Switching to Mac OS X - Introduction
Andy Clayton writes
Before I get on to why I switched it is worth taking a look at the background and what has happened in the computing world to even make considering something like this an option.
When Microsoft launched Windows 95 in... er... 1995, there was no competition out there to speak of. None that mattered anyway. Apple, for example, were going through something of a crisis at the time (Steve Jobs was at NeXT Software and was yet to make his triumphant return to the company he had co-founded). Microsoft had got in first with Windows 3.11 and were well placed to extend this when '95 came out (despite some alternatives like OS/2 that were available by then or soon after).
Many people (me included) got a Windows based PC because we were using Windows at work. Simple really, and Bill was clever enough to realise it. At the time I knew it wasn't as good in many respects as my Amiga 4000 but it had momentum (Commodore were another company in the financial dustbin at this stage).
Move on to today and we find that Microsoft have succeeded in taking over the civilised world, or at least it seems like it. However there are (and always have been) alternatives and in recent years Apple and Linux have found a growing fan base. Apple's Mac sales (perhaps helped by the success of the iPod and iPhone) have been steadily growing and the number of people switching continues to escalate. We now find a very real three-horse race.
If you're talking "numbers of units sold" then first up is Microsoft's Windows XP. 'nuff said.
The other two places are held by the open source community's Linux and Apple's OS X. The order of them in the "top 3 units sold" depends on whether you're talking about Desktop computers or servers. The vast majority of the internet's web servers are Linux based. Big boys like Google and Amazon use it which probably 
tells you just how good it is! Desktop Linux has matured in recent years and become a very real alternative (especially to Windows). This has been helped by distributions that have come on to the market in recent years, such as Ubuntu.
So, what about Apple then?
After Steve Jobs came back to Apple in the 1990's, he quickly put the company back on track after a few badly timed years in the digital wilderness. The Mac's transition to Intel (a masterstroke) along with the innovative range of hardware are only half the story. The power behind a modern Mac is the excellent operating system: OS X (pronounced "oh es ten" rather than "oh es ex") that not only looks better than Windows (although that's a matter of opinion, of course) it has advanced a huge amount with some really impresive features. OS X has had several major updates in the same time that Windows has received just 2. Having said that, however, this sheer number of updates doesn't mean a thing - having 100 updates to each Windows' update means nothing unless those changes are any good. Luckily in OS X's case, they are. Very good!
This introduction isn't the time to go on about the differences between the two operating systems (or three if you count Linux). Instead I will try to be as objective as I can in these pages, after all running Windows as I did for over a decade until 2005 I have no particular axe to grind with Microsoft and don't plan any cheap digs here. I will, mostly, be stating facts and saying how I got on moving from XP to OS X. But why move at all? If I don't particularly dislike Windows or Microsoft, why bother? That's the subject of the Why switch to OS X? page.
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