Sunday, April 15, 2007

I'm going Mac, why? DRM.


I never thought I'd be saying this but I've decided that all my computer purchases in the future are likely to be Mac's. The reason isn't intuitively obvious either because it's DRM.

From The Inquirer article: Avoid the Vista Badge, it means DRM inside.
He who controls the DRM infection controls the market. DRM is about preventing you from doing anything with the devices without paying the gatekeeper a fee. This is what MS wants, nothing less than a slice of everything watched, listened to or discussed from now on. DRM prevents others from playing there, thanks to the DMCA and other anti-consumer laws.
The article goes on to reflect on just some of the evils of DRM built into hardware. I suspect we'll see more (and more) compatibility and ease of use issues as more people buy a new PC with Vista enabled hardware over the coming years.

Oddly, Apple, a company I used to work for and adore, then lost respect for and who I've bashed more than a few times here, largely about DRM with their iTunes software, is the good guy. Also, oddly, my one Mac, a dual core intel laptop, is my favorite machine for running Windows (and Linux). And yes, I have many machines (8 between two offices and home).

Using multiple OS's on an Intel based Mac is wonderful. It's simple to set up, simple to switch between OS's and fast as hell. And, when you look at the cost, it's only slightly more expensive (the XP license) and you get a great OS, OSX, thrown in for free.

The vast majority of my time spent on computers nowadays is using something on the internet. Virtually all my productivity software lives online (currently provided, mostly, by Google via gmail, googledocs, etc.). What OS I'm using isn't overly important anymore, as long as I've got FireFox on the box.

So, thank you Apple. Man....who'da'thought that the king of proprietary hardware/software systems would be the best 'open' PC choice (at least for me) available in the market today?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Welcome home.

An excellent read from an ex-evangelical.

  As you know, I once was an evangelical megachurch pastor and my pastoral career stretched over many years. Eventually, I could no longer t...