Re: Now, about running Windows on a Mac, isn't it great?

Michelle Steiner wrote:
In article <noneof-55F3F7.05543403082007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mark Conrad <noneof@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I _do_ know that windows app's have their advantages, as do Mac app's.

Why not take advantage of both Windows and Mac app's?

Because I don't know of any Windows app that can do something I need or want to do that I can't do with a Mac app.


But that is simply the result of your narrow and limited experience, not a statement that is true for everyine.

It is generally recognized that Windows app's excel in certain areas of human endeavor when it comes to productivity.

Examples?

Just about any specialised field will have one app, and one app only that is vital for it. A few years back I visited a formula one teams HQ. The software for CAD CAM was all on PC's. It only ran on PC's.

Years ago, as an all PC/Unix house,we struggled to integrate the one Mac that was 'absolutely necessary to run Quark, because that is the ONLY package that really works for document layout'

One of our customers was a very large mercahnt bknak, where teh while trading floor ran on SUN kit and X-windows 'because the only app that does the job runns on them'

Another firm had a 21 year old IBM mini..and proudly showed me a new box the size of a PC 'its more powerful: It runs AIX AND VM, and will let us run all our old COBOL/RPG programs as well'

With a 20 year investment in software, they weren't about to junk that lot for a Mac...

I had to install - of all things - SCO Unix to run some databse software once..it was teh only supported platform within our budget..

My niece is a dentist. The ONLY platform supported by her X-ray machine is WINDOWS.


At one time SGI and IRIX was teh ONLY platform for 3D modelling.

There are huge wars raging about whether recording studios will ever be able to not use Windows, as half the stuff THEY use only runs on it.

Ditto a company I know that does CNC milling. The $250,000 machine only works with Windows.




Business applications are one such area.

Examples?


See above. The world does not boil down to watching movies, listening to music, and browsing the net, sending e-mails and doing web design or page layout - things at which a Mac excels. Neither is it restricted to word processing/spreadsheet and so on.


Apple chooses not to compete in that area because they know they would lose, big time.

How do you know that Apple chooses not to compete in that area?

Specialized app's are another area, it is hard to say Macs are "just as productive" when the only specialized app' available runs on Windows.

How does this affect the average user? Oh, by the way, how about some examples of these specialized apps?

Given above.

In my 15 years of working for a variety of companies around the country as a external subcontractor, installing IT systems across all platforms, I can truthfully say that in 99% of the case I met, what was on the desktop was utterly driven by the application area the customer was in.

The publishers all had Macs.

The really big stock moving/engineering companies all had minis, running VMS or UNIX or IBM products, usually on glass terminals. They actually achieved more productivity than the rest put together, as their apps were crafted specifically to their business, and the staff couldn't waste hours changing their screen colors etc.

The CAD/CAM lot had either PCS or UNIX workstations, depending on what their 'killer app' was. Likewise the financial community.

The software company that designed games had SGI IRIX engines. The only ones that could do 3D rendering fast, in those days.

Software houses tended to have geeks on SUNS, until the decent development engines came along on PCS. Or worked on whatever platform they were targeting.

No ISP wold use anything but CISCO and SUN. That's changed an LINUX is the preferred server platform.

I am sorry, but when I see a post like yours, prating on about someone else's ignorance, it makes me laugh, considering that you have NO IDEA what is going on out there in the real world.

People do not buy computers, or operating systems, in a commercial world, They buy APPLICATIONS. And they don't normally give a monkeys about what they are running on in terms of HW/SW/OS as long as they provide the functionality their businesses require.

In many cases the cost of the hardware and OS is simply irrelevant. They dislike PC's of course because the SUPPORT cost is astronomical. $6000 per dekstop per annum is what a major bank told me it costs them to keep a houseful of PC's running sweetly. That's human costs - not software or hardware.

My local bank has computer screens running in it. I akeed them what they were running: They didn't actually know. They said 'when you switch on the screen comes up with a menu' I looked, and my best guess was they they had PC's running Linux and X-windows autobooting into a database application running the other side of the country on a huge UNIX cluster. The modern replacement of the glass screen and serial line.
Still the most trouble free and lowest support cost of any large commercial application.

I haven't found much to beat a dot matrix or line printer either, for printing invoices labels and the like. The low lifetime costs and low costs of ribbons make them a damned fine investment.


To assert that 'the average user could use a macintosh' is pure twaddle. There is no average user.

If you want ten thousand users booting to an XTERM and that's all, Macs are a bloody expensive way to do it.





















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