Comments on: Switcher switches back

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:56:20 +0000

That’s an amazing story. The kind of thing that Apple promos are made of.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 30 May 2006 06:29:42 +0000

After 8+ years of running my wife’s medical business (12 employees, 15 Macs & 2 PCs) my unplanned downtime for a Mac hosted Database has been only 3.45 hours. Hospital IT tells me that this cannot be true. Were I running it on PCs I would agree.

I can’t believe the number of horror stories I hear from other practices. One local physician’s office was down (6 PCs completely compromised!) for four days due to viruses. Luckily (and $1,800 in tech support fees later) they recovered his database. But for four days the patients that arrived did so without his knowing why. He had no access to a calendar, the patients records or any PC based services. Who can afford run a business like that? All I can say is to each his own. I prefer to focus on getting work done, not on keeping systems running.

Does anyone really care that he bought a Dell?

PS: I just installed an iMac with Windows preloaded so i can kill the two PCs. We need Windows about 45 minutes a week. Boot Camp works just fine, thank you, and I get another Mac too!

By: Hans J.

Hans J. — Mon, 29 May 2006 22:54:00 +0000

And Bootcamp is but the most primitive version version of such software.

By: tony martin

tony martin — Mon, 29 May 2006 21:54:49 +0000

With Boot Camp, there is no reason to make a switch back, for work or not. Having one machine that can do everything is the way to go.

By: Hans J.

Hans J. — Mon, 29 May 2006 21:51:53 +0000

I think Mike is forgetting one obscure thing. Today the Mac is dual bootable with Windows and a virtual windows machine is nearing completion. Translates to running virtual PC without the loss of speed we had to live with until now.

Also some other techniques that are really neat and can be used to run windows software on a Mac are clearly wisible on the horizon.

So what ever people are thinking, I think now is not just the right time to switch from Mac to win.

Hans

By: Mike Peter Reed

Mike Peter Reed — Mon, 29 May 2006 13:13:27 +0000

I think it depends where you work. Perhaps what I should have said is that Windows boxes demand work: Labor, toil, slog, drudgery, exertion, effort, industry, service; informal grind, sweat, elbow grease. And I should know, since my dayjob is looking after Windows boxes. Of course I could use my Mac at my place of employment - but it would be against policy, it would be viewed dimly by The Man who has a huge investment in 80,000 desktops and 2000 servers - all running Windows. It wouldn’t be worth the bother of trying to explain to The Man that there are zero viruses in the wild for Mac, or that Mac does Oracle, or Mac does ODBC, or Mac does MS Office, or Mac does UNIX, or Mac does Linux, or Mac does Outlook, or Mac does ACID2, or Mac does PDF, or Mac does Virtualisation, etc, etc, etc.
Like I say, I find it easier to use my Mac, my way, on my own professional endeavours, away from The Man. I’ll leave The Man to have his lunches with Microsofties and his buzzword bingo from the business analysts du jour.

:-)

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 29 May 2006 12:29:24 +0000

Do you think that work really “Deamnds” a Windows box these days? I was lured to the Mac with promises that I could not only survive but thrive in a Windows workplace.

Those promises turned out to be true for me.

By: Mike Peter Reed

Mike Peter Reed — Mon, 29 May 2006 09:49:50 +0000

I gave up reading after Aki’s first sentance - he gave up his Mac for *work* reasons. Personally, I keep my Mac for fun and serendipity (and some enjoyable professional productivity). Of course “work” is going demand a Windows box.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 29 May 2006 01:30:26 +0000

Jody, if you want exactly the set of equipment and software that Apple sells you, Apple is very price competitive. If, however, you feel you don’t need every feature, or want to trade a few around, Dells tend to be much cheaper. Dell has orders of magnitude more flexibility in their pricing and configurations. In addition, if you’re not in a hurry to buy, you can track Dell’s price fluctuations daily, buy coupons on eBay, or find many other ways to save a few hundred dollars off the initial price you find at dell.com.

That being said, I personally still prefer the Macs even though they’re always more expensive than what I’d buy if I bought from Dell.

By: Jody Klymak

Jody Klymak — Sun, 28 May 2006 23:55:44 +0000

I’m going to buy a computer for work soon, and based on this post, I went comparison shopping. He must have got his Dell somewhere else than I was looking (dell.com). A similarly equipped 15.4″ screened Dell (Latitude D820) was $2800.10 compared to $2799 for the Mac. Plus the Dell is 0.6 lbs heavier, and 0.4″ thicker. A similar Inspiron is $2480, but was a pound heavier. Hardly compelling reasons to switch back to PCs.