I guess products like these exist for no reason:
ClamXav
iAntiVirus - Free AntiVirus for Mac
avast! Mac Edition - Antivirus Software for Mac OS X
Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac
Mac Anti Virus - Macintosh AntiVirus Solutions
Pure Mac: Virus Scanners - Software for Macintosh
The Best Antivirus for Mac : VirusBarrier X6
ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 for Mac OS X Beta Program
As for prices, can't speak on what things cost in Australia but here:
My new laptop running 64bit Windows 7:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GhZ processor
4GB of RAM
250GB internal hard drive
15.4" screen
1280x800 resolution
Cost - £400
Latest Macbook running 32bit OSX:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GhZ processor
2GB of RAM
250GB internal hard drive
13.3" screen
1280x800 resolution
Cost - £816
So certainly a lot more than "9% difference" and certainly not a superior product,
considering the Mac processor only has an advantage of 66MhZ, and the PC
has twice the RAM and a 64bit OS. (and for the record, Win7 is everything
OSX wishes it could be)
If I paid £816 for a PC laptop I could probably get a system 3x as powerful
as that Macbook. Hell for a grand or so you can get QUAD core processor systems
with 8GB of RAM, which is insane.
Thing is, Apple could maybe increase their market share if they lowered their
prices, which they could easily do and still make obscene profits. Especially
since they switched to using Intel chipsets (which pissed a lot of Mac fans off,
because many people had bought hi spec machines just before they announced
the switch, and now Snow Leopard is only compatible with Intel machines).
I mean you crack open a Mac and a PC side by side and all the parts are
identical anyway - Intel chips, hard drives and optical drives by Samsung/Hitachi/
Toshiba, NVIDIA GPU's etc etc etc. The difference is marginal.
As for studios - I happen to know of at least 3 major label studios in the states
that have already switched to PC's, including 1 studio exclusively used by Interscope
artists. If you're running Pro Tools, you're using Digidesign hardware anyway so
it doesn't make much difference if you're using a PC or a Mac, and they can get
higher spec systems for the same amount of money. My cousins studio in London
is worth at least 2 million dollars (between property price and equipment)
and he's going to switch to a PC based system next time he upgrades.
So don't believe the hype.