Jonathan Blum, “tech guru” for Fortune Small Business, asks “Is it time to consider moving your small business to Macs?”
Blum writes, “First, you should know that I’m no Apple fanatic. I’ve used the gear steadily since the Reagan era; the early Apple II and the computer-as-Cuisinart lookalike that was the original Mac were both college tools of mine. But overall, I have found Apples, as lovely as they are for certain applications, just not worth the hassle for most small businesses.”
MacDailyNews Take: Typical ham-handed set-up that attempts to establish impartiality: I’m no Apple fanatic, but I’ve used their products for a long time, so, even though no iMac model ever made even remotely resembles a Cusinart, get ready to believe the mountain of bullshit I’m about to shovel.
Blum continues, “Still, even I have to admit that the latest Apple line of desktops and laptop computers is flashing some serious small-business form. Apple computers now run on the same basic electronics guts – Intel chips and the like – as any PC using the Microsoft operating systems. Peripheral support for Apple is strong: Every gadget vendor wants a piece of that sexy iPhone/iPod pie.”
MacDailyNews Take: Shouldn’t a real “tech guru” implicitly understand “Apple computers” are referred to as “Macs?” We ask, not only because Blum does it repeatedly and awkwardly throughout his piece, but also because the last “Apple computer” rolled off the assembly line in December 1992. Now, can someone please explain how a printer or scanner or whatever peripheral maker is getting “a piece of that sexy iPhone/iPod pie” by writing Mac drivers?
Blum continues, “Many smart shops I chat with are dumping their Windows machines for Macs. Take Jaffe Associates, a Washington, D.C., marketing and business-strategy consultancy. This 25-person firm recently unplugged its traditional Windows server architecture to install a similar system from none other than Apple. The company considered upgrading its aging Windows XP terminal server but endured Microsoft sticker shock when it calculated the cost of deploying collaborative software: Chief Operating Officer Shani Magosky got a quote for $100,000. Then she priced Apple technology for same functionality and found she could build a similar system for about half the price… To see if Steve Jobs’ brainchild really does have game for the average small business, I ordered up an iMac several months ago and installed it in my little digital world. “
MacDailyNews Take: So, instead of stopping with a nice example of how a smart person dumps Windows for Macs and saves a lot of money, Blum proceeds to conduct his own experiment to see just how much meaningless nonsense a cretin can generate for Fortune Small Business.
Blum continues, “My verdict? Though Apple computers can produce excellent results for small business, expect issues: Macs remain a niche product. No matter what you do with a Mac, you have to deal Apple’s peculiar vision of all things computerish. First off, the packaging is seriously overdone: ‘Designed by Apple in California’ is prominent on the box. Like I care.”
MacDailyNews Take: Well, there you have it. Because Macs come in award-winning packaging that prominently displays the words, “Designed by Apple in California,” small business should expect “issues.”
Blum continues, “Why should locating the ‘on’ switch be such struggle? Just stick the thing where I, and my employees, can find it: right up front.”
MacDailyNews Take: We hereby apologize; we had no idea Fortune Small Business was employing the mentally-challenged as a tech writer. Jonny is obviously “special.”
Jonny continues, “As promised, setup was a two-click, plug-and-play affair: Plunk the iMac on the desk, plug it in and turn it on. Setting up peripherals and Web access was also dead easy. But – as ever, with Apple boxes – there were not enough USB ports. A USB hard drive had to be dumped in favor of Ethernet enablement unit.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Ethernet enablement unit?” Jonny, all iMacs come with built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet via RJ-45 connectors. There’s no need for an “Ethernet enablement unit,” Mr. “Tech Guru.” Match the ends of the wires with the holes on the iMac, Jonny. Spend a bit more time with your Sesame Street shape cube before setting up your next computer, okay?
Jonny continues, “No question, running native 64-bit Apple code on the Mac is blazing… But again, there are issues: Offsetting all this speed are some curious features clearly not aimed at the average small business. The desktop is divided into quadrants that exist beyond the screen’s edge. Only with some complex keyboard commands can I slide from one to another. All the goofy Apple-centric commands leave users trained on PCs constantly fighting to parse out what the control, option and command keys do. And there is the very odd mouse. Apple devotees swear by the touch-sensitive shell of the ‘Mighty Mouse,’ but its top left- and right-click buttons still look an awful lot like just one.”
MacDailyNews Take: Jonny, the ability to conceptualize virtual screens and mouse buttons requires an IQ above 70.
Jonny continues, “The real eye-rolling winner is Time Machine, quite possibly the silliest operating system extension in history. Must I really sit through a full round of special effects – the desktop slides away to reveal some mysterious star in full supernova disappearing into infinity behind my various back ups – just to find a what I said to a client in a lost e-mail? Honestly.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, by all means, replace an intuitive visual representation with a typically opaque Microsoft dialog box festooned with badly-labeled tabs that offers only text descriptions and buttons. That’ll help you more quickly find your files. Most people would appreciate things being thought out to such a degree and made simpler (and – gasp! – more fun) for them. Not Jonny the “tech guru.”
Jonny continues, “On balance, is there money to be made with Apples? Depends… But other than raw speed, I had a very difficult time measuring any quantifiable improvement over the PC for average business chores – that kind that ultimately affect your bottom line.”
MacDailyNews Take: How quickly poor Jonny forgets his own perfectly measurable and quantifiable example of Jaffe Associates’ Chief Operating Officer Shani Magosky and how “she priced Apple technology for same functionality and found she could build a similar system for about half the price.”
Jonny continues, “Yes, Apples can be easier to use, but with some things, like as syncing your Apple to not-Apple portable devices such as BlackBerrys and smartphones, expect real trouble. I and my assistants had terrible problems getting all of our company programs to work properly.”
MacDailyNews Take: Color us wholly unsurprised that poor Jonny and his attendants had terrible problems syncing their ancient and outclassed mobile devices. Jonny seems to know that Macs can also slum it with Windows, so why doesn’t they just fire up that ancient and outclassed OS to sync their ancient and outclassed devices until they can afford iPhones?
Jonny continues, “Yes, more businesses can now go to Macs – I would say they now make sense for maybe 20 companies out of 100, up from just 5 a few years back. But for the rest of us – particularly those that need basic computing and basic features – Apple is still more expensive and simply not worth the integration headaches for the average small shop.”
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
MacDailyNews Take: How fitting that Jonny ends his FUDfest with a random concoction of nonsense numbers and then caps it off with an outright contradiction of the very real-world example he cites, Jaffe Associates, which shaved half of their costs by dumping Windows for Mac.
In all seriousness, the fear is palpable. Expect the volume and vehemence (along with the ridiculousness) of the FUD to increase as Apple Macintosh continues to take share from Windows PCs.
[Thanks to virtually every MacDailyNews Reader on the planet for the heads up.]
Than
While I’m certain that this article has received considerable feedback from hardcore Apple Fans. And that many of the responses have been vile and and immature.
A company as reputable as this, should really have issues with publishing an article by an alledged “tech guru” that is suppose to give technical advice to readers of your publication. Who might take this information, and make business decisions based on the information gathered here. When the alledged ” tech guru”, clearly has no idea what he’s talking about.
As a reputable publication, you be concerned with the future credibility of of the articles read here.
This guy is billed as a “tech guru”. He clearly does not have a clue.
My complaint is not a Mac vs PC issue. This guy, simply doe’s not know much about PC technology.
I think he’s trying to say that once you tackle her box, her on button and the eye candy, there’s not much left to talk about.
That was just awfully written. This guy needs to hand in his writer’s card at the same time he turns in his “tech guru” card….sheesh. I’ve seen teenagers in guild chat put a better argument together.
My idea is this:
At the computer store, give them an iMac and tell them to turn it on.
If they can do it in under 10 seconds let them buy a Mac. Between 10 seconds and 2 min, laugh at them but let them try again. If more than 2 min, make them buy a PC.
MDN: “Jonny, the ability to conceptualize virtual screens and mouse buttons requires an IQ above 70.”
But not much above 70. Hell, a smart monkey could figure it out.
Jonny Blum is Zunetang.
LOL. I hope by now that guru or goo goo has learned his lesson. I also hope most readers see the comments on that page and here. The guy just made a giant idiot out of himself.
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this is one of the worst articles ever, this guy probably calls a car a four wheeled transportation device.
i visited his “B2B content engine that provides print, video and audio content for busy media professionals operating under tight deadlines and tight budgets” (web site).
he also calls his site “a content service for media professionals in print, radio, television and the Web.”
“a marketing vehicle and research tool to develop new customers and learn about and service our existing client base.”
and says: “Blumsday abides by the highest standards of professional journalism”
HAHA !
http://fsbfeatures.blogs.fsb.cnn.com/2008/05/30/why-macs-still-arent-right-for-most-businesses/
Thanks for the laugh.
Blum is a fag.
“Offsetting all this speed are some curious features clearly not aimed at the average small business. The desktop is divided into quadrants that exist beyond the screen’s edge. Only with some complex keyboard commands can I slide from one to another.”
Funny. All I need to do to switch between spaces is take my mouse pointer to the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
Hot corners. Take all of 10 seconds to set up
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I think he was using a MacBook Air, hence the need for an Ethernet adapter. Look at the subhead of that section of the article: “Mac Air vs. Vaio.” The problem is he then refers to the Air as an iMac for the rest of the article. There’s also nothing comparing the Air to the Vaio. I think he was just drunk when he wrote this.
He is a Micro$oft Windoze Zombie
@ grasshopper
that’s not a subhead, but a link to an unrelated article
but, even if that is the case:
why own 2 macs if u think that they are not usable
why use an external USB drive on the extremely portable MBA ?
and, he should mention that he meant the MBA
but, i don’t think he has an MBA, maybe he copy pasted bits of articles by other people ?
MDN — your analysis is on target. Blum’s piece is the most idiotic piece of drivel I’ve ever read. In our small business, we’re replacing all our Dell’s with Mac laptops and desktops. The fact is that Mac hardware is very reliable and OSX is simple to use and administer … our users overwhelmingly prefer the Macs to their prior setup — Dells with XP Pro or Vista. Anyone who does their homework, realizes that running Macs provides a much lower total cost of ownership than the PC/Windows package. As http://rip-ragged.com/dross/ has said many times Apple’s about the “total widget”
To He, he.
He, he.
Wow. That was actually painful reading it was so craptacular.
Although I disagree with the statements that were made by Jonathon Blum about the ability of Macintosh computers to provide a viable business solution, his statements are correct if you attempt to implement a Microsoft Windows view of business with a Macintosh. His fundamental problem is that he refuses to adopt a model for his business that is consistent with the design of the Mac and MacOS X.
If he had chosen to revise his business model to be compatible, he would have concluded that Macintosh is a far superior platform for implementing small and medium business solutions. I make this statement because my wife’s small business did move from a Windows solution to an all Macintosh solution and the only problems that were encountered were with WIndows users not understanding the Macintosh approach. Those employees without a strong computer background or who were willing to adopt the Macintosh model were extremely pleased with the results and significantly more productive at a lower cost to the business.
I do not believe that this result is at all unique to this business, but is the expected result of any organization that takes the transition seriously.
I must agree this guy Johnny is a really stupid. He complains about packaging? Since when does that effect how a small business would run? He complains about the superior graphical interface with Time Machine that will keep your small business data backed up safely? Every complaint he points out is something that real people find useful, helpful, and is what made them switch to a Mac in the first place!
Johnny needs to go back to school and learn why there is something called a graphical interface. It makes it easier to use, IDIOT!!!!
Oh and Vista, powerful SLOWWWW as molasses, GARGBAGE!!! It has an interface that GETS IN YOUR FACE CONSTANTLY!!! They call that security. It takes 5 minutes to load anything and then asks you are you sure you want to do this? Vista is an over bloated, over done, worthless piece. Even Microsoft knows it, which is why they are already working on 7. They don’t even want to associate it with the name Vista. That’s how bad it is. Sales prove that too. Businesses don’t want anything to do with it either.
@derekcurrie
Derek, obviously you don’t follow your own advice. Did you even try researching my statements? Allow me to educate you beyond the level of the Fortune article’s author.
“The first is the kernel itself, which remains 32-bit in order to maintain compatibility with existing drivers.”
That quote came from this site: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/6
But if you don’t believe that website, then ask an Apple Engineer!
If you want to see how many 64-bit apps are on your system, run the following command, without quotes:
“locate -0 app/Contents/MacOS/ | xargs -0 file | grep x86_64”
My system has four 64-bit apps: Chess, Java Preferences, Java Web Start, and TWAINBridge. FYI, that’s a very small percentage of the apps that come with Leopard. Do you even use any of those four apps?
Now please, don’t call people ignorant without having accurate information.
Bill sez: “I’m impressed that he got “native 64-bit Apple code” running on a 32-bit iMac”
Sorry Bill. Your newbie status is showing. See the previous note I wrote to the newbie who said “The kernel isn’t 64-bit and no applications that ship with OS X are 64-bit.’
To make your embarrassment even worse, the fact of the matter is published right on this page. See the Advertisement link entitled “Apple’s New iMac: 20, 24-inch widescreen with 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo. Starting at just $1199.”
Here are a couple places where you can sort out what Mac had what processor had what bit architecture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Duo
http://www.mactracker.ca/
(Hint: The last Intel iMac to be 32 bit was discontinued in September, 2006. All G5 iMacs were 64 bit).
@derekcurrie
Did you read my reply? Yes, I was mistaken by saying no apps that ship with Leopard are 64-bit. There are, in fact, four rarely used apps that are 64-bit.
However, you cannot dispute the fact that the Leopard kernel is 32-bit.
@derekcurrie
Perhaps you’ll believe an article from Apple:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/transition/chapter_3_section_4.html
Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler…