames with the Millbank tower’s eight hundred windows transformed into a huge screen. In October Nokia announced two new Windo [read] Keywords: apple facebook google ipod microsoft mobile office

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Nokia Lumia 800 – the amazing demo Mon, Nov 21st 2011 12:13p Darren Adams I think I mentioned Windows Phone recently, but as yet I haven’t mentioned Nokia’s first offerings for the platform. The Lumia 800 is one of two phones released so far (more are coming) and has been getting rave reviews. I have held one on two occasions, and twice considered making a run for it with the gorgeous device in my thieving paws. At the weekend I noted that some of the many mobile phone shops in Camberley had fully-working demo units on display (not those non-functional dum [read] Keywords: facebook interface mobile twitter

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A tale of two clouds Mon, Nov 21st 2011 10:12a Darren Adams Just a quick one, a blog post about another blog post – Binary Tree’s Henry Bestritsky explains why his company left the Google Enterprise Partner program and threw its full weight behind Exchange upgrades and migrations to Office 365. The choice quote is… …media perceptions and market hype could not hide the fact that we were not seeing customer demand for Google in the enterprise. You can read the full blog post here. [read] Keywords: archive enterprise exchange exchange facebook google microsoft office

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A Windows Phone guide to Camberley Sat, Nov 12th 2011 11:11a Darren Adams A couple of months ago I provided a list of new bits and pieces in the ‘Mango’ update to Windows Phone 7. One of the things I didn’t include was ‘local scout’. This feature can be accessed from the Bing search screen, or it can be pinned to the start screen. The first time I used local scout was in York – I was staying the night at a hotel and after seven hours of sleep I was ready for a spot of breakfast. However, I usually make a stand against expensive hote [read] Keywords: facebook microsoft

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Task list for Windows Phone Wed, Nov 9th 2011 4:12p Darren Adams Continuing the recent trend of blog posts about Windows Phone, and because Bill Buchan loves reading about the operating system, here’s a quick update on one of my favourite apps… the aptly named ‘Tasks’. It probably won’t be a surprise for you to discover that it’s a task list app (no, really). It was already a good app – apart from being free (a big plus-point) the killer feature is being able to pin tasks or task categories to the Windows Phone start [read] Keywords: facebook interface office outlook

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The Olympic art of shooting fish in a barrel Sun, Nov 6th 2011 11:13a Darren Adams Regular readers of dadams.co.uk will know that I love modern art… mainly because it gives me a chance to be sarcastic and rude about the complete tripe that someone people produce. Usually I turn my barbed wit upon the Turner Prize, but as luck would have it another group of artists has provided some ammo. Taking the Michael out of art is often like shooting fish in a barrel, but this occasion it’s like shooting dead fish in a small barrel at point blank range with a long-muzzled rev [read] Keywords: facebook

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Windows Phone live tiles – this is how they look Sat, Nov 5th 2011 11:10a Darren Adams You may think that this is becoming a blog dedicated to Windows Phone – it’s not, but Windows Phone is something that I’m enthusiastic about and deserves more praise than it’s getting. In a previous post I discussed live tiles, which have become more common-place in apps since the release of Mango. In the last day I’ve indulged in a bit of jiggery-pokery (that’s the technical term) which has resulted in me being able to capture Windows Phone screens. So here, [read] Keywords: application facebook linkedin microsoft outlook twitter