WHY MAC WILL NEVER OUTSELL PC

A couple of days ago, I found out why Macs will NEVER outsell the trusty old PC (although the distinction between Macs and PC becomes more and more blurred).

I'm in the market for a notebook with a modest budget: P40,000.00 is all I can spare. But even at that price, I've been shown LOTS of notebooks with all the features I could possibly need. I even get a discount if I don't include Windows and am more concerned with compatibility with my spare copy of XP x64.

The last PC store I was at happened to be next to the Mac store in Ayala, and since my wife happened to be with me, she said, "Let's go see".

So first thing I do is ask the attendant, "What can I get for 40k?" And he answers, "You can't. The least expensive Macbook is a little over P60,000.00."

When I ask to see it I am shown an ugly black brick that looks nothing like the nifty Macs in the ads. I never thought I would say this, for the one thing I like about Macs are their looks, and this one was uglier than ALL the PC notebooks I had seen.

My wife asks to see the new Macbook "Air". We were brought to another attendant who was manning one at the counter. Now while the "Air" is absolutely beautiful and will fit in a Manila envelope, it comes in at just under 100k. More than a little over budget. Plus, the attendant's answers were short and curt, as if he was busy doing something with the Mac. I look at the screen, and he's only browsing the Yahoo website.

I ask him, can I get an Office Suite with that? And he says, "No, you have to have it installed here unless you get an extra drive. And that's MICROSOFT Office 2008 Home and Student edition."

I think, MICROSOFT? Why bother? Here I am, a PC user with my mind open about leaving Microsoftware, and the MAC dude wants me to pay for MICROSOFT OFFICE? Didn't he even hear about OpenOffice?

I shake my head and realize the whole exercise is pointless. Again, twice the price for half the power still isn't worth it.