Interesting Opinion On Ms Status

[Loves2Shoot]

Bruce is spot on in my experience. Many "large" companies still run nt4 for that exact reason. They could care less the version of the OS they run as long as they can have their word processors, spreadsheets, e-mail, and databases. The IT geeks have to kick and scream for any semblance of real security and backups, let alone "current version." When you have 2k+ users upgrades (hardware or software) aren't cheap.

[George]

I am not advocating, nor thinking that using a PowerBook or an iMac widescreen model to replace boxes in corporate settings is gonna' happen. I am certain however that once OS X has been used by someone for longer than a few minutes, they may not want to return to an OS that has more "issues" for the casual user. Couple this with the next step that Apple will almost certainly take which is to make their OS run on other boxes.

As soon as that happens, the discerning individual computer user is going to run from a dodgy system as quickly as they can. Believe me, Apple will be in the OS business before long. They sell hardware you say, you will just get more features out of the software when it runs on their hardware. Either way, they get some more of your money (remember the 2 iPods you bought for the kids last year) just like Bill used to.

IT professionals can keep MS solid in the workplace because they work on fixing it all the time. The independent user needs a system that needs a lot less IT overhead in the first place than MS code and that's OS X, not Vista.

I do Mac support for quite a few creative professionals in my area. I find I usually just help them make the systems work better or fix niggling details and I don't do that much of that. I do more updates than fixes. My average client problem cycle is over a year between unless some hardware smokes.

My two friends who do PC support work for small businesses and individuals say their average client problem cycles run 2-4 months between incidents. They usually respond to a dead machine and the typical reason is either virus/spyware/adware related, or it's another case of Windows suicide.

My two friends both make more money at what they do with the same, or less number of PC clients than I have of Mac clients. Lets face it, The Wintel system is good for business, for sure ;-)

[BritinUSA]

I agree, there is more money to be made from software than from hardware. I don't see apple dropping their hardware (I think it's some of the best stuff out there). But when they get OS-X running on any PC then I can see a shift away from MS Operating Systems.

[AZ38super]

PC support techs are that busy because of 99.9% user caused errors or poor setups in the first place.

I have run/supported Win PC and servers without any troubles every 2-4 months, 6 months, a year and on. A properly setup computer will run fine and you need to pay attention to the garbage you install on it to run. One of the biggest issues out there, poor software, and the worst users are the ones that think they know something about computers.

[George]

The average Mac user is no better or worse than the average PC user when it comes to knowing what to do, or what not to do. I find the Mac OS to be better setup right outadabox and to survive user tweaking and strange install practices much better than it MS counterpart. Hardware aside, X is way more robust in an average users hands.

As far as servers go, these do typically run longer between service intervals. This has more to do with a lack of user twiddling IMO. Our office Win2k server system typically goes at least 6-8 months without falling on it face and it did run for almost 12 months straight once. Of course I have a G3 B&W tower that is running OS X in use as a server and it's present 24/7 uptime is going on 18 months ;-)

[D.Hayden]

As far as servers go, these do typically run longer between service intervals. This has more to do with a lack of user twiddling IMO

+1... also, they don't tend to have 'odd', 'cool' hardware installed.

1+ year should be more the norm than the exception, it certainly is for me.

Ditto to Brit...If Apple would open up, and let OS/X run on standard hardware, I think it would be adopted much more.. But they're really the farthest company away from being Open that there is.