Apple planning its own Windows 7 pitch: Buy a Mac instead

October 15, 2009 · Posted in Apple

Despite positive reviews for Windows 7, the upgrade process for the
millions of people still using the older Windows XP won’t be simple.
Unlike the shift from the newer Windows Vista, the move from Windows XP to Windows 7
requires a clean installation — which means backing up data before
installing Windows 7, then restoring data and reinstalling applications
after the new OS is on the machine.

As we noted earlier this week,
the Mac blogs have been having lots of fun poking fun at the process.
And now Apple itself is looking to capitalize on the situation.

“Any user that reads all those steps is probably going to freak
out,” Apple executive Phil Schiller tells BusinessWeek’s Peter Burrows
in a story getting lots of attention in the tech world today. “If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?”

Apple is looking to build on the Mac’s existing momentum. Numbers released yesterday by the IDC research firm showed Mac shipments rising to 9.4 percent of the U.S. market in the third quarter, from 8.6 percent a year earlier.

According to the BusinessWeek story, Apple is expected to highlight
the complexity of the XP-to-7 upgrade process in upcoming
advertisements. Burrows reports that the company also “will likely make
the case that Macs are less susceptible to viruses and are best suited
to its popular iPods and iPhones.”

Share this with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.