The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
There's an old Chinese saying of which Ballmer is probably ignorant: "Good things no cheap, cheap things no good." (They probably didn't teach him that at Harvard - they were busy teaching people how to bring down companies like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, I guess.)
Internally, the crudeness of Windows is in sharp contrast to the elegance of Apple. Windows 7 is a bad copy of Apple's OSX and the more it copies, the more it shows its inability to design an user interface to even come close to Apple.
Remember, there is a Windows tax of about $A80 which many grey box dealers are willing to reduce from the price of their offerings provided you take a Linux or other operating system CD and erase Windows in front of them before buying the box.
Even big manufacturers are willing to do this, provided you keep quiet. One of the big PC makers was more than willing to go along with me on this when I wanted to buy 15 PCs some years ago. The number who are willing to do it now would be much more, given that hardware sales have dropped like a stone due to the worldwide financial downturn.
Let's compare and contrast a few aspects of the two operating systems, OSX and Windows. I've played around with Windows 7 when it was on offer as a download from Microsoft recently, so I can speak with some confidence; there are two MacBooks at my home and my children are highly possessive about them.
One example: when it comes to the crucial job of updating the system, OSX puts Windows to shame. There is a separate application for this, you just have to run it and then accept the updates. Period.
With Windows, you first and foremost have to be running Internet Explorer, the most insecure browser on the planet. Then you have to accept the use of applets built using ActiveX, a worm creator's wet dream. And after that your updating process may or may not work - take it from me, I've had this happen to me numerous times.
The one Windows PC at my home gives me more headaches than the two MacBooks - in fact, I have had to mess with them just once when there were networking problems.
Another example: Who's the last person who complained about a virus or worm on OSX? Who's the last person who complained about these things on Windows? Ooh. we've opened a can of worms (pun intended) there, I fear.
Ever try using Windows Media Centre? The one word I use to describe it is clumsy. Contrast that with an Apple offering like Garage Band. Or iDVD. Or iPhoto. Or iMovie. Or iWeb. Elegant and easy to use.
It is simply no competition. OSX beats the shit out of Windows every time. Actually, $US500 is a small price to pay for something that is so much better on every count, when compared to Windows.
David Bass
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