How to avoid the Apple tax?

[Richard Bennett]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:22:34 +0200, Tony Arnold  
<tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:

> I didn't see the original posting of this thread, so maybe I'm missing
> something here, but why would anyone buy Apple hardware if they do not
> want to use the Apple operating system? If they want to use non Apple
> software, then they can buy any commodity hardware. It's not too
> difficult to buy a PC with no operating system, if you don't want
> Windoze either!
> Apple's strength has always been that they control both the hardware and
> the software, thus you know the software will work with the hardware and
> I thought that was the main reason for buying from Apple. Oh, it looks
> pretty too!
> Like I said, I'm probably missing a point here!

Yeah. I posted the original question, and I posted a follow-up yesterday  
explaining why.
Check that mail for the full reply, here are a few examples from that mail:

<quote>
I just ordered a mapbook because I like their hardware and it actually was
better value for money than the other options I was considering. If I
bought a regular PC laptop I wouldn't dream of buying one with Windows
preloaded, just to wipe it off, I would buy a barebones or Ubuntu laptop,
but with the Apple mapbook I have no option, I have to pay the OSX tax
when buying the hardware.

You can buy OSX with a 5 user license for 190 euro. Say I bought that and
upgraded 3 macs with it, the next Mac I bought, I would prefer no OSX, as
I still had 2 licenses left. But you are forced to buy an additional
licenced copy you don't need. The OSX tax.

Say I watched all those Mac adverts about being able to run Windows on a
Mac, and decided I like the Mac hardware design so I'll buy 10 for our
office, but seeings as they only need Windows in the office, I'd prefer to
order them with Windows pre-installed. I can't, I have to buy 2 OSses for
each computer. The OSX tax.
</quote>

Regards,

Richard