PC: All about the money

Posted by admin on Feb 3, 2009 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

We have all seen the ads. The ones where PC is represented by a man of middling age who has gone slightly to seed and Mac is represented by a cool younger guy. PC is always seen as the fool as Mac gains the upper hand.

Well, that whole image is a myth. PC is good for more than just producing spreadsheets. In fact, there are quite a few reasons why PC is a better choice than Mac.

The first is purely financial, and that is the capital outlay. According to Apple.com, the MacBook will run up $999 for just the basic model. FutureShop.ca, however, is currently selling a laptop with similar specifications for only $599 (Acer Extensa). This massive gulf in price for the same technology is the most compelling reason to buy a PC.

Then there’s the service market. After purchasing a Mac, you are tied to a single provider for any sort of repair services. If you need something done, the Mac store is the only place to go. There is no shopping around for replacement parts, because there is only one supplier for them. Everything is tied to the Mac store.

Victory also goes to PC in the area of program compatability. Most of the world is run on Windows – an undeniable fact, sad as it may be. This means that most programs are designed to run on a DOS-based system.

Mac users will argue that this problem is solved by Boot Camp, but the problem has not been solved; they are now resorting to running Windows on their Macs. They have come full circle back to where they started, when they could have purchased a PC in the first place and saved $400 or more.
Microsoft may be an archetypal big bad corporation, but Mac is worse. They have aspirations of becoming an utterly evil empire.