Will Windows 8 drive people to Mac?

The real important market share is in the business world and for that you need Microsoft with
efficient and secure networking which takes servers and active directory.

Will Windows 8 drive people to Mac?

Who knows... but IMHO, Mac products are overpriced and a mini at $600? That's crazy. I will continue to use a PC/Linux combo even with the early issues surrounding Gnome 3 conversion, at most I will consider changing to KDE desktop. Just my preference, others will have theirs. When Win8 is released, it will be interesting to watch the feedback. I would guess that *most people have just upgraded to Win7 and won't be so quick to jump to the next roll-out.

Being able to buy a Mac in a Target will help sales as it will make it more accessible than a Best Buy or Apple Store to get to.

This is true and opens a huge market that Apple didn't have in the past. I'm curious what prompted the drive to this... Apple sales dropping? I would have thought the company ego wouldn't have considered teaming with Target, but profit first...

Originally posted by PharohGnosis
viruses are very low on the platform.

This will grow as the apple market share rises, this is apparent in the smartphone. www.telegraph.co.uk...
The lack of viruses has nothing to do with the OS really but more of what the virus is written for.

But people are not going to be switching over to Mac over windows 8. Apple products are glorified fashion accessories, the white man's "bling". And like all fads this one will slowly fade away again.

The best alternative for Mac is actually Linux, they have a similar look and feel. And neither can really play games or run many of the applications people need for work.

Originally posted by JoshF
The best alternative for Mac is actually Linux, they have a similar look and feel. And neither can really play games or run many of the applications people need for work.

If people want to deal with getting things to work they'd use Linux but for the average consumer they'd chose a Mac. Linux is still a geeky OS, people have difficulty understanding how Windows works, Linux would be a nightmare to them. You start talking disk partitioning and you've already lost them.

Linux would be a nightmare to them.

Not true at all, a nightmare only to a brand new PC user who only knows where the Start button is. My wife taught herself Linux in two week flat, and says she would never go back. Now granted, Fedora is not for the causal user, but PCLinuxOS is built just for Windows users. Easy to install, automatic partitioning, and a good forum to help out the user. I repair computers, and so far have converted 5 customers to Linux. All were perfectly satisfied. A nightmare? Only to Microsoft!

reply to post by autowrench


Apple is more of threat to Microsoft than Linux. Apple owns the smartphone and tablet market. Microsoft is trying to play catch up with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7.5. Apple is going to test the waters in 25 Target stores to have a "store with in a store" like they do in Best Buy. If it's successful and expands it will help expand their Mac user base since it will make their computers more available to consumers.

Windows dominates the business market as well as the consumer desktop market. I don't see it dropping anytime soon. If consumers reject Windows 8 they will stick with Windows 7 until support runs out, like what people are doing with the painfully outdated XP.

Linux simply doesn't have the enterprise software that's on Windows. Companies are slow to change and retrain employees on how to use a computer. Could Microsoft lose that market share? Sure anything is possible but I doubt it would lose it to desktop Linux, it would be overtaken by another proprietary OS.

Originally posted by PharohGnosis
Apple plans on setting up a store with in a store concept with Target www.wired.com... with this happening do you think Windows 8 which I think will fail cause people to buy a low cost introductory Mac Mini at $599 instead of a Windows 8 PC?

If people are wowed by the aesthetics of the Apple products, maybe. But, as far as I know, the Mac Mini still doesn't come with peripherals. You still have to buy a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and DVD drive. That bumps up the initially low cost by a bit. People want to make one purchase and have everything they need. They could just as easily buy a Windows laptop that has comparable, or better, hardware than the Mac Mini for the same price.

I think Windows 8 is going to be a mess too. They'd do well to have the desktop set to the "Classic" look by default, and not have the first thing the user sees be their new, weird, smartphone-esque, tile interface. If one thing will be the downfall of Windows, it will be that new interface. Windows people like the Windows look, Mac people like the Mac look, and so on. For the consumer market, if that interface is their first exposure to Windows 8, and a Windows machine and a Mac were being sold side by side in a store, I'd say there's definitely a possibility that they would end up with a Mac.

Originally posted by autowrench

Linux would be a nightmare to them.

Not true at all, a nightmare only to a brand new PC user who only knows where the Start button is.

I don't know, my folks have been using Windows XP for 10+ years and that's about all they know. How to turn it on and off, how to surf the web, how to print. Nearly the same situation for people in my own age group, the only added skill set they posses is how to download music and videos.

Your wife has the initiative that most people who use computers do not have. Most people just want to know how to use what everyone else uses. They want the same proprietary software everyone else uses. The HP photo printing software, Photoshop, MS Office, their tax software, and no substitutes. If they have a problem, they want to be able to ask a friend who has a similar product for help. For those people, computers are scary, mysterious things, so they will pick the one that isn't so mysterious and scary, and because everyone else is using Windows and Mac, and the programs that run on them, they aren't so scary. They won't want to go to one that's even more mysterious than the one they are barely comfortable using to begin with.