CNBC – Clearly Jim Goldman Knows Nothing About Computers.
The following is an e-mail I sent to CNBC after watching the video above:
Dear CNBC,
I am a computer scientist, and was appalled when I heard the claims made by your “tech analyst” Jim Goldman.
When it comes to Windows vs. Mac, I take neither side because I use Linux. (Hey, how about you do a story on how Linux and other open source software is free, and can save people hundreds of dollars?)
The information that Jim Goldman provided was incredibly false. Here are a few things:
Claims:
1.) PC’s need a $50/yr Norton Anti-virus subscription. This is simply not true. Colleges have been promoting FREE alternatives such as AVG and Avast. You do not need to pay for an anti-virus software.
2.) Jim Goldman claims that Mac’s come with Photoshop. This is simply not true, and incredibly misleading.
3.) Multimedia Software – $80-$104???? Why? What software? Windows comes with Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, and you can get iTunes for free. In terms of pictures, Windows Picture Album works fine, and there are also free alternatives to use.
4.) Video Editing – What about Windows Movie Maker? Does that not count? It comes FREE with Windows.
5.) Music Software – $100? I am sorry, but this is beyond ridiculous. Windows comes with Windows Media Player. Also, iTunes is FREE. Mac’s use iTunes. There are also many free, and popular alternatives such as VLC, RealPlayer, etc. If you are taking about recording music, yes you can get a version of ProTools, or other recording software for $100 for PC. However, this software is MUCH better than garage band which comes with a Mac.
6.) Geek Squad Visit – $129? You can get a local computer shop to fix a PC for much cheaper.
7.) Mac Battery life 4x better – This is just completely false. If you want battery life, get a netbook which runs for 9 hours on a single charge. Also, my Lenovo laptop gets 3.15 hours on my battery, while my friends MacBook gets 4-5 hours. That is not 4x better.
8.) Faster Chip – This is absolutely terrible. Mac’s use the SAME PROCESSOR AS WINDOWS MACHINES. The Intel processors that Mac’s use are also available on PC. Oh, and guess what, Mac’s do not use the latest Intel processors. When Intel releases a new CPU, it is immediately available for PC users, but it takes awhile for Mac to offer them in their products.
I cannot believe that Jim Goldman is your “senior tech analyst”. This is some of the absolute worst journalism I have ever seen. These claims NEED to be clarified and the truth needs to get out to the people who are shopping for PC’s. If you want to help people save money and get quality software, why don’t you do a story on Ubuntu and Open Source software?
How dare you try to convince people, especially in a struggling economy, that they need to spend more money based on completely false evidence.
Jim Goldman lives in Droon-City, Iowa. Maybe that is the reason he is such an idiot. I am a mac user and I agree that his claims are completely ridiculous. Good stuff Jon.
To be fair, Windows Movie Maker hardly counts as video editing software. =)
But neither does iMovie. I didn’t actually watch the video. So if he’s talking about that stuff, it’s irrelevant. The professional video editing software for Macs is much better than that of Windows PCs. Sadly, there are no good open source video editing programs I’ve found.
Also, Garageband is actually very good for what it does. Though, of course, it’s technically not free. And you can get Pro Tools on a Mac as well.
The thing about the battery life is most certainly ridiculous, though the top MacBook Pro can get around 8 hours of battery life, though I believe only if you’re running the less intensive graphics chip. So that is a pretty substantial battery life, though I’m sure there are non-Mac notebooks with a similar life. Also, a 17″ MacBook Pro is hardly intended for the average consumer.
1, 2, 3, and 6 are ridiculous.
As far as doing a story on open source software? I doubt it will do much good, because the fact is, people aren’t going to care. Most people can only passably navigate through their Windows machines, and as user-friendly Ubuntu is in comparison to other Linux distros, it is still a Linux distro, and it is definitely more of a pain in the ass to use. Don’t get me wrong, I like Linux and Ubuntu. I’m somewhat forced into having a Mac—a video editor doesn’t have much choice—but once I get a new one, I will certainly dual-boot with OS X and Ubuntu (my current one still uses the PPC chip, which Ubuntu hasn’t supported in a LONG time).
Okay, I used forced a bit exaggeratingly. It is my favorite of the three (highly stable with a great UI, and still has a *nix based Terminal which is nothing less than awesome). Even though I like it, I do not think that open-source is the only way to go—there is a necessity for proprietary software as well.
It would be nice to see the general public start to use Linux more, but let’s face it. It’s probably not going to happen. In a tough economy, people will probably just pirate their favorite OS of choice instead.
@Patrick F.
Patrick, thanks for the comment!
I only used Windows Movie Maker once about a year ago, and I agree that it is not a professional movie editor by any means. I also agree that Mac has much better video editing software than both Windows and Ubuntu. However, what Goldman was trying to claim was that the software that comes on a Mac is better than the software on a PC, and is so much better, that you would have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to have the PC software equal the Mac software. (I know you said you didn’t watch the video so I am just elaborating on it)
I also think Garage Band is pretty decent software. I (personally) know two people that use it (one of which is my current roommate), and the audio quality is decent. However, according to Goldman, to equal Garage Band, you would have to spend $100. With $100, you could buy Pro Tools, which is definitely much better than Garage Band. I guess my argument is you would not need to spend $100, but if you did, you would be getting much better software.
I actually like Mac OS X. I like that it is Unix based and has a Unix terminal, as well as the fact that software written for BSD’s can usually be compiled to run on it. I would guess my ranking goes Ubuntu > Mac OS X >= Windows. (I still have one windows machine because I have a home recording studio, and I have windows proprietary recording software which has no open source equivalent)
You say “there is a necessity for proprietary software as well”. I am just curious as to what you believe this necessity is? I am not trying to imply that there is no necessity for proprietary software, I just want to know, for the sake of discussion, what you believe the necessity is. I think you could argue that proprietary software is needed for the sake of the economy (developers need to be paid), but I also think that you could make money from open source (such as mozilla). As a software developer, I realize that I will most likely one day be working for a company that develops proprietary software. I don’t think that proprietary software is bad, however, I feel that proprietary software MUST be affordable. I am starting to work on a few mobile applications which will be proprietary, but I will charge an extremely reasonable amount for them ($0.99-$1.99).
I strongly agree with your last comment (I have actually talked about this with a few professors on campus). The reason people pirate Microsoft Office is because they don’t want to pay $70-$100. However, if they only had two choice, pay $70 or use an open-source alternative, they would probably use (or at least try) the open source alternative. However, when you throw option #3 in, download a cracked version for free in a few hours, they will probably go with that option.
I think piracy also goes back to my comment about how proprietary software MUST be affordable. If some software was more affordable, I bet more people would buy it rather than steal it. I know it wouldn’t stop all pirates, but I think that at least more people would go out and purchase it.
My biggest problem with proprietary software is that in today’s world, not having a computer / certain software puts you at a huge disadvantage. However, if you cannot afford that software, what are you supposed to do?
I realize this isn’t the case with all proprietary software, but imagine if you were really poor, and someone gave you a decent computer, but it needed to have an operating system installed. Imagine Linux did not exist. Your only option would be to pay $100+ for the operating system. However, even if Linux does exist, suppose you needed some windows based software in order to learn skills that are required for some job, which uses proprietary software. In this case, you would be forced to buy Windows just so that you could learn those skills and get a job (and try to help get yourself out of poverty). This seems like a pretty big problem to me.