[WinMac] Re: Which is less trouble: Mac+Win or Win+Mac?

John Nurick(j.nurick[at]dial.pipex.com)
Sun, 06 Sep 1998 06:21:27 +0100

Some time ago I asked

>Which would you rather have: a small Mac network whose users often have
>to exchange documents with Wintel systems, or a small NT/95 network
>whose users occasionally have to exchange documents with Mac systems?

The context was planning the replacement of a small management consultancy's
antique standalone PCs with modern hardware, Office97/98 and a network (c.15
users initially, likely to expand to 20-25). With a one-eyed Mac evangelist
on the staff and Apple seeming to have got its act together, I was tasked to
evaluate Wintel vs Mac for our envisaged uses.

In my original posting I promised to summarise the responses. That's dead
easy: everyone reckoned that a network of Macs would require much less support.

Nevertheless, we have gone for a Wintel solution. It was a difficult
decision, but I think it came down to the following quite small points:

* A Mac system would mean lower support costs and fewer network problems,
but more problems exchanging documents and information with clients and
associates. On balance, the Mac solution would probably work out less
troublesome -- but such problems as did occur would tend to be at the
interface between us and other organisations (e.g. a consultant on site
working with client to finish a tender before the deadline): not good for
the image. With Wintel, the problems would tend to be concentrated in our
own office, with support available and no clients to notice.

* Almost all the kinds of software we know we shall need are available for
both platforms, and the few others could perfectly well be run with VPC.
Again, the problem arises at the interface with other organisations. Even if
there is very good cross-platform software available (as there is, for
example, in project management), this isn't much help if all our clients are
running MS Project 98 and the Mac is stuck with MS Project 4.x. If we are
going to have to run Windows software for mainstream tasks we may as well
run it (faster) on Wintel machines.

* A significant number of people already have Wintel machines at home which
they often use for work. No one was really keen on continually switching
UIs; in particular they disliked having to remember different shortcut keys
in Office. (In an ideal world, we could always give them Macs to take home.
In practice, this cost too much.)

* No one (except the Mac-lover) loved the PowerBook (G3 250Mhz) we got on
appro. Partly it was the trackpad: none of us ever managed to move the
pointer across the screen in one swipe and end up on the button or menu we
were aiming for. Partly it was the absence of dedicated PgUp and PgDn keys:
we all spend a lot of time scrolling through documents and it's stupid to
have to use both hands for this: one very often needs to take notes or hold
the telephone or a mug of coffee.

Cost differences hardly played a part in the evaluation, which we based on
the hardware and software that would do our job best without going over the
top. At this stage, the Mac solution looked about 10 per cent more expensive
and in the context of possible productivity differences over 3 years and the
expected longer useful life of Mac hardware this was insignificant. After
we'd chosen Wintel and a preferred supplier and got down to the real
cost-cutting, we found more fat in our Wintel spec than there had been in
the Mac one.

So we settled for an NT4 server, MS BackOffice Small Business Server, a mix
of W98 workstations (PII 300 MHz) and W95 laptops (Toshiba 490XCDT) -- and
one top-spec PowerBook to keep the Mac-lover happy. As well as Office 98
(and the VR presentation software he needs) we'll give him VPC/Win95 and
Office 97 so he can check that the documents he creates will show up
properly on Wintel systems.

Thanks to all who helped answer my original question.

John

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Sat Sep 05 1998 - 22:25:07 PDT