Windows Tips and Tricks

Although the Mac is picking up market share in the home, it remains a stranger to the business environment. In fact, Apple has basically ignored the corporate market. Since the iPod and the iPhone have gotten a lot of people interested in Apple products, could now be Apple’s chance at this market? The ability of the present Intel based Mac to run Windows as well as Apple’s OS X makes the Mac a much more plausible choice in the corporate world. An article at BusinessWeek takes a look at this possibility.

The publication Consumer Reports has been a valuable reference for consumer information for years. The June issue (available only to subscribers) has a buying guide for computers. It also rates companies for their technical support and Apple comes out on top. (The same result was obtained by PC Magazine when it did its annual survey.) PC World comments on the Consumer Reports findings:

Apple beat all comers in a Consumer Reports survey released Monday that rates the technical support offered by computer makers. Apple topped the rankings for both laptop and desktop support, beating out Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, Sony and HP.

Consumer Reports based its ratings feedback from owners of more than 4,500 laptop computers and almost 5,600 desktop computers who contacted manufacturer tech support between September 2006 and January 2008. Computer owners were asked to rate their experience based on three criteria: Whether the manufacturer solved their problem, how long they waited to talk with someone on the phone, and how knowledgeable the support staff were. Apple received the highest ranking of “Better” in all three areas for both laptops and desktops–the only company to do so.