Apple Tops Customer Satisfaction Index, Again

Brian Caulfield, 08.19.09, 01:30 PM EDT
Steve Jobs and company have dominated the rankings since 2003.

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -- Remember 1998? Bill Clinton was impeached. Steve Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan ruled the box office. And Steve Jobs was wreaking havoc at Apple - terminating projects such as Cyberdog and the Newton - and introducing a new all-in-one computer, the iMac.
It worked - 1998 was the last year Apple posted a less than average score on the American Customer Satisfaction Index for Personal Computers. Apple took the No. 1 spot on the list in 2003, and it has dominated ever since.
Apple's score of 84 on the latest survey, released this week, was down one point from the year before. However, it is a full nine points above the average score of 75. In other words, after a dip from 2007, Apple has recovered nicely. And while Dell and Hewlett-Packard both showed modest improvement, Apple remains at the top of the list.

A Mac Virus?

Not so fast. Malware posing as antivirus software is spreading fast with tens of millions of computers (not Macs) infected each month, according to a report released from PandaLabs.

PandaLabs found 1,000 samples of fake antivirus software in the first quarter of 2008. In a year, that number had grown to 111,000. And in the second quarter of 2009, it reached 374,000, Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs said in a recent interview.

The rogue antivirus software issues false warnings of infections in order to get people to pay for software they don't need. The programs also typically download a Trojan or other malware.

About 3 percent of the people who see the fake warnings fall for it, forking over $50 for an annual license or $80 for a lifetime license, according to Corrons.

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