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Microsoft takes over OSX?
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
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I heard a terrible rumor last night and I don't believe a word of it.
I was speaking to a PC techie fella and got into the typical mac V PC. He told me that Bill (meglomaniac) Gates is buying into apple so he can take over The OS operating system. Another monopoly. I'm not against the good old capitalism, I just don't like the thought of MS owning OSX or XI!
I've never heard of anything like this before and find it hard to believe. Maybe this guy just thinks MS is wonderful and had to defend the company, who knows.
Any way has anyone heard anything about this?
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M$ used to own a stake in Apple, but I'm not sure if they still do.
M$ doesn't need to take over Apple and it has a financial interest in Apple staying viable, because with Apple and it's (small but steady) marketshare, it keeps M$ from being enough of a monopoly that Congress would force it to break up.
And honestly, the old days of us vs them is about as dated as the Cold War. M$ makes some decent applications for the Mac platform, and Apple is making some noise on the other side of the fence with the iPod and iTunes.
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Clinically Insane
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Microsoft bought $150 million in Apple stocks in 1997 (which at the time was somewhere around 1/40 of the company - certainly NOT enough to be influential on company politics). At the same time, Apple and Microsoft signed a deal no longer to sue each other for copying "look-and-feel" elements of the operating systems, IIRC.
Microsoft sold their stock a year or two later and have held no Apple stock since.
No, you are misinformed and your friend is full of ****.
-s*
(company pluralized with a tip o' the old hat to Mr Randman, there.)
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Posting Junkie
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I think it's perfectly proper to break the rules and always refer to M$ as "it", but thanks for remembering.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
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No, you are misinformed and your friend is full of ****.
-s*
Actually he is not a friend and I quit the conversation at that point. Still it always surprises me ( it shouldn't) how vigarously some people ignorantly defent M$ and PC in general. They have never even owned or used a mac ( let aline OSX) but they seem to know every negative thing about them NOT!
It's no point arguing with them, I just smile because I know better.
I new it couldn't be true but thought I would ask you guys anyway.
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Clinically Insane
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Originally posted by Randman:
I think it's perfectly proper to break the rules and always refer to M$ as "it", but thanks for remembering.
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Occasionally Useful
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Microsoft sold their stock a year or two later and have held no Apple stock since.
can't say i've ever heard that part before. let's say i wanted to smack down a pc user with it, next time one is telling me that "Bill Gates owns Apple, everyone knows that," where's my proof?
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"Have sharp knives. Be creative. Cook to music" ~ maxelson
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Clinically Insane
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Umm, why don't you just call the person an idiot? Only complete morons claim that MS bought Apple. I know that the stock, which were actually non-voting shares, was to be sold off in seven years if not sooner. It was tantamount to a pay-off, because Apple had proof MS's hands were in the QuickTime cookie jar.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Mac Elite
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That wouldn't go over really well with the DOJ. It won't ever happen !
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Mac Enthusiast
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DomDom,
I have been requested by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company has recently concluded a large number of contracts for oil exploration in the sub-Sahara region. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equalling US$40,000,000. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company is desirous of oil exploration in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the Nigerian Government, it is unable to move these funds to another region...
I.E. Don't believe everything you hear, especially from PC bigots.
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Scott Genevish
scott AT genevish DOT org
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Originally posted by SMacTech:
That wouldn't go over really well with the DOJ. It won't ever happen !
Ya won't happen. PC trolls. If M$ ever controlled Apple, I'd sell my Mac.
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SGI Indigo2 6.5.21f
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Occasionally Useful
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Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Ya won't happen. PC trolls. If M$ ever controlled Apple, I'd sell my Mac.
and do what? buy a pc? wow, that makes great sense.
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"Have sharp knives. Be creative. Cook to music" ~ maxelson
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Addicted to MacNN
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Originally posted by philzilla:
and do what? buy a pc? wow, that makes great sense.
Nah, I'll just Linux or fire up my SGI.
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Occasionally Useful
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Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Nah, I'll just Linux or fire up my SGI.
newsflash: linux runs on the Mac that you already own! *gasp*
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"Have sharp knives. Be creative. Cook to music" ~ maxelson
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Steve Jobs is my hero! I salute him.
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Originally posted by philzilla:
newsflash: linux runs on the Mac that you already own! *gasp*
Ya, I forget about that.
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Clinically Insane
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Originally posted by philzilla:
can't say i've ever heard that part before. let's say i wanted to smack down a pc user with it, next time one is telling me that "Bill Gates owns Apple, everyone knows that," where's my proof?
I seem to recall having read it here, with substantiated links. Search turns up nought, though.
Google tells me 150 million dollars in non-voting stock (out of $4 billion that Apple was worth at the time) and pledge to continue developing Office for Mac in return for making IE the Mac's default browser and dropping IP lawsuits. They sold that stock in 2001, shortly before the stock split, when Apple stock was at a high point.
(My only link for now: http://philip.greenspun.com/shared/c...user_id=260951 )
I'll keep searching.
-s*
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Clinically Insane
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Through the 1990s, Microsoft began to gain a much larger percentage of new computer users than Apple. As a result Apple fell from controlling 20% of the total personal computer market to 5% by the end of the decade. The company was struggling financially when on August 6, 1997 Microsoft bought a $150 million non-voting share of company as a result of a court settlement between themselves and Apple. (Microsoft has since sold all Apple stock holdings.) Perhaps more significantly, Microsoft simultaneously announced its continued support for Mac versions of its office suite, Microsoft Office and soon created a Macintosh Software Unit. This reversed the earlier trend within Microsoft that resulted in poor Mac versions of their software and resulted in several award-winning releases.
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Posting Junkie
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Originally posted by angelmb:
Microsoft simultaneously announced its continued support for Mac versions of its office suite, Microsoft Office and soon created a Macintosh Software Unit. This reversed the earlier trend within Microsoft that resulted in poor Mac versions of their software and resulted in several award-winning releases.
The Mac BU does quite well. You should have your PC troll friends read up on that part of M$.
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Professional Poster
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Your PC "friend" is obviously suffering from the rampant cranial-rectal inversion affliction that is typical of their ilk.
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Mac Elite
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Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Ya won't happen. PC trolls. If M$ ever controlled Apple, I'd sell my Mac.
MS owns teh Mac O$ X!!!
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Rockstar Games - better than reality.
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Mac Elite
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Originally posted by philzilla:
can't say i've ever heard that part before. let's say i wanted to smack down a pc user with it, next time one is telling me that "Bill Gates owns Apple, everyone knows that," where's my proof?
Proof? What proof? It's so retardedly false that it's ridiculous. It's like saying, "next time someone says the sky is green, where's my proof it's really blue?"
Here's the relevant press releases:
http://web.archive.org/web/200106272...microsoft.html
http://www.apple.com/ca/press/1997_0...Microsoft.html
- The companies agreed to a broad patent cross-licensing agreement. It paves the way for the two companies to work more closely on leading-edge technologies for the Mac platform.
- Microsoft will develop and ship future versions of its popular Microsoft Office productivity suite, Internet Explorer and other Microsoft tools for the Mac platform.
- Apple will bundle the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser with the Mac OS, making it the default browser in future operating system software releases.
- Apple and Microsoft plan to collaborate on technology to ensure compatibility between their respective Virtual Machines for Java and other programming languages.
- To further support its relationship with Apple, Microsoft will invest $150 million in non-voting Apple stock.
It was $150M of *non-voting* shares, at a time when Apple had over one billion in cash on hand, and was at least a $5B company. Apple didn't need to be "bailed out", and it didn't need the $150M.
It was, however, an extremely symbolic commitment at a time when many weren't too sure about Apple's future. Remember, this was before the iMac, and LONG before Mac OS X.
In any case, Microsoft divested itself of Apple long, long ago, and it might be worth nothing that Microsoft also made a tidy profit. Microsoft doesn't "own" Apple, never was close, and never will.
(
Last edited by piracy; Aug 15, 2004 at 08:08 PM.
)
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
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Originally posted by piracy:
In any case, Microsoft divested itself of Apple long, long ago, and it might be worth nothing that Microsoft also made a tidy profit.
If you'll read closely, that is precisely the information philzilla was looking to verify.
I note that you don't provide supporting links for that, either.
-s*
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Travis Sanderson
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Clinically Insane
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Originally posted by Randman:
I think it's perfectly proper to break the rules and always refer to M$ as "it", but thanks for remembering.
It's always proper to refer to a company as "it." The company is a singular entity, and normally does not have a gender.
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Chuck
___
"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Occasionally Useful
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Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
If you'll read closely, that is precisely the information philzilla was looking to verify.
exactly.
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"Have sharp knives. Be creative. Cook to music" ~ maxelson
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Originally posted by Randman:
The Mac BU does quite well. You should have your PC troll friends read up on that part of M$.
Think about Mac Word 6 and 'mates'
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Originally posted by angelmb:
Think about Mac Word 6 and 'mates'
That was long before the Mac Business Unit existed.
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Clinically Insane
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Originally posted by Chuckit:
It's always proper to refer to a company as "it." The company is a singular entity, and normally does not have a gender.
It can also be correctly referred to as a plural entity.
The reference was to this thread, where Randman got abusive over the issue and was quickly handed his shorts on a silver platter.
He now takes the short bus to school.
-s*
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Posting Junkie
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Yes, the short bus has fewer zealots and there's always a window seat available. Plus, you actually know who are the chuckleheads right off the bat.
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Senior User
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It's always proper to refer to a company as "it." The company is a singular entity, and normally does not have a gender.
Actually in British English (the official English language of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and all former British Colonies that continue to use English such as South Africa and many many others) you can refer to a company in plural, and even a sports team.
e.g. Apple are great! or The Chicago Bulls are great!
Also, considering that we don't have any problems refering to physical objects by gender (e.g. when refering to a ship, Enterprise, what a fine ship she is) - it is possible that the in evolution of our language we may possibly refer to companies in the same manner?
Remember language is constantly ever evolving, none of us speak English exactly like the people 100 years ago. We have invented new words for ourselves, e.g. here in Britain "texting" is a new verb that refers to the action of sending someone an SMS message.
There is no point arguing over it, educated or not, dialects change the way we speak dramatically. And we all come from far away places here.
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Occasionally Useful
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we've had all that, so let's get back to slinging mud at Redmond.
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"Have sharp knives. Be creative. Cook to music" ~ maxelson
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Posting Junkie
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Originally posted by philzilla:
we've had all that, so let's get back to slinging mud at Redmond.
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Baninated
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Yeah I remember back in the day when Wintendoids were doing the "MS 0wnz most of MAC" rants.
When I pointed out it wasn't NEARLY close to half, and that those shares were NON-VOTING shares, they always reverted to "Oh, it's going to h4pp3n"
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2000
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Originally posted by philzilla:
newsflash: linux runs on the Mac that you already own! *gasp*
But if M$ would purchase Apple, they would own both the OS and the hardware. I'd buy all non-M$ hardware and install Gentoo. Makes perfect sense to me!
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Emergency Medicine & Urgent Care.
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Professional Poster
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Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Microsoft bought $150 million in Apple stocks in 1997 (which at the time was somewhere around 1/40 of the company - certainly NOT enough to be influential on company politics).
Also, it was non-voting stock.
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"Curse my metal body, I wasn't fast enough!"
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Originally posted by bstone:
But if M$ would purchase Apple, they would own both the OS and the hardware. I'd buy all non-M$ hardware and install Gentoo. Makes perfect sense to me!
Bah, I _tried_ to install Gentoo lately... It's a mess! I stick with SuSE. Gentoo's install routine really isn't intuitive at all.
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Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, "We DON'T demand solid facts! What we demand is the total ABSENCE of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
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Mac Elite
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Originally posted by HOMBRESINIESTRO:
Bah, I _tried_ to install Gentoo lately... It's a mess! I stick with SuSE. Gentoo's install routine really isn't intuitive at all.
No one ever said Gentoo was easy, but damn fast and the emerge system is sooooo nice!
Other than Gentoo, I'd run RHL or Fedora.
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Emergency Medicine & Urgent Care.
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Things like this always remind me of just how wide the gulf is sometimes between Mac and Windows people. I'm the lone Mac in a Windows development shop, and it's amazing the level of disinformation-passing-as-truth there is among people intelligent enough to know better.
Yes, I hear the "Bill Gates owns Apple" meme all the time. Others I continue to regularly hear are: "Apple is going out of business"
"I didn't know MS made Word for the Mac"
"Apple is moving to Intel chips"
"Apple is already using Intel chips"
"Apple is moving OSX to Wintel platform"
"There's no software for Macs"
"Macs only do graphics"
"Macs are really expensive" (still a hard one to prove otherwise, for the most part, unfortunately. They are still a bit pricey. Especially when you work with people who can easily roll their own god-box)
As well as all the various "Macs don't work on a Windows network" threads.
The thing is, they seem genuinely amazed when explained how wrong they are. I really do believe that these things are held as "known, undeniable truth" in the Windows world, and are not just troll-bait.
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You know you can't trust anyone from the "darkside".
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Originally posted by Randman:
The Mac BU does quite well. You should have your PC troll friends read up on that part of M$.
Yeah, didn't Kevin Brown--revered former head of the Mac BU at Microsoft--tout that on a percentage basis Office for Mac made more money for M$ than the PC version. (I think he said this at the rollout of Mac Office for OS X.)
Of course this just simply confirms that M$ undercuts their PC software profit margins to gain a monopolistic market share. But I do like Office on my Mac. And when someone at my work comes to me with a thorny Word/Excel/PowerPoint problem, if I can't solve it on my PC I just fire up my Mac and do it there. That ALWAYS gets them looking all bug-eyed as they leave.
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One should never stop striving for clarity of thought and precision of expression.
I would prefer my humanity sullied with the tarnish of science rather than the gloss of religion.
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Clinically Insane
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Originally posted by dcmacdaddy:
Of course this just simply confirms that M$ undercuts their PC software profit margins to gain a monopolistic market share.
I thought it was the other way round?
they make most of their money not off Windows, but off Office, IIRC.
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Dedicated MacNNer
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Originally posted by dcmacdaddy:
But I do like Office on my Mac.
Yes, MS Office is a killer apt or rather killer suite of apps. Using any MS software is like dancing with the devil, but in this case the devil sure do dance good.
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Originally posted by philzilla:
newsflash: linux runs on the Mac that you already own! *gasp*
BZZZZT! Wrong! FreeBSD runs on the Mac that you already own
and MS wouldn't be interested in owning any of Apple's stuff, they AREN'T DIRECT COMPETITIORS! MS is a software company, Apple is a hardware company that has the perk of a nice OS.
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Forum Regular
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Originally posted by angelmb:
Through the 1990s, Microsoft began to gain a much larger percentage of new computer users than Apple. As a result Apple fell from controlling 20% of the total personal computer market to 5% by the end of the decade.
Apple never, EVER, had a 20% marketshare. They may have been in the low tens or possibly even low teens with the Apple II, but Macitosh marketshare has never exceeded single digits.
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Clinically Insane
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Originally posted by nuggetman:
BZZZZT! Wrong! FreeBSD runs on the Mac that you already own
They both run just fine on a Mac. One is just installed by default.
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Chuck
___
"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Mac Enthusiast
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Originally posted by nuggetman:
Apple never, EVER, had a 20% marketshare. They may have been in the low tens or possibly even low teens with the Apple II, but Macitosh marketshare has never exceeded single digits.
Actually I have heard the Apple II's market share as 20-30% on up to 60% of the personal computer market, depending on the source.
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Scott Genevish
scott AT genevish DOT org
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2001
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Originally posted by genevish:
Actually I have heard the Apple II's market share as 20-30% on up to 60% of the personal computer market, depending on the source.
This is true. it was around 50% between 1979 and 1982
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I could take Sean Connery in a fight... I could definitely take him.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Originally posted by nuggetman:
BZZZZT! Wrong! FreeBSD runs on the Mac that you already own
and MS wouldn't be interested in owning any of Apple's stuff, they AREN'T DIRECT COMPETITIORS! MS is a software company, Apple is a hardware company that has the perk of a nice OS.
BZZZZT! Wrong! You can get a PPC Linux that will run "just fine on the Mac you already own."
The original poster did NOT say that Mac OS X = Linux.
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