I’ve used Microsoft Windows and office apps for the last decade and a half but after the guys at work let me check out Vista, I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted something better. I went by the Apple store this weekend at my local mall and it was mega-packed. Unfortunately, Apple Store didn’t have the laptop I wanted in stock – sold out and back order for two weeks so I went online and began my first of many purchases.

I ordered an Apple Book Pro and in a few weeks I’ll pick up a 24″ iMac as well as a Mac-mini for my home. I might pick up a new iPod Touch while I’m at it. I’m holding off until the remodeling of my home office is done and I get all the furniture ordered and installed. My game plan is to get rid of all but one of my Windows computers (for the wife) and replace them all with Mac.

I’ll be buying Parallels so I can run Windows XP in a virtual environment for business use but most of our corporate apps are now web-based so it won’t matter much except for the occasional word or excel document I might have to open.

After checking out Vista and loading it on a temp machine I was horrified at how crappy the OS was and those Apple ads don’t lie. I kept getting “Cancel or Allow” on so many things it annoyed the hell out of me. The worse part was the sluggishness of the machine. But the real reason is simple exhaustion of constantly having to “help” other people with their computer problems for which amount 90% of the time to spyware, viruses, or some other malware destroying people’s computer. Over the years, I received recommendations to add things like Spybot, Ad-Aware, and various anti-virus apps to keep my system “clean” and I’ve simply gotten tired of having to load a bunch of 3rd party apps to keep my system running. Add to it the occasional Windows Update screwing up an application or causing other problems and you understand how I’ve gotten fed up.

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I realize that I could probably buy two windows laptops for the cost of the one Apple notebook I ordered but I’m willing to pay that extra cash for a superior product that doesn’t require hours of my time to maintain it. I simply want something that works and Apple is on to something when they control the hardware and software platforms on computing devices.

All the innovation and “cool” stuff is coming out of Apple these days while Microsoft plays a poor game of copy cat and catch up. When it’s all said and done, Apple is earning about $6,000 worth of my business while Microsoft is earning $0 and perhaps this can in part explain this chart of Microsoft vs Apple.

Apple vs. Microsoft Stock
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So long Microsoft it’s been somewhat nice knowing you.