The kudos Apple won by introducing a generous all-you-can-eat pricing for its server offerings has been lost by gouging its most loyal consumers. If you’ve been working with OS X since the public beta, your bill for the OS alone will have topped $400 by now. In the same period Microsoft has introduced one upgrade costing consumers $99 or $199 for the “professional” SMP-enabled XP.
Even if we forget the beta, which IIRC cost $20, it’s still a goodly $350+.