For many people, the biggest factor to consider when buying something is the price. For a long time PC's have been less expensive than their Mac counterparts, but according to Dan Frakes (2006), "The significance of the Mac Pro, from a price perspective, is not that it’s debatably price-competitive with somewhat similar offerings from Dell (and other Windows-PC vendors); rather, it’s that the Mac Pro is the first Mac in a long, long time that is unquestionably less expensive than its Windows counterparts in the same market segment". Another one of mac's most popular feature is that it does not get computer viruses. Microsoft software is notoriously known to need virus protection and easily ruined by computer viruses. When considering computer prices, people also must factor in the price of virus protection software when buying a PC. "Security concerns have long been an issue with Microsoft products. Windows XP has been criticized for its susceptibility to buffer overflows, malware, viruses, trojan horses, and worms" (Criticism, 2007). For people who have had virus problems or had their computers destroyed by viruses, Macs might seem like the obvious choice.
PCs do have an advantage when it comes to being the most used computer for the longest time. "By 1997, there were more than 20 million Mac users, compared to an installed base of around 340