I recently had occasion to use a website (that shall go nameless) that required a reasonable amount of data entry on my part. I have a tendency to save often, because I don't particularly like to have to retype because I achieve perfection of phrasing on the first try and to repeat perfection due to technical glitches diminishes me. 

Anyway, there were a couple of things that I found to be, shall I say, rather odd? about the website application.
First, I had been inspired to do my editing at 9:45 on Saturday night. That's not terribly unusual, as I relax at night and let my mind wander and it sometimes results in some inspired ideas. I decided not to wait, and fired up the Mac and logged in to make changes. I had already made a few changes and saves, when I tried to refresh I got a message that the application was no longer available. The website was still viable, but the application on the website was turned off. I looked at the clock, and noticed it was 10:01 pm. WTF? They turned it OFF? Was it tired? Did it need a good night's sleep? The ONLY possibility I could forgive is maintenance. However, there was no notice of impending maintenance. It was simply turned off at 10:00. Ridiculous.

On Sunday, (after a night's rest, I suppose) the application was back available and I had been editing my information, and went to save. Lo and behold, the save button was GONE. It had been there just a couple minutes prior, when I had saved a different element. I switched between Chrome and Firefox to see if it may have been something in my cache, the browser, anything on my side. I was unsuccessful, and finally resorted to sending a message to the helpdesk (staffed M-F, 8a-5p, except holidays) asking what happened. I figured a maintenance update had gone haywire. Of course, I had to wait until Tuesday for a response, since Monday was a holiday. 

Imagine my shock and horror at seeing this as the response to my problem:

What. The. Hell. 

Seriously? Internet Explorer ONLY? Which version? 4, back when it was the market share leader? I did some investigating and found that as of last month, according to w3Schools.com, IE only garnered 20% of market share. Even the most generous statistics I found on statcounter.com give IE in the US less than 48% as of January 2012, and dropping. Have they thought about the fastest growing segments of the web-consuming world (mobiles – especially iPad/iPhone with Safari, and Android) at all? Not to mention Macs sales are handily outpacing PCs these days. It's hip to be Mac, especially for a causal user, and for the technorati, Linux with IE? Um, no.

Hey unnamed-website-management guys, time to face reality. There's more than one browser in the race, and it seems you've backed the one fading down the stretch.

I've been working  the last 4+ years as a semi-road warrior working for various clients. Invariably, they all use Windows-based software. Despite that, I owned and carted around a MacBook Pro as my laptop of choice. I had it loaded with Parallels for running Windows software and client development. It all worked well: my clients got my Windows work, and my personal stuff resided on the Mac side and all was happy-clappy. 
This past December, I was given a Dell Precision M4500 as my new work computer. "OK," I thought, "no biggie. When I travel, I tote my iPad for anything personal and entertainment-oriented. I can do this." And I was right. I can do this, but I certainly don't enjoy it. 
For this argument, I am speaking specifically to what I will call the UI hardware: the plastic, glass and metal bits that me, as the user, directly interact with. The stuff "under the hood" is irrelevant to this. For the sake of no argument, I'll call that a draw: it just works for both.
Man, what a cludge this Dell is. The keyboard is clunky and unresponsive compared to the Mac, and who the hell uses the ridiculous keyboard clit anyway? I grabbed pliers and popped that piece of crap out after only a day of it constantly being in the way. Please don't suggest disabling it via software. Despite following the instructions to the letter, IT DIDN'T WORK.
As for the touchpad, how shall I put it? It sucks. Seemingly half the time, tapping it gets no response. The other half of the time, it interprets a tap as a tap, hold and scroll, wildly selecting anything on the screen. Worthless. After going mouse-less for 6 years, it would be tough to go back, and I don't want the added headache of making sure I have one in my travel bag  all the time. I'm very sorry Dell, even at half the cost, it's still not a bargain. For me, I might think it a deal at 20% of the cost.
If there ever was an argument for Mac over PC, the software world isn't where the argument lies; it's in the elegant engineering of Apple's products. Software is a sad second place to hardware in this two-horse race.
I use a computer 8-10 hours per day. It used to be a pleasure to tap, tap, tap on the keys with the Mac. With the Dell, it's torture. I am not surprised at the difference in share price over the last 10 years, or that Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world with a market cap more than 14 times that of Dell. Sure, things won't stay that way, but Dell sure isn't going to close that gap with crappy UI hardware.