Macs still cheaper when you look at TCO

One other point: it has been said that Apple is a closed proprietary environment. I would argue the exact opposite. Yes, their hardware is closed, consistent, and show little diversity, which reduces software complexity. And yes, the hardware may, in some instances cost more, although X Serves are significantly cheaper than say, a Dell server, particularly when you add Windows licensing costs.

However the real cost is in the data, not the commodity hardware. Almost every software package that Apple produces either stores data in non-proprietary, documented open formats, or provides the translation capability to get there. The vast majority of Microsoft data uses closed proprietary formats, which, in effect, holds your data assets hostage; you are forced to stay with Microsoft, or go with an expensive conversion effort. Too bad MS is incapable of competing on features and capabilities, but instead has to rely on blackmail.

I have run a few IT shops, the largest with 262,000 desktop computers and over 40,000 servers, in 122 countries. We tracked IT costs in great detail. The total cost of a PC desktop over a 3 year life, vs. an OS X machine over the same life worked out to be a revelation. The Mac cost about 14% of the Windows machine. Although these costs are based on a large corporate population, very similar issues are faced by individuals every day.

This cost includes support costs, help desk, anti-malware, and a significant cost in dealing with configuration management issues. Unlike a Mac, every variation of hardware in a PC requires a different software image to be installed - ghosted - as Windows only installs what matches the hardware configuration. Different chip sets for video, I/O, controllers, interfaces, etc. all have different driver configurations, and compatibility issues. The Windows problems of DLL hell, with version control of shared DLLs for different software packages interacting and causing software failures; the registry issues with corruption from a variety of sources, and the compatibility testing for applications, all added to the cost.

The more the back end infrastructure was Microsoft based, the more costly it was to operate, and even more costly to interoperate. The system administration resource for a Windows server is almost 30 times more than the server administration resources for a similar performance OS X server, and more than 3 times the cost of a UNIX server. WIth all the proprietary formats of Microsoft products, from Office versions, to ActiveX, to the bastardized IMAP format of Exchange calendaring, to the proprietary Outlook file format, to their proprietary kerberos implementation, to Active Directory's limited support for all things NOT Microsoft - these all add massive costs to managing an IT infrastructure.

And this says nothing of the lost time from long boot times, or lost time, and even worse, lost corporate data from system hangs and blue screens of death.

Microsoft's penchant for making everything proprietary to Microsoft creates massive costs for moving off Windows, but the cost of staying with Microsoft is huge as well. The latter costs you forever; the former costs you once, and reduces your cost from that time forward.

Cost is tricky...and always a bit relative. I guess when comparing the big brands you'll get a comparison like the ones linked above.

As someone who lives on PCs and opted to use an XP platform for a music production notebook i'll be the first to admit that the only reason any PC is "cheaper" than a Mac is that the PC usually "stock" components / software that get you into the trap of Windows trouble (too much of everything).

Though it's somewhat ironic that I had to pay extra to get the better hardware, tuned O/S (should be read "has had all erroneous drivers cleaned up/taken out"), it made the system I purchased a lot closer to a Mac in terms of architecture because it standardized everything.

My laptop was still substantially cheaper than a MacBook that was on near equal spec (there were wins and losses) but it was definitely a heck of a lot cheaper than most junky stock PC/Windows based laptops.

I have a Macintosh 512k sitting on my desk that still runs. The OS doesn't even let you pick 2009 as a year. My personal favorite is my Pizza box (LCIII+). I put 64MB of RAM (when it was built 32 was the max, but 64 is supported), it flies! Oh and my MacBook Pro, but I mean sure it was $2300, it hasn't slowed up since the day I bought it, no crashes, no nothing. Still have to pick up AppleCare though.

I had often attacked by question about why I bought a very expensive from people when they see I'm using a mac.

They ask what is advantage of using a mac then just a pc, but in an offensive matters. if the guy is not tech savvy my answer would always be "It's just a weapon of choice"

I don't feel the need to explain why I use a mac to anyone, and never recommend a mac to anyone unless they are really interested.

Why do you care? Why do you continue to debate this in a forum where everyone agrees with you?

I believe in the saying, "you get what you pay for." I think Macs are priced the way they are so as to pay for all the development, design, testing, manufacturing, and shipping costs.

Forgot to add that not one of the Macs has ever died on us but a dead Quicksilver I bought (suspected blown-PSU) came alive once I replaced the graphics card.

I missed out on the Windows stage in computer progression -- I went from Atari 520ST to Atari 1040ST straight to a Mac IIsi, and have never looked back. All my kids grew up with Macs and we have 8 working macs between four of us.

In all these years, I have only ever had to reformat and do a fresh install ONCE. My Windows-using siblings do this at least twice a year!

Ballsy posting your Dell xps m1530 hackintosh comments. Are you still on your first motherboard or third one? I think they are averaging 2 per year per user.