There is more to being an OEM for Windows than having the coolest hardware

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/11/28 03:16 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/11/28/6568455.aspx

Some of you may have seen Joshua Allen's Our Newest Vista OEM: Apple from Monday, which caused a little stir over in Mary Jo Foley's neck of the woods in her post (The happiest Vista customers: Mac users?).

Now I happen to love my MacBook Pro and have been petty clear on that since my first blog about it (The Dell laptops have a new neighbor, who says hello), and though I was not initially going to install Vista on it, investigating a reported bug (Boot Camp 1.3 and MSKLC (also 1.3) -- excitement, enjoyment, and a wrinkle or three) caused me to install both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista onto the machine, and ironically finding that even Vista felt that my Vista experience was better on the top of the line Mac than on my top of the line Dell (ref: A tiny bit closer to the top of the line).

I have done all my recent presentations on the MacBook Pro, I find it easier to travel with, and once I installed Leopard (ref: They say a leopard can't change its spots, but I upgraded anyway!) I found myself enjoying that experience too.

There have even been occasions where the hardware has helped me prove a point, like how I proved my point in Detecting ALTGR can only hope to work when ALTGR is in fact there.... with Detecting ALTGR fails when ALTGR isn't there (Just Czech-ed out in Word 2007). :-)

Look, my MacBook Pro rocks. And Leopard rocks. And Boot Camp rocks. I sincerely believe it is often as better Vista machine than any of the machines I have running Vista.

But that is not what makes Apple an OEM for Windows.

OEMs for Windows have a lot of other important qualities, like

• They have Dedicated TAM (Technical Account Manager) resources at Microsoft who help assist with issues and escalate them
• They bundle Windows with their hardware -- they don't just make it easy to install when you buy it separately
• They are the first line of support for customers who bought Windows through them (which is why the TAM thing is so incredibly useful, for escalations!)
• They don't tend to do as much public back-biting of Microsoft since they work together as partners

and more.

But anyway, you get the point, probably.

It is obvious that there are some issues to work out here first. Somehow.

Because being a Windows OEM is much more involved than just having the best hardware for Windows.

In fact, that is not really a requirement at all, though it is one important aspect that could make an OEM a really good OEM.

So Apple, to put it simply, has got the goods here.

And they could probably be a kickass and cool OEM if they wanted to be.

Some further assembly would be required before that package could be delivered, though....

(More on the OEM thing here!)

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