Apple Macs! anyone got one???

[moduser]

I wouldn't use anything else - except they make me use Microsoft at work.

But I have an old G4 dual 400 due to be upgraded to a nice big 24" iMac

I have been using Apples since my Atari 1040 was no longer a viable option.

David

 

[British Red]

Heres an interesting thought. Given the Mac lovers view of "cheaper, more reliable, more flexible", does anyone wonder why almost no large commercial organisations run on exclusively or even predominantly Mac (heavy graphics / CAD users excepted)?

Service level monitoring and "Total Cost of Ownership" are the two key perfomance indicators for desktop IT - and almost every decent sized (10,000 unit plus) organisation goes Windows / Intel....what do you think the reasons are?

Red

 

[Levi]

Microsoft Office runs like a pig on OS X, I learnt this the hard way writing a 18000 word dissertation in it. This is not the fault of the computer. I sincerely believe MS have written a turkey for the Mac. Be warned. However if you only write the occassional letter or essay you will have no problems. I use an Open Office variant instead.

When we started college it was many peoples first introduction to OS X, and they hated it. Why? MS Word, and Internet Explorer (they hadn't been introduced to Safari) crashed at least once a day. Only ever those two apps, but because they where familiar with MS Word and IE on Windows, they blamed the Mac

Woz also claimed that back with System 7, the one notorious for crashing constantly, simply uninstalling Internet Explorer would solve all the problems.

If you need to run MS software on a Mac, fair enough, but if not, do yourself a favor and use an alternative

 

[moduser]

Red your correct that few -if any- large organisations make widespread use of Macs.

However I would argue that "Total Cost Of Ownership" is a tad artificial as there is a heavy support overhead for PC's over Mac's in my experience.

What benefits large companies is that after 3-5 years they write off the assest value of stuff and that helps keep it cheap.

Yes it's a personal thing. I spend more time on PC's than on Mac's because of work. But I have a huge support infrastructure to call on incase of problems and to manage the network and firewalls. At home I have me and I rather like the minimal down time I have in comparison to my son's XP based PC

David

 

[British Red]

David,

There I think you have perhaps put your finger on it! The Mac is perhaps a better "self contained unit". I suspect most support calls in professional organisations are RTFMS and network / build / config related rather than hardware or software defect related. In these modern days of Citrix, thin client and ASP in commercial organisations, the actual overhead on the client desktop is actually fairly small. The all singing and dancing Mac is just not needed. I suspect this is also true of most home users whose overhead is probably net, word processor, a few games and some multi media. Wintel is probably more than adequate for these needs and certainly cheaper for a limited footprint.

I certainly don't despise Macs but consider them a bit like a Saab- a product for its devotees but never likely to upset the mainstream

Red

 

[firebreather]

i have used pc's for years and was always frustrated . Then two years ago i purchased my first pc and didnt buy a mac. OOOOOOOOHHHHH how sorry i was. It crashed in 12 hours and needed a full fix to get it sorted. three days later it went again .then again two weeks later when they took it back and kept it for nearly two months ( not the pc's fault but the shop i got it from) then i demanded my cash back and went a bought the mac i wanted in the first place. I turned it on and have never looked back since.
Get a mac get a mac get a mac .....sorry the ravings of somebody set free from the windows box after all thses years. It will take a mjor change in the useability of macs and an unbelieveable inprovement in windows before i go back to them. One of the reasons mac users become raving geeks about them is because they are sooooo good and just work.
Sorry for raving on and on
( i dont hate windows just wouldn't pay for it.)

 

[weaver]

Heres an interesting thought. Given the Mac lovers view of "cheaper, more reliable, more flexible", does anyone wonder why almost no large commercial organisations run on exclusively or even predominantly Mac (heavy graphics / CAD users excepted)?

Service level monitoring and "Total Cost of Ownership" are the two key perfomance indicators for desktop IT - and almost every decent sized (10,000 unit plus) organisation goes Windows / Intel....what do you think the reasons are?

Red

Because if they ran Macs the IT department would be out of work. So they recommend the system that they know and the one that keeps them a paycheck.

As I said before for a number of years I supported 68 companies that ran Macs. One Man + 68 companies = lots of IT guys out of work.

 

[British Red]

Because if they ran Macs the IT department would be out of work. So they recommend the system that they know and the one that keeps them a paycheck.

As I said before for a number of years I supported 68 companies that ran Macs. One Man + 68 companies = lots of IT guys out of work.

Sorry mate. Not often we disagree but I don't buy it - every major company in the worlds IT departments are in on it?

No "hungry" consultancy and no "newly appointed" IT director were ever prepared to make that obvious saving?

IT organisations forced to lay people off and freeze pay chose to do that rather than make the savings that Mac offers?

I've run huge programmes of work looking at IT efficiencies for several FTSE top 50 companies. Genuinely independently assessed Kepner Tregoe analyses. Costings based on TCO over 5 to 10 years. Not one ever found a reliable business case for a switch to Mac.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Macs are bad machines - they aren't. But there are huge overheads in everything from relicensing all your software to retraining your entire user base to reintegrating another platform.

There are also HUGE integration issues - the real big boys (SAP, Oracle etc.) don't really develop with a Mac GUI in mind. Sure you can make it work if you really struggle but help commands that tell you to "right click" etc. aren't much good.

Look at the huge enterprise management systems and see how many support a Mac client. Precious few. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Everyone uses Windows so all the major corporate IT clients develop in Windows, so everyone uses Windows. Its the same with home users. I originally learned multi threading O/S on O/s2 and as a result used Lotus Smartsuite. But it didn't integrate well with Windows. Windows became the norm so we switched to Windows O/S. All our clients wanted to exchange docs in MSWord. Whether "AmiPro" (the Lotus word processor) was better or worse was irrelevant. It was incompatible and non standard.

Whether Macs are better or worse is irrelevant. When the largest corporate software companies develop for the Windows GUI and almost the whole corporate world operates on MSOffice, interoperability and document compatibility is key. Whilst MAc try to be "different" they become "incompatible" and when you are dealing with tens of thousands off suppliers and millions of customers that equates to "pain". Better or worse is irrelevant. As I mentioned before. Whether Betamax is a better video format became irrelevant when all the video stores stocked was VHS.

Home users can afford the luxury of incompatibility. In my IT dept, we can't

Red

 

[weaver]

So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Everyone uses Windows so all the major corporate IT clients develop in Windows, so everyone uses Windows.

Red

We are in agreement!

That is how it got started and that is how it will continue.

If you ever come to my home (and I sincerely hope you do) you will use a MAC.

 

[AndyW]

Red,

You've hit the nail on the head

As I read your post asking why large companys don't run Macs it was just what I was thinking.

The overhead is retraining people so that they are capable of working efficiently in the Mac environment. People out there "know windows and MS Office" which means they're quick to settle in and become productive.

Andy

 

[Tadpole]

Heres an interesting thought. Given the Mac lovers view of "cheaper, more reliable, more flexible", does anyone wonder why almost no large commercial organisations run on exclusively or even predominantly Mac (heavy graphics / CAD users excepted)?

Service level monitoring and "Total Cost of Ownership" are the two key perfomance indicators for desktop IT - and almost every decent sized (10,000 unit plus) organisation goes Windows / Intel....what do you think the reasons are?

Red

Apple gives less of a software discount, Apple on the whole give somewhere in the region of 10% discount on a contract of £60,000 or less. Where as windows some places you'll get 40% and others give you the software for free, or a free multi-user licence. Providing you give them X amount of business. (The UK audit commission for example)

 

[davef]

I've used Macs regularly for about 18yrs (feel old now), I owned at least one as soon as I could afford one.

I'm writing this on a black macbook

Macs just work plain and simple.

the mac I'm using has an intel chipset and can run XP. In 14 year of owning a mac I've had one fatal error (SCSI error trashed the drive boot sector), in 3 months of running XP it falls over and sulks on a regular basis, about the only thing I use it for is updating the firmware on my mobile.

 

[weaver]

I think there are some things like religion, politics, sports teams and Apple/Microsoft that friends shouldn't discuss.

Especially if they intend to remain friends!

 

[Mikey P]

I just want a computer that works when I want it to work!

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[Mikey P]

I've used Macs regularly for about 18yrs (feel old now), I owned at least one as soon as I could afford one.

Off topic, I know, but is that a Welsh Springer in your avatar? Or a Cocker?

Ohmygodohmygod, I'm a dog-spotter!

 

[elrond]

A challenge:

get a mac, just out the box
get a windoze pc just out the box.
plug em both into a router or modem & connect to the interweeecher.
spend the next week of your life getting rid of virus, spyware, etc from the windows machine.

moral: if your goanna connect it to the big bad internet and don't want to spend the rest of your life , upgrading software, refreshing virus info, etc, etc.....buy a mac. if you enoy re-building your data, etc...buy a windoze pc.

 

[dave k]

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No No No, You've got it wrong.


Solaris Solaris Solaris Soalris Solaris Solaris

 

[dave k]

I agree with many of the points above. I've got 3 mac laptop's currently, 2 pc's and a Sun workstation at home.

I guess you pay for what you want. If you want the hasstle of worrying about spyware, windows updates, viruses etc, but still want to play games and use other apps for window's machines, get a PC.

But then again, when you just want something that works, it's no fuss, and you can do 99% of everything on the PC without any hasstle, get a mac. I use my PC almost exclusivly (sp) for playing games, and about nothing else. My mac gets all the proper work done.

In working in IT in 8 - 9 years, I've still not been in any position where my Mac was no use at work and I had to rely on a windows pc instead.. I use citrix mac client's successfully, and connect to work VPN's fine with cisco vpn software. I've even installed enterprise systems from my little macbook in the datacenter of large companies.

I suppose I'm biast because I really prefer Unix at every level. Windows is frustrating. unix is liberating.

And if one of you pipes up about beards and sandles, I'll have to post you a pic of my ugly mug, which will put you all off your bannock's

 

[dave k]

Whether Macs are better or worse is irrelevant. When the largest corporate software companies develop for the Windows GUI and almost the whole corporate world operates on MSOffice, interoperability and document compatibility is key. Whilst MAc try to be "different" they become "incompatible" and when you are dealing with tens of thousands off suppliers and millions of customers that equates to "pain". Better or worse is irrelevant. As I mentioned before. Whether Betamax is a better video format became irrelevant when all the video stores stocked was VHS.

Well, you have a point, My counter-point, is that I refuse to go along with big business - they frequently make bad decision's, and implement terrible software solutuion's. Nearly always because of the level of discounts they can get when purchasing 1000's of units. the amount of hasstle it is to keep 5000 pc's alive in a corperate network is very large - I've seen companies that have migrated to Linux wholesale, and seen the TCO drop by over 200%. People don't want to switch - esp big business - because change quite often scares people.

I think the best reason to therefore switch to a mac is `because big business's don't use them`

 

[moduser]

Funny but this sort of "debate" on which is the better platform occurs on all the major software based forums.

For my part it's sound engineering.

Now 5 or so years ago there was never really any choice. If you wanted to run MIDI or lock your application timings to hardware, only a Mac would do as the Wintel platform was terrible.

Today even companies who were Apple only - Digidesign (who produce the wonderful Protools - biased, me ) - now provide there software for Wintel PC's and proffesional studio - who need reliability because it's there livlihood - are happy to use it. Although I will stress they use top flight PC's not your £399 PC World special, and these machines are no cheaper than a Mac I assure you.

I do agree with Red that for the average user at home if all you want is surf, mail and a bit of office type stuff wintel is cheap and reliable enough providing you do all the sensible thing like firewall, anti virus, anti spam etc and keep these up todate.

For me I'll stick with Apple, thank you but it's not evryones choice.

Of course I can now run XP natively under OSX so if I have to use MS based applications I can.

Oh and on the subject of Linux - love it to bits and am even thinking of trashing an wintel old laptop I wombled from work years ago and putting Linux on it as theres some really interesting music software being written for Linux I'd like to play with

David