Firstly that is because the majority of the world are not contributing to the smug cloud and they prefer supporting an open market where player violating there choice of software gets penalized.
You kidding me. You do know that in the recent past hardware vendors HAD to sell you OEM Windows with a new computer. Bigger vendors - Gateway, Dell, HP, Compaq had to bundle Windows and not alternatives, if they gave an alternative as an option Microsoft would increase the price of Windows available to them. You also know that MS was found guilty by the US DOJ and EU for anti-competitive behaviour. Even before that, remember the old adage - "DOS is not done till Lotus won't run"? Would you consider the MS Office .doc and .docx formats as open source formats? If any company comes to mind as epitome of a monopoly abusing it's position and forcing useless upgrades upon others it's Microsoft.
They also want to buy their bits of hardware from different vendors as is the case in an open market system. The reason I say majority is that when malicious software gets written it will be, like most other software, be aimed at the most popular (a good thing) platform.
That doesn't explain numerous security bugs in Windows, in IE - such as ActiveX and doesn't explain that you run as Admin by default. The sheer number of exploits targetted at Windows (millions) vs none (in the wild that is) against OS X are proof that Windows is buggy, badly written from the ground up. We had better choices in the early 90s - when Win95 came along there was OS/2 Warp which was a real pre-emtive, 32 bit OS unlike Win95.
Hardware makers all make hardware to a reference design. A device connecting to a computer with USB 2.0 has to follow those rules. A device using TWAIN has to follow those well documented rules. Either h/w makers are incredibly thick and lazy OR MS is just bad and sucks at what they do because their OS is just a ton of manure with holes everywhere and needs a re-write from scratch. Ideally they should dump the NT kernel and go with a Unix one.
Secondly, you read my bit about being anticompetitive? Well that is whey you get the software for cheaper from the same vendor that made the hardware.
Apple writes software for it's OS. Millions of other companies write software for Windows or Linux or OS X alone. Apple is not a monopoly and Final Cut Pro does not tie down standards you can't use on other systems. You can buy the MORE EXPENSIVE Adobe Production Suite and work in an inferior environment if you want - Adobe writes softs for OSX and Win.
However, Apple's PRO apps are better than Adobe's and far better than products from Sony and ULead.
If you earn money doing video work, it pays to get a Mac and buy a cheaper video editing package which also happens to be better. At the end you break even or pay less.
The bottom line will always be how smug you are as both platforms are equal when you consider the pros and cons. In some cases though the PC platform is just more equal than the rest.
When one compares platforms one compares specifics. Obviously some software does not run on the Mac. I don't think too many CAD programs run on the Mac. Of course if you can always run Windows via BootCamp and
run those programs too. However, people have a misconception of Macs.
The bundled software is powerful so that to watch DVDs you don't need to buy a R450 copy of PowerDVD, you don't need to get a better home movie editor than iMovie unless you're a semi-pro and then Final Cut Express is
cheaper than similar equivalents for Windows. TextEdit is more powerful than WordPad for example. You can still download OpenOffice and Gimp for both Mac and Windows if you want more powerful yet FREE solutions. Out of the box however, the Mac offers really good software which people do not think about when they bash Macs.
If you want a tough road warrior, get a Panasonic Toughtbook. Else that Acer will do just fine.
You're right. A Toughbook will stop a bullet or survive being doused in petrol and set alight. However, most road warriors don't need that sort of reliability
and toughness. Sadly Toughbooks are usually not as fast as more fragile computers - they usually feature ULV processors at 1.6Ghz max and integrated graphics and a max of 80GB well padded HD space.
Compare a MBP vs a upmarket Sony Vaio model if you will, rather.
