Microsoft and Apple rivalry heats up

[2026]

The two companies are also competing for talent in AI and cloud infrastructure, two key future battlegrounds.

Someone what to explain how Apple is competing with Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure?

 

[ToxicBunny]

Someone what to explain how Apple is competing with Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure?

Someone may have background info that Apple plans to secretly launch a cloud offering?

 

[DA-LION-619]

Someone what to explain how Apple is competing with Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure?

Not in cloud infrastructure, talent for cloud infrastructure.
There’s a difference.

 

[DA-LION-619]

Apple would obliterate the PC market if the dropped their pricing.

Maybe i am ignorant and dont understand their business properly, but if they do make their devices more affordable they can capture the market. And if their products are really that great, people wouldn't make the move back to pc, and would prefer to pay a premium for a premium product in the longer run.

They don’t want the market. It’s not affordability it’s about experience.
They don’t need to worry about the experience of a gamer, in the same way a gamer doesn’t buy a Mac.

I recommend Apple products because I hate tech support, I hate free tech support even more. Apple caters their experience to those who don’t have 20 years of technical knowledge.

You can’t make everyone happy but it’s easier to keep one select segment happy, if they aren’t then they won’t return but you have more signals than noise.

 

[prod]

I’ve migrated all my workloads to Apple for anything mobile and retained a Windows desktop. I used to run parallels with Windows on OSX but with Visual Studio, Azure Data Studio and Office all native on OSX there’s no reason anymore for me to boot it hence the decision to go M1. I haven’t touched a top spec XPS I have since I bought M1 MBP

Data Studio is not native yet...unless I missed something?



It's one of the few programs I have issues with on M1 (need to restart the app every now and then). VSCode runs native though

 

[SauRoNZA]

Even with Apple Care, Macbooks are fundamentally not as good when it comes to long-term use, recovery, and repairs.

They last far far longer to start with and recovery is the best in the market from the first party without needing to pay someone else for something that works.

If your SSD on an M1 dies and you didn't make backups, you can't recover that data. If one part of the motherboard dies like a Thunderbolt IC, Apple won't perform board level repairs on it - they just replace it. If you need a new keyboard, the entire shell has to be replaced. If the ribbon cable connecting the display is broken, you have to replace the whole display because everything is glued in place.

So make backups? This is a non-issue.

No manufacturer does board level repairs. This isn’t an Apple concern same as all the rest.

Despite their attractive design and high integration with Apple's ecosystem, I shy away from recommending modern Macbooks unless someone needs Final Cut or some other macOS-only software that is part of their workflow. If the budget is constrained, I recommend refurb or ex-rental business notebooks that have spares readily available.

Edit: I also only recommend Macbooks when the client needs a bright, mostly colour-accurate display for photo and video work. There are use-cases that only Apple covers where they don't have any competition.

I recommend MacBooks because they last forever and are the most secure machines you can find if you care about that.

And since the M1 the performance isn’t a compromise any more for the money.

Of course there are bottom of the market price ranges where Apple doesn’t bother to compete and as I said before those people would likely be quite happy on an iPad.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Apple would obliterate the PC market if the dropped their pricing.

Maybe i am ignorant and dont understand their business properly, but if they do make their devices more affordable they can capture the market. And if their products are really that great, people wouldn't make the move back to pc, and would prefer to pay a premium for a premium product in the longer run.

They’ve just done that with the M1 generation dropping their pricing quite drastically across the board.

They don’t care to sell rubbish and therefore won’t ever cater to the bottom end of the market.

They are the biggest company in the world, they don’t really need to capture the market quite frankly.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Well, with iCare (which is a local thing, not Apple Care) you can always ensure that you're fully covered. So that's pretty good with regards to 'long-term use, recovery and repairs'.

In this day and age, no one should have local-only copies of files. All my stuff is in Google Drive and iCloud. If my Mac blew up I'd just have to install my apps again.

I do keep tabs on people like Louis Rossmann and his fight for Right to Repair. So I know Apple could do a million times better in this department. But it's a shortcoming that can be mitigated with warranties.

MacBooks aren't just great for the quality of the display. The battery life is reason enough to go with them. Instead of worrying about inverters or generators or whatever, you enjoy a laptop with enough battery life to easily make it through any amount of load shedding and unplanned blackouts you're likely to experience.

Not to mention you could simply cover it with household insurance indefinitely.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I suppose I'd also feel differently about this if I had higher spending power, like consumers in the USA do, because they have actual iStores not run by Core Group with proper product support.

Now this is a valid point where the perception of Apple being overly expensive is made more so in an SA context due to the technically third party support and as you highlighted spending power.

Official warranty cover is also much better and doesn’t ask questions try to dodge fixes.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Was looking at something like this earlier https://www.takealot.com/msi-gl65-l...gb-15-6-fhd-gaming-notebook-blac/PLID71334749 currently R18k... rdr2 should be "playable". Can't say that for the M1 Mac.

I agree on the part about consoles and I already have an older Xbox + Gamepass but I would not take it on the road with me.

Very hollistic view where it loses badly.

Plastic Case
Crap Battery Life
Low Resolution Screen
Crap trackpad and likely keyboard as well.
****ing ugly.

It’s nowhere in the same ballpark for the money spent.

 

[|tera|]

Very hollistic view where it loses badly.

Plastic Case
Crap Battery Life
Low Resolution Screen
Crap trackpad and likely keyboard as well.
****ing ugly.

It’s nowhere in the same ballpark for the money spent.

I'm interested to know.
Did you deploy this ton of Macbooks to a developer house or a normal office (small or large scale?)

 

[DA-LION-619]

Data Studio is not native yet...unless I missed something?

View attachment 1069177

It's one of the few programs I have issues with on M1 (need to restart the app every now and then). VSCode runs native though

It’s electron so it really isn’t ‘native’. It just isn’t compiled for ARM.
VS Studio on Mac isn’t entirely the same thing as VS Studio on Windows, it was rebrand of a Xamarin Studio.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I'm interested to know.
Did you deploy this ton of Macbooks to a developer house or a normal office (small or large scale?)

80% developers.

Rest are typical business requirements like finance and HR etc which in the past we gave Airs and decided wasn’t worth the price difference before the M1 with the Intels sucking a bit and just gave them Pros.

Now with the M1 Airs being so good we are changing our minds about that and also in a test phase to roll them out to our customer services agents but likely only in new locations for now and then everybody at once who is currently on a newish machine.

 

[|tera|]

80% developers.

Rest are typical business requirements like finance and HR etc which in the past we gave Airs and decided wasn’t worth the price difference before the M1 with the Intels sucking a bit and just gave them Pros.

Now with the M1 Airs being so good we are changing our minds about that and also in a test phase to roll them out to our customer services agents but likely only in new locations for now and then everybody at once who is currently on a newish machine.

Would it be completely unfeasible to use it in the Cloud?
It looks to be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Access via RDP could be done with a very low spec PC or thin/client.
Why is the actual hardware and physical device required?

Microsoft and Apple rivalry heats up

Can't you get something with a better gpu and upgradable RAM at 18k? Sure, whilst sacrificing massively in the other areas the MBA excels in. The 8GB of memory in the Air is sufficient for most people, and from my experience is definitely not comparable to having 8GB of memory with Windows. I...

mybroadband.co.za

 

[SauRoNZA]

Would it be completely unfeasible to use it in the Cloud?
It looks to be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Access via RDP could be done with a very low spec PC or thin/client.
Why is the actual hardware and physical device required?

Microsoft and Apple rivalry heats up

Can't you get something with a better gpu and upgradable RAM at 18k? Sure, whilst sacrificing massively in the other areas the MBA excels in. The 8GB of memory in the Air is sufficient for most people, and from my experience is definitely not comparable to having 8GB of memory with Windows. I...

mybroadband.co.za

We have toyed with the idea of going virtual PC especially with contractors and maybe at a stretch customer services.

We are very cloud centric and actually have no local infrastructure other than networking, so a large part of the equation for us is device management and security something Windows simply doesn’t offer us across the various brands and too many SKU’s and variables.

Apple’s DEP system is magical and especially with remote work now we can onboard someone by simply shipping a machine directly to them and once they connect it to WiFi it self deploys with everything they need and we never needed to touch it.

With the Macs we manage them all in one place and can remotely lock and wipe them with ease and not a single worry about whether they can be recovered.

They are of course also a lot more malware and virus resistant which is a big part of that equation.

If we were to ever consider a switch it would be Ubuntu and not Windows, because we work natively in *nix for everything.

There literally is no place for Windows in our business.

***

We do actually have a few Mac Stadium instances for logistical reasons as well.

 

[|tera|]

We have toyed with the idea of going virtual PC especially with contractors and maybe at a stretch customer services.

We are very cloud centric and actually have no local infrastructure other than networking, so a large part of the equation for us is device management and security something Windows simply doesn’t offer us across the various brands and too many SKU’s and variables.

Apple’s DEP system is magical and especially with remote work now we can onboard someone by simply shipping a machine directly to them and once they connect it to WiFi it self deploys with everything they need and we never needed to touch it.

With the Macs we manage them all in one place and can remotely lock and wipe them with ease and not a single worry about whether they can be recovered.

They are of course also a lot more malware and virus resistant which is a big part of that equation.

If we were to ever consider a switch it would be Ubuntu and not Windows, because we work natively in *nix for everything.

There literally is no place for Windows in our business.

***

We do actually have a few Mac Stadium instances for logistical reasons as well.

I understand that Windows does not fit your needs. I'm also able to to manage and deploy Windows and Linux PCs, including security requirements.

I'm not understanding the capital expenditure? Even 10 or 20 Macbooks is a shtload of money.

A Nix client with RDP software could initiate a script upon startup to boot into the Cloud edition. Which isn't a VM,, as the link I provided shows.

Isn't it more financially sound and feasible to develop in the Cloud and save costs by not buying so much Apple kit?

 

[DA-LION-619]

Isn't it more financially sound and feasible to develop in the Cloud and save costs by not buying so much Apple kit?

No. It kills your soul as a dev to code in a remote VM.
You hire good people and let them figure out how to work within constraints, you don’t tell them how to work.

 

[prod]

Good luck trying to get a bunch of developers to do their work on a cloud instance with over 200ms. Sounds like an absolute horrible experience. FML

 

[|tera|]

No. It kills your soul as a dev to code in a remote VM.
You hire good people and let them figure out how to work within constraints, you don’t tell them how to work.

Good luck trying to get a bunch of developers to do their work on a cloud instance with over 200ms. Sounds like an absolute horrible experience. FML

Physical Non-VM Mac Server

MacinCloud

checkout.macincloud.com

Feee upgrades for life.
Why spend R18K once off?
Why make excuses and complain if you can save and use a kck ass monitor or two. Great keyboard and mouse etc?

The accessories won't even cost near the Apple fee.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I understand that Windows does not fit your needs. I'm also able to to manage and deploy Windows and Linux PCs, including security requirements.

I'm not understanding the capital expenditure? Even 10 or 20 Macbooks is a shtload of money.

A Nix client with RDP software could initiate a script upon startup to boot into the Cloud edition. Which isn't a VM,, as the link I provided shows.

Isn't it more financially sound and feasible to develop in the Cloud and save costs by not buying so much Apple kit?

Half the people including myself would promptly resign if we ever tried that.

Also why would I ever RDP to anything if not using Windows?

One of the perks we have is that you get a brand new machine the day you start with us. When you leave you can buy it for whatever the remaining depreciation period is left otherwise at the 3 year age mark you can purchase it for next to nothing.

It’s a great way to get people to look after their stuff and it’s of course also a tax write off which isn’t possible in the cloud.

As above it’s also soul destroying. We try to allow users to use their machine freely as if their own, within reasonable parameters of course, so they can be as productive as possible without stupid corporate bullshit.

As long as you aren’t doing anything illegal you can pretty much do what you want on your machine as long as you get the job done.

Your link pointed nowhere FYI.