macbook good enough?

[CCAccount0909]

<p>

Virtualization is a consumer product now. At least for Macs.

Only to support Windows, not to support legacy Mac OS’s.</p>

<p>

Palm Desktop is a consumer product.

But it’s much more commonly used for in a business environment.

Microsoft Office, especially the student and home edition is a
consumer product.

Not Office 2000.

There are colleges that use VPN for network access.

And those colleges tell you not to buy 64-bit Vista in that case. Besides, many people just buy a computer for college through the college.

The Visual Studio Express editions are not commercial software. And Microsoft has a student program where students can get Microsoft’s development tools and an operating system for free.

So I’m guessing the OS they’re giving away for free with the development tools is going to be 32-bit?

I think that it’s pretty safe to say that consumers use Antivirus programs.

And common anti-virus software does support 64-bit. Some of the most common (and bad) anti-virus companies, such as Norton and McAfee, support 64-bit, as well as more competent anti-virus software, such as Kaspersky’s products.

I also think that it’s safe to say that Java and Flash are used in consumer and student applications.

Java’s available in 64-bit. Flash is available if you use 32-bit Firefox, so I’m not sure that’s such a big deal

I don’t understand why you said that. I said that I’ve been running
iTunes on x64 for several years.

Because you said this:

iTunes did support x64 in one particular version and then it broke
in the next release. A little while after that, you could install
it but not all of the pieces worked.

I thought that meant you were having problems with iTunes in x64.</p>

<p>

Not really. The processors, video cards, disks, chipsets can be the
same. As far as incompatibility goes, you can have that on Windows
systems too where a manufacturer doesn’t provide a driver for your
particular piece of hardware and you have to go with a generic driver.

I know, that’s why there are driver problems in Windows. The OEMs are primarily hardware companies. Software that they create is rarely good.</p>

<p>

antivirus, DRM and expensive graphics overhead contributes significantly to power costs

1. Anti-virus isn’t necessary; it’s just supposed to alleviate everyone’s unfounded fears about viruses.
2. There’s a lot more DRM in Apple’s software than Microsoft’s software. DRM is a pervasive component of the Apple software ecosystem. iTMS is a perfect example of that.
3. Nobody is forced to buy a computer with an expensive graphics card. Just because Apple doesn’t offer a good graphics card on the MacBooks doesn’t mean every other laptop in that price range shouldn’t offer one either.</p>

<p>

Microsoft provided x64 betas in 2003. Since that time, driver support
has improvedb but they really took their time in pushing hardware
companies for that support. That’s what happens when you have
excellent software engineering but poor product management and
marketing.

It’s not just the hardware companies though. The hardware companies were not inclined to move because of all the legacy software dependent on 32-bit OS’s. I’m sure that the backwards compatibility in XP x64 was not perfect.</p>

<p>

My point earlier is that Apple already has seamless integration and
they’ve had it for a while. Despite Microsoft’s multiyear lead in
getting out an x64 operating system.

Yes, they do. It’s part of their narrowly defined experience. They control every aspect of the hardware and software. Microsoft moves much slower because it has to support a much wider array of hardware and software.</p>

<p>

It’s slow. Sometimes to the point of being unusable.

That probably has something to do with their MobileMe service failures following the release of the 3G iPhone.</p>

<p>

Apple has around 270 stores. That is dwarfed by the number of
stores that sell PCs.

The quantity doesn’t matter, [when</a> the Apple stores have their RDF](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/business/27apple.html?pagewanted=all]when”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/business/27apple.html?pagewanted=all).</p>

<p>

The Apple salespeople are very low-key. They don’t get someone to buy something. They offer to provide help or information.

Exactly - the RDF does it’s thing without any help from the salespeople. In fact, they contribute to the RDF with that kind of sales pitch. It helps to provide a stark contrast between the Apple stores and Best Buy or Circuit City.</p>