Microsoft's FUD-filled 'Apple Tax'

14.10.2008
No longer content to extol the virtues of Vista to customers in its "I'm a PC" campaign, Microsoft has now raised the specter of an "Apple Tax". This coincides with Apple's announcement of new notebooks Tuesday, with prices as low as US$800.

Interviewed by , Brad Brooks, Microsoft vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing had this comment:

...But, we're also looking at the different things that you can get with Windows, and understanding what is really involved with what we call the "Apple tax."

There really is a tax around there for people that are evaluating their choices going into this holiday season and going forward. There's a choice tax that we talked about, which is, hey, you want to buy a machine that's other than black, white, or silver, and if you want to get it in multiple different configurations or price points, you're going to be paying a tax if you go the Apple way.

Now the fact is that the majority of PCs on the shelves at your local Best Buy are probably black, with the occasional white one thrown in for good measure, so this is hardly an issue. The price points and configurations don't vary all that much. And the sales growth is in portable computers such as notebooks and mini-laptops, , versus desktop sales, which declined 4% in the US alone. Mr. Books also mentions an upgrade tax, but that doesn't seem to concern these buyers. They purchase their notebooks off the shelf, and they generally aren't upgradeable.

Mr. Brooks comments that if people want a Windows experience, then they should buy a machine designed for the Windows experience. He then mentions the costs involved in running Windows on a Mac. Yet most customers purchase a Mac for the Mac experience, and not the Windows experience, especially the one where drivers don't work properly, and viruses take over their machines.