Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Perhaps they can compete on technical merits, but only marginally. You still can't build your own Apple from ground up, the price/performance doesn't seem quite as good, but entirely aside from either of those questions, there are probably a fair number of people out there who just can't get over the negative image they have of Apple based on their deceptive advertising of the last decade.
And who HAS had pleasant experiences with a hardware manufacturer? Apple does more than make the OS. They make the hardware. I could tell you story after story about HP.
Their hardware may be overpriced on a simply functional standpoint, but there's a lot to be said for aesthetics.
In any case, you in fact CAN build your own mac from the ground up (as long as you use intel) although it's against Apple's user agreement to install OS10 on hardware other than apple's. I've managed to get os10 to boot on an amd system (but not fully function) but lots of people run it on intel. look up "hackintosh".