# Apple Computer introduces a family plan for licensing OS X



## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

Under the plan consumers can buy a $199 a copy of the operating system and install it on up to five Macs in a single household. This sounds like a great idea and cuts against Microsofts OS policy. Now is there anyone with 5 Macs... 

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-949996.html?tag=fd_top


----------



## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

But if you buy 5 seperate macs with the latest OS, you probably still pay the same amount per machine. So this is only good for the Upgrader. Does this apply to a corporation? If not, then James_F's statement about anyone have 5 Macs (at home) rings true. This deal may only help 3 people in the entire US??? I know a few people with more than 1 mac at home, but it is the Handme down system. Dad gets a new one, former best goes to Mom, mom's old goes to oldest kid, etc, But only one of the machines is capable of running the latest OS. So maybe it is down to 1 person in the US that benefits from this (not including Apple employees)


----------



## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

My dad has three macs so he'd like this. Hopefully there will be pressure on Microsoft to change their agreement, but I doubt it. Mac users don't really give a damn about windows users...


----------



## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by James_F _
> *My dad has three macs so he'd like this. *


But would all 3 of his MACs be able to run OS-X. My old PowerPC 601 chip based mac with 16MB Ram might not meet the specs of OS-X. Now if you stretch the assumption that if you have 5 licenses for OS-X, you can use old OS-9 or OS-8 on the older machines it might not be bad. Your dad upgrades 2 of 3 to OS-X and the older one to OS-9 (borrowed from a friend), it is still a win-win (Assuming my assumption is valid)


----------



## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

Yea, he as two G4 powerbooks and a G4 tower, so he can run it. BUT, you are correct about older Macs running OSX... I don't think that this will save many people money. What it does is give them good press. I'd love to see Microsoft do this, but I'm not holding my breath.


----------



## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by James_F _
> *What it does is give them good press. I'd love to see Microsoft do this, but I'm not holding my breath. *


I agree, MS really won't budge for good press. Now there is that Campaign about people switching from Windows to MAC, the only way MS would make a change is if they saw market share being lost to Apple.

Just looking at my company's end users, they probably would not jump to apple personally because they never want to learn anything new. So since they are miminally functional in Win2K Pro for work, they can be minimally functional in Win95 thru XP at home with no effort. As easy and fun as a Mac is to use, it would still take some effort.

Now what is funny is we have 3 MACs in our office (out of 800 PCs) and luckily Lotus Notes and some other Company Standard products work easily out of the box with the Macs, but if it weren't for the fact that the 3 Mac users are the hottest women in the company, those MACs would be luckly to even get to the internet.


----------



## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

Come to think of it, our Mac users are better looking than anyone else in our office. I need to order more Macs...


----------



## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Zac _
> *Overall, the newer Macs are super-impressive. But the price tag is too high for what you get. *


That has always been a problem with the Mac, although that has changed for the better since the IMacs first came out. In the 80s and early 90s the price tag had a much higher markup then today.

Lucky for Apple, there are enough people who are willing to pay the premium today.


----------



## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

Like my wife. We (She) just bought the new 17" Flat-Screen iMac. Its an amazing computer and I find my self using all the time. Maybe its because its new, but the GUI is about the most beautiful thing I have ever seen...


----------



## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

When I bought a Mac in 94 (a PowerPC 601 chip as an additional machine for my Lab so that I could support the MAC users I dealth with) I fell in love immediately. Don't know why I ENJOYED using it more than Windows, except that they must have done some psychometrics of which colors and shapes and such make for a more pleasant experience and applied them to their desktop  But then when the machine eventually became obsolete I couldn't justify a replacing it with a new MAC (as most of the MAC users I dealt with had unwillingly become PC users). It was also the time when the MAC clone makers were no longer allowed to make clones anymore and prices increased. 

Knowing Steve Jobs' previous experience with psycotropic drugs, I wonder if the MAC keyboard or mouse are treated with something "Special" that makes the experience so enjoyable. 

Everyone Join in, you know the words..."Drivin that Train, High on ..."


----------

