Anonymous

D

scientist

OK, I'm deluding myself utterly. But the TCO faced by the Windows cult keeps GOING UP AND UP, with the poor security, the bugginess, the horrible UI (which I doubt Vista will improve in substantive ways), and the poor multitasking. All of these make MSFT look like GM: obsolete. We are in a networked, internet connected world now, and Windows is ill-suited to that reality. MSFT has not even been able to create a credible web browser.

AAPL, in contrast, is partly open-sourced. Based on BSD, it has solid security, and multitasks like a whiz. The Finder has a few flaws-- the performance on certain tasks needs optimization-- but for most tasks (application switching; process killing; ease of use; attractiveness) it leaves Windows in the dust. And OS X has a development environment Windows programmers can only dream about, based on NeXT's OPENSTEP API's. TCO on the Mac IS GETTING LOWER.

I understand why you think it is unlikely for a big company to "switch". Inertia is one of the strongest forces in the universe. But do consider that if a few fortune 500's "switch", the rest will have to follow suit to stay competitive. Once one company does something (out-sourcing to India, for example--which I consider reprhensible, by the way) the rest tend to pick up on it.