Mac vs. PC?

Ah ... down to the "it depends ...."

We all seem to be so parochial these days ... do this, don't do that ...

Trevor, my two cents ... if you are a new business owner and not an application developer, web guru or designer. You simply need a utility device at a low price.

I'm sure your budget is important at this stage of your business therefore my suggestion is to get a low cost PC with the applications you need to do your job and run your business.

Although it might be nice to have a fancy Apple or a highend 8GB Win7 computer, just remember it's a tool to accomplish your prime objective ... run your business and be successful!

A carpenter with just the humble hammer and simple saw can build some mighty fine things. Examine what it is you "need" for tools and not what you "want" for tools ... and you'll go far with your business!

I work in graphics, variable data programing, and use both Mac and PC
several hours a day - MS office products run just fine on the MACs -
but the InDesign CS programs, font management, and general navigational
tasks simply take longer and are more difficult on the PC -
The PC we have is fully loaded for graphics work running XP pro -
and my G5 Mac desktop will run circles around it and it's older will less processing speed - Even my MacBook lap top I prefer over the PC.
We have had several PCs die in our office but the MACs are also much more reliable, never get viruses and even the PC die hards - once they have spent some time with a MAC - usually end up owning one personally.
HTH
Larry Davis

Mikhail, it's tru what you are saying, but seriously why go through all the hassle of purchasing and installng vmware, then install windows to use what you want to use, or even install windows on the MAC from the start, if i have to go throught all of this i will simply by a pc laptop and have windows running on it, it will cost me twic less then buying a MAC, and everything will be running smoothly.
it's important to note that Jhon is not going to use some graphic tools or movie editing tools or any tool that will requiere a strong cpu and a great throuhgoutput machin!!!!

Wow. Great feedback from everyone. All things considered I am going the Mac route. I have never had a problem with apple products (iPhone, iPad at least so far) and I trust their laptops will perform as well is not better. I really appreciate the feedback on the compatibility of programs.

I use a couple of Mac's within my Consultancy business and find that they work very well for me and I have few problems with moving documents backwards and forwards with clients who have Windows. I do run both Excel and Numbers for spreadsheets but I don't use Macro's as quite often Customer's block these for security reasons. There are some differences between the two applications but I find that Numbers is quicker and more intuitive to use so I tend to use this to build R.O.I calculators and then test the export on Excel. This may sound long winded but I actually find it's quicker.

Another great feature on the Mac is the capability to print as a PDF which means that the formatting is saved when you send on to Customers without installing an add on. It's a small thing but it's really useful and just works.

So where do I have problems. I do get some process charts in Visio and these I can't read at the moment so I have to use an old PC to work on these. What I will probably do to address this is to install VMware Fusion 3 and W7 which is no problem really.

From a business standpoint if a Mac fits your budget and you don't need to use Macro's or Visio frequently then it's a great tool that will help you to perform without the need for a constant IT Support companion.

We have just moved over from PCs to MacBook Pros for all our consultants and the main reason was simple - support costs, directly and indirectly.
We found dealing with the constant support issues to much of a drain on our staff and since moving over to Macs it has gone very smoothly, apart from the fact that staff have had to relearn some skills (shortcuts etc).
For me, it is a case of what issue are you trying to address and making the decision accordingly.
Yes, Excel is a bit clunky on a Mac in Office 2008 but I have heard this will improve dramatically in the version out at the end of the year.
No, it is not true that Mac is purely a user interface dominated machine.
Key benefits to me are:
Faster start up and shut down times
Greater stability
Longer battery life

Two things I would consider.
I decided to go Mac. I bought two a laptop and a desktop. After 13 months both went wrong. On the laptop it was the hard drive - on the desktop it was the power supply. As often happens it was while I was in the midst of a major and urgent project.

Had it been a PC I could have nipped straight to a computer shop and bought a power supply and hard drive. But Apple don't sell them - you have to take the machine to an Apple approved repairer. I did so. They told me they were booked weeks ahead and I had to pay £80 just to jump the queue - otherwise it would be three weeks before they could look at it.

Secondly most companies are PC based. Try to connect a Mac to their network and no-one will be able to help with connection issues etc. In many cases the knee-jerk will be "Mac - not interested mate". You'll get blamed for totally unrelated problems anywhere in the company too!

As to software, OS X has enough odd little foibles to be annoying - I lost count of the number of times I wan't to navigate to somewhere but it was greyed out. Not that Windows doesn't have its own oddities - just don't believe the Apple PR that everything is perfect on Macs.

Last but not least there is around a 20-30% premium for an identical system using the same hardware - with no benefit in speed etc. Nowhere near as many games, little programs etc. either. Try to connect a camera, video camera etc. and you'll often find the disk is PC only - you have to download for a Mac. With Windows, upgrades are free but Mr Jobs loves to come up with a few bug fixes once a year, call it another big cat and charge for the "upgrade".

The only reason I can find for choosing one is that it is better for running Adobe programs. Hopefully now that Adobe and Apple have fallen out this may change.

Trevor, from my experience in he IT field for several years, working with both PC and MAC, it was obvious the difference in both systems, MAC is faster than the PC it's true, but on the other hand, MAC is made more to be used for picture, graphics, movie editing, stuff that need fast processing power. but in case your work is simply with office tools such as excel, word, outlook etc.. and browsing the internet, then the PC is the best choice for you. another advantage of using a pc is that most of the people uses PC so you won't have any compatibilty issues.

it's also true that you might face some issues, sometimes, with your PC, but since you don't have an IT person, fixing PC issues is, most of the time, straight forward, and you can find help in multiple places, while with the MAC, if your not familiar with the interface or the operating system, you will no doubt need to seek some professional help most of the time.

Regards

Elie

John,
You might not be aware that Macs had been using Intel CPUs for quite many years now. That means that you can run Windows on them just like on any other PC.
With Bootcamp (part of Mac OS really) you can install Windows on a partition of your Mac's hard drive and reboot into Mac OS or Windows OS. It will then run exactly like any other Windows-based laptops.
But you do not have to go that far if you do not want to. With VMWare or Parallels you can run any Window OS on a virtual machine while in Mac OS.
If your requirement is Excel compatibility only, virtual machine with Windows will work very well.
Both Parallels and VMWare can use bootcamp partition if you want to, that way you can have all 3 configurations if you you need to - run Mac only or run Window only from bootcamp or run Mac and Windows at the same time using virtual machine running from bootcamp partition.

Since Windows OS is running on it's native CPU, performance is very good even when using virtual machine (unless you try to play some very graphic-intensive video games.) My 5-year old MacBook runs things like Word and Excel as fast as most of fairly recent PC laptops (takes a bit longer to startup though).
Just make sure you have at least 4GB of RAM or virtual machine becomes very slow.

Excel on Mac might be good enough, but it depends on your requirements. If you use macros, especially VBA you will have problems. For most applications it should be just fine, but running Excel under Windows VM will make this a non-issue.

I have been using both Macs and PC for 20 years now, and Mac is my preferred computer. YMMV, but most people I know find that their computing tasks got much easier after they switched to Mac.

Virtualization is a benefit, not hindrance. People use VM on Windows all the time. Using VM on Mac makes your life easier, not harder.

I do not really want to go into Mac vs PC religious war here, but to me the answer is very clear - because Mac is much easier and simpler to use for pretty much anything.

It is true that there are some tools that are popular on PC that either not available or limited on Mac, and for those particular tools you can use VM.

I am doing electronic design consulting for a living, not graphic stuff, and pretty much every tool I use for work is not available for Mac. Using VM allows me to have simple and efficient Windows installation that does not being used to surf the web, read e-mail, etc and just for work. I am using my Mac OS for everything else, my computer is free of viruses, I do not need to install security update every week, etc. I do not have any issues with IT support on Mac side, and because my Windows installation is used for work only I do not have many issues with it either (although it still gives me more troubles than Mac OS)

All of my business expenses are my personal expenses, so I using single computer for everything is cheaper than alternative.

While you can buy netbook for $250, a PC from reputable manufacturer with hardware similar to current MacBook/MacBook Pro will cost about as much. So no, it will not cost you twice less for similar PC and in my experience the only IT problems I am having that requires interventions are with my wife's PC laptop, while my very heavily used Mac has been essentially trouble free.

One of the earliest popular computer communications program was called Crosstalk, back when "MAC" stood primarily for "Media Access Control." Jef Garbers, developer of Crosstalk, was once famously quoted as saying "'easy to use' is easy to say."

In my years of experience, and I've used Macs and PCs for almost as long as both have existed, Macs are typically easier to LEARN, especially for those with little to know PC experience and/or IT expertise. This is largely because the user experience is more consistent across multiple functions and most software programs on the Mac. It's also because the PC was designed to be open to multiple manufacturers' and developers' solutions and ways of doing things. This often means users need at least a bit of knowledge and/or experience, especially to get everything working together or to diagnose problems.

I use a 2007-era MacBook every day on a network dominated by PCs. I'm running Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac, and except for occasional issues regarding remote access to my company's virtual private network, I have had no problems we couldn't resolve relatively quickly and painlessly.

You should try both platforms, but based on my experience and interpretation of how you worded the question, given that you have a business to run, I'd strongly recommend the Mac environment. Because for most people I've met and worked with, it's just plain easier to learn and often easier to use.