MS-based solution is the clear winner. The greatest reason however is because of software

 
I would argue that the MS-based solution for business wins because their developer tools for corporate software rock. Microsoft started out as a company that made tools for developers. While it is true that they have grown far beyond that their systems platform integration with their development tools make for a very cost effective tool set.
 
fwiw: I used to do dev work for Macs (Objective C++) also and I'm currently trying to learn the Android OS and dev tools so it isn't a case ignorance of what I don't have.
 
Regards,

Just walking into any Starbucks and observing the sea of identical 20-something clones tapping away on identical Macbooks is enough to put me off the whole Apple experience. 

You want to really get creeped out, spend some time in an Apple store. Crowds of blank-eyed consumer-zombies lining up to buy $40 mouse pads and $20 plastic telephone covers without blinking. Staffed by "geniuses", all named Jason (every one a clone of the actor who plays the "I'm a Mac" character) who will condescendingly blame you for whatever problem you're having with your iWhatever - but only if you have an appointment. The only tool in their technical toolbox is wiping your phone and re-installing the O/S, the universal troubleshooting and repair technique for all things Apple.

Rain


So if there one company which is all about hype these days (not actually because they are hype but because they're trying so hard to look cool), Microsoft gets the award.

Man, the MS surface commercials are the most annoying freaking thing on TV... this piece of crap ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB5txqIl8jQ ... click click click... click click click... click click click click click click click... WWWAAHHHH WAAHHHHH WAAHHH WAAHHH... click click WWAAAAHH... click click WAAHHHH ... click click click click click click WWWWWAAAAAAAHHHHHHH....




SSSSTTTOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just freaking STOP!!!!!!! Please!!!!

My God, who comes up with that crap?

My Apple experience.
After many years of not giving in to the Apple hype, I ended up buying a Mac G5 - the piece of software I wanted to get into at the time was Mac only.
The performance and reliability quite shocked me - I think I had started to believe the hype about how they never went wrong! Within the first few months it seemed a constant round of operating system upgrades / reinstalls etc. And in  general it just seemed so sluggish compared to the equivalent PC - well sort of equivalent - price wise it was about three times the price.

Anyway after only a short period of time, the software I wanted to use was ported to PC, so I went back to  PC.
I still have the G5 - sits in the corner looking very pretty and of course always impressed people who know nothing! - never really used it in all these years - it is beautifully made, looks sexy but in use I found it to be a horribly overpriced piece of c**p!!

Wind forward a number of years and my wife was given an iPad when she purchased her new car.
It was given to me as she had no use for it - actually I have no use for it either in reality - the iPad seems little more than a toy to me and I have yet to find ANYTHING it can do better than my Asus netbook (which would have cost probably half what an iPad cost back then). Also you can repair PC stuff - I expect if / WHEN the iPad goes wrong it will be straight into the bin!

Nigel

My only experience with Mac has been on the business side, connecting multifunction devices to print and scan on customers networks. It was always a nightmare and I tried for years to learn how to do it and couldn't. We always had one guy who did nothing but Mac installs, and he'd basically just get on the phone with the manufacturer and they would walk him through it.

I was also involved in a system installation once that was an incredible nightmare. Our Mac expert tried to set up this system and could never get it running. We ended up losing the account, and it was a huge one. Can't say who it was, but I love their Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties. OMG. ;) And this guy knew is stuff. He installed every Mac in every school in the entire state. IIRC, he actually worked directly for them.

I was in a training class he put on one time. We had 10 multi-function machines there and we had to connect them for print and scanning. He never could get the Mac stuff running so we never did training on it. Thank God they closed my office and laid me off before I had to go do a Mac install on my own. Heh. The bad thing about it was, you had to buy a Post Script board to put in the machines to make them print properly from a Mac driver. Some of those boards were $1,000 bucks, and the damn salesmen would always forget to add it in to the price of the machine, the customer would call back complaining that they couldn't print to their brand new machine, and service would end up eating the cost and put it in for free. BS, but that's what happened.

I was neutral about Apple until they took Logic from me.

You mean "Black Monday"
I remember that day well...    

Jim Roseberry

I was neutral about Apple until they took Logic from me.

You mean "Black Monday"
I remember that day well...    

Jim, they got you too? It wasn't just Logic. I had the Logic Control and the AMT 8. I had also bough Sounddiver to go along with Logic. Not to mention having to learn a very difficult program. All that went down the drain. Apple's solution was all I had to do was buy a Mac. From that day on I looked a any Apple product through the eyes of one that had been screwed by them. Needless to say I have no love for anything Apple. 

Fortunately I had not abandoned Cakewalk and simply moved more completely over to it. I did have a fling with Cubase for awhile but I came back to CW. The adventure with Cubase was useful in that I had a true comparison between the two. In the end I stopped with Cubase SX 3. I have had Sonar as my main DAW ever since. 

We have gone through a lot of changes but its been a good time here and with Sonar. I was even on the Cubase forum. Not a fun place to be.

I have aways upgraded every version of CW's top software since Professional 8. Pro Audio 9 was a great DAW.  

 

There is an interesting discussion on gearslutz at the moment: do daws run better on PC. It seems most people think they do.

http://www.gearslutz.com/...rm-better-windows.html

John I feel your pain. I had invested a lot into Logic right up to V5.5 and they just dropped PC support which was not nice I agree.

I have got Unitor 8 though and I am sure the same applies to AMT 8 as well, they both still work perfectly in a PC environment. The drivers are still fine.

I like my iToys. Lol!

Seem to do what they're supposed to do well. Like some of the features apple offers on them like iCloud for my music and integration between them and apple tv. Video always plays flawless more then I can say on any pc no matter how powerful. Retina Displays far better then I've seen from any competitors. 

But my experience has always been pc. And I'm not a professional so I don't know other then that video is nothing more then a commercial. 

One thing I constantly see on this forum though is talk about how hard it is for Cakewalk because of all different hardware software configurations of the pc market. Seems to me one advantage apple has. Also, as a consumer makes it easy to get a good simple solution without all the fuss. For most hobbiest which it seems the majority of users an iMac running GarageBand or logic would suffice. The cost start at 1,299 plus another 300 for logic. That's not too bad if it works without fuss. But yeah, it can easily get pretty expensive. But if your a professional making your living off it so can a pc and really professionals I'm sure drop much much more money in thier computer. 

Agree with bitflipper about store. It's funny. Though they always been good to me. And support doesn't appear to be outsourced which always leads to bad support. Though I do always pay for AppleCare support up front. But if that's what it takes to supply good support I'm happy with paying.