Tgdaily points out that the Windows XP downgrade option is listed on Dell’s website with the Inspiron 1525 notebook and 530 desktops with a $150 price-tag. Dell however, did not hike up the downgrade option pricing on its Vostro desktops and notebooks. The price for the XP downgrade on those was raised in October and remains at $99.

Analysts are unable to determine whether this shows a declining or increasing demand for the operating system. Some believe that netbook demand (sub-$500, Linux based notebook) has taken the load off of downgraded PC options with Windows XP. According to Devil Mountain Software, a market research firm that collects “real-world” metrics from Windows computers, nearly one third (35%) of PC users that purchased a PC between February and August 2008, downgraded to Windows XP from Windows Vista.

Perhaps most interesting is that Apple sells brand new versions of Mac OS X Leopard for $129 (single user – family pack is $199). If you’re in a tax-free state like Oregon, that’s exactly $21 less than Dell’s Windows XP downgrade option. And even with all of the negative press surrounding Microsoft and its less-than-capable operating system, Dell continues to ship machines with Vista pre-installed, while charging customers for a Windows XP downgrade.

Microsoft is promising a lot with Windows 7, and the industry is waiting anxiously for anything to move it along after Vista. They are keeping strong with the focus of being fully compatible with as many existing device drivers, applications, and hardware configurations as possible. Unfortunately, early developer builds and statements from Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer himself lead us to believe Windows 7 may just be more of the same.

As Apple remains focused on delivering an increasingly refined version of OS X with Snow Leopard, healthy competition between the two operating systems has been rather difficult given Vista’s failures. For the sake of the industry, let’s hope Microsoft delivers something heavy with Windows 7.

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Naturally, this comes at the cost of Microsoft’s web presence, with Windows’ Internet share dropping below 90% for the first time ever and Internet Explorer’s market share coming in at less than 70%. After losing traction in October, Mac computers share of Web hits grew 7.43% in the month of November to a record breaking 8.82%. Additionally, the iPhone gained ground with an increase of 12.12% to 0.37%, on the heels of Linux.

“Reaching 20 percent worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla,” Mozilla CEO John Lilly told Net Applications. “It’s a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible.”

As Fortune.com points out, Net Applications’ monthly surveys are conducted by sampling browser data from some 160 million visits to Web sites operated by firm’s clients. Although the describes the results as “market shares,” Net Applications does not actually measure share of market in the traditional sense of sales revenue or unit sales. It does, however, provide a consistent methodology by which to measure browser and operating system trends.

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As Apple’s market share increases, so does the likelihood of malicious viruses being spread. As many have argued in the past, the reason Apple’s computers are currently so safe is because their market share is tiny in comparison to Windows. The more people that switch to Macs and begin adopting the platform, the bigger the target gets for malware developers. While it may seem ironic for Apple to recommend antivirus software while touting the lack of malware on its computers, we take it as a breath of fresh air. As market share continues to grow, so should Apple’s awareness regarding safety and security.

Support Note: “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult. Here are some available antivirus utilities:”

Mac OS: Antivirus utilities
• Intego VirusBarrier X5, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial
• Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial
• McAfee VirusScan for Mac
License: commercial

Updates: The support document was not a brand new one, and as our friends at MDN point out, was published back in June 2007 for the first time.

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Lindsay Blakely over at Bnet has dug up some numbers regarding Apple’s entire annual advertising budget, and when compared to Microsoft’s annual ad budget, it’s a rather surprising find.

According to Apple’s recent 10-k filing, the company spent $486 Million on advertising in fiscal year 2008. This may perhaps be more than most people would have estimated, however Apple’s push with Leopard and the iPhone 3G has been massive. Not to mention how hard they’ve been touting the iPod touch as a gaming device. Comparatively, Microsoft’s “Vista only” advertising budget was $300 million, while they spent $1.3 billion when combined with everything else (Xbox, Office, Windows, enterprise).

It’s important to point out that Microsoft is a much bigger company. When comparing these advertising budgets, Microsoft’s $300 million was specifically allocated towards advertising Windows Vista, which is in direct competition with Mac OS X. Apple’s $486 million was spent on advertising everything the company has to offer. Which comparatively cost Microsoft around $1.3 billion.

TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld seems shocked that Apple spends so much money on advertising. However when marketing products such as OS X, the iPhone 3G and the iPod touch, $486 million doesn’t seem like an exorbitant amount of money. The $300 million Microsoft spent on trying to “change Vista’s image,” seems like an astronomical amount of money to spend on a campaign which has had very little effect in actually moving copies of Vista. The difference between both approaches garners varying results among consumers. A quarter into Leopard’s launch, 19% of Apple customers had installed the new OS. More than a year after Microsoft released Vista, only 13% of its customers had upgraded. Microsoft has even had to deal with reissuing copies of Windows XP, Vista’s successor, because of the dissatisfaction with Vista. A problem Apple has never had to face. Arguably, Apple’s customer base are the most devoted and loyal, however those same customers would be the first to point out flaws in Apple’s products.

Both advertising campaigns have their flaws. While some may find Apple’s commercials to be childish and too aggressive, focusing more on thrashing Vista, then touting OS X. Others may find Microsoft’s commercials to be completely irrelevant and totally out of touch.

When comparing both advertising campaigns and budgets to each other, it’s difficult to determine which one is more “effective.” Both attract eyeballs, which is essentially any advertising campaign’s ultimate goal. Whether you love the PC commercials, love the Mac commercials, or don’t care either way, the campaigns were a big part of technology culture this year.

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A lot of business users need to run Windows-only applications. But everyone should know by now that the fastest, most reliable PC, especially for business/corporate use, is a Mac. Michael Redmond (his name is rather ironic), says that latest releases from Microsoft on the Office front, and hard to find Games (that only run on Windows) have also been increasing demand for virtualization.

“Clearly, the performance gains of [Macs] moving to Intel processors are encouraging more users to experiment with virtualization,” Redmond said in an e-mail. “”Clearly, the performance gains of [Macs] moving to Intel processors are encouraging more users to experiment with virtualization,” he continued.

According to an NPD Group Inc (market research analysts), this year, sales of Mac/Windows virtualization software will total between $15 million and $20 million. The numbers are drawn from e-commerce stores, and U.S.-based retailers.

Parallels and VMware both sell for around $80. They pretty much go alongside Apple’s Boot Camp offerings which allows users to reboot into Windows or OS X. Virtualization software like VMware and Parallels can run Windows and Mac OS X side by side. “Parallels says it has sold 1 million copies of Parallels Desktop since June 2006. VMware will only say that it sold 250,000 copies of VMware Fusion in its first five months,” Computerworld reports.

So essentially… People need and love Windows, as long as its running on a Mac.

Read – Computerworld
[Attribution AppleInsider]

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I’ve previously written that “The commercials do demand attention, and by attracting buzz, Microsoft is attracting eyeballs, which is the end goal of any successful ad campaign.” For the millions of tech addicted twenty and thirty somethings out there with ADHD, a 4 minute and 30 second commercial is pushing it. Especially one as unfocused as this one. Microsoft’s first Seinfeld commercial was called “Shoe Circus” and can be found here.

PS – No matter how hard Redmond tries, nobody will ever liken Microsoft » PC » Perpetually Connecting. Taking two of the richest people our culture knows, throwing them in a middle class home in (Indiana?) while they read and eat like “normal” folk, isn’t a really good way to relate to many users, especially not within our tech culture. Good luck Microsoft, keep em coming!

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We have all heard of the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death”, many have even seen said monster with our own two eyes. And according to users of the Apple support forum, those attempting to connect an iPod or iPhone to a PC running Vista and the new iTunes 8 application have been cast under the blue shadow of panic and shame. (Now would be a good time to insert the requisite PC jab.)

According to TechSpot.com, the crash is not affecting all systems, and it is likely that another factor is involved. Apple has requested all dump files to find the source of the problem- while others are blaming an incompatibility between Apple and USB products from Logitech and HP.

In the meantime, Ed Bott, ZDNet’s resident tech guru has conducted some research of his own. According to his findings, Apple’s automatic update is delivering MASSIVE amounts of new software updates to users without consent. Included in this, is a device driver with an extensive history of causing the infamous BSOD “quiver”.

If you are one of the lucky few….and we are not talking about Vista users, but the attack of the blue screen….check out ZDNet’s rather suspicious findings here.

Update: Two potential fixes for the said BSOD issue have emerged: (via iPhoneAtlas)

1. First Solution — From Apple Discussion thread.

“I was able to stop the BSOD’s from happening on my Vista 32 bit desktop and keep itunes 8. If you have a machine running the latest version of iTunes 7 (on Vista), just copy the usbaapl.sys from system32\drivers to the same location on your desktop. You may have/want to rename the current uasaapl.sys on your machine first. But after I did that I was able to reinstall iTunes 8 and synchronize my iPhone without any BSOD’s.”

2. Second Solution — Step-by-step

1) Disconnect your iPhone/iPod touch from the computer
2) In Vista Programs and Features (Control Panel), Uninstall the Apple Mobile Device Support
3) Restart your computer
4) Download the iTunes 7.7 installer
5) Open the iTunes 7.7 installation exe with Winzip or WinRAR, and reinstall only the AppleMobileDeviceSupport.MSI
6) Reboot your system
7) Reconnect your iPhone/iPod touch

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Needham & Co. analyst, Charlie Wolf, believes that the new iPod product range will lure over 20 million Windows users over the next year.  “We estimate that 20 million or more Windows users will join the iPod nation annually over the next few years and potentially fall under the sway of the iPod halo effect, which is great for Mac sales,” Wolf said.

Wolf had also noted a decreased impact among the current brood of portable music players, citing that a change in the market dynamic was of concern.  “…The importance of the iPod in Apple’s product portfolio has definitely taken a back seat to the iPhone, which is targeting a market that’s 20 times larger than the music player market,” he said.

In his opinion, the two “most important aspects of Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event in San Francisco were Steve Jobs’ health and a software update for the iPhone.”  He notes that the iPhone 2.1 software update due later this week is a critical move in extinguishing criticisms that include, “dropped calls, poor battery life and crashes…it was crucial that Apple address these problems.”

Wolf keeps a strong buy rating with a $240 target price for AAPL stock, adding that, “The iPod continues to gain share in markets abroad, most notably in Europe, where iPod sales dramatically lagged those in the US, and in China and other countries in the Asia Pacific region.”

[via 9to5Mac via DistortedLoop]

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Microsoft has recently stated that their latest marketing campaign will include expertly trained in-store personnel. The company’s GM of corporate communications, Tom Pilla, has stated that the Microsoft representatives, dubbed “Microsoft Gurus,” will provide support and answer customer questions, effectively copying every aspect of the Apple’s Geniuses.

Microsoft will perform a trial run, sending out 155 trained Windows experts into large electronic retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City. The Gurus, will perform similar duties as the Apple Geniuses, answering general questions about Windows and providing live demonstrations of Microsoft programs and services. Similar to their Apple doppelgangers, the Microsoft Gurus will not be paid on commission, focusing their help on which ever customers are in need of it.

The new breed of experts are said to be released into the wild by the end of 2008, yet no word has been given about when the program will expand if proven to be successful. Coming into this year’s holiday season, the Guru program will be just one piece of Microsoft’s vigorous effort to make up for lost ground.

[via Electronista]

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The ad begins with Seinfeld walking through a mall, when he spots Bill Gates inside a discount shoe store. After talking with Bill for a while and helping him find the right pair of shoes, they get to the computer talk. Seinfeld asks Gates, [about Microsoft] “will they ever come out with anything that makes computers moist and chewy like cakes so we can eat them while we’re working?” He then proceeds to ask Gates to just “shake” if the answer is yes. Which Gates does, followed promptly by the Windows logo.

The ad marks the effective start of Microsoft’s claimed “edgy” ad campaign, which would see Seinfeld alone paid $10 million for multiple spots and the total campaign’s online and offline promotions costing as much as $300 million. Company officials have acknowledged that the TV effort in particular is designed to counter Apple ads which use a similar, two-man comedy routine format that has been partly credited for helping the Mac maker’s reputation. [via Electronista]

The commercials do demand attention, and by attracting buzz, Microsoft is attracting eyeballs, which is the end goal of any successful ad campaign. For all the recent talk about Microsoft’s monopoly slowly eroding, if Windows 7 is anything like Vista, it’ll happen faster than we thought.

Aside from pushing copies of Vista, the fundamental aim of these commercials is to clearly reposition Microsoft within a “moist and chewy” place in the consumer’s mind. The subtle placement of Microsoft’s logo at the end of the commercial is just like Apple’s. The “duo” routine of Seinfeld and Gates, just like Apple’s “Get-a-mac” ads. Both campaigns use celebrities, and both campaigns use metaphors and non-specific examples instead of specific technical information. Either way, it’s going to be interesting to see if it works for Redmond, and how Apple responds to all of this (if at all).

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