Microsoft's white paper on the "Apple Tax" uses configurations that no longer exist.

The data for both Mac and Windows machines is a few months old. So the paper had to be reviewed and revised after the first draft was written--this is exactly what one would expect for a white paper.

The first half of this article completely fails to back up its headline. Data analysis happens on data from the past. That's how writing papers works.

Some of the criticisms near the end seem valid, but by that point it's hard to take them seriously.

Even if you buy the idea that the white paper's content required months of study and analysis, requiring it to be based on obsolete data--which is a great big stretch--there's surely no defense for the fact that it doesn't acknowledge that it's old data and in fact speaks of the systems in the present tense.

Why does Microsoft care about the Mac? It could be because the iPhone is giving Apple lots of positive publicity. And this in turn may result in more people buying Macs.

Was that really an appropriate topic for a white paper?