Mac justification

N

Napier Design

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I need info/articles that justify using a Mac over a Lenovo (Chinese IBM PC) .. please don't move forums, I need experienced designer feedback.

OK. A little background.

I work for a government agency. I have been here approx. 8 years. I have gone from a Power Mac running OS 7 with HD with 2 500MB partitions to my current G5 with dual 2.3 GHZ, 2 GB SDRAM running OS 10.4.6. So, I know the score.

I run the usual apps ... Quark 6.5, Illus./Photoshop CS, MX 04 suite. None of these are Mac specific.

With my G5 I figure I am still 3 to 5 years away from a new desktop machine. However, it is the policy of the current administration that when we do upgrade that our group will also honor the Lenovo contract. My Mac may be pryed from my cold dead fingers.

But in the meantime, I know to come up with justification which IT guy (who assisted in purchasing my awesome G5) can give to his boss as justification why.

Why did we do it? Off the top of my head, I can say that with my Mac I use mostly PostScript Type 1 fonts which look/react better when going thru a RIP and to press. But what else?

IT boss asked,"Is there any proprietary software for a Mac not available to PC when dealing with publishing?" The answer of course is no. All the usual suspects I have, PC folks also have. And they work pretty much the same (from what I've been told.)

And of course, there is the ability to run AppleScripts in Adobe products. I don't usually do this but I could. The PC offers nothing comparable from the little Googling I have done. But I don't run AppleScripts usually.

So can anyone think of anything else? Much appreciated.

Bill
 
Bosses like productive people. Would you be more productive on the Lenovo than you would on your Mac? I certainly wouldn't be. I'd take an older Mac over a brand-new Windows machine any day, and I'd also be more productive on a slower machine, even though I'm well versed in both OSs. You could argue that a platform switch would be like plucking you from Production (or whatever division of the company) and putting you into Sales or Financial Affairs or something -- basically, taking you out of your element and putting you somewhere that would require considerable time to get used to and be productive in.

TCO is also a good indicator of systems... of course, good research isn't given away:

http://www.pfeifferreport.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=42

I don't think you'll find anything significantly better than this sample article for free, though:

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22738.html
 
Productivity can also equal cost savings. A mac may cost more initially, but more than pays for itself with efficiency. I've worked for YEARS on macs without sending one bad print file or ruining one print job. That's worth AT LEAST $500,000 of printing and that's a conservative estimate.

Here's a great article on the Mac's overall lower support cost (your IT guy will love you even more for this too--less work for him to do):
http://www.macintoshed.com/mac.html

Here's a great thread on this very subject from the design perspective:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=334013

Another fact to consider is that OS X provides for quick and seamless app switching that pcs just don't do well at all. Most creative agencies you'll ever talk to use macs because they are simply the best machine for the job. Would you use a pair of gardening shears to mow your lawn? :) The mac is the John Deer of the design realm. :)
 
i have Safari, Firefox, Mail, iTunes, Adium, iCal, Address Book, iPhoto, Quicktime, Image Capture, Word, After Effects, Image Ready, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fetch FTP, Font Book, Flash 8, Flash Player, Dreamweaver, Preview, Amadeus, Text Edit, Activity Monitor, Handbrake, Disk Utility, CoverFlow, FreePops, and EarthDesk all running currently at the moment (!), and it's been this way for days.

the computer is pretty much as fast as if there were none open.

that would be part of my justification. that and exposé.
 
I appreciate the feedback. The links to the Pfeiffer report looks interesting. I can't justify paying for the whole thing though.

I really like the TCO angle. I have worked on Macs for over 10 years and with the exception of my Power Mac Motorola Star Mac clone of the 97 - 03 era I have never had any significant hardware or software problems. (The HD died twice and power supply went out in it ... but I digress.)

The problem with IT people is that they want to make quick service calls to your PC. They need to quickly ping things or install print drivers etc. On my mac I've installed and updated ppds and maintained everything with the exception of some LAN networking stuff (which seemed minimal.)

To better clarify my situation. I have one IT guy here in our office who has been great. He has ordered my current G5 and has been supportive. His boss, IT manager for all agencies has issued the new contract to purchase Lenovos (the G5 was purchased prior to the contract last year.)
 
Napier Design said:
I really like the TCO angle. I have worked on Macs for over 10 years and with the exception of my Power Mac Motorola Star Mac clone of the 97 - 03 era I have never had any significant hardware or software problems. (The HD died twice and power supply went out in it ... but I digress.)
Click to expand...

I know this is off-topic, but something to consider in the future if you do come across one of these again. I have a StarMax 4000 from Motorola that was given to me used a couple of years ago and I haven't had any problems other than the supposed "power supply" issue. Just wanted to let you know that it probably wasn't the power supply at all. These Macs won't boot if the PMU battery is dead (it's a little block battery from Rayovac). This is the same problem I had and I too thought initially that it was the PSU. Then I remembered that the battery might be dead and it was exactly that. A new PMU battery will bring this Mac (and even some others) back to life.

OK, I'm done hijacking. Back to the topic at hand... :p
 
Hmm, interesting note about the StarMax unfortunately for me and my wallet about 5 years too late ;). But back to the Mac vs. PC (Wintel) machine discussion. This is what I have so far.

Mac Advantage in Prepress Workflow

PostScript font technology (OpenType exists for both OS but fonts limited)
Photoshop optimized to open large files with PowerPC processor
Color managment
Lower TCO (total cost of ownership on repairs)

I am goolging each of this topics for reputable research links to back up these statements. But I need other bullets to add to the list.
 
Add lower tco on it maintenance to your list…

I've never had to have an IT help me with my mac. :) Though I have been using macs since 1983 so I have some experience. (Hence "Junior IT".)
 
Yeah, I feel like a junior IT guy too. But I'm not. Designers always say the Mac is better. Why? Because it can give you more accurate color, uses fonts that work better with postscript rips, photoshop runs more smoothly and very rarely do you have to see the real IT guys. Is there anything else though?

As an aside, I don't play games. So, I could care less how Marathon or Doom or whatever the heck the latest processor hog/waste of time performs on PC processor vs. a power pc chip.
 
BTW a nameless mentor replied ...

"• Macs are the industry standard (in our line of work - print and
publishing).

• Mac users can, for the most part, solve our own IT issues.

• Windows machines suck! They know it. We know it.

• Cross platform compatibility; no reason to change. I mean, with PDFs,
jpegs, Microsoft Office, Adobe 'across the board,' QT, Mpeg, etc., there is
no need to make the leap. Heck, I've got two Windows machines on our
network.

And what the heck are Lenovo PCs?

• Graphic Design, and the work we do on our Macs, is NOT like any other
department or office. What we do IS DIFFERENT. The Mac is an elegant tool on
which we can be creative. Take that tool away and replace with a clunky, DOS
driven, Windows machine? I think not.

That said; I'm not a big fan of Apple switching over to Intel processors. I
could go on about why. But what I've read in "MacWorld" and other
publications concerning the new MacIntel machines - I'm very disappointed.
Maybe in 2-3 years time I'll have a different opinion. But for now - it
sucks."
 
The discussions on why they switched and whether it was a good idea has beeen talked bout to death here. Not everyone likes it, but that's what Apple has chosen to do. And from the looks of it, the decision looks like a wise one. The Intel Macs have proven to be much faster than their PPC predecessors, especially on the MacBook Pro. The PowerBook was long overdue for a change and neither IBM nor Moto was going to do it.

As for Lenovo, they are the Chinese company that took over IBM's PC division. Of course, now they are shipping laptops under their own name. People say that the quality is that of IBM ThinkPads (since they took over the line from IBM) but because they're a Chinese company some people aren't very trustful of them. I had seen a story on that recently.
 
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