“Over the past few months, I’ve put aside my PC and switched over to a Macintosh full time. I wanted to take a closer look at the viability of the Mac for business use, something more and more users are considering. I settled on a MacBook, since I need portability and the MacBook Pro is too heavy to carry on a regular basis. I ran the latest version of Mac OS, 10.4.9, and installed Windows XP with Service Pack 2 under both Parallels Workstation and Apple’s Boot Camp beta,” Michael Gartenberg reports for Computerworld.
“The Mac of today is not the Mac of old. The benefits outweigh the hassles,” Gartenberg reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “qka” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Please note that nearly all of the “hassles” that Gartenberg lists are caused by proprietary Microsoft products and formats, not by Apple. These artificial fences – that Microsoft has erected in an attempt keep the sheep in the pen – can be overcome, as Gartenberg explains in his article.
Here is another very important business switch…Microsoft incompetence and greed is working wonders..
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=windows_and_linux_pcs&articleId=298572&taxonomyId=64&intsrc=kc_feat
And in line with Microsoft greed how about this quote from MS chief operating officer Kevin Turner:
“I see one thing in FY08; I see money,” said Turner. “I see monetization. I can smell it and hear it, see it, OK, because this is the year that we’re going to monetize that innovation.”
Unbelievable.
Computerworld has begun to see the light and start publishing more reports on Apple in business. Like many companies, it’s breaking free of its Microsoft shackles, along with its FUD and intimidation tactics.
However, Computerworld still publishes articles from Mike Elgan, who manically keeps writing about Apple despite his total ignorance of the Apple way.
Hey, Gartenberg actually left Jupiter to go work for Microsoft for all of two or three weeks, before quitting and returning to Jupiter.
I wonder what really happened.
“MacBook Pro is too heavy to carry on a regular basis”
wha? the guy crippled or something?
I’ve said it for decades, Macs in business just make sense.
I have been using a Mac as my primary work station for nearly 2 years in a VERY PC-ingrained environment – to the point where the IT department only supports FrontPage as a web authoring tool and WON’T support Parallels. Fortunately, for some of the legacy M$ products I must occasionally use (like FP and MSAccess) I can easily use RDC to get into a nearby XP or Vista box to which I’ve granted myself remote privileges. I’m using FP less and less now that I have DreamWeaver 3. Sadly, the need for me to get into MSAccess will probably persist for some time, darn it.
Sent him a not explaining that the 15″ MacBook Pro is only 5.4 ounces vs. the 13″ MacBook weight of 5.3. I’m pretty sure he was thinking 17″ in his head but thought his readers would want a clarification.
“I used the Mac version of Microsoft Office for collaborating with the rest of the organization, and it mostly worked out OK. But a PowerPoint presentation I had spent hours on couldn’t be viewed properly on Windows machines. And launching applications was slow, since the current operating system isn’t a universal binary and so relies on Apple’s Rosetta to run Office via emulation.”
“operating system isn’t a unversal binary”????
I think he should have said “since the current Microsoft Office application isn’t a universal binary…”
“15” MacBook Pro is only 5.4 ounces vs. the 13″ MacBook weight of 5.3″
Ounces? Talk about your feather weight.
I carry my 15″ MacBook Pro everywhere. Weight has never been an issue.
And I’m not the world’s most athetical guy… (like in The Kinks song….)
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The artificial MS fences MDN dismisses are no different from the ones Apple erects to keep its iTunes customers inside THEIR pen. They’re real and worth considering.
This article is SHOOOOOORT and useless, but the three criticisms are valid concerns for switchers:
1 – Mac options are limited. Especially in the mobile line, as he mentions, where size/weight are an important personal consideration. Either it’s gonna work for you or it’s not. If you can’t lift it, or your fingers are too fat for the keyboard, it’s going to make your life harder, not easier.
2 – Safari ain’t great. Whether it’s Apple’s fault or *everyone else’s* for adhering to common-use standards instead of strict web standards, it’s a problem that we all have to deal with every day.
3/4 – Yes, MS has crippled their Office functionality. It’s sad, but if you require seamless integration with the rest of the world, and aren’t willing/able to spend a good deal of your time settling for “pretty good” or fine-tuning your configuration, then you’re up a creek. Until Apple or someone else produces a good alternative, this is the #1 red mark against switching to a Mac.
@PC Realist. Please don’t for one minute equate Microsoft’s practises with those of Apple.
MS is built on proprietory everything designed to maintain its monopoly nothing more.
Apple is being built on open standards. iTunes use AAC an open format. As with Mpeg4 H264 video formats. Micrososoft? Uses WMA and WMV, closed proprietory formats.
You are are just another FUD monger.
Ooops PC Apologist.
Get confused with all these sad names.
Macaday –
The problem discussed in the article isn’t w/ MS document formats — it’s with interoperability between versions of the same format (specifically mentioned Powerpoint for Mac and Windows).
Apple’s open standard AACs are locked w/ their proprietary, unlicensed DRM (FairPlay). MS’s proprietary WMAs are locked with their freely-licenseable DRM. How is this different?
Apple’s open standard AACs are locked w/ their proprietary, unlicensed DRM (FairPlay).
Not entirely correct, Apple sells as well AAC tracks without any DRM in place.
Apple is even pushing to remove DRM from all tracks and EMI titles are now sold in iTunes without DRMs.
Even if you buy a track currently only existing with DRM, the legally bought track can be burned into a CD without DRM thence played anywhere.
Microsoft does not do/allow any of the above.
deleted –
Aye, a small number of iTMS tracks are unprotected. Vast majority are still locked down.
As I’ve said before, it’s true you can burn to CD, wasting enormous amounts of data space, physical space, and physical resources to get around their DRM. There are also equally wasteful ways of getting around WMA DRM.
My point, before being hijacked by tunnel-vision Apple boosters, was that MDN’s take bashes MS’s tactic of creating “artificial fences” to keep people off Mac, but ignores Apple’s similar tactics.
@PC Apologist,
Apple is removing DRM from their tracks as they’re allowed to (EMI now, Indies next; the rest of the labels should come into line eventually). Further, Apple’s DRM usage rights are so generous as to be unrestrictive to the vast majority of people.
As for MS’s DRM being freely-licensable, tell that to the abandoned PlaysForSure partners. Zune music will play on no other device than a Zune.
Well, PC Apologist, there is very clear difference. Apple adopted AAC (a standard) for its iTMS. Since music labels didn’t want to budge, it developed FairPlay DRM to lock the files with. As soon as it was allowed, Apple begun selling DRM-free AAC (standard) files. I have plenty of music I bought through iTMS, without any DRM, playing on my Sony-Ericsson Walkman Phone. That argument no longer holds water as tightly as before. Apple’s initiative is clear: liberate music from the shackles of DRM. EMI’s sales of DRM-free music show clearly that this is the right way. Now, it is up to the labels: do they want to sell with DRM, only for iPods, or DRM-free, for the whole world of devices (including crappy $20 models coming from China). In the Windows world (Rhapsody, Napster, etc.), there’s still the restriction of PlayForSure – if you have an iPod (or a Zune), you’re out of luck.
Apple had erected the fences around the iTunes eco-system to protect it while it’s growing. Now that it’s a strong adult and can defend itself against predators, the fences are coming down.
Meanwhile, MS’s fences are being replaced by concrete walls. Exchange is IT industry’s heroin. There are perfectly viable competitive solutions (from proprietary, like Lotus Notes, to open-source), but the corporate IT is hooked and in need of rehab.
That Auto Warehousing Corp. story demonstrates that you can still break free.
Tom –
Everyone will remove DRM as “allowed” by the labels. The difference between Apple and MS is that Apple won’t license their DRM to make the protected tracks accessible to the application or device of the user’s choice, and MS does.
“the vast majority of people” = people using iTunes. Vast majority of iTMS users are using iTunes as their jukebox. Not because they want to, but because they have no other choice. It’s a fallacy.
Yes, MS *also* does this. The point is that APPLE DOES IT TOO. Stop giving your heroes a pass for actions that you criticize in your enemies.
Mac Attack! An enterprise PC shop switches to Apple!
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=298043&intsrc=hm_ts_head
Predrag:In the Windows world (Rhapsody, Napster, etc.), there’s still the restriction of PlayForSure – if you have an iPod (or a Zune), you’re out of luck.
You’re only out of luck w/ the iPod because Apple has chosen not to license PlaysForSure from MS, which they are absolutely free to do.
Apple’s going to non-DRM music is the right thing, but continuing to keep their DRM (the vast majority of their tracks) from other software & device makers is the concrete wall when compared with PlaysForSure.
MS’s Zune model is an IDENTICAL COPY OF iTUNES/iPOD, and equally bad.
You picked the macbook over the macbook pro is not because of its weight, but price. You are so use to paying for crap dell computers at $600 dollars that the idea of paying for the best business professional laptop on the market is at a competitive price is foreign to you.
I wonder how may days or in his case weeks it take before he really gets it and dumps MS XP, Word and all other things MS.
I’ve been running a small rep firm for a number of years and I’m 100% Mac based…
“I settled on a MacBook, since I need portability and the MacBook Pro is too heavy to carry on a regular basis.”
5.1 lbs compared to 5.4 lbs!!! Oh my aching back. Its not worth 3 tenths of a lb for 2″ of screen and 10 times the processing power. How much does that extra cash weigh???