Scoble recounts a comment by Gary Conrnell of APress that his designers force him to purchase Macs. From what I've seen, it's often the available "out of the box" display technology that keeps the designers, photographers, etc so loyal to the Mac. It used to be that the applications ran "better" on Macs than their equivalent PC ports. But that's changing now since Adobe and others realize that there are far greater numbers for Windows platforms. If they don't address the market, someone else will.
For a literal snapshot view of another loyal Mac market segment, check out Dan Bricklin's photos from BloggerCon. I gave up counting all the Apple logos.
I'm not sure if most of the people at the conference were journalists, educators, or something else, but my guess is that a large pool of the Mac users fall into these two categories. From what I've noticed of these two groups, many of them are addicted to the power management features of their Macs/PowerBooks. Most Windows notebooks just don't measure up. The out-of-the-box experience for PowerBook users is transparently smooth and ideal for on the go people that have to start up and shutdown their computers rapidly and without fuss.
The Tablet PC--which pushes the on-the-go computing experience even further--is a great opportunity for Microsoft to improve and excel in its power management capabilities.
I don't know if Microsoft cares whether a given user purchases Windows XP or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, but if they did, a great differentiator would be an instant on feature for the Tablet PC. When you boot up or shutdown a notebook that's sitting on a table it may be annoying to wait, wait, wait, but it's palatable. However, the same amount of time on a Tablet PC that you're holding in your arms while walking down the hall is tortuously slow. To me it's interesting how simply holding the computer in your hands so dramatically changes the experience and user expectations.
Posted by Loren at October 5, 2003 05:43 PMI agree with the OOBE. There is room for improvement. Isn't it funny how people accept / excuse a desktop boot time - go get a cup of coffee - and with a Tablet need it immediately?
On a tangent:
You wrote, "Most Windows notebooks just don't measure up. The out-of-the-box experience...." Fundamentally, the hardwarecis the same from the video to the hard drive (with the exception of chipset, CPU & OS) and they even come off thecsame assembly line. A good example is the old ECS factory that Asus bought -- it builds the iBook. Is it a coincidence that Asus has notebooks that have Apple-flair in design? :) Great marketing by Apple! Also shows the importance of software....
Posted by: Lora on October 6, 2003 01:27 AMYou mentioned that you don't know if Microsoft cares about whether it sells Windows XP Pro or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. I've heard this several times over last years, with each product release. On one level I agree.
However, on another level the Tablet PC Edition has the potential to actually increase computer sales. Attract people who might not otherwise use a computer (as many hours). So, a "eh, either way" attitude needs to be replaced with a "get it done" attitude -- promote Tablet PCs from within Microsoft, throughout OEMs, to potential buyers.
Posted by: Lora on October 8, 2003 02:44 PM