Microsoft Whitepaper = BS

Part of Microsoft's "I'm a PC" ad series has resulted in the company releasing a whitepaper developed by Endpoint Technologies president Roger Kay. Bad move Microsoft.

If there's one thing Microsoft should never, ever do [IMO] it's start spitting out spec comparisons between the Mac and the PC; this will overwhelmingly confuse the general public [aka PC users] and allow a statistical backlash heyday in the Mac blogosphere.

Nevertheless, Mr. Kay put out the following table as the point-making aspect of his whitepaper:


A simple glance at this chart reveals fatal flaws that I find incredibly insulting as a consumer. Mr. Kay wants me to believe that if I buy both the low end and high end machine in a single year, one set a Mac and one a PC, I'll arrive at a total cost of five-year ownership variance of $3367 where Mac was the more expensive machine. However, Kay has conveniently done the following:

• only purchased one warranty for each pair, which doesn't cover both machines
• left both PCs with no anti-virus protection
• given the Mac MobileMe service for five years and not the PC (service available on both)
• given the Mac a complete line of office, financial, and supplemental software while the PC apparently runs nothing more than the factory-installed OS -- (what the hell is "other SW" and why does the PC not get other software options if the Mac does?)
• Apple one-to-one care and not Dell in-home care (Mac / Dell near equivalents)

So, let's add in the minimal $120 for two registered anti-virus software programs and $90 (times 2 for both PCs) a year for the remaining 4 years to maintain the software ($840), MobileMe service for [apparently only one of each pair needs these services, just to make it equal] the PC, $149 at 5 years ($745), Microsoft Office, Quicken, and "Other Software" to bring the PC up to the same operating ability as the Mac ($289), and Dell in-home service which I believe is more than $150 but we'll say $99 to keep it comparable to the one-to-one Apple service ($99). That's a total of $1973 of off-the-top-off-my head costs that cut the variance to $1394 from the original $3367.

Without being bias -- having had 4 PCs and 2 Macs since I got my first one in 1994 I feel I have a decent grasp on maintenance on both -- keep in mind that while $1394 is a substantial cost difference, this is the amount saved on PC when purchasing both the base model and the high-end model from both. The number looks much different when you do a more realistic comparison of only one machine, say the base models: when you make the above listed changes to create comparable machines, the base model cost variance is more like $363.

Note: the $363 is a derivation of:

• $2693 (total cost of PC Table 1) - $1049 (total cost of high-end PC) + $1553 (total cost of equivalent PC equipment already included in the Mac and half [$420] of the anti-virus software as it's only one machine) = $3197 total five-year cost of base model PC
• $6060 (total cost of Mac Table 2) - $2500 (total cost of high-end Mac) = $3560 total five-year cost of base model Mac
• $3560 (base Mac) - $3197 (base PC) = $363

So now that you have a real cost comparison, you decide; try out both machines for yourself and see if it does or does not justify the $363 variance.

:) bk