It is easy to say “I don’t agree, and here is why…”

I definitely like the Mac OS but have been using Vista for a month now and don’t see the problems Chris does. All my issues seem to be tied to Nvidia drivers and once I make the recommended tweaks Vista is fine. No MS specific issues yet…

My PDA won’t sync without a 3rd party app and my MP3 player doesn’t have an iTunes driver.

But great OSX apps like Scrivener, the brilliant search function and the total absence of viruses are a big plus; the Linux-like terminal window makes stuff like FTP a breeze.

The kids have finally grown out of the old PC games; now if only I could get Rome: Total War for mac, life would be complete….

I’ll never go back to PC, ever. Though the new dual cores and the ability to emulate windows… I’m kinda wondering what gives with that. Sleeping with the enemy?

Their responses are brief. Maybe there is more there, but not presented in the article.

The analysts are NOT wrong. They are ambiguous enough to be truthful. The reasons given are in fact “reasonable” and within expectations.

Your list of 10 to stick with Windows really doesn’t sell the Mac. It’s another Mac VS Windows debate. If you want people to make the switch, sell the Mac!!!

The problem with the Mac is the price point and the willingness of the customer to start all over again. Nothing wrong with this, but it will require a bit of hassle. For the non-techie, the switch won’t be painless. It will require a learning curve and some money to make the transition. This isn’t FUD, it is a fact.

Getting a Mac would allow me to have the best of both worlds with a virtual machine even though most of my time would be spent inside of a Windows environment.

That being said, the thing that’s stopping me from getting a Mac is the price. As a developer and gamer, the only thing would suit my needs is a Mac Pro. I’m not about to run Visual Studio 2005 + SQL Server 2005 in a virtual environment on an iMac … I just can’t deal with any type of slowdown.

I really wish Apple would drop their prices. Seriously … if they would just drop their prices, they would control the market: period.

I want to switch to a Mac … but I can’t. I cann’t possibly justify $3200 on a Mac Pro when I have 3 machines currently on my desk (1 desktop, 1 laptop, and 1 server).

- Adam

I have used the likes of evolution in order to connect to an exchange server (bearing in mind you need to run exchange on a windows server and to have active directory backing it up too) on a client that isn’t a windows and office based system and it uses the OWA (outlook web access) interface in order to sync.
This is fine for standard email and some scheduling of meetings, but when you’re wanting to use the hooks that other collaberation services M$ produces, it simply doesn’t work.. that’s not to mention the likes of the CRM systems such as sage line xxx, saleslogix, etc just don’t work or don’t work to the efficiency as they do with the native support they have for the M$ produce.

Yes, you can have internal developers that will customise these systems so they will, but the problem can be that they might never be as polished as the way in which the original developers designed them to be.

And while you’re saying “I can just boot camp it if mac os can’t handle it” you’re still perpetuating the M$ tax.
I have had to put up with users who can’t get their head around the menus of internet explorer, god help them if they have to deal with dual booting as well, no matter how easy you make the interface. I can just see it “why can’t I just do it within apple?” and “well, can’t I just boot into windows and do it all from there if it all works without having to use a program for every different feature”.
Also, please learn the technology.. mac os is not “running the application natively”.. windows is, it’s just using the same hardware that has an installation of mac os x on it ;) the hardware is not the mac, the OS is.

More certainly needs to be done with apple to get the data and applications working between the OS’s, however we’re turning to creating terminal server farms and simply punting out thin clients (yup, they’re making a come back) to the users desk and taking the apple approach and taking total control over the system to the point where only a set list of applications can be launched.

Creating enterprise software is an expensive venture, shit not even many of those supposed enterprise software corporations can get it right regardless of the OS they use as their base – our VPN client as one good example, they are still working on a vista version!

Give apple enough time to increase their market share, and the application support will arrive. Until then, when it comes to the general enterprise windows will remain the usual platform of choice

It amazes me that people will talk confidently about OS X when it’s obvious they no next to nothing about it.

One significant reason to recommend Macs especially to novice users is the lack of malware. Yes, I know, any operating system is vulnerable to viruses, worms, spyware, rootkits. But for the past seven years OS X has been around, there is currently NO malware capable of exploiting a vulnerability and infecting an OS X machine across the Internet. Compared to tens of thousands of malware programs out there attacking Windows.

(Yes, for OS X there was the Oompa-Loompa worm, the iTunes concept, and IIRC a couple other concept worms. And there is one commercial keystroke logger that I know of for OS X. But the OS is patched to defend against the worms. And the keystroke logger must be manually installed. )

This means that currently an OS X machine attached to the Internet will not be infected by viruses, worms or spyware. Even without security software.

And since surveys conducted by the security software firms indicate that surprising numbers of Windows users don’t update their security software–even monthly–many of these users would be better off with a Mac.

Bot

On the plus side I had an old friend (who is most assuredly not an expert, but was about to buy a new laptop) call me the other day. All he wanted to know was whether his Word and Excel docs would still open if he bought a MacBook. I assured him they would and he took the plunge. That’s one fewer Windows machine I’ll be diagnosing by long distance telephone!