"Typically, the Windows OS is never mentioned, either because it's an unpleasant liability or a non-differentiator."

It's non-differentiator (bad word choice as differentiator applies to people not things). It's just understood that the computer will run it. For years there was only one manufacturer whose computers were incapable of supporting the most widely adopted operating system in the world. Apple has finally understood that in order to compete with the rest of the world's PC makers, they needed to get onboard with Windows. Being able to run an operating system is never an unpleasant liability, that's just Martellaro being smug. Unless he truly thinks that it was bad decision for Apple to support Windows and bring this liability down upon the company. Judging by what he's written on the past of this being a boon, this quote is just his normal better-than-thou snide personality coming through in his commentary.

What are you talking about?
They always mention what version of Windows the particular notebook is running. They proudly display the "Designed for Windows (insert crappy version name here)" on almost all of the publicity. At least the ones I've seen...
Maybe IBM shoud be thinking about making consumer versions of their high-end server POWER processors now that Apple is out of the game, I mean they DO make the processors themselves... LOL... yeah... like that's gonna happen... would be interesting to see, though...

Hey are any of you guys SENIOR scientists?!? Yeah I didn't think so!

Differentiator only applies to people? No fair using your own personal dictionary instead of, ya know, real ones.

And to the other guy, IBM ran lots of ads that never mentioned the OS. All those with the junior execs out to lunch doing dumb stuff like dropping a notebook on the floor.

Quote

Guest wrote:
What are you talking about?
They always mention what version of Windows the particular notebook is running. They proudly display the "Designed for Windows (insert crappy version name here)" on almost all of the publicity. At least the ones I've seen...
Maybe IBM shoud be thinking about making consumer versions of their high-end server POWER processors now that Apple is out of the game, I mean they DO make the processors themselves... LOL... yeah... like that's gonna happen... would be interesting to see, though...

First, everybody gets spifs/discounts/kickbacks for the 'designed for windows blah' label, and that's why it's everywhere, because if it wasn't there, the exact same Windows license would cost more. Second, who is going to make/sell a computer and operating system for this "consumer" processor if IBM were to make one? NOBODY! Who could afford to kick-start such a venture, with two entrenched competitors [Apple and MS] already there, when they would have to use hardware that by definition costs more because it's not as mass produced as the competitions hardware.

as someone who watched my apple laptop shatter into pieces when it was pulled down off a table, i can vouch for the fraility of macs ....

recently i was at a repair shop at the gargantuan Pacifica Mall (in toronto's Chinatown North) & the owners offered me a friendly dare after they heard my tale of laptop woe: they bet me the street price of a ibm laptop (nearly CDN$2000) that a thinkpad would survive a the same kind of fall that killed my powerbook ...

i hemed & hawed but then took the plunge! - and used my debit card to put my money where my mouth was (i swiped nearly $2000 into their account): the thinkpad dies & i get a free apple laptop; the thinkpad lives & i lose the cash!

but i dithered over every detail of the impending cyber doom ... what angle would the machine hit the floor, from what height, at what force-level etc etc.

these guys were SERIOUS -- i picked it up in the air ready to throw down; but they did not blick!

I reckoned that they were either excellent poker bluffers (well more like majahn blufferes i guess) or else they really knew the score with the thinkpads (they cautioned me that they had seen a video of a thinkpad surving being crushed under a mega truck).

i was the one that blinked - and they were reasonable enough to credit back to my bank card the bet i had made ($2000) on a dare.

the rapair-shop owners told me thinkpad's are apparently made of some super tough alloy with a really strong reinforced frame.

this is a far cry from the fragile composites that are used by apple for its laptops.

i seldom ever have any cause to envy a pc - and i have seldom ever seen pc weeinies ever want to place cold hard cash on the line for a competition with macs (cuz they know they would lose in 9/10 categories) .... but i learnt in useful lesson in mac humility that day!

i only wish jonathan ive would also spend a little bit more time wandering around the warrens of chinatown so that he could stumble upon some interesting challenges!

opps -

forgot a sig ...

zahadum

ThinkPad's OK - it even runs Ubuntu. But my MacBook Pro rules, and there are two Apple Stores within 15 minutes of me in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong.