“An excited Claire S. Le Goues ’06 purchased the 12-inch, aluminum Macintosh (Mac) Powerbook computer using funds from her summer job. But Le Goues, a computer science major, didn’t earn the money for her new machine by slaving away at an investment banking firm or scooping ice cream for whiney children,” Matthew S. Lebowitz reports for The Harvard Crimson.
“Last summer, Le Goues made the 25-minute drive each day from her home in Cortlandt Manor, NY to a research lab in Hawthorne, NY, where she worked from nine to five as a programmer for International Business Machines (IBM). IBM is one of several producers of personal computers (PCs) that use the Microsoft Windows operating system. These Windows PCs are the main competition for Macs… it was the actions of a fellow IBM employee that finally convinced Le Goues to make the shift last summer,” Lebowitz reports. “One of her co-workers brought a Powerbook with him to work each day, insisting on using it for his work despite the fact that he was employed by the maker of a competing product. ‘I saw that level of devotion, and I was like, ‘Okay – that’s really convincing to me.””
Lebowitz reports, “Le Goues also says that Macs do not require the type of intense security measures that are necessary to protect a Windows PC. On a Windows PC, ‘You have to have all these spyware detectors and run an antivirus program every three days,’ she says. ‘It’s a lot of nonsense.’ She describes these measures as ‘voodoo’ and asserts that ‘there are no viruses for Macs.’ Evoking the image of a full-screen error message familiar to many PC users, she says, ‘There’s no blue screen of death on the Mac…It doesn’t freeze—nothing, it just works.'”
Lebowitz reports, “According to statistics obtained from Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS), only 32 percent of computers purchased by the Harvard community through the university’s discount computer purchase program this year were Macs—less than half of the number of Windows system purchases. However, Mac usage has been on the rise in recent years. Total purchases of Apple systems increased by 1 percent in Fiscal Year (FY) 2003, 11.9 percent in FY 2004, and 14 percent in FY 2005. A longitudinal examination of the current senior class further elucidates the rise in popularity of Macs among Harvard students. In the fall of their freshman year, only 9 percent of the class of 2005 owned Macs. But by this fall, that number had more than doubled, to 21 percent.”
Full article here.
Well, I went to Harvard, graduating back in ’91, and I have to say, Macs were quite prevalent back then. The Mac labs were very good. The school purchasing program displayed Macs on par with the exposure given to PCs. I’m sure the ratio of Macs has always been quite strong on campus.
However, the Business School didn’t like Macs, as they required their incoming students to buy PC laptops. I remember lugging my SE into a final exam to take the test, and I had to rewrite the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model into Excel so I could take the test, where the PC users were just given a disk with the app on it.
I`m scared. Somebody is working hard on new Mac virus. I remember to well lots of virus on the Mac around 1990. I know OSX is different, but still, this is definitely tempting for the wrong people
JR,
Unix (the code behind the OS X GUI) has been around for at least 40 years and presently manipulates financial data for some of the largest institutions, governments, and businesses in the world. It’s the ultimate target and hasn’t been compromised yet without relying on operator stupidity and cooperation. I doubt that it will be.
The girl in question would like to note that the majority of my discussion with the reporter was regarding my problems with *Windows.* IBM no longer makes personal computers (though I was always a fan of the ThinkPad), and actually makes the chips in some of the Mac machines. The reporter blew up the whole IBM connection for whatever reason, when it was really a small part of our conversation. My primary goal in getting a Mac was to get away from XP and to get to OSX, which I love, and which is far more convenient for me as a programmer, particularly at Harvard, where all our work is done in a UNIX environment (God bless Terminal).
A point which I think was lost in the translation.
That being said, another thing I pointed out during the interview that never made it to press is that the proportion of the CS department sporting macs is really large – larger than the proportion of the student body as a whole. Harvard has a great network and excellent support for Macs – equivalent to their support for Windows machines. I recommend one to everyone who asks.