Apple Mac vs PC

[DJGM]

Please re-read the first line of my previous post . . .

What about organisations that have to rely on apps that are written only for Windows . . . ?

Realistically, it would cost the company making the software extra money to port the apps they
make for Windows to Mac OS X. An organisation can't just ask for a Mac OS X version of the
software if a Mac OS X version of the software doesn't even exist.

Anyway, here's another reason to be realistic, an organisation can't just switch all it's desktop
workstations from PC's to Apple Mac's overnight. Especially if it has a large number of PC's.

I used to work in a call centre (over 5 years ago) with over 500 Windows based PC's in use.

It'd take a lot of time and money to replace the lot with Apple Mac computers. Not only that,
all the staff would have to be trained to use them. That'd cost even more time and money.
And would also mean lost productivity by taking staff off duty so they can be trained to
learn how to use a completely different operating system.

And lost productivity, means lost money, and no company is willing to lose money like that.

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[Antony]

What about organisations that have to rely on apps that are written only for Windows . . . ?

Realistically, it would cost the company making the software extra money to port the apps they make for Windows to Mac OS X. An organisation can't just ask for a Mac OS X version of the software if a Mac OS X version of the software doesn't even exist.

DJGM, I was referring to custom made software. They pay for software companies to write programmes they need. Many big companies (in Australia and New Zealand) get their specialised software from a number of software companies, and some of many of them use Java.

Note, I am not talking about the slow Java Applet, but Java (as in back-end).

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[DJGM]

If you took over a company that ran only Windows based PC's, would you willing to spend all the time
and money needed to swap all the PC's for Macs? Then spend however much money is needed to
train all your staff how to use Macs, thus causing your company to lose money through lost
productivity because staff are off-duty learning the differences between Mac and PC?

Bear in mind, you would also have to get your company shareholders to agree to all of this as well.

And what if the company still has a long term Windows licensing contract with Microsoft? Would
you be willing to break the on-going agreement just to ensure everyone's using Apple Mac?

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[Don_HH2K]

Personally, I think those results are misleading. While common users may not find this to be the case, a user who knows where to look would know that decent software can be found for free. The total cost of a complete box (that is, an all-included package: tower, monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and printer) can be purchased for about $499 to $599USD from Dell. Most Dell machines come with preloaded productivity software, so you don't need to spend much in that field. If you want Office, that's only $129 extra. Antivirus, firewalls, backup, antispyware, and all that can all be found for free (in that order, AVG Free, ZoneAlarm Free, Windows Backup, Windows Defender). That works out to around $730 per unit.

Compare that to the $499 Mac mini, which is just the PC and nothing else. Add a $100 monitor, $20 speakers, $70 printer, Office for Mac 2004 for $130, and a USB keyboard/mouse combo for $10. Works out to the same price, doesn't it?

On a business scale, though, you have to consider software compatibility, as DJGM said earlier. Porting software to a new platform could be daunting if that app is written in something, say, one of the .NET languages, as Microsoft is pushing for businesses. What if their corporate website is coded in ASP or ASP.NET with Jet or MSSQL: suddenly they have to port their pages to work with PHP and MySQL, and on top of that, IIS and Apache have different ways of working. Training would be yet another story, since there's a good chance that most people would be familiar with Windows and not Mac OS.

For a consumer, though, as I said above, your TCO is around $730 regardless of whether you get a new Windows or Mac box.

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[Pu7o]

In short, it's a lot cheaper to use Macs for your organisation. Switch now!

It's cheaper to use Macs when you start an organization, but it's very expensive to change an entire organization to a whole new platform.

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[Subir]

And organisations definitely WON'T switch from PC to Mac, just because an Apple extremist says they should.

LOL

You're making Antony sound like some kind of terrorist!

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[Antony]

We know heard that Macs are expensive, but exactly how expensive? Faruk Ate? has a report on comparing 17-inch professional notebooks.

He took a base configuration.
(2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 GB DDR2 667 MHz, 100 GB 7200rpm, Ati X1600 with 256 MB*, 8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer, Built-in Wireless and Bluetooth)
* The Dells don't offer the X1600, so he resorted to lesser videocards, maintaining the 256 MB baseline.

And the results were quite stunning:
Inspiron E1705 $2,893
Precision M90 $3,452
Inspiron 9400 $2,981
MacBook Pro 17" $2,799

Another myth is that Apple overcharges on their memory prices, but I guess they're not the only one if so.

Next, configured to 2GB of RAM instead of 1GB, and the results are...
Inspiron E1705 $3,099
Precision M90 $3,712
Inspiron 9400 $3,306
MacBook Pro 17" $3,099

Apple's MacBook Pro is the cheapest in both configurations.

For more information, please read Debunking the price myth: Apple vs. Dell (KuraFire, by Faruk Ate?)

You can buy MacBook Pro through our link and support SillyDog701.

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[PlatinumX]

I see the discussion of plug and play. It doesn't seem like Windows has gotten down plug-in-play yet. Maybe for most things, but...

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 10/1519230

They compared a Mac Mini vs. a Windows Media Center PC. The result is that the Mini was ahead.

Also, I think PowerPC 604e IS G3. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Lisa

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[Mandrake]

Dell Australia has the Inspiron 9400 with a 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 1GB Ram, Geforce Go 7800, 100GB HDD for $3644.30 - that's almost $1000 cheaper than the Apple Macbook pro 17" that starts at $4600 AUD. The Dell has significantly faster graphics as well.

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[walwalka]

yea,
but see you are compareing mac with dell. As i and everyone else knows dell is the most expensive pc manu. other than alienware.

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[souliisoul]

Dear All,

I found it interesting reading this forum on Mac vs. PC and the disussions and relevants points put forward. I for one will near never (never say never) buy a PC, since for lifestyle user, mac has the best products for the consumer with concern to digital age. As a consumer, I require easy to use, friendly software and hardware that allows me to undertake what I want to do that is have fun or achieve my objectives.

I think that Apple have produced products that work with their hardware and seen to me seamless. Even the Aperture product may have been their worst deleiver but it seems to be great improvement on the next release.

Mac is a complete company with relevant software and hardware support. When you buy a pc from Dell, Gateway etc, their do not support software and hardware, which is diffcult if you have a problem.

There are great software apps out there fr PC but I perfer to deal with one person as consumer for my photo, music, movie and general day to day stuff that we require.

I do like PC but found that a Mac is much easier to use and maintain.

I have Quad G5 with 2.5Mhz and 23" inch Cinema display..beautiful.

Lastly isight camera is innovation with the display.

With concern to looking good, I agree it does not matter but it is a bonus when you know that the machine works very good as well.

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[gektor]

MAC is a PC now.
So this is not MAC vs. PC, but MAC=PC.

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[Don_HH2K]

MAC is a PC now.
So this is not MAC vs. PC, but MAC=PC.

Not necessarily; there are still a good deal of major underlying differences between PC and Mac now. For one thing, the use of Extensible Firmware Interface, or EFI, in Mac machines creates an incompatibility from day one. BIOS-specific code and EFI-specific code are quite different, therefore, code assembled particularly for a BIOS won't run out-of-the-box on an EFI, and vice-versa. Then there's video output, with PCs using VGA in some form and Mac machines using UGA. Thrown on top of that is how Mac hard disks don't use the same partitioning system, thus making your drives incompatible,

A prime example of this is how DOS, perhaps the lowliest of operating systems, won't run off a bootdisk on a Mac specifically because it was written with a BIOS and VGA in mind.

Apple's Boot Camp goes to correct these issues by implementing a VGA BIOS within EFI, and goes on to simulate an MS-DOS-style partition table on a GPT disk. That said, PC is only compatible with Mac if you emulate or simulate what you need within the incompatible hardware. Think of it a bit like how a Sony PlayStation emulator might work on a PC or Mac -- it'll let you run a PlayStation application, but that isn't to say the PlayStation is compatible with a PC or Mac.

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[Antony]

MAC is a PC now.
So this is not MAC vs. PC, but MAC=PC.

Not necessarily; there are still a good deal of major underlying differences between PC and Mac now. For one thing, the use of Extensible Firmware Interface, or EFI, in Mac machines creates an incompatibility from day one. BIOS-specific code and EFI-specific code are quite different, therefore, code assembled particularly for a BIOS won't run out-of-the-box on an EFI, and vice-versa.

Using BIOS does not make it more PC. It's just the fact that the world's most popular desktop operating system, Windows, requires BIOS to boot up. (current shipping versions.)

Then there's video output, with PCs using VGA in some form and Mac machines using UGA. Thrown on top of that is how Mac hard disks don't use the same partitioning system, thus making your drives incompatible,

May I ask where you read that UGA thing? Are you referring to screen's resolution or the output mode from graphic card?
Older Macs use standard-VGA output. For the benefit of providing better video output, Macs have been pushing digital signals (ADC and now DVI and DVI dual link).

The partition? Mac supports standard UNIX partition. It's more or less Windows not to use standard UNIX partition.

A prime example of this is how DOS, perhaps the lowliest of operating systems, won't run off a bootdisk on a Mac specifically because it was written with a BIOS and VGA in mind.

Apple's Boot Camp goes to correct these issues by implementing a VGA BIOS within EFI, and goes on to simulate an MS-DOS-style partition table on a GPT disk. That said, PC is only compatible with Mac if you emulate or simulate what you need within the incompatible hardware.

Implementing a VGA BIOS within EFI?
According to Wikipedia, I do not see any mention of "VGA BIOS",

(Boot Camp) includes the boot-loader and BIOS compatibility module required to get the EFI based machines to boot legacy operating systems.

Windows running on Intel-based Mac is not "emulating" or "simulating" of any kind. Windows runs natively on Intel-base Macs.

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[Pu7o]

Not really, Intel Macs use EFI with the newer GPT partitioning and UGA graphics, while PCs still use the old-fashion MBR style partitioning and VGA graphics. Apple's firmware update shipped at the same time as Boot Camp added a BIOS compatibility layer, which emulates BIOS calls (which aren't a lot), an MBR partition table, and VGA output, and as such enables the Mac to run some well behaved PC operating systems (read: some, not all, for example, FreeBSD does not run on Intel-based Macs). Note that BIOS calls are only emulated at boot time, and this emulation is not in any way "slow", so in practice, this IS running natively.

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