Mass Microsoft Defections to Apple Possible 722
An anonymous reader writes to mention a MacWorld article covering research by the Forrester group. Their report shows that mass dissatisfaction with Microsoft and its products could lead to defections from the company. From the article: "Over all, only Apple and Tivo saw their brand trust rise in the last two years, according to the report. The final tally saw Bose, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic and Sony earn the highest marks, while Microsoft, Gateway and LG ranked lowest. The low scores for Microsoft could mean good news for Apple as consumers showed their distrust of the Redmond-based software-giant."
in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
According to highly sensitive information that was leaked to us by an individual known only as "Dark Ottoman", the "Chair Launcher 3000" will combine real-time satellite imagery with a state-of-the-art targeting system making it capable of executing high-precision long-range chair-based attacks. To be more specific, you could be walking out of your local Apple store with you shiny new Macintosh in your arms, a smile stretched across your unsuspecting face, only to find yourself, moments later, crushed by a Windsor or an Adirondack dropped from a clear blue sky.
On an even more ominous note, shortly after providing us with this classified information, "Dark Ottoman" broke contact and vanished without a trace. While we are not sure of his fate, several days later an as yet unidentified Seattle man was found dead in a Best Buy parking lot, killed by a barrage of wicker chairs from the heavens. Steve Ballmer was unavailable for comment.
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Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
Not to Linux (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Argh. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are we reading the same data? (Score:2, Funny)
That's good to know because Apples tend to be 60% overpriced anyway. I guess you can call it a deposit.
Re:Argh. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Argh. (Score:5, Funny)
Watch carefully, students (Score:5, Funny)
Apples tend to be 60% overpriced anyway.
On the left, hidden by the foliage, you can barely make out the Mac fanatic. He is identifiable by his quick defense of the Mac platform. Sometimes this species puts together coherent thoughts, but as you can see in this case, he is more interested in showing his rainbow-striped plumage than engaging in an actual battle. He is hoping that the Windows troll will be frightened away by the display.
show me any PC that can match every spec on an iMac or MacBook Pro that costs 60% less.
You in the back. You had a question?
Now let's head back to the classroom so as to let these little buggers get back to their routine.
Re:Trying a Mac (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft employees are excited about MacOSX.
Re:Are we reading the same data? (Score:1, Funny)
Thats an old myth that is simply not true any more. Find any PC Mini that is price competative with the Mac Mini. Even the barebone Mini-ITX systems that are huge copared to the Mac Mini cost upwards of $600. OK, the MacBook Pro is expensive at $1999, but if you compare it with a comparable PC laptop, the price difference is not more than 20%, which I would happily pay for a solidly built machine that can run OSX, Windows and Linux. I think the problem is that people are just comparing the price alone, not looking at the complete system. How many of us actually go compare why the Acer laptop sold at Costco for $700 so much cheaper than the $1999 MacBook Pro? Do you think about the bus speeds, the screen used, etc? Having used Macs and PCs over nearly 15 years, the most error prone machines I have developed on were the Macs, and as a developer, I want a dependable system that I dont want to screw around every other day due to failures.
Re:Argh. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Argh. (Score:1, Funny)
Can't fool me! (Score:5, Funny)
Okay.. in other POSSIBLE news: (Score:5, Funny)
BARSTOW, CA (AP) - Today, computer scientists at the DeVry Institute claimed to have solved the Halting Problem, a classic thought experiment of theoretical computer science. The problem's insolvability, a landmark in the field, was proposed by theoretician Alan Turing in 1938.
"We were skeptical at first, of course", said Dr. Ephraim P. Fingerbottom, emeritus professor of computability theory at DeVry. "The Halting Problem's intractibility is one of those snippets of lore we love to torture undergraduates with, so we really had no practical motive for accepting this hypothesis. Come to think of it, we have no practical motives at all, we're theoreticians. Anyway, our faces fell when we proofed the submission, let me tell you. Never ask a theoretician to come up with new material. Hell, now we may to juggle teaching and the hunt for grant money like everyone else."
Nonetheless, Dr. Fingerbottom was heartened by the new-found stature of his department in light of these findings. "We're attracting some exciting new talent here", he said, perspiring under the layers of chalk dust that have covered his face since 1962. "This development, coupled with our reduction of the '3-SAT problem' to a scientific proof of the existence of God, has swelled our ranks with students who want to do something else other than write software and make money."
The resulting paper will soon be published in the next issues of Communications of the ACM and the DIMACS Journal for Applied Math.
Re:Watch carefully, students (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Watch carefully, students (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Are we reading the same data? (Score:3, Funny)
I assume you meant "dethonging". Of course, until this moment I was unaware that Gates wore thongs.
Re:No one understands Boot Camp (Score:2, Funny)
Something cannot be both the "final" and "penultimate" version.
"it is the last, next to last, version."
It doesn't make any sense, does it? Penultimate does not mean "extra-ultimate."
Re:Are we reading the same data? (Score:3, Funny)
And this is different from any other PC hardware... how? How much faster is the Athlon FX60 over the Athlon X2 4600+? How much faster is the fastest RAM or GFX card than the one below it?
Specing out an HP commodity laptop vs a Mac Book Pro is like specing out a weeklong trip Warsaw, Poland (where I'm from) and a seculded island in the Indian Ocean. On paper, the trips might have exactly the same elements, but the experience is worlds apart.