computerworld.com — Longtime Windows development chief James Allchin wrote in a January 2004 e-mail to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and company co-founder Bill Gates that the software vendor had "lost sight" of customers' needs and said he would buy a Mac if he wasn't working for Microsoft.
Dec 12, 2006 View in Crawl 4
ethergnatDec 12, 2006
"No, you are wrong. ~90 percent of Windows owners own Windows because it came on there Dell, NOT because they like it."So if Apple let Dell become an authorized reseller everybody would suddenly start buying Mac? You act like somebody is holding a gun to people's head to force them into buying a Dell. People buy Dells because they're affordable and familiar. If Dell dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow people would choose HP or Gateway or some other Windows provider--not a Mac. According to the fanboys Macs are faster, more stable, easier, prettier, the software is better, cheaper (?!?), and generally better in every way. If all that were true, and given the fact that Jobs is a marketing genius, how f'in incompetent would Apple have to be to not have the majority of the market? The fact of the matter is that while Macs are great they are not the holy grail of computing. Finally, while it's great to evangelize your platform, the snobbish Mac elitists (a small but vocal group) who like to insult Windows users do nothing but hurt their cause.
ahmedbDec 12, 2006
$10 for whoever finds out how Steve Ballmer responded!!!!
nidstylesDec 12, 2006
He probably took pics of his dual G5 in his secret underground lair where he plans his eventual take over of MS to lead us into a golden age of computing, and sent them as teasers in his reply.
brandonrDec 12, 2006
Something tells me he won't have that problem much longer after they see this article.
blackjack75Dec 12, 2006
"I don't get why people buy the 24 inch iMac - it's such a waste of a good screen. A 24 inch screen could last you almost 10 years if it weren't tied to hardware that would be obselete in 3. You may as well buy the Mac Pro and a seperate 24" screen."Maybe a bix aluminium box wouldn't look so good in your living room..
kethraalDec 12, 2006
"But if you anaylize how NT does thread handling versus BSD (in a PC environment), NT would reign supreme."NT has "heavy" processes and "light" threads. Linux/BSD has "heavy" threads and "light" processes. This means that where, in NT, a service might take the form of a couple threads running under something like RPC, it takes the form of a daemon in the *nix world.It's not really that one "reigns supreme" -- just that they take two different approaches. (OS X, BTW, has both "heavy" and "light" threads, depending on how you implement threading in your app.)"In many cases NT is superior to Unix"The NT kernel, in its early, "purer" forms, is quite elegant. It was designed by guys who really knew their stuff, and it shows. Unfortunately, by the time you get to XP, you see that the NT kernel is no longer the elegant microkernel it once was -- it has tons of stuff bolted onto it in a kinda ugly way. It's now more of a hybrid than a microkernel.I think overall, if you compare something like Windows Server 2003 to a similarly-tasked BSD box, you'd find that the BSD box wins (by far) on the security front, wins (by a hair) for stability (a stripped down W2K3 is actually pretty damn stable), and ties for performance (unless you're talking about heavy load situations.)
an0nym0usDec 12, 2006
No, he uses iRiver, which definitely blows both ipod and Zune. ;)
somerandomnerdDec 12, 2006
"They are no longer the evil empire, and never reallly were. "Tell that to Mosaic or Netscape. Or anyone who would like to write a Windows app to compete with one of Microsoft's own, but can't get their hands on the API documentation.
mrgr2mmDec 12, 2006
"Someone needs to write a book or a post or an article about the Digg commenter subculture. ... No one here can attest to either Mac or PC being the more productive or practical or fun platform because we're all writing and monitoring comments instead of getting some work done or having a life."Welcome to the Web.
m0b1u5Dec 13, 2006
Mobius Annnouces:"I'd be an idiot if I didn't have an IQ of 142"Lame. Buried.
juliend2Nov 8, 2007
I would not buy a Mac. I'd rather run osx on my pc. I love this OS!!