Your 50% statement is correct (server percent by revenue) but the infrastructure of the internet really doesn’t have Microsoft all over it.
Servers in the 50% are typically departmental business servers (mainframe and Unix/RISC boxes handle the big workloads).
The internet, on the other hand, is absolutely dominated by non-MS products. MS servers account for about 12%, Apache (typically on Linux) is about 57%.
If the reason to not give Microsoft money is the principle of the thing, I’d recommend finding a vendor that doesn’t sell Windows boxes at all (either Apple or a smaller Linux-box vendor). But you’ll probably end up paying more overall.
And, to throw some more fuel on the Mac/Windows fire:
One thing to realize about the Mac is that the high resale value actually makes the total cost of ownership lower than the new price would suggest. I buy a new Mac laptop every 2-3 years and sell the old one on craigslist. I get to have a new pretty fast computer that I love almost all the time at a cost of about $150 per year. For me, that’s a better deal than buying a cheaper laptop that has a much lower resale value. It also solves the “you can’t upgrade a Mac laptop” complaint reasonably well. The way you upgrade a Mac laptop is to buy a new one and sell the old one.
Macs are still more expensive than most alternatives, so you’ll have to decide if it’s worth it to you. But they’re not as more expensive as many people think.
The reason IS philosophical, but it isn’t anything against Microsoft per se. If I wanted to use their software, I would pay for it. But I don’t want to use their software, so I don’t want to pay for it.
Sort of like – and this is probably a terrible analogy – the company that collects my trash lets me use my own trash cans. The neighbors use a company that makes them pay a deposit on a company supplied trash can, which isn’t nearly as sturdy as mine. I don’t use that company because I don’t want to pay for their trash can, which isn’t as good as mine and I’ll never use.
So as a matter of principle, I don’t think I should be forced to pay for something I don’t want, haven’t asked for, and will not use. If and when I want to use it, then I’ll pay for it, but not otherwise.
Really OT, but what the hell: why are there two different trash companies in your area? That makes about zero sense to me. I know, competition and all, but apart from price, trash collection is really not a topic I can imagine to be very discerning about.
Every time I see this thread’s title, my first thought is “Give Intuit Quicken instead”.
Sorry 'bout that.
I had a similar thought. I was going to point out that Microsoft Money is freeware now. It’s just a bit hard to find a copy.
You could violate copyright laws and illegally download Microsoft’s work. There are activators that make it seem as though you have a legitimate copy. Microsoft did patch this with a optional update you need to uncheck before you install updates. Just use a internet search to find a public torrent website.
Microsoft actually wants people to illegally download their software.
The vast majority of new computers come bundled with a MS Windows license, whether you use it or not. I think most pirated versions are used for updating to the newest release, reinstalling the OS after the recovery partition was wiped, or else just getting rid of the bundled crapware with a clean install.
Either way, the premise is that I don’t want to use MS software at all, and therefore would rather not pay them. It isn’t that I’m itching to use Windows 7 but would rather not fork over the $0 extra that OEMs charge to include an OS with their machines.
I genuinely wasn’t aware of that, I should have done more research on my “50% of the server market” number. But at the same time, isn’t it true that a lot of the reason the whole LAMP stack is so big on the web because its free and any college or high school kid can easily have a PHP site running in a day without paying a dime, whereas I believe even the development tools for Microsoft are pricey, and to run a commercial website of any kind with Microsoft products I believe you need expensive SQL Server licenses at a minimum. So it wouldn’t surprise me if business websites might have a higher share of Microsoft infrastructure than the web at large. I know the really big sites like Amazon and Google run almost completely customized systems (I think both have even created weird filesystems that treat entire nodes of storage machines the same way a local filesystem treats clusters on a hard disk and etc), but just randomly I notice that both of my primary financial institutions websites have .aspx pages, and my auto insurance company (one of the biggest ones) is running .asp.
How cheap are the laptops you’re buying? Newer Macs run $2100-2700, and I know there is no way they only lose $450 in value over 3 years. I could see a $1100 Mac being resold for $600. Depreciation is typically not going to be a flat value across all laptops regardless of price (same reason a $19,000 car might be worth $11,000 when a 5 year loan is paid off but a $50,000 BMW is going to depreciate much more than $8,000.)
Mmmh, again, please do check the prices of current Macs.
I’m aware of the price range of Macs. But you can’t actually buy a real notebook from them for under $1800 now (that’s the most bare bones, non-retina 15" Mac Pro.) They don’t make regular MacBooks anymore and the Macbook Air is more of an ultrabook than a real laptop (which the old Macbooks actually were.)
So way back up the thread system76 was mentioed, their ubuntu laptops are right in the range you want, $689-$899.
problem solved right?
I haven’t compared prices for hardware without Windows to know if this is true but…
I’m told that all the free trial or “lite” version junk that usually comes preinstalled with Windows more than pays for the Windows license. The same computer without an O/S would actually cost more. You may as well buy it with Windows and reformat the disk if you really don’t want it.
MODERATOR NOTE,
Septimus, You’re politicizing this thread. Keep your opinions to yourself or start a thread in the Pit or Great Debates if you wish to bash Microsoft/Bush etc.
Not a warning, just a caution.
samclem, Moderator
Yeah, I’m probably going to get one of those, or else talk to a sales rep and see what kind of Dell I can get with Linux or no OS. Not that anybody has to stop talking or anything.
My last four computers (in order) have been G3 iBook, G4 iBook, Macbook (plastic body), Macbook Air.
On all but the most recent, I bought the low-end 13" model (generally $1000-1100) and upgraded the ram myself (about another $100). On the Air, the memory is soldered directly to the board, so I purchased the amount I wanted (4GB) to start with. The Air was the most expensive (about $1400 total), and looking at recent eBay sales, it looks like it’s depreciated about $400-$450 in a year and a half. I’m not planning to sell it for a while yet, so that may flatten out a bit. It does look likely that this one will be more expensive than my historical average.
We could argue over what qualifies something as a “real laptop”, but I think it’s disingenuous to claim that Mac laptops start at $1800. Even if you discount the 11" Air, 13" is a fine size for a laptop, and Apple has several 13" models starting at $1200. It’s been my preferred size since forever, for mobility reasons, not price. And The 13" Air I have is my favorite computer ever. Only once have I missed having an ethernet port (when I first got it and had to transfer all my files over from the old computer via wireless, which took several hours longer). I’ve never missed having an optical drive. The size and weight more than make up for those (very minor, to me) drawbacks.
If you don’t want to give MS money, buy a used computer. The previous owner paid the MS licensing fee.
I didn’t believe that Apple started selling “computers” at $1800, for one. However I was off base. For a long time you had the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, the Pro for the past few years has started typically in the high $1000s ($1700-1900) and gone up to almost $3k, maybe even more if you really max out every option. The MacBook went, I believe from $1k-1.2k usually. Both were what I’d call “real” laptops in terms of processor power, ports, expansion capability / replacement capability for some of the internal components.
When the Air came out and Apple stopped making the regular MacBook, I thought that Apple had basically said "you either need an ultrabook (just techie hipster slang for a not-quite-laptop that is more of a souped up netbook which itself was just techie hipster slang for a low powered laptop lacking many standard ports and peripherals) or you need a big desktop replacement machine, basically exiting from the standard “notebook” market.
I was off base on that. It looks like instead they now have much lower-end MacBook Pros (starting at $1200) that fill the “standard notebook” slot that the old MacBooks filled, by customizing you can still get a MacBook pro that is extremely big and expensive (just like the old Pros.)
Or any no O/S machine for that matter…