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487 Comments
- Urkel, on 04/11/2008, -15/+165Look, I love my Macbook and everything but holding on to these outdated switcher-myths just make Mac users look stupid. So can we please put to rest the 1996 argument that "Macs are easier for beginners"?
It's 2008 and 95% of the population knows enough about PC's that they can hop on windows and open the 2 programs that they spend their entire work day in. If they can't then they're not qualified for their job. - h0er, on 04/11/2008, -7/+74Those arguements are lame!
- axemachine, on 04/11/2008, -2/+55I would like him to explain to me how "Vendor Negotiation Power" works when you only can buy from one place!?
- brstilson, on 04/11/2008, -8/+57Macs are PCs. They just run a different Operating System.
- tuxthepenguin, on 04/11/2008, -0/+474. "Smart Users"..... hahahahaha You have obviously never worked in IT.
- briLo, on 04/11/2008, -10/+545. The Cool Factor - Are you ***** kidding me?!?? You should be set on fire and thrown into a pit of oil for being an ignorant turd!!! It's a god damned business, it's there to make cash, not buy what looks neat! If that is the case, broaden your horizons, there's a hell of a lot of hardware with greater detail to fluidity and design than apple my friend.
- HyperVirt, on 04/11/2008, -7/+48I hate to say this, but Macs have NEVER been designed for the enterprise. This is not a target market Apple currently wants. Both Windows and Linux have enterprise ready client applications and management software. Apple...not so much.
- serif69, on 04/11/2008, -3/+42I'm a lifelong Mac user, and this article is just utter *****. None of the reasons listed are actually good reasons to even think about using Macs in an enterprise environment. None of the IT guys I know would ever switch to a platform because of the "coolness factor". How about comparing user management features, ease-of-use on the IT end, rollout costs, upgrade cycles? You know, the things that actually matter in an enterprise environment?
- kmotiv1, on 04/11/2008, -10/+48This Mac vs. PC war has got to stop. Both platforms do certain things better than the other one. Face it.
- achacha, on 04/11/2008, -17/+52Macs are hard for advanced users, thus has been my experience working in tech companies. Unless they have a Mac background then converting people is not easy at all, and honestly IT does not need yet another OS to support, one is more than enough considering all the hardware and external issues that clutter the day. If someone must have a mac, then they must have the knowledge needed to get it on the network and fix it when it breaks, such is life.
And the most important aspect for me... nothing on mac compares to Microsoft Visual C++ Studio... nothing, which is why I don't write anything for the mac. - houndeyex, on 04/11/2008, -9/+381. You want to screw over your company by making them shell out to a very closed-platform provider.
Check. - pintomp3, on 04/11/2008, -2/+301. Vendor Negotiating Power
he says he likes his choices, but with apple you have one vendor and a limited line of computers. how much negotiating power can you bring to the table when you have one vendor? being able play dell against hp against lenovo is negotiating power.
2. Better for Beginners
how much of your workforce has never used a computer before? he acknowledges in the article this is a moot point. "Take someone learning both a PC and a Mac, and they will learn a Mac faster," he says. "But take a PC user and introduce them to a Mac, then everything they knew is completely wrong." completely wrong? based on what?
3. Safety in Low Malware Numbers
any decent company has protections in place. it's the home users who are particularly vulnerable.
4. Smart Users Benefit the Company
there is little evidence that using a mac makes you smarter
5. The Cool Factor
wtf? - srodolff, on 04/11/2008, -6/+33Quote from article...."Moving that many people over to Mac hardware would cost at least 20 percent more,"
They forgot the reasons not to........... - inactive, on 04/11/2008, -17/+43Everytime I see the word Macs, I think about BigMacs.
- lnxfi, on 04/11/2008, -8/+33Who cares. Use what you prefer. Macs are not better than PCs, PCs are not better than Macs. Ubunto can eat a pineapple for all I care. Also, Pineapples are not better or worse than Apples. Both can be thrown through a window and that's what it is folks. Have a nice day.
- slayersotaku, on 04/11/2008, -17/+40So the average wage slaves needs a 2k+ Mac to run the internet and general office programs compared to a 500+ PC. That makes great financial sense. Also you'll have the cool trendy office and those guys upstairs will be so jealous. Mac is overkill for daily tasks. Unless your doing Video or Desktop publishing stick with a cheapo PC.
- ukblacknight, on 04/11/2008, -0/+23If you mentioned #5 to your bosses, they're not going to take you seriously ever again.
- Balanced, on 04/11/2008, -5/+25First, MAC is a Media Access Control. When we're talking about the computer, it's a Mac.
Second, if your support staff can't obtain basic competency on more than one OS, you've got bigger problems to deal with. - RonBurgundy76, on 04/11/2008, -1/+20This Idiot, giving the CEO those reasons at a meeting: (insert article here)
CEO: You're fired. - digitalarcanum, on 04/11/2008, -4/+22even though this is a massive waste of my time, I'm going to refute every point of this article:
1. Vendor Negotiation Power
- I called ***** before I even read this portion of the article, then lol'd heartily when I did: You have no vendor negotiation power on a mac: the only people who make mac hardware is, as you might have guessed, Apple. So there's no competition, no cheaper parts, nothing. relying on a single hardware manufacturer and locking yourself into their proprietary version of Unix is suicide. Additionally, he's making his comparisons to Vista. any corporation worth their salt doesn't use vista in a corporate environment, and won't until service pack 1 rolls around and server 2008 comes out and is somehow better than server 2003.
2. Better for beginners
He refutes this point in the article itself: "the CIO acknowledges that most of his employees are not starting fresh, so the advantage in usability of Macs over Windows system is mostly a moot point." the users already know how to use one operating system to get stuff done, why are you going to make them learn something new? it's a hassle to them and to you. while OSX has less of a learning curve, you and your support group are going to have to deal with trouble calls for even the simplest of problems as users get use to working in a new OS.
3.Safety in low malware numbers
again, any corporation worth their salt implements firewalls, antivirus, access controls (to where even if a hacker accessed a corporate computer, their rights wouldn't get them far) and implements regular password changes. minus the antivirus you have to do all the same things on the mac platform: hackers don't magically stop attacking if you're on a mac. I mean, look at the pwn 2 own competition: that macbook air was hacked in 2 minutes flat.
4. Smart Users Benefit the company
if anything the ability to hide the technology (in a terminal) will make it harder for your support team to do over-the-phone support for your users
"okay, open a termina and type $ really long command with crazy parameters"
"uh oh I think I misspelled something."
"type $same command"
"I missed something again"
Having stuff available in a GUI interface such as a temporary files cleaner, a defrag utility, device manager, etc, makes it both easier to trouble shoot and easier for the users to resolve issues without impacting productivity by having to make a support call to get the machine in good working order.
Also: "There is a real culture around the Mac," he says. "People that are Mac users talk to other Mac users, and really learn about their Macs." this contradicts the whole "It just works!" mac philosophy. and the CIO acts as though there aren't PC enthusiasts who do the same thing, when the fact is that more PC users hangout and teach each other how to do things than mac users do.
5. The cool factor
your company isn't paying you to make the computer look cool, the company is paying you to make the computers perform the necessary functions that the particular users need. I think it's funny how he likens PC's to a chevy impala and a mac to a luxury car at the beginning of the article, when the truth of the matter is that the PC is more like a choice of what kind of car do you want (efficient, muscle car, no frills, luxury like the mac) while the mac is more like a honda civic: looks pretty on the outside, but has no pickup and go on the inside, or at best the same amount of horsepower as a PC does.
This CIO need a trip from the bastard operator from hell. - phoomp, on 04/11/2008, -0/+17Trust me ... spread sheets are no more fun in a Mac than they are in Windows.
- inactive, on 04/11/2008, -2/+18The author seems to assume that the PC is limited to windows only. Why do tech blogs hire technical writes who know nothing about tech? ffs
- bradleyland, on 04/11/2008, -0/+15This is because there are two types of computer users:
* procedural
* conceptual
Procedural users know how to accomplish tasks. They are the assembly-line cogs of the knowledge-worker populace. The conceptual learners understand the operation of the computer in a more general sense, and can therefore discover the steps to complete a task without having to be told.
The key here is that a procedural learner will face a steep learning curve when switching, regardless of how intuitive the new system is. The procedure will differ, and that is all that matters. The conceptual learner will also face a learning curve, but the more intuitive the new system is, the quicker they will adapt.
The key is to hire conceptual learners, not procedural ones. - lostarchitect, on 04/11/2008, -3/+17actually, if that;s all you're doing you can use a mac mini. which is not "2K+", it's $600.
- Shadowgamers, on 04/11/2008, -2/+15'Finally, Macs are just cool technology, Weider says. The aluminum cases and slick desktop interface make a statement. '
Another thing that makes a statement is trying to mod your Mac case without voiding the warrenty :V - thecheatah, on 04/11/2008, -0/+13As an ubuntu user, I feel embarrassed by your comment.
- OpaqueMurdock, on 04/11/2008, -14/+26I hear you, but I think you may be overestimating the ability of the average computer "user". I still find myself amazed at how little even people who use computers every day know. I had to send a document to a financial institution a couple of weeks back so I scanned it and emailed it... They called me and asked if I could fax it because they (yes she implied several people had tried) could not figure out how to print the document since it was 8.5 x 14! So in other words, they knew the fax machine would just "deal" with it.
People that understand computers have a hard time stepping back from them and having empathy for those that still struggle. In a lot of ways its like being iliitterate... people have learned how to hide it for fear of being ridiculed. But do be fooled the number of people out there using computers that can't deal with a small "curveball" thrown at them is HUGE.
And yes, thats still a small advantage in the mac OS in my opinion. - akilleen, on 04/11/2008, -0/+11"Oh, and get an Apple!"
Isn't that part of eating healthy? - Zippo, on 04/11/2008, -1/+12It's true... most people only barely know how to operate their work computers... they know how to operate the program(s) they need to do their jobs and are terrified of trying anything else. My mother is a prime example of this.
- thecheatah, on 04/11/2008, -1/+11If you have done ANY kind of use interface programming, "I think you may be overestimating the ability of the average computer "user"." is what you live by. People are DUMB AS *****. No really. It takes A LOT of effort to make your UI fool proof. Even then some idiot will be confused by it.
- lostarchitect, on 04/11/2008, -5/+15video editing also. final cut pro is excellent.
- Altotus, on 04/11/2008, -4/+14Nah, there's nothing hard about Macs for advanced users. It's really hardest for sheltered users -- those that know precisely one-way to do something and neither have the experience nor understanding about what they are doing to adapt to something else. Truly advanced users don't fit in that category; for them, it's like driving a car -- it might take a few minutes to locate the controls and get a feel for the clutch, but that's about it.
Also, comparing Mac to Windows is a little naive, a better comparison would be UNIX/Linux in general to Windows. If you come from a discipline that's traditionally based on research computing / supercomputing, etc. Windows is quite a shock, whereas OS X is much less so.
As for Visual C++, it's absolutely fantastic for writing Windows C++ apps, but it's otherwise a pretty mediocre IDE overall, and their C++ dialect can be very annoying if you've grown up on ISO standard C++ (again, that applies mostly to people writing scientific and engineering applications rather than business applications).
I wouldn't discount VMWare too much. My company replaced my HP notebook with a Macbook Pro last year (I'm in bioinformatics and a UNIX-like environment was necessary and, at the time they preferred to support Mac over Linux on HP laptops), and really, VMWare runs Windows XP on it at least as well, if not better, as XP ran native on the HP. - shark615, on 04/11/2008, -1/+10Wow what compnay do you work for that allows end users to determine what PC is bought?
- endus, on 04/11/2008, -5/+141.) So we give up the vendor negotiation power we have now in terms of hardware and software support in favor of a more expensive proprietary platform because of a pipe dream about Mac someday being a competitive enterprise OS?
2.) Not when the platform offers absolutely no enterprise management features it isn't. Someone having a little easier time clicking on something doesn't make up for the fact that they will be dealing with computers that are hosed because of a lack of features for enforcing a uniform desktop, a lack of any centralized authentication infrastructure, etc.
3.) Somewhat true but if the article's vision is realized then this isn't a long term benefit.
4.) LOL...so by hiding the technology from the user they will become more tech saavy? This is probably the most ridiculous point on the list. The fact is that non tech saavy users are that way because they don't care to learn the technology. They don't want to know how to fix the networking on their machine. They don't care about customizing things. They want to sit down, do their work, and leave the machine. The complete absence of enterprise management features on the Mac platform makes delivering those services impossible.
5.) Silly. This article is in CIO magazine? Companies are in business to make money, not to look cool.
This list is a joke. - Shadowgamers, on 04/11/2008, -2/+11I went on a Mactop trying to fix this customers wireless connectivity problem and he had to give me a mini seminar on how to use it :[
- pauldavis, on 04/11/2008, -7/+16Quit playing Minesweeper, eat something healthy, and for god's sake--get some exercise. (Oh, and get an Apple!)
- mrtrevin, on 04/11/2008, -1/+10From your friendly neighborhood IT professional.... PLEASE DON'T.
Macs are fine for personal use, but in a business environment heavily utilizing exchange and its calenders, Entourage and iCal just don't cut it. You begin to have the few mac users in the company complain that your email solution is not sufficient and the entire company needs to change. At least Ubuntu has Evolution, that allows for more seamless integration. - controlguy, on 04/11/2008, -0/+8But what works better? I'm a fairly technical person (computer science), so I can appreciate the quality of a program's runtime, and I haven't used any software on a Mac that doesn't run just as well on a PC.
- inactive, on 04/11/2008, -4/+12I see you didn't read the article
- controlguy, on 04/11/2008, -3/+10Anything that I need to do. I can do with either platform (though the abundance of applications for the PC its convenient). Eye candy is not important to me, but price is.
Can anyone point out something useful that either I can *only* do on a Mac or, at least, do more efficiently on a Mac than on a PC? Do you think the benefits outweigh the higher price tag? - rudy23, on 04/11/2008, -1/+8There is a world outside Visual Studio You know
- ElectroBot, on 04/11/2008, -0/+7On the other hand, some UIs look like they were designed by an alien species.
- iloveazngurlzs, on 04/11/2008, -3/+10The five reasons they stated are arguements against getting a mac.
4. Smart Users benefit the company.
---It talks about hiding the technology and making the machine fun to use. How is that a smart user? - HolyChimp, on 04/11/2008, -0/+7Developing iPhone apps... That's the only thing I could think of off the top of my head.
- inactive, on 04/11/2008, -1/+8You know what's funny, Windows has Minesweeper and Solitaire as default standalone games.
Mac has Chess. - RetlawST, on 04/11/2008, -5/+12Why can't the average wage slave use a 500+ mini?
- Szandor, on 04/11/2008, -0/+6Other than your comment being completely idiotic, what is -really- sad is that you use AOL.
- mwalker05, on 04/11/2008, -0/+6since you avoided telling us what kind of IT work you do and what company you do it for, i am assuming it was intentional because its not really so much an IT job as it is being "the guy who works on the computers" at a small business.
- garvallagh, on 04/11/2008, -2/+8go easy on him there are only 10 people in his office
- edwartica, on 04/11/2008, -0/+6I just bought a new laptop running XP pro. For a Mac with the same specs, I would of had to shell out an extra 800 bucks. Granted, I got a really, really good buy on this machine, but still...
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