well, for the sake of ranting (no, not me this time...)
it's a bit overgeneralizing
show me a current iMac-like PC that's as reliable, silent and good looking for less cash than Apple charges.
those boxes ARE affordable
while a Mac Pro reads like a huge rip-off if seen it on a web page or in an ad... in physical shape it's what the name suggests: professional in the sense of time versus money.
Service is a no-tools-plug-and-play job.
A drive is swapped in a few seconds, but protected from theft as still inside the case.
The latter with a well thoughtout airflow scheme.
I know those 1/3rd price boxes from my local supplier...
and the amount of time he needs to configure both hardware and software.
OSX is not exactly my favourite OS, but they did a tremendous job in hiding practically all that unix-bla stuff from the ordinary user. This will save you significant amounts of time.
It's not just about eye candy...
try shifting your application folder from one Windoze to another...
Apple sells an OSX server preconfigured for small business use for about one grand.
It will cover most of the typical communication stuff in it's domain and is up and running when M$ SBS is still loading it's updates from the internet.
M$ sells a miniature fortune-500 company setup to all those < 20 system offices, requiring a full corporate setup.
Now, who's ripping off people ?
Even if they give you the server PC for free, you'll pay for licenses (not too short...), but most of all TIME.
Afaik there is no easy custom choice of services ... hence a lot of time is wasted and mantainance is spoilt from day one on.
You WILL be paying on such a setup continously (it's their business scheme).
Of course that doesn't affect most of us musos in a more or less private environment only to a small degree.
But we're a niche anyway. In a general context the Apple-aka-expensive diss has never been true - imo and backed by years of experience in sales and support.
cheers, Tom
