Note that the "60% growth" number is based on retail sales, which really isn't accurate (e.g. #2 Dell is almost totally ignored).
But they're absolute when compared to Mac? A 60% growth still sounds pretty good to me...
> A 60% growth still sounds pretty good to me...
Also, I would rather pocket the profit Apple makes on 60 machines, than the profit Dell makes on 600, if my understanding of their business models is correct.
Yes, 60% is still good, but depending on how many are sold retail vs non-retail, it may not be so impressive. Retail sales are not a good indication of marketshare.
Manual - that's one reason I haven't ever bought a Mac (besides now with children, my finances are more limited). Maybe the pricing difference isn't too bad for some uses, but for a CAD workstation, the Mac is way more expensive (Apple has an unfortunate history of using crappy graphics cards) and the software is almost non-existent (Linux is better for engineering).
For top-end desktops, Apple is way cheaper (and top notch build quality) than even building yourself...
Yeah, people claim that, but it's B.S., at least for the system specs I'm interested in. In other words, I'm not interested in building a system comparable to a given Mac config, but buying a Mac config comparable to what I would build.
The build quality certainly isn't any better than mine (I'm still really happy with my current AMD system with Antec Sonata case and convection cooled Quadro 2000).
One problem (and advantage for system stability) is that Apple's supported hardware list is extremely limited. Go look at the Mac Pro config options - last time I checked you either get a cheap card (or multiple cheap cards) or a $1,500 Quadro card - with nothing in the middle. At work, we just calculated we could build a nice CAD workstation for $1,200 with mid-range Quadro card. Apple can't match that (and can't run Solidworks natively, either).
I'm not a Mac hater - they're interesting (although I think Objective-C is a '80's language which is desperately in need of an update), I'm glad they're doing well, but I haven't bought into the SJ RDF, and I don't have the time or cash to play around now.
I don't know about claiming it. I priced it up myself when I was in the market for a new desktop and the Mac came out streets ahead (by about a grand cheaper for the specs I wanted).
"last time I checked you either get a cheap card (or multiple cheap cards) or a $1,500 Quadro card"
They also do a 'middle of the range' (actually pretty good but cheap) Nvidia 8800 GT card.
Michael,
This http://www.nvidia.com/page/qfx_mr.html is what I mean by mid-range Quadro card. The 8800GT doesn't cut it for an engineering workstation (doesn't have CAD-quality OpenGL support).
If I were to build a workstation today, it would cost $1450 (X2-6400, Sonata case, Quadro 1700, 4G, 150G 10K Raptor drive, Zalman cooling fan) - the cheapest Mac is $2499 (with 8800GTS), so it's $1000 more, but that's not equivalent.
The Mac Pro doesn't include a Quadro card - the only one they offer is $2850. The Mac Pro's HDD is significantly slower than the Raptor drive - the only one comparable is the $650 15K drive. True, the Mac is quad core, but for my use anything more than 2 cores is a waste.
So it all depends on what kind of computer you want - but I really like the hardware flexibility (and available engineering software) with Windows and Linux.
Commenting by HaloScan
