It's not really fair to consider both, since you can't (legally) run OSX on just any computer. Apple rapes you on hardware costs, so why not charge less for OS?

Quote: Original post by zedz
I'ld actually like to see MS adopt a similar model
Every year release a new OS version but at a much reduced price

What if instead they charged a lot for major version iterations, then released major updates to that iteration for free. Essentially that's all you'd be getting with your new OS version if they released so frequently. The cost would be generally the same over the lifetime of the product.

They could call the updates "service kits" or "improvement packs" or something. :-p

Honestly, if they did it on a yearly basis, they'd probably stop releasing service packs that actually improve the product significantly. They might release bug fix patches, but performance probably wouldn't increase over the life of the product very significantly or they'd be competing against their own next OS. You might be an early adopter and get stuck with an OS that's drastically outperformed every year rather than having an OS that grows in performance, usability, and features over time.

It's 6 of one half a dozen of the other, but some people would benefit from one model and some from the other. I'd imagine most people would end up spending close to the same either way. That's of course not counting reinstalling your OS every year or 2.

Microsoft probably benefits in their productivity building and supporting a product for 3-5 years rather than building a new similar product every year too.

>> Apple rapes you on hardware costs, so why not charge less for OS?

yes they do overcharge heaps with their hardware but there has been a change in focus with their software prices in the last few years, even down to stuff on their platforms eg iphone app's $1-5.

look at apple's company value over the last few years, its far outstripped the competition which have stuck to the same tired old method.
Note - Im not a fan of apple at all, in fact a couple of days ago was the first Ild touched one since the apple2e

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/software/

#10 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade $120 (list price)
#15 Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard $29
#16 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium $200

mac os X 28aug release date
win 7 22oct release date

windows has ~90% marketshare, mac <10% yet the software that is 3 month's older is doing similarly as well

Im 99.9%(*) the MS method makes more money for the company with OS sales Im not denying that, but theres lots of benifits for the users to be running the latest version of your OS, security, compatiblity etc

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10

Windows XP 66.15% // released in 2001 yet still the most popular version!!!, this is not good
Windows Vista 17.47%
Windows 7 7.57%
Mac OS X 10.5 2.37%
Mac OS X 10.6 1.80% <- only 6 months old it + will be the most popular mac OS version within a year

(*)actually my certainty is tested now, look at the XP figures from ALL those users MS have gotten zilch,nada,zippo dollars ~8 years of earning nothing from the majority of your users, is this good business?

Quote: Original post by zedz
>> Apple rapes you on hardware costs, so why not charge less for OS?

yes they do overcharge heaps with their hardware but there has been a change in focus with their software prices in the last few years, even down to stuff on their platforms eg iphone app's $1-5.

look at apple's company value over the last few years, its far outstripped the competition which have stuck to the same tired old method.
Note - Im not a fan of apple at all, in fact a couple of days ago was the first Ild touched one since the apple2e

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/software/

#10 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade $120 (list price)
#15 Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard $29
#16 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium $200

mac os X 28aug release date
win 7 22oct release date

windows has ~90% marketshare, mac <10% yet the software that is 3 month's older is doing similarly as well

Im 99.9%(*) the MS method makes more money for the company with OS sales Im not denying that, but theres lots of benifits for the users to be running the latest version of your OS, security, compatiblity etc

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10

Windows XP 66.15% // released in 2001 yet still the most popular version!!!, this is not good
Windows Vista 17.47%
Windows 7 7.57%
Mac OS X 10.5 2.37%
Mac OS X 10.6 1.80% <- only 6 months old it + will be the most popular mac OS version within a year

(*)actually my certainty is tested now, look at the XP figures from ALL those users MS have gotten zilch,nada,zippo dollars ~8 years of earning nothing from the majority of your users, is this good business?

Might actually make more sense. Here's one way you can look at it: Microsoft gets ~$200 from user in 2001. Apple gets $30/yr for upgrades from user over a space of 8 years. $200 * 1 = $200, 8*30=240.

So, $40 benefit to Apple, right?

Well, it doesn't take into account that a dollar now is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Also, we aren't really taking into account the fact that I suspect many XP users will now upgrade to 7, which means another cash flow.

Now, Microsoft can take that 200 and invest it elsewhere. Let's say the money results in a 4% annual return.

So, here's our equation.

200*1.04^8 (8 years future value equation).
= ~$274.

It obviously goes up if you think they can utilize the money more effectively and get a higher percent.

Now, with the mac version:

(i'm assuming the initial cost is sunk, as you are forced to go with MacOS, and it's really just kind of tied to the cost of the hardware. You can dispute this if you like, but there is no real value on the cost of the initial OS install IMHO because you are forced to go with it (once again, sunk cost).

30*1.04^8 (41)
+30*1.04^7 (39)
+30*1.04^6 (38)
+30*1.04^5 (36)
+30*1.04^4 (35)
+30*1.04^3 (34)
+30*1.04^2 (32)
+30 (30)
= 285

So 274 vs 285 (and the spread goes more into microsofts favor if the percentage return goes up). Also points to consider: Microsoft gets the money NOW, which means that if they need it for some reason, its all in hand earlier in the game. Also, this figures that *EVERY* mac user is buying an upgrade every year. Probably not the case.. lets say 75% do, then each of those #'s is smaller.

Anyway, maybe I just put too much thought into this.

Ive been using Win7 at work for about 4 months now (I work at MS, so the RC was available to me) -- my machine certainly runs better with Win7 than it ever did with Vista -- responds better and uses less RAM (which is good since my work machine is a 32bit P4 (single core) with 1GB RAM) its probably comparable in responsiveness to WinXP on similar hardware (in fact, the machine I have at work is basically the PC I had at home running XP pro a few years back in a fancier case).

At home, I dual-boot my Macbook between OSX 10.6 and Win7 64bit. Its nice and snappy there. It doesn't have any hardware support issues like the Windows XP on bootcamp did before (glitchy sound); performance is probably better honestly (due to the GUI hardware acceleration) and it just works more nicely it seems.

The Win7 taskbar is really nice. I'm not big on the desktop gadgets but I do typically leave the CPU/RAM guage gadget running to keep an eye on my resources. WindowsXP mode is pretty nice (provided your hardware will support it) -- I have an application which, without minor hacks, will only run on 32bit WindowsXP due to a driver dependancy (an embedded systems interface) and it works just fine though XPMode. You wouldn't want to use it for gaming (no 3D hardware support) but the built-in compatibility profiles seem to have that taken care of just fine.

Overall, Windows7 is my favorite Windows ever.

@ktuluorion
you missed the line in my post
"Im 99.9%(*) the MS method makes more money for the company with OS sales Im not denying that, but theres lots of benifits for the users to be running the latest version of your OS, security, compatiblity etc"

coincidently I saw this story today
"VANCOUVER, British Columbia--The good news for Microsoft is that all the PCs powering the Olympics are running Windows. The bad news: it's the older Windows XP operating system. "

Surely its beneficial to users/MS(everyone basically) if ppl are running the latest version of windows, yet as seen by the above statistics the most commonly used version of windows by a long shot is 9 years old!!

How can anyone (esp a software developer) argue against this?

Quote: Original post by Ravyne
Overall, Windows7 is my favorite Windows ever.

Mine too!!! Looking forward to see Windows 8...

Quote: Original post by zedz
mac os X 28aug release date
win 7 22oct release date

windows has ~90% marketshare, mac <10% yet the software that is 3 month's older is doing similarly as well

...

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10

Windows XP 66.15% // released in 2001 yet still the most popular version!!!, this is not good
Windows Vista 17.47%
Windows 7 7.57%
Mac OS X 10.5 2.37%
Mac OS X 10.6 1.80% <- only 6 months old it + will be the most popular mac OS version within a year

Erm, your later stats seem to contradict your earlier claim; if OS X was doing 'similarly as well' then surely you'd expect to see the percentages closer together? Yet, by your own numbers, Windows 7 has more uses IN TOTAL than OSX has through two versions.

Yeah, Win7 is doing so badly...

The problem is has against XP is that XP is pretty entrenched in the general mindset of people, it was probably the first OS people used as computers "went mainstream", however the market share of XP IS dropping off, a process likely to accelerate rather than slow down.

Looking at that line graph Vista hit its high point around september 09, held steady and is starting a slow drop, where as Win7 has had a pretty fast rise which pretty much lines up with XP's drop.

>>Erm, your later stats seem to contradict your earlier claim;<<

no it doesnt, it supports my claims, it shows owners with a mac are far far more likely to upgrade their OS's by buying a new OS eg from amazon.com, window users tend not to upgrade their OS's, when they get a new PC they get whatever OS (usually the latest windows version) comes with it and stick with that.
If MS had a OS pricing structure similar to what apple employs now, vista launched at $30 then I betya vista's marketshare would be greater than XP's today.

Another reason which is important to some here no doubt.
d3d10 failed, why? because not enuf percentage of windows users have the capability to run it (it requires vista+) hence bugger all publishers decided its worthwhile to make a d3d10 only game as its not commercially viable.

It would benefit all of us if MS had a similar pricing structure to apple with their OS's, yes perhaps they would lose cash in the shortterm, but we all benefit if the users are running the latest OS version.

btw coincidentally I might be forced to turn to the Mac side for work :( looking at the prices though, double :(

I am willing to bet the vast majority of those XP installs are from corporate licenses where individual users have no say in what OS they are allowed to run. The IT bean-counters (perhaps rightfully so) have yet to determine that an OS upgrade is cost beneficial, especially when the majority of those users are running custom-built (read as "crappy non-future proofed software") that runs acceptably on XP, but because of drastic changes in security (read UAC) would nerf the software or worse...

I don't think Microsofts pricing structure has anything to do with adoption rates. Now that I'm in my 30s, I don't know anybody who says "I *really* want that new Microsoft OS, but $200 is just too much money!". Maybe when I was 21, and was eating ramen noodles. In fact, I would say that most home users have already updated to Windows 7. And corporate licenses usually include all of Microsoft OS's for the same fee, leaving IT departments in-charge of which OS to run.

And if benefits to the general public was primary concern, then Mac and Microsoft would give away their OS and productivity software... However, thats not what drives the marketplace.