A XP vs OS X Cost Analysis- A Bit Off

This week, a Piper Jeffries analyst supposedly established that upgrading OS X was more expensive than upgrading Windows. As someone who has paid those costs, I disagree. The analyst used the cost of upgrading a single machine as his sole basis for comparison (and did not to mention the high upgrade costs for Vista which were leaked to the web today). Most of us have more than one computer to upgrade. I maintain that when you look at the issue from a “there's more than one computer in every family” perspective, the costs of upgrading OS X fall dramatically from the costs incurred upgrading an equivalent number of computer to Windows in a non-server, home environment. The reason why that's true is called the Apple “Family Pack”.

Microsoft requires that for each single computer upgrade you need, you buy a seperate copy of their new operating system. Even if I take the lowest cost option equivalent to current prices of XP Home Upgrade packages, that's $89 per machine for a total of $445 if I upgraded 5 computers. However, if I want to upgrade 5 Macs in my house to Tiger, I can (and did) buy an “OS X Family Pack” from Apple for a total cost of $199 (plus tax). For the lot, that's a savings of $246 per operating system upgrade. Or, if I look at my “per machine” cost, each OS X upgrade cost me only $39.80. It's those kind of economies of scale the author of that report grossly overlooked.

I don't think I'd want that guy doing any financial analysis for me.