

Is Windows 7 finally halting the Mac migration? - jaybol
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=8117&tag=content;col1

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slantyyz
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?"

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barnaby
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.

~~~
sjs
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.

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matwood
I use win7 in a VM on OSX in order to do my day job. Prior to that I was using
XP. I tried Vista, but resource wise it was horrible. Win7 stays out the way
for the most part and it works - a lot like XP.

Am I going to switch back? No, but you're right that for most users win7 is
just fine.

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jsz0
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
Yep, I just bought one of each and quite happy with both.

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jbellis
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. :)

~~~
jsolson
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
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.

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kapuzineralex
"Is Windows 7 finally halting the Mac migration?"

\-- No, Steve Jobs is!

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jamesk2
Core i5 and i7 windows laptops were available for 6 months before similarly
equipped mac laptops. It kept me from buying a MacBook Pro when it seemed like
I'd be paying a premium for old chips.

