Microsoft is looking to spoil Apple's new MacBook party by claiming that Mac buyers pay 'Apple taxes'. In 
an interview with Ina Fried of Cnet, Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing claims the Apple taxes include a "choice tax" for customers wanting laptop colors or configurations other than the standard black, white or silver, an application tax of having to pay more to get Microsoft software to run on the Mac, and an upgrade tax, claiming that the Mac Pro, at $2,800, is Apple's only upgradeable machine. Apple today launched an entirely new lineup of laptop Macs, carved from blocks of aluminum that is expected to go head-to-head against PCs this holiday season.
In the interview, Brooks is quoted as saying:
You're not going to get things like Microsoft Outlook, you're not going to get the games that you're used to playing. There's a technology tax--Apple still doesn't have HDMI, doesn't have Blu-ray offerings, doesn't have e-SATA external disk drives that work at twice the speed of FireWire. And so you've got all of these things that are truly taxes.
Do you agree that Apple charges such 'taxes'? It can be argued that Apple is a premium brand and Apple fan are willing to pay the extra for the label appeal.
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Apple Tax?
An "Apple Tax," huh? That would be different, or worse, than the Microsoft Tax so many have come to know and love?
And where does Ballmer get off saying that Mac users don't get the full Office or Outlook experience? Now whose fault would that be? I think Ballmer should have some pull on that.
On the other hand, not having the full Office or Outlook experience, for some people, is part of the joy of using a Mac. I have to use Outlook at work, and it is certainly feature-rich. But if I try to use the features that would otherwise be helpful to my productivity, then Outlook's reliability becomes problematic. I cannot afford to depend on it for much more than email. So much for the full Outlook experience...and that's on a PC!
Microsoft Tax?
Microsoft Tax?
What's that? Or that something phony in people's imagination like "The Bush Doctrine"? You can't ignore the fact just how expensive a Mac is.
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