As a "switcher" from around this time last year when the value proposition was strong but much less compelling than it is now, I have a different outlook on your comments than your readers that may only be familiar with "WinTel" products up to now. The latter will read your comments with some incredulity.

OTOH, as someone who drank at the Wintel troth since it's inception, and has been a full participant, including building the hardware as a hobby, and using it for a large number of different tasks (engineering, CAD, CAE, DTP, home media, web development, photography, music creation, music server), I think there's a very compelling case for your comments.

Being at present the only Mac user in the San Jose office of a large semiconductor company does attract a little notice and curiousity. When they see what I can do with one, including running XP and all those CAD programs as needed, curiosity turns to consternation, wonder, and more than a hint of envy. As an engineering manager, my visibility in the organzation means a lot of people get to see this first hand and learn about things they had no idea existed.

Well, now our Automotive/Industrial segment manager is switching to all Mac at home, and for myself, my daughter, my girlfriend, and several of my best friends have all fallen under the influence of the Sithlord and his reality distortion field- and seem quite happy about it.

Probably I jumped the gun, as I didn't wait for what I expected and did roll out in the recent Mac Pro release, and bought a quad core G5 to augment my G4 PB, and also picked up a G5 iMac at a steal price to use as a mucsic server. Still, we've gotten two intel based Macs (a MacBook and a MacBook Pro, bought in that order), and I'm eyeing that 24" iMac closely. ;^)

However, my G5 Quad core is a screamer and very nice to use daily, as well as being very quiet unless you're pushing it- I'm glad to have it for what it does, and for having a piece of Apple's recent history that works very well with all of the current applications.

~Jon

A bit over the top, but in general I agree.

I would mark his words, but add that this shift will take three to four times as long as is predicted by Mr. Yager.

/steven

" It understands that Apple is a far bigger threat than Linux, which it is prepared to battle. "

Linux has been making headway in the corporate/enterprise market. Microsoft is very interested in its corporate clientele. -> Linux = threat. Macs? Well, Apple has yet to prove it can be a competitor outside the iPod space. So far we haven't seen that. So yes, Linux is a threat to Microsoft, and they've been fighting against it for some time now. Mac or OS X is not. Next year will chance absolutely nothing.

If Apple actually was to compete against Wintel, they should, for example, make the brand known outside the USA. That might actually help. But only in the consumer space: Corporate clients aren't buying, and won't be buying, ultra expensive Macs that are aimed at consumers.

You, sir, are a jackass. I love macs as much as anyone, but they are not taking over. Not anytime soon anyway

As long as Apple (other than the marketing department)remains committed to being a pain in the ass of mixed-environment networks, they're going nowhere. Some examples:
1. Bonjour, which now can't be turned off, is hard coded with the DNS domain name .local, which happens to have been the defacto DNS domain for Active Directory environments since long before Bonjour was invented. Ever try integrating Macs into an existing .local AD domain?
2. In case you have, you may have been tempted to look at the Apple knowledge base, which would be laughable in its lack of substance in what few articles exist, except for their imperious attitude - "don't name your AD domain .local".
3. Since you didn't find an answer there, you might be tempted to call tech support. But in order to talk about anything regarding integration with a Windows server, you have to know the secret password because the first level support (Apple Store sales floor people by the sound of it) is trained to stonewall any issue regarding integration - not just "I don't know, let me escalate you", but "We don't answer those questions and there's nobody here who does and there's no one else you can ask". If, during the voice menu, you say the undocumented secret word "enterprise", you may get connected to an operator who will give you a lengthy disclaimer that a support incident costs $795, there's no guarantee of any resolution, and the techician will determine how many incidents will be charged for the phone call and when the incident is ended (solved or not).

Any PC's I have noticed in the BestBuy/OfficeDepot/CompUSA ads are well under $1,000, but not any Mac's besides a barebones Mini. I don't see much room for Mac's in that consumer space unless they break the under-$500 (including monitor, keyboard, mouse, and a lot of the add-on goodies like printers that are bundled in these days).

I consider myself savvy for making an almost complete personal transition to linux (Ubuntu), although I still revert for a few of the more exotic apps I have not taken time to find/learn the linux equivalents for such as DeLorme's Street Atlas. Since I generally build/refurbish PC's, I probably will not get myself or anyone else excited about Mac's as long as they are over $500.

Although, I try to steer folks away from Windows, I can't support all of them on Linux, and most see no point in spending over $500, so they "revert" to Wintel unfortunately. I would love to play with the unix-based Mac OS X, but I'm not willing to pay the entry price of the hardware.

ROC

Nice Fantasy Yager:

The only problem here is the reality of the wintel world. These prices right of the sites as I write this.

Dell xps 410 2.6Ghz core II Duo 19" flat panel, 4Gb Ram 250Gb HD DVD+-R/DL Soundblasetr Audigy drive $1905.00 ALso comes with free PCI slots for expansion. Firewire 800, no problem, just plug it into the PCI bus.

Dell 20" Imac 2.33 Ghz Core II duo(max you can go 3Gb RAM (Max you can go) 250Mb HD $2574.00 No expansion, No future.

I'm running right out for that state of the art hardware - riiiight!

You know, I used to look forward to your columns as a breath of fresh air, as a counterweight to bring some kind of balance to the morbid, cloying mass that is the Windows server/client enterprise family. For much of my life I have labored under the curse that is the concept of the Windows "server", the idea that some GUI-laden, inconsistent, unstable desktop OS could provide a platform for an entire network of similar systems. My beloved Netware languished as hordes of clueless admins and managers flocked to a system that allowed them to "click on things" in the hope that they would no longer be forced to read a manual.

Macs were never even in the running. Lacking preemptive multitasking until the release of Mac OS X, stultifyingly expensive, and operating under the assumption that all users only had one finger (at least on their mouse hand), I found them cute, underpowered, and patronizing by their very design.

Suddenly, though, with the addition of Unix underpinnings scavenged from Job's forced hiatus from the company he founded (a time he spent building even less affordable and impractical systems) Apple's systems have become, once again, enterprise material. Look, it multitasks! Using the network stack doesn't bring the box to it's knees! The addition of a true shell doesn't make power users feel strangely lobotomized!

But you know what? Despite all these changes, Apple still has the same mentality. OS X still emphasizes prettiness over power. I have a Mac behind my desk, with OS X 10.4, and while it's a vast improvement over previous versions, I'd have to spend thousands on hardware to have it match the performance of my main Athlon 64 system with 2 GB of RAM that I put together using off-the-shelf parts for about $300.

Yes, Apple's pricing is becoming competitive. Yes, their addition of Intel to their lineup, while sickening (Intel arousing only slightly less ire than Microsoft in many PC circles) will make their hardware slightly less unaffordable.

But what makes you think that managerial types that think Macs are toys (with some justification, I might add) are suddenly going to rip out their infrastructure and replace it with Apple technology? Perhaps Apple's uber-annoying ad campaign where Windows is played by some clueless idiot will suddenly convert all the Windows power users to Mac fanatics, because, you know, everyone likes to be made fun of.

Which brings me to my point. You're not going to win people over by telling them they're stupid. Perhaps because your job doesn't require you to perform any real work - other than finding new ways to make fun of Windows, and trust me, that's not exactly difficult - you have become blinded to the ugly reality that is the enterprise market. It must be nice to sit up there in your ivory tower and predict the demise of a system you so obviously hate. You know what? Some of us don't have that luxury. And until we are all able to enter your Apple-licious, worm-free nirvana, your biting witticisms about the instability of operating system we are saddled with are going to do nothing but annoy us.

At least this time you weren't predicting the demise of Linux as well. I'm glad to see that continuous exposure to a operating system "for the rest of us" hasn't entirely robbed you of your senses.