“What today’s business people and entrepreneurs are quickly beginning to understand is that Apple’s iMacs (desktop computers) and MacBooks (notebook computers) can not only handle virtually every business application a PC can handle, but also provide a more stress-free computing experience,” Jason R. Rich reports for Entrepreneur.com.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple also offer Mac Pro towers and Mac mini for the desktop and MacBook Pro and MacBook Air as additional notebook options.
Rich continues, “Today’s Macs are more intuitive and stable than PCs running Windows Vista or XP, and they can even run Windows applications. Mac users also worry less while surfing the web, since the Mac OS X operating system is not susceptible to spyware or viruses… Apple also now offers a free service that will transfer all of your existing PC data to a new Mac when it’s purchased at an Apple Store. For an additional $100 a year, Apple will provide one-on-one training on any Mac to get new users up to speed on the differences between the Windows and the Mac OS X operating system.”
“Recent hardware upgrades now allow Macs to run Windows XP or Vista, meaning that if a Mac version of a popular business application isn’t yet available, the user can run the Widows version without experiencing slow processing speeds or other hassles,” Rich explains. “While Macs and PCs still operate differently, Apple and its software developers have overcome many data compatibility issues, meaning that data from a Mac can now be exchanged with a PC. Plus, Macs can be connected to office networks.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: While there are some inaccuracies and over-generalizations in the full article, it’s very good news for Apple and the Macintosh platform that articles like this are appearing in business publications.
Steve Jobs said that there is some clients that they “Choose not to serve”, But I think that may be, those clients CHOOSE apple and not vise verse… and I’m very glad to be one of those who choose apple.
I just help a friend of mine to make his PCMCI 3g card to work in his Dell Latitude laptop and it is a real pain in the …. to work with windows computer. The weir thing in here is that he is a Wintel Enhineer that came to me (apple Eng) for help with his computer…..
Not to offend any body, but people who chose Mac over Wintel, are people who really has the power to chose and not people that pick a computer because it is the only computer they can afford or is the only computer that they know or their job has impose them to use that kind of computer, but they never had a option.
What’s up with that, MDN? Are musicians not “business people”?
Get off the lame FireWire crap. 95% of consumers don’t even own anything that uses it. Seriously.
“…the user can run the Widows version without experiencing slow processing speeds or other hassles…”
The Widows version? Is there a Widower’s version, too??
The tide is turning, thank the iPhone.
My wife is an instructional designer/manager at an old guard, international chemical company. Not surprisingly, the whole company is Windows/PC, until recently.
The wife reports that iPhones are popping up everywhere at the office. Over half of her department has switched to iPhone. The head of IT has switched to iPhone. The CEO has just recently switched to iPhone too. These are PC stalwarts. To them, the iPhone is not a Mac, its just a cool little ‘smart-phone’.
To me, it appears as a ‘Trojan Horse’, AND it replicates itself, AND it casts a halo (effect). Enterprise can’t resist the Siren’s call. Soon the Windows based servers will be dashed upon the rocks and abandoned forever, except as a dark and wicked footnote in human history.
14561 signees at the online petition and 21,000 viewers at the Apple Discussion forum would beg to differ with you.
“Soon the Windows based servers will be dashed upon the rocks and abandoned forever, except as a dark and wicked footnote in human history.”
No major IT department is going to expose itself to the risks of a single vendor OS/Hardware strategy. Most remember the bad old days of proprietary OSes tied to proprietary hardware.
So your cool smart phone company goes out of business tomorrow, or stops making a suitable unit, or charges more than you want to pay, no big deal, you buy a different smart phone.
You can’t order new desktops or servers, or don’t like the price you’re being quoted from the only vendor of that type of machine? Or they switch their focus even more to the consumer side. or drop a port you need. Or you find that they just switched processor or OS AGAIN? That’s a real problem.
While I applaud the article overall, “some inaccuracies” is being extremely kind.
The guy makes it sound like Office, QuickBooks and Qucken are NOW AVAILABLE on the Mac, where they’ve been available for over a decade or more. And don’t even get me started with FileMaker Pro.
Idiot.
14561 signees at the online petition and 21,000 viewers at the Apple Discussion forum would beg to differ with you.
Lemme see:
Apple user base: ~20 million (low estimate)
Whiners: 14561
%Whiners to Buyers 14561/20,000,000 = 0.07%
Would you burden 99.93% of your customers with the cost of a useless port to pander to the needs of 0.07% of them?
> Would you burden 99.93% of your customers with the cost of a useless port to pander to the needs of 0.07% of them?
If that 0.07% was a highly influential group of creative users that has historically evangelized Apple and has given them free publicity, placement and visibility for more than 20 years? In a heartbeat.
But you are missing the ‘future’ effect….as musicians and film schools face having to buy the MBP or get a windows machine for 1/3 of the cost, they are going to go cheap.
.07% may be an insignificant number now, but the reason I’m still a Mac user is that I was taught on the Mac. I would think Apple would have a harder time switching people entrenched in Wintel hardware (who need specialized ports for music/video), than keeping FW in the MB (it is Apple’s technology — I have no reason to think that would have driven the cost of a MB up significantly….at least enough to ‘burden’ non FW-users. And, who is to say that switchers wouldn’t ‘discover’ FW benefits and help grow the protocol?
USB2.0 is a standard, for sure. But it does not compare to FW at streaming speeds and sustained speeds.
If USB3 is the end-all-be-all, then fine — we’ll all move to that. But USB3 isn’t here yet, so the removal of FW left a lot of us (I’d guess a lot more than .7%) with no upgrade path (except for the pro).
Also, because this also sticks it to the makers of these audio interfaces (who just had their prospective buyer field slashed), why should they stay with the Mac platform?
It is very shortsighted to say that most people don’t use FW, so it shouldn’t be there. I’ve never used the audio input on my Macs, but that is there.
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The idea isn’t me whining about ME ME ME, as much as worrying about the future of this whole artistic community on the Mac…and that is a LOT more that .7%, I can promise you.
Peace,
D
Sorry, my .07 became .7 later in my post…but the exact number is not the issue…
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@Different Criteria
You are correct that no major IT department SHOULD expose themselves to a single vendor OS/Hardware strategy, but that is exactly what many end up doing. Dell hardware and Microsoft AD. Let’s replace those pesky Unix servers and people with more MS-centric stuff as well. So much simpler when we don’t need to negotiate price and such, just bend over and take it.
Gotta love those government contracts!
A Mac without Firewire is like Black Forest Gateaux without the cream.
It’s not just musicians and video people. IT professionals in educational systems are very upset about the loss. They depend on TDM and Firewire for ease of maintenance.
If lack of Firewire makes the Macbook unacceptable for school environments — and we know schools can’t afford MBP across the board — then you’re going to see a swing to Windows laptops in education. People tend to stay with what they learned on. The cumulative effect over years is going to be highly damaging.
Everyone seems to want to sweep this discussion under the rug. But the fact is that the people who are most affected by this — audio and video creatives, plus educational IT pros — are extremely well-positioned to influence future Mac purchasers and users. These are solid, longstanding members of the Mac user community. It doesn’t make sense to ostracize them just because they had the guts to speak out and make their dissatisfaction known.
My 0.02 worth.
Do they really need the Apple in front of Mac?
I HATE it when someone refers to a Mac as an Apple. I always give my smartass reply – “What? You want an Apple ][ from the early 1990’s?”
I always confuse them with the Timex Sinclair Macs and the Radio Shack Macs.
And I’m sure your listeners are overcome with your wit.
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@oh on my shorts
The pulled one feature out of one Mac model and you guys can let it go.
Mac mini
iMac
MacBook Pro
MacPro
All still have firewire. But the consumer level portable MacBook doesn’t, and you suggest a commercial like that?
I already bought band new MacBook, granted I don’t do audio or video work on it at all, that is why I bought it. If I did, I would have purchased a MacBook Pro.
I do 3D animation and rendering, so that is why I did not get an iMac. In it’s place I got a MacPro. Do you see a trend?
Besides, what makes you think that all schools and professional musicians exclusively use MacBooks?
Back atcha, Cubert.
The only scenario in which we will see return of FireWire to MacBooks would be if MacBookPros were redesigned (again) to be significantly different than MB.
Before this refresh, they were noticeably more powerful, especially with the dedicated graphic card. After the refresh, MB and MBP are practically the same. Other than two inches of screen space and Expresscard slot (with fewer people use than even FW), the only difference was $700. If there was FW on MB, nobody would buy MBP. So, it is not about the cost of putting it in (saddling the buyers with the interface almost nobody uses); it is precisely the functionality that the former MBP buyers want.
I know a number of MBP pro users who would have refreshed their MBPs with the new MBs, if it had FW, now that there is a dedicated graphic card. Apple cannot afford that.
FW is the primary and most meaningful differentiator today between MB and MBP. Until a more meaningful one reappears between the two lines, FW will remain a MBP item only.
Luckily, for smart business people (the subject of this article), FireWire is a non-issue.
It’s a trend, Mac-nugget.
Look, I’m all for Apple’s growth. I’m a stockholder.
But if you think there aren’t a sizable number of people with Firewire-only video cams, hard disks, or audio interfaces who won’t buy a Macbook because it’s not compatible with existing equipment, then you’re looking at the world through Apple-colored glasses.
When things (other than the stock market) have been going so well for Apple, why would they feel a need to do ANYTHING that could be perceived as a barrier to entry or conversion?
Predrag — certainly, it’s a means of differentiating the Pro model from the base model. But a $700 differentiation? Come on, it’s a $1 part.
> Luckily, for smart business people (the subject of this article), FireWire is a non-issue.
Oh, I get it. People who have a need for Firewire aren’t smart business people. Thanks for clarifying that.
In a related headline:
“Stupid Business People Continue to Choose Windows”
We now go to our intrepid reporter, live and on the scene, Dick Lipsynch, for a full report …. take it away Dick
Thank you Andy Anchor … This is Dick Lipsynch, intrepid reporter, live and on the scene.
According to reports from other reporters, who are not live and on the scene, we have a large number of stupid businesses who continue to choose Windows.
I’ve tried to find some of those businesses, but seems many of them are going OUT of business at this time, so we’re not able to determine if they really ARE stupid, or just stuck with Windows, and whether or not their choice of Windows had anything to do with them going out of business.
But we will continue to stay on this story, and as soon as we have further updates, we’ll bring them to you first.
Live and on the scene, this is your intrepid reporter Dick Lipsynch …. now back to you in the studio Andy Anchor.
Thank you Dick for that insightful report, live and on the scene
In other news, according to government figures, 99% of all businesses that failed in the last quarter used one particular computer software system …..
@all the whiners for FW on MB on every thread:
please, go sign the petition, print/copy the online page for your personal collection, start a support group in the meantime, declare solidarity with the bring-back-Newton/ADB/MacTV etc. groups, or plain a switch to windows (please do) – meanwhile, if you would, just leave the forums to their respective topics and see if your hyper sensitivity concerning all things Apple can withstand that withdrawal.
Regardless of the rationale, nobody likes a constant whiner, even if they sport an Apple BFF pin on their lapel for 20 years straight.
Folks, seriously consider switching to MACs-are-pricey-Dell-AlienWare-rul3z-OMGBBQLOL3rSkat3z fan club. All whine all day special, FW buffet on Tuesdays.