Is Windows 7 finally halting the Mac migration?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=8117&tag=content;col1

by jaybol • 16 years ago

13 13 16 years ago

blogs.zdnet.com

slantyyz• 16 years ago

The pundit is blowing it a little out of proportion no? Mac OS market share is still tiny compared to Windows. And a lot of switchers still run Windows by dual booting or in a VM.

Title might be better as "Is Windows 7 finally convincing XP users that they're not upgrading to a version of Windows that doesn't suck?"

barnaby• 16 years ago

The article isn't about existing marketshare, it's about the trend in how that marketshare is changing. This is the first time in a LONG time that Windows isn't losing marketshare to Mac and Linux.

That's a fact. The speculative part here is Why. Is it that Windows 7 doesn't suck? For all we know, Microsoft could have a new ad campaign, or had bought a sales lead sheet made of gold.

Time will tell, but I predict this is not a permanent reversal in the longstanding trend.

sjs2• 16 years ago

As someone who ditched Windows XP for OS X, Linux, or any other Unix, I tried Vista SP1 and it was very solid. Windows is slowly getting better. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 7 was actually pretty good.

It doesn't solve the lack of a good command line, unix development tools, or a package manager, but most users don't care about such things. They just want to surf the web without crashing or getting viruses.

If I only used my computer for an hour or two a day, say to listen to music and go on Facebook, then Windows 7 would surely be good enough. I doubt I would look for an alternative OS.

jsz0• 16 years ago

Mac sales up 33%, Windows sales up 35% -- wouldn't it be more obvious to conclude the PC market in general is coming back? Then again I probably wouldn't have clicked on a story titled "Computer sales improving" Kudos ZDNet.

bokchoi• 16 years ago

Yep, I just bought one of each and quite happy with both.

jbellis• 16 years ago

I switched from a Dell Studio XPS running Windows 7 to a new mbp running OS X 10.6 a month ago, and the mbp is noticeably less stable -- I have to reboot every few days to avoid Spinny Wheel Of Hell for no apparent reason.

(I prefer linux to both Windows and OS X, so I don't think I'm particularly biased here. :)

pyre• 16 years ago

If you're using mounted network file systems (smbfs,cifs,nfs,etc), that could be the cause.

jsolson• 16 years ago

As a general rule the spinny wheel should by tied to a particular application. Are you noticing this somewhere specific, or does it appear to be system wide?

I ask because if it appears to be system wide it could be indicative of a hardware problem or a misbehaving 3rd party driver.

Healthy stock Macs running stock software don't go tend to go spinny system wide (excepting the disappearing network filesystem mentioned elsewhere in this thread, although even that is less of an issue in 10.6), at least in my considerable experience. Your mileage may vary with 3rd party software and drivers (although in my experience, most of those play quite well).

I've had similar experiences with Windows: if you stick to software supplied by Microsoft, the system tends to be fairly stable. Perhaps I'm just lucky.

jws• 16 years ago

When mine started doing this, it was because the drive was developing bad sectors and mapping them out. The drive becomes unresponsive for some time while doing that, so as each application would need a disc io it would beachball.

Sadly the Apple supplied interface to S.M.A.R.T. data only gives the rosiest outer level summary so it showed "verified". Third party tools that show all the data confirmed the failing sectors, including another half dozen as I refreshed my backup.

sjs2• 16 years ago

There is something wrong either with your Mac or some software you're running. I would send or take it in for service with problems like that.