What amazes me is why anybody would buy anything from Apple around Christmas time when Apple will surely launch something new at Macworld in early January, thus possibly making your recent purchase/gift immediately obsolete.

Yes, Vista delay does aid Apple. But Apple has a very strong line up of products right now and unlike Microsoft, seems to be able to repeat the success. I also think they appreciate that computers are becoming appliances and nobody except I.T. cares what operating system it runs. Apple is focused on the USERS experience and not the I.T. departments experience.

I was no Mac fan-boy until this summer when I bought my son a MacBook for college. I bought the Mac because the University didn't require you to run their security suite on Macs, the cost (which I actually think was cheaper than a comparable P.C.) and ease of use.

The Apple products make using a computer fun again and once you get over the minor UI differences, they actually make sense. You immediately don't miss DLLs or the registry.

My next upgrade will be to Apple.

"When the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail."

It's a fairly famous quote, not sure who from though. But it seems to apply in this situation. The Windows World is so focused on itself that it sees everything in relation to itself, a bit of navel gazing if you will.

This "article" is implying that if Vista was out that it and Windows PC with vista pre-installed would be wiping the floor with Apple's Macs and iPods.

Isn't that kind of like saying, "the increase in world population this year is higher than it would be if 20 million people were killed by a new strain of influenza?"

While your thesis sounds plausible it is based on a whole long list of "what ifs." For example, "What if there were aome actual news today."

Microsoft has been found guilty on two continents (soon to be 3) of criminal behavior and stifling innovation. The fact that Vista is bloated, delayed, a security nightmare, overpriced, and overrated seems to be a moot point at this juncture.....

My advice would be to drop that silly Ballmer like a 'french omelette'.

I have been in this industry for 15 years and I have seen this story so many times. "Windows 95 is just a fancy graphical shell on top of DOS". "Windows 2000 is just NT with a Start button". "Windows XP is just Windows 2000 with a different skin". "Windows Vista is just Windows XP with translucent window borders". And so on. The louder Microsoft's opponents were, the more wrong they were. Fast-forward a year from now and everyone will be using Vista. End of story.

I have been in this industry for 15 years and I have seen this story so many times. "Windows 95 is just a fancy graphical shell on top of DOS". "Windows 2000 is just NT with a Start button". "Windows XP is just Windows 2000 with a different skin". "Windows Vista is just Windows XP with translucent window borders". And so on. The louder Microsoft's opponents were, the more wrong they were. Fast-forward a year from now and everyone will be using Vista. End of story.

Apple's move to intel is in my opinion the reason why sales are up not because of a Vista delay. Maybe the fact that people can get a beautiful well engineered box that runs Windows and OS X is drawing in more consumers. This is a very attractive solution for home users. a similarly equiped Dell or Sony will cost as much or more than the Apple. With the Apple I can keep all of what I have invested in my Windows apps and I can learn the new trendy OS X that is feature rich and mostly virus free. OSX is a robust Unix environment that may appeal to the Linux crowd as well and If I want I can run Linux too. If the Apple experience is more rewarding than my Windows experience then I can migrate at my own schedule or just stay in Windows if OS X is not for me. In a year more people will be running Vista, no question about it. But I bet that Mac hardware sales increase over the same period.

The Windows market is pretty much saturated. This is not to say that Apple is a threat to Microsoft's market dominance, but the truth is that the only real growth that Windows can get is its share of the growth in the market. Some people are tired of the Windows experience and may want to use other operating systems. When Vista comes out there will probably be a spike in sales for Windows computers, but there is an overall trend for people to try other operating systems. Windows is not the only choice and some people are discovering that fact.

Advantages to owning a Mac are well designed hardware, a more stable operating system with better multitasking that has true plug and play, something Windows users can olny dream of, and the ability to run Linux, Windows and Mac OS X all at the same time. Also, the fact that there are no viruses or spyware and adware for Macintosh and security is not the issue it is for Windows.

The Windows market is pretty much saturated. This is not to say that Apple is a threat to Microsoft's market dominance, but the truth is that the only real growth that Windows can get is its share of the growth in the market. Some people are tired of the Windows experience and may want to use other operating systems. When Vista comes out there will probably be a spike in sales for Windows computers, but there is an overall trend for people to try other operating systems. Windows is not the only choice and some people are discovering that fact.

Advantages to owning a Mac are well designed hardware, a more stable operating system with better multitasking that has true plug and play, something Windows users can olny dream of, and the ability to run Linux, Windows and Mac OS X all at the same time. Also, the fact that there are no viruses or spyware and adware for Macintosh and security is not the issue it is for Windows.

I find it interesting that every comment I see about windows Vista is negative except those from article others, large companies, or Microsoft. And you expect people like that to be biased.

As I recal though a lot of people were very pessemistic about windows xp before it's release, but after finaly using the OS my self it became my favorite windows release.

But I do have to say if more developers would start focusing on Mac and Linux Microsoft would maybe finaly start to become a user friendly system rather than a milk the monopoly dictator.

From a different Brad Freeman. My Apple computer runs Windows Vista just fine under Boot Camp dual boot software from Apple. I also own Parallels virtualization software which lets me run Linux, Solaris, BSD, and all versions of Windows at native speeds.

I am not a fanboy but I love the clean, modern style look of Apple's computers and the fact that they take risks with innovation that ends up getting copied by others. Security is a concern also. This is why myself and people I know switch over to the Macintosh. It just plain works!

Amazon.com is one retailer, and it's silly to make conclusions about the entire marketplace based on their sales. As for Vista, like most consumers, I won't upgrade until I get it preinstalled on my next computer.

So, you expected Dell to outsell Apple on Amazon.com? (grin) In addition, Amazon.com Mac sales are comparatively high, because the number of bricks-and-mortar Mac dealers is comparatively small. In contrast, bricks-and-mortar HP retailers are everywhere. There is no need to buy an HP online.

To Woody,

What amazes most logical and sane consumers is that people actually buy Apple stuff at all. Not because it stinks or anything, it really doesnt.

But because Apple is arrogant enough to NOT allow competitors to develop hardware and then run its software on it. Because Apple NEVER has sales on its stuff. Never. I laugh when I get the Sunday ads and see CompUSA's sales on all its pages and then there's that 1/2 page of Apple stuff NOT on sale - same prices, same Apple NO COMPETITION.

And they call Microsoft a monopoly.

Sane and logical consumers LAUGH out loud at the rest of you.

Mike: you're an idiot. You're basically saying you'd like Apple to arbitrarily overprice its products, just so it could wow gullible consumers (that'd be you) every now and again by reducing the price to a more reasonable level and calling it a "sale"?

Forget that. Just decide on a decent, fair price, and stick with it. I actually can't stand the ever-changing, totally arbitrary pricing of manufacturers like Dell - you never know what the actual "proper" price is. I prefer Apple's approach, and if it's still too much for you, don't buy it.

Which do you prefer - the rock solid, fair pricing of IKEA, or the totally made-up dream pricing of Joe's Persian Carpets, today only 95% off?

And your other point is even stupider. More intelligent people than you or I have argued the merits of Apple's vertical model for over 20 years now. It seems to work, wouldn't you say? Certainly all these Amazon shoppers think so. Apple's hardware is generally higher quality than generic PCs like you obviously prefer, and the tight integration enables innovative features that don't show up in PCs for years, if ever (eg - HDD head parking if a laptop moves suddenly. Where is that in any PC laptop?)

So in summary, you're full of it. Enjoy your "laughing" at the smarter people of the world Mike, the ones who actually understand economics and Apple's business structure - we certainly don't care. And enjoy your ugly generic PC you built yourself, we don't care about that either.

I think it's a combination of factors. I do see the fact that Macs are sold in fewer physical locations as one factor, but I doubt it is a very big one. Most people thinking about a Mac without an Apple Store in their location would probably just go to Apple.com and order from them. I do see them as gaining more share from the PC market. The iPod has helped their mindshare immensely and I think if they play their cards right with higher resolution movies and the iTV (or whatever they finally call it) they'll make a very attractive alternative for the general consumer. Personally, I switched to Apple a few months ago and only use my Windows machines occasionally for gaming and for .net development. Their Genuine Advantage spyware program is what finally did it for me.

Just my two cents.

@eth0
I don't think you know what you're talking about or are not completely informed. First off your assertion that Macs have superior parts that PC is just flat out incorrect. Exactly what is superior about them? The lower end Nvidia video cards in higher price machines? Or perhaps the Intel processors? The hard drives? I simply have no basis for your statement.
On the matter of hard disk parking. This feature is available from a number of hard disk manufacturers and these hard disk have available in Toshiba laptops for quite some time (perhaps other manufacturers as well but I know for sure they are in Toshiba's).
I am not sure I would go throwing water on others ill informed opinions without validating your own first.

You can not buy a Dell on Amazon.com! However I can not get a Mac from my local supermarket, but they stock PCs.

I don't think the Amazon sales figures for mac/pcs tells us match at all.