Problems with the Mac promised land [Archive] - Debate Policy

Sitarro

12-06-2007, 01:37 AM

This guy's reply was nearly perfect so I will just post it since he is employed to be an expert on both Apples OS and Windows at a very large company and surely is much more qualified than I am.

http://www.news.com/5208-13579_3-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=33456&messageID=339539&start=0

Perfect? No. Compared to Windows? Yes: reader comment from OlsonBW
Posted on: December 5, 2007, 6:42 AM PST
Story: Problems with the Mac promised land
I'm a 47 year old computer systems analyst that supports Windows and
Mac computers at work where there are over 10,000 employees. The
division I work for directly and fully supports about 2,500 of those
employees. There are a few apps where we support all 10,000 plus
employees.

The people that we support that use Macs clearly, on average, have a lot
more technical programs on their computers their our average Windows
computers yet we have less calls from them than average Windows users.
And FAR less numbers of calls from people that have a very close equivalent software (graphics vs graphics people, marketing vs marketing
people) on Windows.

Could it be because Photoshop just works better on a Mac? Could it be
that Microsoft Office just works better on a Mac? Could it be because we
don't have any anti-virus software on a Mac? Why is it that we have maybe
90% less calls for equivalent people?

Macs are not perfect. Nothing is perfect. Like you noted about ads for
products like Toyota and others, nothing is perfect.

Compare the Toyota vehicles we've had vs Ford (about even and they over
lapped for a half dozen years. Our Toyotas weren't perfect but they had
significantly fewer problems.

Our Macs are that way compared to Windows computers.

And when they do have problems? The amazing thing is that it is far
easier to rebuild a Mac computer compared to Windows.

Of course we have hard drive images (ghost) that we use to re-image
Windows computers. And yes most of our default applications are on
those images. And yes we can and do remotely push applications to our
Windows computers. And sure we have roaming profiles for Windows
profiles.

You know what though? With Windows roaming profiles get corrupt. Hard
drives get so fragmented that you have to defrag the hard drive or re-
image the computer. Then there is the team of more than a dozen people
that are dedicated just to security on Windows computers.

With Macs it is just easier because there is less corruption of computers.
Nothing's perfect. But if we switched to all Macs we would probably have
60% less tech employees the next year round.

Windows means job security to lots of people that I know. Having said
that, more and more co-tech-workers in my group are seeing how easy it
is for me working with a Mac at work (I have to use Windows for some
things but can now do that on my Mac with bootcamp, vmware, or
parallels) that they've started buying Macs (usually MacBooks) for their
personal computers.

These people were hard core Microsoft fans that are starting to see that
there are alternatives to Windows and good ones. Nothing is perfect.

As for friends. When their computer is having problems I take my G4
Powerbook with me to their house, create a user account for them on it,
copy their files over to it, show them how to use the Mac software to
access their data, the internet, then leave them with that for a few days
while I take their computer home.

I don't have to take their computer home most of the time but usually,
purposely show up late in the evening when they don't want me to stay. So
I trade them computers for a few days, long enough for them to have to
use it and see what it is like.

They call and ask me questions and I answer them. At first they find it
confusing but quickly figure out they are trying to do too many steps that
they are used to having to do on their Windows computers. Once they
realize they don't they settle in and work and play. I made sure there is at
least one game a person in their 40s, 50s, or 60s will enjoy.

A few days later they will comment about what a nice experience it was.
Or not. But almost always, now that you can run Windows or Mac on a
Mac, they are buying Macs to replace their Dells and HPs, etc.

Nothing's perfect. But some things are just better. Linux is getting closer
to Windows every day. For the people that NEED more control over their
computers, I point them that way but also note they can run Linux just as
well on a Mac as they can on any other hardware. Why not have a choice
of Windows, Linux, OR Mac?