Apple>Microsoft

[CRTGAMER]

Only a few posters touched upon the reasons behind Apple's successes of late. By branding itself a fashionable company that makes fashionable gadgets for fashionable people (ie trendy sheep) Apple effectively monopolised a few key leisure market sectors (smartphones, music players, and now portable computing). Some people can maximise Apple gadgets' usefulness but the truth remains a large portion of Apple customers buy the stuff because 1) It makes them look faux-hip aka geek chic and 2) Their simplicity and relative safety record translate to less hassles for them ie even tech-savvy people don't want choices bundled with their gadgets.

I really can't fault Apple for their ingenius marketing geared towards masses that are yearning for technologically-cool icons to identify with, but they won't be getting any allegiances on my part.. not that it matters in the grand scheme of things.

100% agree looky all the white cords hanging off the ears. A very conformist no one different trend.
Though I do like my older iMac CRT, iwould never buy a current iPad, iPod or iPhone. No electronics with the letter i.

Anyone remember the original Mac commercial? So ironic assimilation now.

[Jungell]

No matter what way you slice it, there's more incentives to go after a Windows platform than a Mac or Linux system.

I completely and utterly disagree.

Consider the traffic flowing worldwide through Cisco routers. Or the information stored on large SANs attached to massive UNIX clusters and mainframes.

From a profit point of view, these are huge and centralised.

I'm not arguing that Windows isn't a tasty target. It most certainly is. But I don't think it's any more tasty than any other target. What I do think is that Windows is an easy target. Not because of numbers, but because historically it has absolutely sucked for it's default security system.

It's not because Windows is the majority system that it gets targeted. It's deeper than that. It's because the majority Windows boxes are very poorly secured. I propose that even if Windows magically lost market share tomorrow and shrunk to less than 50%, it would still be the most actively targeted system due entirely to the fact that it's damn near trivial to break into thanks to simple "admin by default" designs littering the system.

What annoys me even more is that the average user thinks that installing a third party anti-virus tool will solve all their ills. Not only is it annoying because the term "virus" is utterly moot today, but because Windows users in particular still accept that installing third-party band-aids should be a norm (which is right up there with those Windows users who are convinced the annual reformat/reinstall process is mandatory, and just an accepted part of modern computing).

And for the record, I've seen my fair share of big Linux and UNIX servers that have been compromised over the last two decades of my career. Typically by either exploits of known software bugs with rootkit style injections, or sadly by good old fashioned weak passwords or dictionary attacks. What you as the consumer don't see is this sort of thing hitting the media every day. Nor do you see Symatec, McAfee and Kaspersky littering the internet with ads for their latest and greatest A/V solutions for these products. The perception then proliferates even further that Windows is really the only target worth pursuing, and so inflates the myth that "Linux doesn't get viruses because it's not popular enough".

Spend a bit of time in the bowls of IT Security, and you'll soon learn that ANYTHING is popular enough to be a target for someone. What really happens versus what the general public perceive is happening are cheese and chalk.

Very interesting and I totally agree with you.

But!
I think Crux was talking about the personal computer. The consumer machine. In that area I think he is correct. You seem to be talking about it in a more professional level, servers etc. Am I correct?
The "normal" virus, malware or whatever the proper term is, is typically made for Windows. A Windows machine can be attacked from any direction while the UNIX systems only seem to be "targeted", chosen for a reason and not just randomly attacked by a stray virus.
You seem to have a lot more knowledge about this than I do, so I might be wrong here but this is what I have gathered from this thread and random articles.

Typically you do not need a third party software to protect your Linux machine or your Mac but this is something that you need on a Windows machine if you're gonna go online. This really grinds my gears. I am not a Windows user so it doesn't affect me directly but I still think it's wrong that people have to live with this. You shouldn't have to get third party software to be safe, the system should be safe right out of the box! From what I can tell it seems like a great deal of the viruses out there is coming from these companies. First the sell the danger and then they sell the protection against it. It's just wrong.
People seem to accept that computers need to be maintained with anti virus software, reformat etc. No one would accept that kind of thing in an owen, a TV or anything else. Why should computers be any different?

I just hate to see this.

[elvis]

I think Crux was talking about the personal computer. The consumer machine.

If he was, it was never quantified.

The statement presented was one that was very broad and generic, and made reference to operating systems only, and not their purpose, setup or attached users. My rebuttal covered the same broad range.

[ZeroAX]

2) Their simplicity and relative safety record translate to less hassles for them ie even tech-savvy people don't want choices bundled with their gadgets.

a friend of mine complained about this. He is a topographer so he used a smartphone for his job for years. It had professional applications for that job that helped him a lot.

then the iphone comes out, and all smart phone start being about social networking, sharing photos and bullshit like that, and now even the companies that used to make professional smart phones care more about competing with apple, and he can't find a good new phone.


Social stuff is all cool and all, but can people really justify to them selfs paying 500 $/€ to be able to upload a picture to facebook the minute they take it?

[Pulsar_t]

I perfectly sympathise with your friend, but the fact is he's in the minority and the trend-setters are not doing him any favours. But there should be a viable niche market for professionals who *actually* make use of their smartphones (most people just use them for nonproductive activities, and sadly that's where the money is)

[Jungell]

I perfectly sympathise with your friend, but the fact is he's in the minority and the trend-setters are not doing him any favours. But there should be a viable niche market for professionals who *actually* make use of their smartphones (most people just use them for nonproductive activities, and sadly that's where the money is)

This is something that the application developers control.

[crux]

If he was, it was never quantified.

Yes, the most professional hackers can target user by user, making the platform inconsequential, but the average hacker is not professional.

[ZeroAX]

yeah but you see application developers are usually run by investors, and they are too stupid to see that there is money to be made in niche, no they want to invest in what's hot even if it means failure in the end.


Heck look at the gaming industry. WoW is a huge success and everyone kept trying to beat it, by copying it in every way (I'm looking at you Aion and Warhammer). Most of those games ultimately failed miserably(I think Warhammer is down to 2 servers right now, and none of them are in Europe).

But you see companies make games like EVE, The Witcher, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, which wouldn't survive had they a 10 mill $ budget, but instead targeted what is not currently hot, but many people would still like to see, and managed to make a decent profit from it.


Heck look at Nintendo for excellent business management. They don't take huge risks, and they always have a broad range of products for all tastes, even if the current market trends are against their investment. So they always managed to remain profitable.


Besides in by book, small profit each year >>>> investing everything in a win/lose all scenario.


wow ok went way off topic there .

[samsonlonghair]

It's not because Windows is the majority system that it gets targeted. It's deeper than that. It's because the majority Windows boxes are very poorly secured. I propose that even if Windows magically lost market share tomorrow and shrunk to less than 50%, it would still be the most actively targeted system due entirely to the fact that it's damn near trivial to break into thanks to simple "admin by default" designs littering the system.

The same can be said about OSX. OSX is designed to be so user friendly that breaking into a Mac is child's play. The "keychain" feature in OSX stores all your passwords for everything in one place. Whose idea was that?

What annoys me even more is that the average user thinks that installing a third party anti-virus tool will solve all their ills. Not only is it annoying because the term "virus" is utterly moot today, but because Windows users in particular still accept that installing third-party band-aids should be a norm (which is right up there with those Windows users who are convinced the annual reformat/reinstall process is mandatory, and just an accepted part of modern computing).

This reminds me of the famous line from blaster, "billy gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!!"

That annual reformat process is very profitable to me. I supported myself for many years by maintaining poorly designed windows networks. The more failure-prone the software, the more man hours I earned. I say keep making crappy software Microsoft! That way there'll always be work for guys like me.