OS X + XP: Who will really win?

[Matrix Agent]

I wanna know what you guys really think is going to happen, both short term and long term.

I dont want to know which OS is better, I want to know whether Apple will win market share, and if it does, within which groups?

Will Apple's attempt to move into the future fall flat on its face?
Will XP's hurried shove out the door give businesses a crappy outlook on XP?
Do windows users really care enough to upgrade?

Try to stay as unbiased as you can.

[AdmiralAK]

I think that OS X will take away from people using other unixen in the short term. In the long term I think more people will migrate to it, but again from macusers,unix users, and artists/educators and people that have used a mac in the past, or a unix in the past.

I think the general public will remain with windows. I think this because it is my observation that computer users are inherently dumb. People who know better have experienced more OSes and not just windows (that is what I call the learned peoples) but most window users (as quoted from another post) "don't know what another OS is"...but even if they did know they think that it's too difficult and have neither the intellectual curiosity nor the willingness to see something from a different angle and try something else (I mean take a look at the x86 platform, it has tens of free OSes but I dont see the win community experimenting).

With XP this will be even more seen since people will be using the built in browser, media player, IM client and other built in features as default and a lot of new users will not take the time to experiment with other alternatives to what MS has provided for them (a great example is the IE debacle with making it part of the OS). M$ is going to make their wma wmv format the defacto standard as well as their MSN and MSN messenger services the defacto for win users to use, and win users wont say anything because they are inherently dumb and thus unwilling to challenge and experiment with others.

man I think I said a lot.
I will shut up now and possibly open myself up to flamming.

thanks

Admiral

[Finch]

I hate to say it but I'm thinking XP. I'm currently running both and Microsoft hands down tends to be the "slug" 9 time out of 10. Until I loaded OS X 10.0.4 on my Powerbook G4 500MHz with 320MB of Ram, all I can say is dog slow. Meanwhile XP is crusin with only 256MB Ram on my Celeron 500MHz Notebook.

Finch

[Matrix Agent]

While I don't know this for a fact, i think OS X got kicked out of the door a bit quick in order to satisfy diehard users. This may have hurt them in the short term, but ultimately they will benefit from the massive amount of feedback they recieved. Microsoft will not do this because, to say it frankly, they dont give a shit what you do or dont like about the OS. So where apple started, microsoft is going to finish. In 10.1 Apple will take everything to the next step, to the true OS X, which includes what real people want in an OS.

Now in XP do you see a noticable change in speed, or is it a general change in GUI? If speed is your concern, i think you will be satisfied, it runs much quicker than OS 9, can XP beat win2000?

I'm not flaming you, im just saying that OS X wasn't built for speed yet, save your decisions for a day when you know what the final score looks like.

OK, if i've been overy harsh here, please tell me, im not trying to come off as pushy or combative.

[Piet Keizer]

Apple will become an even stronger consumer brand. Apple was a different world, that no Windows user had to know about. But Windows users are going to meet Apple users more and more.

Why will more and more Windows users meet Apple users?

The first reason is that OS X is going to make surviving in a Windows world easier:
- MacLink and Apple Works are provided with every iMac and iBook
- some kind of DAVE is being built into the OS
- you can save every document as a PDF

Second, I have the feeling that iBooks are going to take over the iMacs, because they're getting cheaper and cheaper and they're targeted to the same consumer groups. This means that more and more consumers are going to carry their good looking Macs around.

If more Windows consumers are going to meet Apple consumers, the former will notice the differences. Windows consumer systems are messy, loaded with usesless features fighting eachother. They're going to compare that to Apple's simplicity and style. Lack of that is inherent to the Windows system, which has to take account of everyone's interests, which always leads to terrible compromises, bad taste and a lack of vision.

And Windows users are going to see the pride of Apple users carrying their machines around. I'm very aware of that Apple logo telling people: look, here's a guy happily making his own choices and I work with you just as easily as a Windows user.

This is going to mean an increase of Apple's brand strength and I think this should lead to a bigger market share.

[Crawfish]

I think XP will win, not because it is a better os but because it already has a good chunk of the market share. As stated before, people in general are not interested in what is available to them but what's planted right in front of their faces. When people become interested in a product they look at what everybody else has and then do a little bit of research, and eventualy buy the most popular product they can afford. The research doesnt go very far. An Apple person, however, is a little different (We "Think Different"!). I, for one, like unique, stylish, simplistic as well as efficient, things. Ironically, I have to do research to find the simple and efficient things that I like. MS is all over the place offering everything under the sun while Apple is making products that their unique customers like.

I don't think Apple is in this thing to win but to continue to make high quality products that are affordable and different. OSX is a high quality OS that is affordable and different. It's just not done yet!

I use a PC at work and have a Mac at home just like every other mac user. The people at work always argue with me over what is better, faster, etc. Whatever you could afford and like is what's better!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Ripcord]

I was talking to someone at work today about OS X (since I'm just learning about it myself), and the conversation turned to Windows XP. When I mentioned about XP's licensing/registration scheme, and the ability to change hardware in a <b>legally licensed</b> machine only a few times before the license (and therefore your machine) is deactivated, his jaw dropped - he couldn't believe it.

I wasn't trying to convince him that OS X (or Mac in general) is better in any way, but his last comment on the matter was "looks like I'm going to be buying a Mac..." (My coworker is a die-hard Windows user, btw).

I get the feeling that there's going to be a lot of this kind of sentiment, myself included. Personally, I'm really happy with Win2k - I think it's a very robust, stable, and usable range of OS products, but if XP is the future of Windows, well... Count me out. There's almost nothing that I use my PCs for that I couldn't do on a Mac.

[comgil]

The fact is today, OSX isn't a seller app. It won't increase the number of Mac by itself.
OSX can be installed on about 2 million machines (if they increase the memory), but XP can be installed on tenth of millions of machine. It could be hard, the problems could be big, but PC users bought win95, win98, SE, ME, 2K and didn't blame M$oft.
I don't know how Apple could reach such a number.

The real problem is the lack of advertising : only mac users and fans care about OSX. It could be better, simplier and faster, no PC user really cares, because for him the Mac doesn't exist.

What Apple should do now to change this ?