Mainly Macintosh

Review: MacBook Excels at Windows, OS X: Financial News - Yahoo!Finance

I just read a pretty positive review about the MacBook notebook from Apple - the Intel-based replacement for the G4-based iBook. The price of this notebook is amazingly low.

Robert Weston, Associated Press Writer: Financial News - Yahoo!Finance:

Apple Computer Inc.'s latest laptop looks sleek, runs fast and should give makers of Windows-based notebooks considerable cause for concern.The MacBook, which replaces Apple's iBook consumer notebooks, is the last of the mobile Macs to make the switch to Intel Corp. chips that have powered Windows PCs for years. With extra software, the newer Macs can run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows as well as Apple's Mac OS X.

This could spell trouble for notebook makers who can't offer the best of both worlds, particularly in light of the MacBook's starting price of $1,099.

This ability to run Windows, coupled with the very inexpensive price - for a notebook, no less - puts non-Apple manufacturer's at a disadvantage. Try as they might, they cannot make their hardware into an Apple.

Insisting on all kinds of ways that software can be restricted has kind of boomeranged on the old PC makers.

Now Apple has its hat on at a jaunty angle and they are left following behind, asking if they can run the fancy, glitzy, powerful Mac OS X too. No, Apple replies. Sigh..., they respond mournfully.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is too happy to sell a copy of MS-Windows to the growing number of Mac users with Intel-based Macs. Especially, since the market for MS-Windows has kind of backed up - due to a trifecta of overseas piracy, saturation of the US market, and telescoping delays for the long-awaited Vista and Microsoft Office 2007.

Those problems will come tumbling down in a year or whatever, but in the meantime - sure, it is okay for Apple Macintosh owners to buy a retail/non-OEM copy of Windows.

It is nice that Apple is helping Microsoft out. Given the way things stand these days, they really do not have to do that. It is kind of cool that Apple is being so generous.

posted by John Collins @ 10:41 PM