Is OS X a Threat to Windows?

Posted by Johan Cyprich on 11 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: Technology

Once again, Windows is under attack by Mac enthusiasts: Gartner: Windows is Collapsing and Apple’s OS Edge Is A Threat To Microsoft. The arguments are the same. OS X is better, faster, and has fewer lines of source code than Vista, so therefore it must be better. Why is Vista so large? Could it be that it does more than OS X?

One writer claimed that the OS switching task (pressing Control and then right arrow) gave Macs a tremendous advantage over Windows. Now they can switch operating systems with a simple keystroke. So Mac users can switch to Windows and run useful applications which are not available for OS X. Hardly an advantage.

A Mac user at work claimed that Macs are better because they can seamlessly run Windows, and PC users can only run OS X by a hack on their systems which makes it less secure. The question to ask is this: why would a Windows user even want to run OS X? What can a Mac do that Windows can’t do?

An important thing to realize is that people don’t buy computers to run operating systems. They buy them to run applications. Windows has an overwhelming larger number of applications compared to OS X. If your a software developer, you’ll build Windows applications before OS X ones because that’s where the money is. Another advantage of Windows is the better development community. Visual Studio is far superior to Apple’s Xcode. Microsoft, unlike Apple, has a clear direction and focus for their development tools and they provide first class support for them.

With Visual Studio, you have the choice of multiple programming languages to develop for Windows. Xcode limits you to Objective-C. If you don’t like Visual Studio, you have other options such as Codegear’s tools. You don’t have as much choice with Mac programming.

Is OS X a threat to Windows? I doubt it. While Windows, like all operating systems, has problems that can be fixed and Microsoft is very responsive to its users.


Related posts:
    Changing the Windows File Sharing Workgroup in OS X
    Fixing Windows Network Problems for OS X 10.5
    Dual Booting Vista and XP
    Dangerous Particle Emissions from Laser Printers

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