Decaflon

A lot of things are moving over to "The Cloud" which makes the type of computer you use not matter as much anymore. With data storage happening on a server you can't see and your main business functions potentially occurring within a web application, for many businesses the type of computer you use is mattering less.

I think the first real point raised in the article is the branding. Apple is still designer. It's like buying Nike carpet for the office: equivalents might not look as nice but they get the same job done with a lower price-tag. Small businesses need to cut every corner they can and while Apple refuses to provide cheaper "beige-box" hardware, they're hard to justify as an expense.

Something he doesn't seem to mention (which is going to conflict with a later statement I'll make) is support. I know of at least fifty small-business MS specialists in a 20 mile radius from here, offering same-day on-site support, who are trained and can swap out hardware in an instant. There's choice and competition. That sort of Apple service just doesn't exist here yet; there isn't enough demand and of what there is, there's absolutely no competition.

What I really don't understand is the final line of the article:

Windows Vista, properly installed and used in tandem with Web-based productivity tools, is a powerful, powerful alternative.

Why Vista? If we're here scrutinising why the Mac is unnecessary expense, how the hell has Vista been allowed to slip under the radar? Upgrading XP PCs to Vista slows your system and can introduce headaches. And then you've got to fight Vista itself on a day-to-day level.

If you're really serious about saving money, ask yourself why you suddenly need to leave XP. Everything supports it (except DX10 games and who gives a flying shit about those in small businesses?!) and it's installed, ready and costs you nothing more today.

If you're trying to progress, or you've got to expand your office/server system, take a look at Linux. Yeah, anyone reading this who knows me probably knew I was going to hop on my soapbox but seriously: if your tasks are limited to Office and the web, Linux will work as fast, if not faster than XP, with guaranteed free updates for life, with free improvements to all its included software, again for the life of the product.

Professional support is an issue for Linux too, though in the enterprise world, generations of Linux server usage has given most techs at least a taster course. Finding a desktop vendor who can offer you same-day support is a little harder, albeit improving.

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All in all, I don't think the article is too far from the truth. Support availability and price have to near-first when it comes to this sort of IT decision. We're talking small business, so it's not really something that can be done in-house.

Give it a few years though, and I think we'll see massive diversification in supported operating systems from average out-source techies...

But by then, the cheaper hardware requirement and free OS of Linux will dominate all. You'll see. *evil-laugh*

*throws smoke bomb*

*disappears*

See, I've always seen that the difference between a small business and a successful small business was not how much money they saved cutting corners, but instead how much work they got done and how well they served their customers.

You can do that with any computer platform. But in my experience there are far less things to deal with on a mac that get in the way of doing work. There is less configuration, less hardware failure, less confusion, less conflict within the various hardware bits and software bits, etc.

Sure it's not true in every case, but it's the overwhelming trend.

Most small businesses I know that are in the technology field use macs, that may be something to do with their weight/momentum in the creative industry. They've ruled that market for a long time now. The other small businesses I work with regularly realize that the technology they use is just a tool, and will use whatever suits it. Sometimes this includes dos 3.x machines.

Smart businesses don't use a computer due to its image, cost, or popularity. They use them to get a job done. For me, I can't imagine going back to pc's. We have a few, and they are constant headaches.

The IT industry is a silly one. There are politics and power plays within the big corps for what they should use. More often than not the people making these decisions aren't actually using the machines for the tasks they were given.

@Oli: Ah you bring up the points about businesses that I always seem to forget and that involves them wanting customer service. I can see how that would keep them away, but if we are solely focusing on the capabilities of the computer then I think Macs hold up well.

I used to work in a law office that only used Macs. It worked well enough for all their needs, although there were little issues that us employees got annoyed at (such as mouses without a right-click, emails that weren't able to be opened on the other side because of program differences...). But they were managable issues. Nothing huge.

I personally wouldn't buy a Mac because I find their set up hard to navigate and problems harder to solve...but that could be because I'm used to other computers and not an issue with the Mac itself.

I second Ozone. You use the operating system simply because you want to get the job done, not as a symbol of how cool you are. More so for smaller businesses out there that need to maximize their earnings. You don't get a Mac or some bloated Vista when XP or Linux based systems can do the job for less cost.

That being said, alot of the programs in the laboratories I'm at are only compatible on a Windows based platform which leads to the reason why we use only that irregardless of how crappy it is at times.

I think though that if there is any hope for a unified flexible system for smaller companies to work on, it would be on a Linux platform. When you think about it, it can be customized to what businesses use and increase productivity without additional costs. The only problem like I mention is the compatibility of software out there. It does help that you can run a fair share of windows programs on Linux, but that requires a whole lot of jerry rigging depending on your technical skill which maybe some businesses can't afford.

So it goes back to the beginning, use what works best.

I look after IT for the organization I work for. Traditionally we've used Windows machines and will continue to do so. Any alternative is just a huge list of problems we could do without.

Despite the press and general anecdotal remarks Vista gets, from my point of view the Vista machines are far easier to manage than their XP counterparts. As a home Vista user, you tend to concentrate on the bits you can see and things that behave differently to what you were used to before with XP. But at work, Vista (we use almost entirely Vista Business 64bit) is the most stable and reliable our desktops and laptops have even been, and they're now better managed and looked after than ever before thanks to improvements built in to manage them and improved tools for doing that at the server end.

Anyone who needs to compete with Windows in business environments needs to get a whole range of facilities in place before it can be considered.

As a home user, you can pick and choose your OS and computer based on your own needs and preferences. At work it needs to do whatever is needed for your job - and these days that most likely means Windows related software unless you're in a niche of some kind.

I used to be a programmer and worked on a product that was multi-platform - DOS, Windows and various flavours of Unix. There were hundreds of customer sites using the Windows version, a few still used the DOS version and I was only ever aware of two running the Unix version. The Unix sites were harder to support due to the relative lack of skills compared to the amount of Windows knowledge you could find quickly. In all of this time (last 10/15 years), I was only asked once if any of the software we work on would work on a Mac and that was in the last two months.

If you start a business up and need some business software to manage it, using Windows will give you the choice of the best stuff. Using Windows also means that a fair proportion of the users will be at least familiar with Windows so get off to a flying start when learning to use the software.

Another problem is that with Apple, you're putting all of your eggs in the basket of one vendor. Nobody wants a dependency like that. Getting hardware, software and the operating systems from different places gives you a lot more buying power and options.

I'd love to see a working Mac network that actually runs some decent business software and is easily managed and maintained. I really can't imagine how that would be beneficial to anyone involved though.

Another good point about using Windows over Macs is the availability of Windows professionals vs. Mac. Again I never considered the actual remote management tools need by IT departments to manage computers and I'm beginning to see why Macs aren't necessarily widespread in large departments.

Because of all that has been said in the discussion I find it hard why Apple would even try to pursue the business segment. They are making inroads without trying that much, but it seems they have to make a quantum leap in producing new management tools and I'm not sure they want to add that kind of overhead.