Microsoft Exec Says Mac Users Pay an "Apple Tax"
Microsoft Exec Says Mac Users Pay an "Apple Tax"
by , 12:35 PM EDT, October 15th, 2008
A Microsoft executive has begun pushing the line of attack that people who buy Macs are paying an "Apple tax," and that many just don't realize it. Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing, argued in an interview with CNet's Ina Fried that this supposed tax comes in the form of both choice and dollars.
Mr. Brooks' comments came in an interview that was ostensibly about Microsoft and Vista, though in the end it was dominated by discussion of Apple. Indeed, the "Apple tax" idea entered the discussion when Mr. Brooks was asked what PC makers should do in a time of economic challenge. Mr. Brooks answer? One sentence about Microsoft investing more resources with PC makers and three and a half paragraphs about, "understanding what is really involved with what we call the 'Apple tax'."
"There really is a tax around there for people that are evaluating their choices going into this holiday season and going forward," said Mr. Brooks. "There's a choice tax that we talked about, which is, hey, you want to buy a machine that's other than black, white, or silver, and if you want to get it in multiple different configurations or price points, you're going to be paying a tax if you go the Apple way."
He also argued that Mac users won't be able to get the rich application experience enjoyed by Windows users -- he cited Microsoft Outlook and games -- and that they'll have a "technology tax" (no HDMI, no Blu-ray, and no e-SATA external drives). Then there's the "upgrade tax," as only MacPros, which start at US$2,799, are upgradable.
When asked if Mac and Windows compatibility wasn't at an all-time high, Mr. Brooks argued that if you want Windows, "start with a machine that was built for the Windows experience." He also cut down his own company's Mac Business Unit's main product, Office for Mac, as being "stripped down."
Ms. Fried also pointed out that it appeared as if more and more people were willing to pay this so-called tax, and Mr. Brooks responded by asking if "customers really know what they're getting into?" The added costs of products like Parallels, Fusion, or even a standalone copy of Windows is, he argued, something these unwitting Switchers are being duped into buying, unaware of what they're facing.
Even when Ms. Fried tried to bring the question back to what Microsoft wanted its customers to understand about the value of Vista, Mr. Brooks dragged the conversation back to Apple. "There's also productivity value that you get on Windows Vista that you can't get on a Mac," he said.
The full interview is both lengthy and interesting, and completely Apple-centric, suggesting the platform wars may not be truly dead after all. The interview coincides with a series of ads Microsoft is running that also make Apple part of its conversation by asking if users if they're a PC, a direct response to Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads.
Observer Comments
1. "Rich Application Experience"...meaning 3rd party add-on security software, virus checkers, and trojan-horse filters??
2. I really appreciate you, Mr. Brooks (and Mr. Ballmer, for that matter), making me a second-class customer by admitting that you sold me a "stripped-down" suite of office applications (you weren't calling them stripped-down in your ads). I thought my money was as good as the next persons, but after your comments made today, my current version of Mac Office will be my last, and if you care to stop by my house, I will "return" my current copy into your appropriate "slot".
Quoteapplication experience enjoyed by Windows users -- he cited Microsoft Outlook
A good example. I use Outlook at work and it is the worst, most unstable, most frustrating e-mail system I've ever used. I'd use GroupWise, LotusNotes, heck even a simple IMAP mail system or Gmail before I'd recommend Outlook. Outlook is noting to brag about.
As far as other apps; MS is deeply frightened. not only are more and more users moving away from Windows, you are seeing lots of people dropping Office for OpenOffice, iWork, or other non MS solutions. MS has been providing bloated, resource heavy, hard to use apps for so long they don't know what to do when the public says Enough.
MS doesn't understand that people are sick of paying the MS Tax. Extra support costs, forced upgrades, and overpriced applications. Heck they PAY me to work on MS S*** and even I'm sick of it.
As Barry Schwartz has researched and written about, "choice" isn't nearly as positive as people intuitively think it is. While it's true that the PC market offers a vast array of choices in price and quality, what that does is leave customers overwhelmed, confused, and ultimately, disappointed, as they are left wondering whether one of they would have been better served by one of the alternatives they did not choose. This is the premise of Schwartz's <i>Paradox of Choice</i>, and I'm sure we can all think back to an episode in our lives where we experienced this ourselves. Think about standing in a store, looking over dozens of similar items on the store shelf, before reluctantly giving in and picking up one. Did you leave confident you made the best choice? Probably not.
Apply that to laptops. Of those $600 laptops, which are crap and which are decent? Yes, there are some hardware options that aren't yet available, like a tablet (though an aftermarket option is available), but those aren't exactly flying off the shelves in Windows land, anyway.
In software, it's even worse. I don't want a ton of crappy applications that do the same basic thing, none doing it well. I want one or two applications that do it well. Look at the quality of Mac shareware versus Windows. Frankly, a lot of the Windows shareware is embarrassingly bad.
Besides, Microsoft is being disingenuous with their "choice" racket. Microsoft isn't really interested in users having a choice of, for instance, office suites or operating systems (unless you count their 31 flavors of Vista).
So, choice is nice, to an extent, and the Mac market might benefit from some more. Compared to the wasteland that is the Windows market, I'll take my limited, but quality and reasonably priced, Mac market.
--if you want Windows, "start with a machine that was built for the Windows experience."--
So the fact that every bench test that we've seen shows that Vista actually performs better on Apple hardware than most PC's makes it an undesirable platform for Microsoft products? Let's see...1000's of possible drivers that need to be written to accommodate every possible hardware vendor used by PC manufacturers, or the Bootcamp drivers that come installed on Leopard? Seems to me that the machine best built for Windows is a Mac!! I have Office for Windows on my XP partition (which I plan to re-partition and eliminate soon). Haven't used it once. I use iWork for everything. Some Taxes are worth paying!
Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:49 pm Subject: Comparing Apples to... whatever
And what about Windows' Security/Privacy tax which costs the users both money and time in acquiring/maintaining/and using anti-virus, anti-malware, etc. software. And if they fail to maintain and/or use then they pay the true price of having their identity stolen or their data lost. Hmmm... I'd rather pay up front and in the end less with my Mac tax.
As far as variety I appreciate the fact that my local grocery store does not in fact stock EVERY SINGLE brand/variety of EVERY SINGLE product. As long as they provide good quality and reasonable amount of variety I'm good to go.
QuoteI agree -- M$ is watching their market share shrink in all corners of their business (as far as I know), so it's time to go on the offensive and start spreading the FUD. Not to mention a gaming platform and a media player, neither of which has yet to be profitable.geoduck wrote:
As far as other apps; MS is deeply frightened. not only are more and more users moving away from Windows, you are seeing lots of people dropping Office for OpenOffice, iWork, or other non MS solutions.
Hmmm.... too bad I didn't know this before upgrading my Mac Mini's, one of which originally had a 1.66 GHz Core Duo, which now has a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo (T7200), and my 1.83 GHz Core2 Mini that had an 80 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, and combo drive as shipped, now has a superdrive, 500 GB hard drive (yes, Samsung makes a 2.5" X 9.5mm 500gb drive that works great in the Mini), and 4 GB of RAM!
They have it backwards. There is a Microsoft tax on every PC made. Buyers of Macs (regardless of type) get video editing software, music editing software, media management software, DVD authoring and burning software, and low-cost office software (iWork is only $79 and is great for marketing presentations) as an optional add-on.
A "cheap" MS Vista box will be less expensive than the hardware equivalent Mac, but there's nothing loaded except for the OS, a browser, and media management software. Need to type something? Add $500+ for MS office. Need to edit some music or put together a marketing presentation that won't look like a MS office template? Add another $200 - $500 for third-party software. Need to go to Europe on a business trip? Sigh, add another $200 for the software and WiFi card so that you can get internet access. So, the MS office tax is somewhere between $900 and $1,200.
QuoteGuest wrote:
They have it backwards. There is a Microsoft tax on every PC made. Buyers of Macs (regardless of type) get video editing software, music editing software, media management software, DVD authoring and burning software, and low-cost office software (iWork is only $79 and is great for marketing presentations) as an optional add-on.
A "cheap" MS Vista box will be less expensive than the hardware equivalent Mac, but there's nothing loaded except for the OS, a browser, and media management software. Need to type something? Add $500+ for MS office. Need to edit some music or put together a marketing presentation that won't look like a MS office template? Add another $200 - $500 for third-party software. Need to go to Europe on a business trip? Sigh, add another $200 for the software and WiFi card so that you can get internet access. So, the MS office tax is somewhere between $900 and $1,200.
I think every Mac still has TextEdit pre-installed. It is actually a very usable word processor and can read Word Files.
I have three Macs-- a MacBook, an iMac (at home) and a MacPro at work. All run flawlessly and I have NEVER had an issue AT ALL with any of these machines, even when I am required to occasionally use Windows XP using VMWare fusion on my MacPro. Best of all, when I want to add a printer or other peripheral, I simply plug it in and I'm good to go. And the boost in productivity I get from cover flow and drag-and-drop capability in Leopard I can't even begin to describe to the Windows users I know. They just shake their heads and marvel. No lie.
The government has stuck it to me plenty when it comes to "taxes" and I don't even get to have a good feeling afterward. If Apple brand loyalty is considered a tax, then so be it. I'll pay my taxes ANY day!
This comment part on their browser sucks! Anyway, here's my original post.
How is it that when I need(?) to buy Windows it ends up being an Apple Tax? Notice how they announced this little "Apple Tax" when Apple was introducing their new line of portable laptops. How shallow and transparent MS has become the past year. They must be VERY scared.
Apple gets away with poking fun at PCs and Vista because the problems they exaggerate with PC's do really exist. It's funny because it's true, and everyone knows it.
Microsoft don't have the luxury of having a competitor with a whole lot of disgruntled customers who've put up with $#!% for years, so they have to resort to inventing problems, and calling Apple out on things that Microsoft also does.
Shame on you Microsoft.
QuoteGuest wrote:
I have always felt sorry for the misinformed buyers of Macs. As a windows developer I always tell the mac owners that very few web sites are tested for Mac compatibility. So mac users don't even know what they are missing... just another example of the Apple Tax
I surf a lot, probably to much. But it's my duty to go to and test as many web sites as I can. I cannot remember one site I've not gotten into. Now, there probably was a site, but I do not remember it. Maybe this 'Guest' has been secretly getting on his buddy's Mac, trying to get on these sites that the Mac owner has tried.
Please list some important sites I can't get on to with my Mac so I can see what I'm missing.
I have actually been doing web authoring for quite some time now, and the opposite has been true in my experience: most designers (not coders mind you, but designers) use Macs for web development and are disgruntled because they have to keep Explorer, the number one non-standards compliant browser, around for testing. The headaches involved in getting CSS based layouts to render correctly on Explorer are legendary. Don't believe me? Google 'box model hack' to get started.
On the flip side of these statements, every single major browser, except *ahem* Explorer is cross platform, web guy (this is the world wide web we're discussing, right?). Being 'tested on Mac' is actually irrelevant. OS X doesn't render sites, your browser does. Maybe you're referring to some activex bullshit? I assure you, no competent designers with maximum accessibility in mind are even using Microsoft's proprietary 'tools' these days.
To the "Windows Developer" that stated that very few web sites are tested for Mac compatibility. What sites? I have used Macs since OS 7.0 and PC/Windows since 3.1 and have yet to access a web site with a Windows machine that I couldn't access with my Mac. While there may be a few, it has not been a problem for me or any other Mac user that I know. If I do encounter such a site, I always have the option of logging into Windows XP or Vista on my Mac to gain access. Remember, the Mac hardware is the premiere platform for running Windows Vista. In the interim, I save hundreds of hours using OSX instead of Windows by not having to deal with all the frustrations of freeze ups, virus updates, etc, etc, etc.
QuoteI see a lot of coders building sites on Macs these days. And I would agree about the designers they (we) prefer to build on a Mac, for the most part.Guest wrote:
I have actually been doing web authoring for quite some time now, and the opposite has been true in my experience: most designers use Macs for web development and are disgruntled because they have to keep Explorer, the number one non-standards compliant browser, around for testing.
OS X doesn't render sites, your browser does. Maybe you're referring to some activex bullshit?
The only real barrier keeping the moral majority off Macs is from being weighed down by having to deal with IE. I don't know a single web developer worth his salt who swears by Active X, either.
+1 on the "tested for Mac" theory. Talk about naivety. Firefox will render pages the same on a PC as it will on a Mac. What you're probably looking for is the rendering engine; and for that matter Webkit & Gecko are far superior to IE's Turdkit.
Uh, Vista doesn't equal productivity, unless you are a snail. Vista equals resource hog, slow as molasses, security paranoid in-your-face, virus, trojan, and spyware infected pig!
Businesses don't want anything to do with it, the public already knows it sucks.
So Microsoft lying about it isn't going to help them one bit.
Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:27 am Subject: Microsoft's worst nightmare.
Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:38 am Subject: Some choices are good.
Quotejimothy wrote:
As Barry Schwartz has researched and written about, "choice" isn't nearly as positive as people intuitively think it is. While it's true that the PC market offers a vast array of choices in price and quality, what that does is leave customers overwhelmed, confused, and ultimately, disappointed, as they are left wondering whether one of they would have been better served by one of the alternatives they did not choose. This is the premise of Schwartz's <i>Paradox of Choice</i>, and I'm sure we can all think back to an episode in our lives where we experienced this ourselves. Think about standing in a store, looking over dozens of similar items on the store shelf, before reluctantly giving in and picking up one. Did you leave confident you made the best choice? Probably not.
Apply that to laptops. Of those $600 laptops, which are crap and which are decent? Yes, there are some hardware options that aren't yet available, like a tablet (though an aftermarket option is available), but those aren't exactly flying off the shelves in Windows land, anyway.
In software, it's even worse. I don't want a ton of crappy applications that do the same basic thing, none doing it well. I want one or two applications that do it well. Look at the quality of Mac shareware versus Windows. Frankly, a lot of the Windows shareware is embarrassingly bad.
Besides, Microsoft is being disingenuous with their "choice" racket. Microsoft isn't really interested in users having a choice of, for instance, office suites or operating systems (unless you count their 31 flavors of Vista).
So, choice is nice, to an extent, and the Mac market might benefit from some more. Compared to the wasteland that is the Windows market, I'll take my limited, but quality and reasonably priced, Mac market.
I'm glad I have the "choice" to choose Apple Products:)
Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:41 am Subject: We do pay a tax as Mac users...
Quotexmattingly wrote:QuoteThis pretty much sums up the fallacy of Brooks' "Apple Tax" agenda.Guest wrote:
A Mac Tax...Hmmm...Does Microsoft really want to go there? If we believe that our time is worth anything, then how much of a tax do Windows user pay every day using Microsoft's buggy software and OS?
We sure do pay a tax as Mac users, but it's to Microsoft for thier "Stripped down" version of office. Everyone knows it's "Stripped down", but Microsoft still insists on making Mac users pay a premium "Tax" for the Microsoft "experience"
HAHA. .ROTFL!!
Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:52 am Subject: Taxes fund some services, I'd rather live with..
Quotesalparadise wrote:
People are willing to pay extra for reliability and stability.
Two words which Apple barely need to mention because they have it in spades and that Microsoft never shut up about - because it's absent from their sorry range of products.
I think as a citizen, I appreciate paying taxes for some services. The drug dealers and prostitutes who don't pay taxes are the only ones that don't like tax financed services impacting thier business.
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