Another Snowstorm for Jan 7-9??

[Rose]

Originally Posted by This'nThat

Well, if they can't be more accurate, then why bother? I mean -- if you can get away with saying anything, and then have everybody accept your excuses when you're wrong, why bother with "forecasting"?

Do you even know what their accuracy rate is? You complain about them not giving probabilities...if you like numbers so much give me their rate (whoever "they" are)?

You say you've programmed before. Bill Gates made a fortune providing programs that really are pieces of crap when compared to other products. I guess by your reasoning I should diss all programmers.

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by Rose

Bill Gates made a fortune providing programs that really are pieces of crap when compared to other products. I guess by your reasoning I should diss all programmers.

If Bill Gates provides a bad weather forecast, then you have my permission to diss him. I might even join you.

[Ropetow]

Originally Posted by This'nThat

If Bill Gates provides a bad weather forecast, then you have my permission to diss him. I might even join you.

How about a bad Operating System? Ever use Vista? Or, for that matter, any of his Op Systems are inferior to Mac OS.

[MAXUM]

Originally Posted by Ropetow

How about a bad Operating System? Ever use Vista? Or, for that matter, any of his Op Systems are inferior to Mac OS.

Well the free market says otherwise. Apple has been around LONGER than Microsoft if anything Apple should rule the operating system world yet why don't they if the product is so superior? The consumer market has rejected it for a reason. Proprietary software that runs on a proprietary platform where the cost point is not competitive. That is why Microsoft rules the desktop market share, and in time if free distributions of Linux continue to surface that rival Microsoft, they will more than likely in time take over. Mac will remain as it always has on the sidelines as a irrelevant player no matter how "good" the MAC crowd touts it to be. Nothing proves that point more than the iPhone. While the idea was cool and innovative terrible marketing is killing it and all the knock offs are going to crush it in the long term. Heck they already are.

Finally say what you want about Bill Gates, there is no question he has done and continues to do a significant amount of charity work now, which is a lot more than you can say of Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.

[wifi]

I'm confused, will Microsoft or Apple produce a better snow storm on Jan 6=>9 ?

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by MAXUM

Well the free market says otherwise. Apple has been around LONGER than Microsoft if anything Apple should rule the operating system world yet why don't they if the product is so superior? The consumer market has rejected it for a reason. Proprietary software that runs on a proprietary platform where the cost point is not competitive.

No offense, but you sound very ill-equipped to argue one side or the other in this conversation.

In most product markets the volume leader is NOT the highest quality product, it is the product with the mid-point price.

Microsoft has been steadily losing market share while Apple has been steadily gaining. If you are talking about operating systems, then they are both equal amounts of "proprietary". I'm not sure how you counter that Apple hardware is proprietary, in fact a moderate group of people buy Apple laptops for their higher aesthetics and build quality, and then run Windows on them. Seems like if it was a proprietary platform you wouldn't be able to do that so easily.

The length of time either company has been in existence is also of little real concern. The consumer personal computer business didn't really start in significant volumes until the Internet become popular in the mid-90's, long after both companies had been established.

[Merrymeeting]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

Microsoft has been steadily losing market share while Apple has been steadily gaining.

While I don't disagree with your statement, Apple market share is somewhere between 7 and 10 percent, depending on which report you follow.

Far from the growing market share dominance that many would have you believe. Even if you limit it to just phones, Droids have been outselling Apple, 2-to-1 for the past few quarters.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by Merrymeeting

While I don't disagree with your statement, Apple market share is somewhere between 7 and 10 percent, depending on which report you follow.

Far from the growing market share dominance that many would have you believe. Even if you limit it to just phones, Droids have been outselling Apple, 2-to-1 for the past few quarters.

Well first off, let's not confuse the statistics between desktop OS market share (Windows, OS X, etc.) and mobile devices. Although both categories have a lot of the same companies in common, they are very different markets.

You would certainly expect Droid mobile phone handsets to outsell the iPhone, if you want to talk about the mobile platform. There are a dozen manufacturers of handsets using the Droid OS, and I think they are on every single cell phone carrier in the US. Apple has 1 handset, the iPhone, and it's been on 1 carrier in the US (this is finally changing next month).

In general Apple's approach has been to deliver a more elegant, better-engineered and robust platform than Microsoft. Google, with Droid and Chrome desktop is stealing more marketshare from Microsoft than Apple.

At the end of the day, OS wars are silly. There are many choices and users are free to choose whatever suits them best. All companies have areas where they excel greatly, and areas where they could stand to improve. Google doesn't really have a full desktop OS yet, but Microsoft and Apple are both multi-billion dollar companies in the OS market. To assert that either of them are not making a "popular" or usable product is just silly.

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

Microsoft and Apple are both multi-billion dollar companies in the OS market. To assert that either of them are not making a "popular" or usable product is just silly.

The fact remains, Microsoft is more popular, primarily because they sold their OS to other hardware companies and application developers, whereas Apple's OS is tied to Apple hardware. And any quality differences are not a factor. No one forces people to buy PCs with Windows. People have a choice, and the 91% market share by Microsoft shows that Microsoft quality is more than sufficient. I, for one, don't have a problem with the current Windows technology. Just as long as Bill Gates stays out of the weather forecasting business, I will continue to buy Microsoft products.

[BroadHopper]

This is the all time favorite weatherman among true NH natives.

'Marty on the Mountain'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNATQANryFc

His forecasts are definitely 'spot on'!

[MAXUM]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

No offense, but you sound very ill-equipped to argue one side or the other in this conversation.

In most product markets the volume leader is NOT the highest quality product, it is the product with the mid-point price.

Microsoft has been steadily losing market share while Apple has been steadily gaining. If you are talking about operating systems, then they are both equal amounts of "proprietary". I'm not sure how you counter that Apple hardware is proprietary, in fact a moderate group of people buy Apple laptops for their higher aesthetics and build quality, and then run Windows on them. Seems like if it was a proprietary platform you wouldn't be able to do that so easily.

The length of time either company has been in existence is also of little real concern. The consumer personal computer business didn't really start in significant volumes until the Internet become popular in the mid-90's, long after both companies had been established.

I have 17 years experience as certified systems administrator and architect.

Not going to argue best of breed. What I will say however is that anyone who runs a business is not going to use something that does not give them good return on investment. That doesn't mean Microsoft is or ever has been the end all be all solution to everything, but they were successful in reaching a market penetration of 95% on all desktops world wide. Yes now they are loosing some market share to Linux. That's a good thing, healthy competition in the market place will lead to better choices and products for the consumers out there.

What both Linux and Windows provide is an operating system that can run on virtually anything and do it pretty well. With virtualization, SAAS and cloud computing becoming more widely adopted that will result in these two operating systems domination in the marketplace for the foreseeable future.
The days of operating systems that run only on specific hardware platforms are numbered and have been for some time especially for large scale operations mostly due to exorbitant costs of hardware, support and big dollar salaries going to IT guys with the skills to deal with them. Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM's AIX will all suffer.

That's the corporate market, consumers are going to buy what they familiar with, comfortable with using and again has an attractive price point. This is why MAC never got any traction or wide adoption comparatively speaking. Not to say that it will not retain a nitch customer base as it will, but it will never equate to a significant percentage of the overall market share. The fact Apple is still around today is not on the success of the MAC, but the portable electronic devices they now produce. Whether that holds or not will depend on how successful the knock offs are, as previously pointed out the droid is outselling the iphone by a 2-1 margin. That is not good news for Apple lovers.

Enough said, this thread was supposed to be for weather... let's stick to that!

[Rose]

Originally Posted by This'nThat

If Bill Gates provides a bad weather forecast, then you have my permission to diss him. I might even join you.

You're obviously just trolling at this point, which I figured you would. Bye.