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Re: Mac or PC's? |
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| message from BigHead on 16 Jul 2004 |
mac is superior in graphic and web design?
t
"ShowtelPromotions" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:cda0gf$7m7$1@forums.macromedia.com...
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| John Waller replied to BigHead on 17 Jul 2004 |
Futile discussion :-)
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| BigHead replied to John Waller on 17 Jul 2004 |
I'm sure it was a baited question.
I've used both systems, and found neither to outperform the other. The macs
in our offices were rebooted as frequently as the PCs. One of the biggest
shortcomings of the mac is that it only has one mouse button ;-).
t
"John Waller" <johnw@REMOVETHISpinnacleweb.com.au> wrote in message
news:cda4nb$b4h$1@forums.macromedia.com...
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| Al Sparber- PVII replied to BigHead on 17 Jul 2004 |
It's traditional. Like an Englishman driving a roadster in the fall
dressed in topcoat, hat, and scarf.
We bought two-button mouses for our stable of testing Macs :-)
If you can get by the inefficiencies of the UI, Macs running OSX are
probably going to be more stable than Windows due to the Unix roots, but
most users would be hard-pressed to tell. It's not an issue of
"Win-tel", but rather of "Win". Linux systems running on Intel
processors are arguably more stable than Macs and certainly as robust.
But I still think XP is the best day-to-day OS there is - especially if
80% of your computing time is spent workinig in Dreamweaver, in which
case it is absolutely no contest.
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| seb replied to Al Sparber- PVII on 17 Jul 2004 |
1:
using Windows is encouraging a monopoly
using Mac (or Linux) is encouraging the competition
2:
There are millions of known viruses and spyware designed to attack Windows
There are virtually no viruses or spyware designed to attack Macs
Using a Mac on a Cable connection, I don't even use a FireWall or an
antiVirus, and NEVER had a problem.
These are very important differences.
Al Sparber- PVII wrote:
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| David B replied to seb on 17 Jul 2004 |
Sheez, and I thought I was the only one on this forum who cared about
that sort of stuff!
Speaking of which, how about Internet Explorer's recent Big Adventure?
Was there ever a better day for Mozilla and Opera? I've been actively
encouraging visitors to my sites to switch, but I'm going to up the ante
by putting notices next to my PayPal buttons advising them that it isn't
safe to transmit money over the Internet via Internet Explorer.
Well, that's all academic for me, as I can no longer afford a Mac. But
it will remain on my wish list. :)
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| Alan replied to David B on 18 Jul 2004 |
Instead that comparison, mabye it's the Tatra. Better, but out of sync.
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| John Gaver replied to David B on 18 Jul 2004 |
Actually, the Gartner Group would tell you that the Mac is less expensive to
own, than a PC. About 6 or 8 months ago, Gartner released their TCO Report
and it showed that, at least in large companies, which were the only ones
that they surveyed, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry cost, it
had a significantly lower TCO. This was due largely, to maintenance and
down-time issues with the PC's.
The biggest factor was that there were fewer incidents and less down-time,
per incident, on the Mac side of the house. Not only did that translate
directly into maintenance savings, but because there was less down-time,
users were more productive. Software installs and system updates seldom
required reboots on Macs, as they almost always did on PC's. Down-time
related to malware was virtually non-existent on the Mac and little money
was spent to protect against it, while the PC network required elaborate
firewalls and each PC required software to scan for malware that got through
the firewall and even then many PC's became infected with some sort of
malware, requiring help desk attention and loss of user productivity.
There was another factor that Gartner pointed out, that does not apply to
individual owners, but is interesting to note. The complexity of all
Microsoft based OS's meant that the help desk personnel on the PC side of
the house had to have much more training (MCSE, MCSP, MCxx), than their Mac
counterparts and therefore, represented a much higher personnel cost per
seat, both in salaries and in continuing education costs (that large
companies tend to reimburse).
I forget the break-even point in cost, but I'm pretty sure that it was less
than a year. In other words, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry
price, it became less expensive to own, before the year was out.
John Gaver
Action America
(forget everything to contact me direct)
Microsoft: (n) Job security for IT consultants.
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| John Waller replied to John Gaver on 18 Jul 2004 |
and it showed that, at least in large companies, which were the only ones
that they surveyed, although the Mac had a somewhat higher entry cost, it
had a significantly lower TCO. This was due largely, to maintenance and
down-time issues with the PC's.
"somewhat higher entry cost" has historically been a factor of 2x or 3x per
machine depending on the purchase.
Plus maintenance and downtime are notoriously difficult to measure
accurately. Few companies keep accurate written records of it so estimates
can vary markedly.
Plus many companies have part-time IT personnel who often have to learn
(read up on a problem) as they troubleshoot so these hours can also vary
enormously.
Due to the interchangeablity of PC hardware components, many large companies
have found that no-name PC's are generally more prone to failure than their
brand-name counterparts. Thus, a company's purchasing policy (cheapest
option with each rollout vs. brand name only) can have a significant effect
on maintenance and downtime.
It would be interesting to compare what conclusions Gartner's TCO report
would have had 10 years ago.
Good discussion points, John.
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| seb replied to John Gaver on 18 Jul 2004 |
Then, it's like this island I discovered by chance, which is so pure and
protected from tourists. I don't want anybody to know about it, because
that's what makes it so pure.
If everybody switches to Mac, Mac is going to become the new PC. The
reason why Macs work so well and why there are no viruses for Mac, is
because only 5% people use Macs. Therefore there's no insentive for
hackers to hack it, and Mac HAS to be EXCELENT to convince its
difficult, rare customers...
If it becomes mainstream, it will become another touristic venue, cheap
and low-key, and a prey to hackers and viruses...
It seems that the higher quality product needs to stay somewhat
ellistist to subsist as such.
Just a thought.
John Gaver wrote:
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| Dan Vendel *GOF* replied to John Gaver on 18 Jul 2004 |
John,
I heard about that before, but despite thorough searches at the Gartner
website, I never managed to find the research. Do you have a link?
Dan
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| John Gaver replied to Dan Vendel *GOF* on 18 Jul 2004 |
I looked back at my notes and it was a private report for Melbourne
University, that was delivered in June 2002. Although it isn't in my notes,
I recall that it was reported on in one of the major Australian newspapers.
It showed a 36% savings over PC, in the "surveyed environment".
As I pointed out before, in the individual environment, some of those
factors don't come into play. (i.e. As an individual, you don't employ a
staff of PC or Mac techs, so the salary and training cost differences
doesn't apply.)
The interesting point that I made note of, was this statement"
"Perhaps even more importantly, when questioned on how they felt about their
networks, Mac users were happier than their PC counterparts."
John Gaver
Action America
(forget everything to contact me direct)
Microsoft: (n) Job security for IT consultants.
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| Al Sparber- PVII replied to seb on 17 Jul 2004 |
I would agree with you except that the slowness of Dreamweaver MX 2004
on OSX is rather legendary :-). It's a known issue and apparent to
anyone running both side by side. If one runs just OSX - he may not be
aware of a difference - unless he also runs XP or even an earlier
version of Dreamweaver. Whether it's Apple's fault, Macromedia's fault,
or a combination - I can't say. Even a simple process like installing a
large extension happens instantaneously on a modern XP system while it
could take more than 60 seconds (sometimes much more) on Panther. Then
there are the mime-type issues, Dreamweaver DOM issues, hard drive name
issues. I can go on :-)
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