If Kali Had An OS

In 1984 or 1985, my friend Pilch hauled “The Macintosh” out of his closet and gave it to me. It was to me, at the time, a fancy typewriter; enough so that I could shelve my actual typewriter. It’s specs? 128k of RAM, no hard drive, 400k floppies, an 8″ x 6″ screen. I had no reason to use a Windows machine until 1989, when I started working for a seating (i.e. ergonomic chairs,) company. Soon enough into my job there I came to grapple and sort of master MS-DOS, mostly as a way to solve various computer glitches. I have come to use Apples at home, and Windows at work, for over twenty years.

Anybody who was a dual system user as I was back in the late eighties, will state today the obvious: Microsoft was going to converge on the Apple Mac user interface and experience one way or the other. This is irrespective of the fact that Apple turned itself into a boutique computer maker even as it continued to raise the bar, Still, I remember mousing around a DOS shell at work, while the fun user experience awaited for me at home.

That Mac users are said to be smug seems to be a projection for the most part. If asked today, I would tell a newbie that I use a Mac, recommend it, and, “But, suit yourself.” I wouldn’t also tell: “I’m using a six year old Mac, desktop while at work we’re on our third generation of Wintel in six years.”

It’s apples and lemons.

Microsoft’s grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?
Windows works for me. But I’d never recommend it to anybody else, ever. (Charles Brooker – The Guardian)

Did Microsoft copy Mac OS for Windows 7? Yes … uh, wait … no … (Adrian Kingsley-Hughes – ZDNet)

Can Apple Unseat Microsoft? (Gabriel Madway – Reuters)

Apple trades at around 24 times forward earnings estimates, as does Google Inc., which has a similar market capitalization and is viewed as another potential challenger to Microsoft.

Microsoft trades at roughly 16 times forward earnings.

Apple’s last quarterly results blew past Wall St. estimates and sent its shares to a record-high $208.71.

While the stock has retreated in recent weeks in a broad market pullback, analysts have a price target as high as $280 on Apple, which would give it a market value of $250 billion.

Following its quarterly report last month, analysts also boosted their price targets on Microsoft to as high as $36, which would take its market cap to $320 billion.

Apple’s shareholders have been handsomely rewarded over the past decade, with its stock up close to 900 per cent. Over the same period, Microsoft’s shares have fallen around 35 per cent.

There’s something scarily efficient and agile about having a market cap 70% of your leading competitor when your market share is 20 times smaller. Zune, anyone?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *