[Leica] New Apple software, Aperture

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

It's an interesting question that I've heard discussed by a variety of
folks. Let's see if I can summarize:

1) businesses often have custom applications that are directly tied
either to Windows directly or to IE 6. (FIMA is an example of this -
their site demands IE 6 which only runs on Windows and I ran into a
site at USA Swimming that does the same - it's arrogant and
user-hostile for a hetergeneous community but it's fine for
Microsoft.)

2) businesses want a second source and there isn't one for Macs - it's
Apple or nothing

3) you'll note that traditional serial and parallel ports are still on
every PC out there but not on Macs. Many businesses won't make the
transition to USB, probably for economic reasons, so obsolete
technology still hangs around

4) as in the old days when it was written "No one ever lost their job
by going with IBM", well the same corporate mentality still is there
but substitute Microsoft and Dell.

My son is a techie who specializes in Macs (our family have used Macs
since the "fat Mac" and we've had a long series of machines). Tom
notes that he's seeing more and more Mac servers. There are still
"issues" around OS X Server but it's a pretty nifty piece of software
and it's getting better.

The move to open standards may also help the Mac in the business space
as will the shift to Intel. It will be possible to run a NATIVE
(non-emulated) Windows environment on Mac hardware at full-speed,
rather then 1/8th to 1/4th speed. That will make a difference, I
think. Microsoft won't care as long as they get the bucks for the
license and Intel will sell a couple of processors or more.

So I'm not holding my breath that Macs are going to take over the
business world. Too many Windows applications. But at least there are
good reasons to buy a Mac:

1) good user interface

2) a real security model to help contain viruses (as of the time I'm
writing this there's no way for a virus that enters into a user's
account to take over the entire machine - called a "root kit" -
without the user being explicitly involved, entering passwords, etc)

3) elegant hardware design

4) an elegant software design for making programs (the Cocoa
programming environment)

5) state of the art peripheral support

But that's my two cents. The other observations in this also seem spot
on. But, for most individuals, the simple lack of viruses and spy-ware
on the Mac are important.

Thanks for listening,

Adam

On 10/20/05, PHC <paul@paulhardycarter.com> wrote:
> It's interesting - I've got no idea how to find unbiased statistics -
> but I'd guess there are practically no Macs in the corporate world (if
> you exclude creatives, and maybe execs with PowerBooks) but a quite
> high proportion of small business and home users.
>
> If this is true (what do you think?) I'd say it reflects the fact that
> most IT Administration courses that people attend are actually
> Microsoft Administration courses, so when the time comes for the next
> round of purchases they buy what they know.