Walk into a PC store and “ask what Macs are better for compared to PCs and see what your average salesperson concedes,” Les Posen blogs for CyberPsych. “Once they’ve said ‘graphics‘ or some similar narrow usage confined to the creative, but not corporate enterprises, surprise them by asking,
“Why is it better than the PC for graphics?”
“Note what responses you get. Is it confined to better software choices on the Mac? A better user interface? Better graphics processor? Faster CPU? Really try to pin them down,” Posen writes.
“Then, when you’ve collected the answers, ask why a system that has these advantages isn’t suitable for corporate use. Then watch the squirming and justifications begin,” Posen writes. “Then, when all is said and done, and the salesperson has done their song and dance act of justification (you’ll know they’re clutching at straws when they cite ‘price‘ and ‘upgradibility,’ neither of which can be sustained as a differentiator in 2006), ask if the current Macs can also run Windows, including Vista.”
“Then prepare to watch cognitive dissonance in action,” Posen writes.
Posen writes., “You see, one of these days, not far away, Steve Jobs will know he has succeeded in his efforts to make the Mac a sensible choice for all kinds of IT use, when you walk into a computer store, and overhear the salesperson say: ‘You want a Windows PC? Are you sure? You know they’re only good for running games. The rest of the time you don’t want to trust them with your mission critical applications and data.’“
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “vitaboy” for the heads up.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
Why buy a Dell when Apple’s Intel-based computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003 (Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance)
Hmm. I don’t know much about the enterprise market, but Sharepoint isn’t anything special. Mambo, Postnuke, and others can handle that functionality. You don’t need SQL server when MySQL can handle just about anything.
Re: Ironyman
Macs come with a two-button-mouse as well – it’s called Mighty Mouse.
Only our computer system is so well designed it works with one button, too.
What’s your point – besides trolling?
Yup, I have 1 PC and 3 Macs at home.
PC at my household is for games only, nothing else.
PCs are really only good for games only because they are not available on the Mac, at least not yet.
BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots
SharePoint allows a manager to create a collaborative site in minutes with sophisticated features without knowing anything about programming–and the users can customize their own interfaces. Microsoft SQL Server competes with Oracle and Sybase, not MySQL. It is also possible to set up a Microsoft network so that any worker can use any workstation and still find all his files and settings available as if it were his dedicated workstation. Microsoft has securitiy problems, viruses, and all that crap, but there are corporate solutiosn for that, as long as IT doesn’t suffer from the “stay two versions behind” superstition. Apple doesn’t have the product line to compete in that arena.
My contention is that Microsoft and Apple don’t overlap too much. Microsoft could abandon the consumer market and still get rich. Apple can afford to ignore the enterprise and still get rich. I see Microsoft getting more and more out of touch with consumers, and I see Apple purposefully deciding not to market to the enterprise.
If you are a home user, a standalone professional, or a small business, Mac is the very best choice. If you are running a corporation with 10,000 employees, Mac is technically better, but Apple doesn’t have the product line you need-Microsoft is the choice.
I doubt anyone here is the CIO of a large corporation. That is why Microsoft is a poor choice for you. It’s just not designed for you. It’s designed for the enterprise. If your home computer runs Windows, you have the wrong computer, in my view. You realize that the first time you get an error message that tells you to notify the system administrator, and the only way you can talk to him is to look in a mirror. That’s enough to send you to the Apple Store, where in my opinion, you belong.
For consumers, very small businesses, standalone professionals, and, in the very near future gamersk–in short everyone here–Mac is the very best choice. it is only a matter of time before everyone realizes this.
I have a Windows PC, but when it dies, it won’t be replaced with Windows. I’m going all Mac as soon as Mono runs on Mac and I can undestand it (I use ASP.NET on my web site). Mac’s the best for me. There is a place for Windows, but not in my house. I don’t have an IT department. There is a place for Liinux, but not in my house, I wasn’t born on Mars and my native language isn’t PERL.
At home, Windows is just annoying. It needs to reboot more often than Imelda Marcos. Mac is the best for me.
For those that are ‘irony’ challenged.
I will attempt to COMPLETE an idea thread lead by LordRobin…
The same type of people who cling to their precious Windows, were the same people that dismissed the [Mac] mouse as a toy.
Those people— and we all remember who they are — proclaimed that ‘Real’ computer users learned a command interface. No wussy W.I.M.P for them, GUIs were for fags.
Now those exact same people happily point-and-click away on their Windows PCs.
And I only added… ‘with their two-button mouse’. To make a finer point of the fact that for years we had to endure mockery from ‘them’ — only to be ‘allegedly’ one-upped.
FYI, the two-button mouse was ‘invented’ by MS, only because Apple had a PATENT on the one-button mouse. Until MS claim they ‘invented’ contextual menus (see Smalltalk, then NEXTSTEP first), there was zero standard-use for the second button on Windows. It was chaos.
And FWIW, the one-button serves to force developers to make all program functions available via menu choices. Hence the MM design. Yes, it can be set in the Prefs to be a ‘2-button’ mouse. But, I’m absolutely certain that a new Mac will default to one-button.
Been a Mac User since Aug ’84 — and being called a troll at MDN. Now that’s some good irony.
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where is any data that something is running better on a mac or apple machine? pc’s are better just for the upgrade ability because there are always new games requireing more graphic intensive or processing capability, and you are very limited when upgrading a mac or apple machine.
when I read about a new pc or videocard or motherboard review there are always data describing why it is better than others. Why do the apple comercials tell which apple machines they are comparing to which or whose pc machines and where is the data to back up any claims? Most gamers I know have made upgrades to their stock machines either ram or videocard or processor, because stock machines are crappy.
I have used Macs since 1984 and suffered all the ups and downs. (yes I bought a 2vx!)
It seems like these are definitely the golden days and I hope they last. Over the last 10 years I have been in a position to influlence the purchase of IT in a small community organisation and now have over 20 Macs including an x serve that faultlessly provides database (FMPro), Mail (communigate Pro), calendaring (iCal), Web etc.
I’m not sure what MSPCs are gfood for these days but do know we hhave survived and prospered without them. Occasssionally I am faced with a problem that appears to have only a MS solution and maybe we would be more efficient with a better more integrated mail/calendar solution but it is hard to see how the trade off in terms of security is worth it.
Ken I had never heard of “Mono” until you mentioned it and wonder if Webobjects is the Apple – Mac solution to equal it?
You state “I’m going all Mac as soon as Mono runs on Mac and I can undestand it…”
I checked the website http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page and they describe it as a multiplatform opend source solution builder that does support Mac OSX. It looks intersting – now all we need to do is understand it.
Being a Mac user at home for almost 20 years, and having started a Consultancy Company with two collegues a few months ago, I’m more than happy to say that by using MacBook Pros, Open Source Software, we have no problems regarding viruses, costs for Software are nil, and on top of that we are able to run our business in a complete different way than our competitors…
Macs and Open Source Software are an absolute killing formula…
(luckily others haven’t woken up to that fact yet…)
Re: Ironyman
My apologies, I stand corrected. Guess, irony does not come across that well on the Internets.
Sorry again.
Move on, nothing to see here.
I would like to see the default for dunderhead’s description of the mac to switch from good for graphics to good for virus free emailing and web surfing.For the majority of home users currently usng PCs, this is all they need to do and the mac does it better.
Ken,
Although you are very knowledgeable on the Windows enterprise side of things, I think you should do further research before making comments such as this:
“It is also possible to set up a Microsoft network so that any worker can use any workstation and still find all his files and settings available as if it were his dedicated workstation. Microsoft has securitiy problems, viruses, and all that crap, but there are corporate solutiosn for that, as long as IT doesn’t suffer from the “stay two versions behind” superstition. Apple doesn’t have the product line to compete in that arena. “
Apple has this, it’s called OS X server, Open Directory, and LDAP. Users are managed using Workgroup Manager, part of server admin tools. User home directories are available when logging in and they have their same prefs no matter what workstation they use. In fact, Windows users can also be part of the Open Directory on OS X server. All this, withh far better security. Many Universities implement Mac OS X Server and Mac workstations and you would be surprised at the things they are able to do. In short, I don’t think Apple is too far behind in enterprise as far as product line goes, and the new Intel based Macs will help even more.
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/
Midnight,
Thx, but the whole 1-button/2-button mouse issue is more complicated than a hit-n-run post can possibly address.
Next time, I’ll post something with a bit more substance, like I did in my reply. And I’ll still try to be a smart ass!
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With an Intel Mac and Boot Camp, you’ve got the best of both worlds – you can use Windows for the things it’s better at (Photoshop, Office, games) and Mac OS X for the rest.
You people saying stuff like “I’ve been using Macs for 20 years” need to realize that your “Mac experience” prior to OS 10.1 is irrelevant.
What really matters at this point is your Intel Mac experience, and the only way that has interesting context is if you also have plenty of Windows XP experience to compare/contrast it to.
Gaming is the only reason I bought a PC a couple of months ago. The reasons a PC beats a console for my gaming are two: First of all you NEED a keyboard and mouse to be able to play first person shooters. You simply can’t aim with the same speed and accuracy with a gamepad. Secondly consoles lag in the graphics department within a year after introduction at the current rate of nVidia and ATI releases.
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An added bonus is that my gaming PC compiles gentoo way faster than my p3 800MHz web/mail/file/game server
You people saying stuff like “I’ve been using Windows since Win3.1” need to realize that your “Windows experience” prior to WinXP is irrelevant.
Can you see how fscking ridiculous that reads?
Why not claim that your experience at opening a tiny jar of marachino cherries will be irrelevant when you try to open a WalMart jar of Vlassics?
Will your experience of car driving be irrelevant, if you decide to learn to drive a truck?
Each of these ‘new’ skills is rooted in the past skills.
Give your head a shake. Or…
Go do some one-handed web surfing. It’s late, your mom won’t catch you.
Green Meanie, use your brain for a moment.
Imagine old farts muttering stuff like “well, back in Mac OS 9 you used to add a printer this way, let’s see if that works…”
or “a G3 Mac simply won’t be enough to run Mac OS X – I learned that when I tried to run Mac OS 10.0 back in the day.”
The computer world is all about experience with current technologies, not experience with outdated crusty stuff that nobody cares about anymore. It won’t help you troubleshoot Mac OS 10.4 if you were a wiz with HyperCard back in 1994. Jars of fruit have one moving part (the lid), and it hasn’t changed much in recent history. If you pull your head out of your butt for a moment and think, you might see that Mac OS has changed considerably more than jar lids in the past 20 years.
Prior to Mac OS X, the Mac OS was utterly different from what it is now; the only common elements are the menu bar at the top of the window and the whole “folders and documents” concept that Windows also has. Anything you know about Mac OS before the switch to X will only serve to amuse and confuse you at this point – excepting some keyboard shortcuts.
Prior to 10.1, Mac OS X was pretty much still in beta and was missing much of what makes it user-friendly today. It didn’t even have DVD playback. It was buggy and horribly slow. It wasn’t useful on a G3 computer.
10.2 brought the address book, Quartz Extreme, Windows network support that didn’t totally suck, massive performance boosts, a decent Finder, web services and so on. It worked great on my iBook 800Mhz G3. It was the first Mac OS X that was ready for mainstream consumers.
Relevant OS X experience really started with Mac OS 10.2, and I was being generous by including Mac OS 10.1.
[Relevant OS X experience really started with Mac OS 10.]
You’d be almost completely correct, except 10.2 also needed drivers for some things. An Epson inkjet printer I had wasn’t plug-n-play. (It was soon releaved of duty — one ink cart per month, yikes!). And a rarely use Zip drive. But, my Brother laser just plugged in, and found its drivers under 10.3
Yes, 10.0 and 10.1 would be fairly foreign to someone that hadn’t been using Mac OS up to 9.2. Altho’ they’d probably recognize: windows; folders; menus; shortcuts; aliases; and a few other things. And if they did, they might be able to ‘muddle’ thru’, no?
So yes, I agree. OSX wasn’t very ‘Mac’ like till 10.2.
BTW, sorry for being an ass.
[Yes, 10.0 and 10.1 would be fairly foreign to someone that hadn’t been using Mac OS up to 9.2]
To clarify…
They’d likely have known what Apple intended to do with OSX, rather than carried over knowledge.
With an Intel Mac and Boot Camp, you’ve got the best of both worlds – you can use Windows for the things it’s better at (Photoshop, Office, games) and Mac OS X for the rest.
Nick, where’d you get the idea that using Photoshop in Windows was better? It’s horrible! Some things that work in Mac versions don’t work at all in Windows versions (ever tried to nudge a layer?), and keyboard shortcuts are quite difficult as the key corresponding to the Mac Command key is the farthest out, making one handed shortcuts difficult if not impossible. I don’t have to frequently save images I’m working on either, for fear of losing my efforts when the computer crashes, as Windows users do. I’m guessing you don’t use Photoshop professionally.
Green Meanie:
I agree with your recent couple of posts. Sorry to escalate the hostility earlier. I’m hating this 100 degree weather. =)
neomonkey:
Photoshop runs about three times faster in Windows, unless you’ve got one of those old “PowerPC” Macs.
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neomonkey:
If you want to see the tests where Windows XP runs Photoshop 3 times faster than Mac OS X does:
http://www.barefeats.com/bootcamp.html
This won’t change until next year when Adobe releases Photoshop CS3 as a universal binary.
This will be one of the only things keeping people from buying an Intel Core 2 Duo workstation Mac next month.
[I’m hating this 100 degree weather. =)]
Yeah, my first post was at 11:48pm my time. It was 28˚C (85˚F ?) — in my bedroom, with two fans! (Not allowed to sully exterior look of bldg with AC) My brain was nearly ‘pancake batter’
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