Decision Making Model to Select the Best Operating System- based PC

Today, computer technology has come a long way from the days of desktop machines to portable computers (PCs). Due to their size and construction, the desktop machines lost their popularity to the laptops (PCs) which are by design, smaller, compact and therefore portable. This brought a big change in a student’s or a professional’s mindset because, now they can work or study from wherever they are. The PC industry ever since revolutionized to an extent that today, we have a plethora of buying options between laptops and notebook computers. With Apple’s innovation of the MacBook, it became the best-selling notebook computer of any brand around the globe. This project intends to use a decision model to determine which is the best-operating system based PC when a buyer encounters a conflict between a Windows, Macintosh or Android based portable computers like the laptops and notebook computers. The decision model for this study is developed using the Hierarchical Decision Model and all the decision elements of this model are decided through literature search. An expert panel is approached to assist in the decision making and their preferences in the form of weights to all the elements in the model are collected to analyze and arrive at the final results. The analysis of this data shows that the Macintosh based MacBook is preferred more than the other two operating system–based PCs. It is also found that the device integration and security are the most important factors to be considered when making this decision. This study considers only three kinds of operating systems that could be used for universal purposes in different fields. Therefore, further studies could be carried out to include a broader variety of operating systems and restrict to specific purposes