IT pros expect Macs to replace PCs at an 'unprecedented rate'

[SciFi]

Erm, try telling that to the folks that had PowerPC based Macs - kind of puts the lie to the last bit.
Actually I was quite happy with the rest of what you had written - basically you'd found a setup that worked well for you. But you look foolish to claim that this is the acme of computing ... it just isn't. Then again, my preferred setup also isn't the best for all, it just suits me.

You totally missed my point, which may be my fault..


Take the iPhone. - You know without question that when someone releases a smartphone app for something from parking your car to turning up your heating that the iPhone will work. This is the pencil effect.

Take the ecosystem - I know that I can browse something on my phone then grab the Macbook out of my bag which connects to the hotspot on my tablet with a single click and pickup where I left off on the phone.... again it works, all the time every time.

I was not saying that Apple have unified computing into a single basic platform... god I wish someone would though !


I also think that referencing PowerPC models is a bit laughable.. but hey

[OilSheikh]

Yes, them experts... I have worked with Support colleagues who are blind fans of Macs. I found it seriously ironic that they were working in Tech support and Mac fans. Bet these fools don't even know how to assemble a PC

[mister35mm]

"expect Macs to replace PCs at an 'unprecedented rate" if this story were a book, I'd file in under FANTASY!

What complete nonsense!

Most big corporations would prefer not to have computers without built in obsolescence, design for UTILITY and not decoration.

Most apple users I've met bought an Apple item due to VANITY, STUPIDITY and GULLIBILITY.

Who wrote this nonsense? Steve Job's personal MEDIUM???

[cjs150]

Having used Macs and PCs and Iphones and Android phones my experience is that I really like the Macs but I would not want to use them in an office environment using windows server, nor would I use them as a gaming machine but as an on the go lap top they are excellent

The odd thing for me was moving recently from Android to the Iphone at work. I had thought that Apple was about making the user experience simple, I could not have been more wrong - my experience was highlighted by wanting to use a personalised ring tone (sampled from my own music), on the Android phone it took 2 steps and about 30 secs, on the Iphone 13 steps and 45 minutes, the Iphone was a massive disappointment

[3dcandy]

I'm a firm believer that this is poppycock. However Mac market share is increasing but only because some people are buying into the integration. Iphone's pah. I get loads of friends who are constantly replacing screens because they seem very fragile and then it's the icloud mess to get all your stuff back. A rubbish broadband connection meant setting up a new Iphone 6s was the best part of 3 hours this week with multiple icloud failures, multiple Apple servers not responding errors etc. I can remember when it was a 5 min job

[DanceswithUnix]

Chromebooks seem to be doing really well as well, without factoring them into the article it isn't balanced (but I supposed making it a Mac vs PC confrontation can be more fun to write).

[kingpotnoodle]

Yes, but what I'd like to know is how much of that is down to not having to support Windows so, for example, could you get similar savings by using your bog standard Dell's etc but replacing Windows with a decent Linux distro?
.

I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the supposed Mac support savings is because few of the Windows focussed commercial management tools are compatible and therefore there is a licence saving by default. Most Macs seem to be for sales and non-technical management (i.e. people for whom the equipment budget actually allows it) and things like support, AV monitoring, updates etc. are just put to one side so the boss can have something silver and slightly shiny.

Macs are a pain in the ass from that respect, but then so is a Linux minority in a mixed environment. Windows has been so successful in enterprise because of the whole supporting ecosystem around it - management/monitoring tools, active directory, group policy etc. and the fact is nothing for Mac or Linux touches that Microsoft ecosystem for ease-of-use and features.

[Ttaskmaster]

but their stuff just works and integrates.

Yeah, 'works' is all it does.
You buy Apple if you simply want a device that does something.
If you want to make it do something in a different way and have options to configure how it gets done, you buy a PC.
Biggest problem my former-MAC owning friend ever had was making it do something that didn't require jumping through AppleStore hoops and only being allowed to use the one app provided... That and not knowing any of his passwords (including the router) because the Mac apparently created and handled all those for him??!!

Would I go back to a windows laptop with an android phone.. not for all the tea in china

If you don't want them, can I have 'em?

Take the iPhone

Nah. Don' wannit. You keep!!!

You know without question that when someone releases a smartphone app for something from parking your car to turning up your heating that the iPhone will work.

You also know that the app will likely cost money, so the dev will have put more effort in to keep sales up.
Because Android OS is open source, a lot of people think that means it and everything associated with it is/should be completely free... and since many Andy apps are free, people don't want to pay the devs for their hard work, which means a half-arsed job on the Andy version... if they bother putting an Andy one out at all, that is.

Once again, "there's an app for that" only because you're lazy and someone can make money off you because of it!!

[peterb]

Yeah, 'works' is all it does.
You buy Apple if you simply want a device that does something.
If you want to make it do something in a different way and have options to configure how it gets done, you buy a PC.
Biggest problem my former-MAC owning friend ever had was making it do something that didn't require jumping through AppleStore hoops and only being allowed to use the one app provided... That and not knowing any of his passwords (including the router) because the Mac apparently created and handled all those for him??!!


If you don't want them, can I have 'em?


Nah. Don' wannit. You keep!!!


You also know that the app will likely cost money, so the dev will have put more effort in to keep sales up.
Because Android OS is open source, a lot of people think that means it and everything associated with it is/should be completely free... and since many Andy apps are free, people don't want to pay the devs for their hard work, which means a half-arsed job on the Andy version... if they bother putting an Andy one out at all, that is.

Once again, "there's an app for that" only because you're lazy and someone can make money off you because of it!!

The article refers to corporate users, not home users.

'Works' is what enterprise/corporates want, and in large corporations, the customisation is a disadvantage and often the the operating system is locked down so hard it become a closed environment. OSX is based on a tried and tested UNIX environment, so it harnesses the UNIX expertise available, (and personally I'd rather work with a shell script than tangle with the windows registry databases!)

Corporates don't like change for the sake of change, and won't necessarily buy into The Windows 10 model, but may prefer the stability of OSX. Of course they won't be buying from their nearest Apple Store, but there is mileage in buying a system that is tried,nested and will perform in exactly the same way, whatever the internal hardware is. In fact they don't care, about the internals, they care about results.

Apple have always sold computers as commodities, hardware devices that use software to perform, unlike Microsoft who have sold software for others to integrate into their hardware.

As for apps for IOS and Android, many if this will be developed in house by developers, or commissioned for a specific job, and I'm sure that both can work equally well on either Android or Apple - both are *nix based. But there are flaws with some of the stock basic Android apps that seem poorly developed, Gmail for example. And Android does seem to work best with the Google infrastructure - it is very tightly integrated with it, and given Google basic business model is advertising based on personal data collection, I suspect the corporate users view that with some distrust and would be more comfortable with Appple's.

Remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Microsoft are changing their business model. Subscription based, I suspect that too may make corporate users nervous. Apple may again represent stability in a changing market place, and stabilityis well worth paying for, and if you are a corporate throwing round lots of money, they won't be paying retail prices for Appl s kit, and they may consider the long term cost of ownership better value for money.

And 'works' is what a lot of home users want too. Not everyone wants to mess about with drivers, overclocking or finding the latest and greatest GPU. Yes, there are custom application where Windows is used as an embedded operating system because there are very high end items of hardware available, video switchers for example. The ticket machines at your local station are Windows based - Windows XP IIRC. But that can (perhaps to a lesser extent) be done with OSX.

Microsoft have been top of the perch in personal computers for a long time, but when you are at the top, there is onnly one other direction, and that is down. IBM in the 1960s and 70s were top of the corporate heap for IT, they aren't anymore.

I doubt this is the beginning of the end for Microsoft, but it may be the end of their market dominance, and that will be good for consumers. They will have to become more innovative And reactive to try to stay ahead, and that in turn may encourage innovation in their competitors.

But predictions are notoriously difficult in technology, but I do wonder what the PC market will look like in 5 years time.

[Peter Parker]

... Most Macs seem to be for sales and non-technical management ...

... However Mac market share is increasing but only because some people are buying into the integration ...

Funny, my anecdotal experience is the exact opposite! In 3 of my last 5 jobs the software developers have used Macs. One used Windows 7 and one used Linux.

In 2008 at Sky I worked in a software development department that was exclusively Mac Pro with dual 24" screens. Probably around 20-25 workstations, plus some used as "continuous integration" hardware. More recently at the Mail, most of the dev team (30 people) used a MacBook Air plugged into monitors. 2 people used Lenovo laptops running Linux. Now I have a small team and we mostly use MacBook Pros.

For a lot of software development it's really useful to have a UNIX-like OS with a decent terminal and standard tools like an SSH client built in. Obviously different if you're developing Windows-native apps, or using Windows dev tools/platform.

I haven't had an iPhone since the 3GS, sticking with Android phones and tablets.

As for the cost of the device, it's largely irrelevant in a company. Even accepting the (paraphrasing) "extra £500 cost" at face value, that's nothing over 3 years and a software developer that will cost £60-100k per year. If having a shiny Mac makes the employee 0.1% more productive, buy it!

I expect to see more Macs in technical departments in the future.

[DanceswithUnix]

The annoying tendency for companies to use Exchange and Outlook and to a lesser extent Word and Excel still pretty much ties every desktop to needing Windows access if not native. That was always what tied businesses to Windows, and I haven't seen enough change yet to pull away from that.

[Peter Parker]

The annoying tendency for companies to use Exchange and Outlook and to a lesser extent Word and Excel still pretty much ties every desktop to needing Windows access if not native. That was always what tied businesses to Windows, and I haven't seen enough change yet to pull away from that.

Why? Outlook is available for Mac (though it just to be terrible). I managed fine with Outlook Web Access in the past, and I think newer Macs support Exchange in the Mail application : https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201951

LibreOffice works well enough for everything I've needed in the past, but I imagine some complex spreadsheets don't work?

Perhaps you mean more general things like Windows domain login, and I'd agree that can be an issue. I just never logged in to the domain though

I could have just been lucky and worked in places where most applications were web-based.

[Nifl]

Wasn't Fallout 4 developed on Mac? RIP future of PC gaming...

[Corky34]

If you want to make it do something in a different way and have options to configure how it gets done, you use to buy a PC.

FTFY.
The direction Microsoft are taking PCs the days of configuring how it gets done are coming to an end.

[plexabit]

I absolutely love reading all these Hexus readers. Praising Windows/Linux while at the same time bashing Apple's OS. It's really simple. What do you need?

Apple:
- Integration
- Seamless Ecosystem
- "It just works"

Windows/Linux:
- Performance (unless you have a million dollars for the Mac Pro)
- Customization
- IT/Server work

So often, techies that read things like Hexus lose literally all touch with reality. Today's processors (yes, even in Apple computers) easily perform 90% of the tasks needed for the average human being with ease.

I don't own any Apple products, not because I think I'm better than someone who uses Apple products, but I've made the tradeoff for endless driver issues, viruses, random computer shutdowns, having to reset Windows randomly, try and integrate Chrome or Pushbullet, subpar build quality, etc. for the performance and price point.

Look at Windows - Their new Surface Book is not much less than a Macbook, and it still doesn't have that perfect integration of an Apple ecosystem.

Get your heads out yo'...whatever...

And I'd be interested to know where you can buy a new Mac laptop for less than £600 (legitimately!), a quick trip to the PC World eComm site shows that the cheapest is the 11.6" Macbook Air and that's got a discounted price of £674. (PS "Retina" is just an Apple marketing term - how about a ppi or similar proper spec?)

Yes, but what I'd like to know is how much of that is down to not having to support Windows so, for example, could you get similar savings by using your bog standard Dell's etc but replacing Windows with a decent Linux distro?

LtSkitzo was saying that Macbooks have a 500 GBP premium OVER a similar laptop. So a 1100 GBP Macbook = 600 GBP Windows system, which is honestly hyperbole.

Also, the average user ever touching Linux? LOL.

[Ttaskmaster]

The article refers to corporate users, not home users.

Errm..... I knew that......honest.....

Corporates don't like change for the sake of change, and won't necessarily buy into The Windows 10 model, but may prefer the stability of OSX.

But would that not mean buying a load of Macs?
That'd also mean tendering a new IT support contractor (because we don't actually do *anything* ourselves any more) who supports OSX.

Apple have always sold computers as commodities, hardware devices that use software to perform, unlike Microsoft who have sold software for others to integrate into their hardware.

I think in business cases, it's more about an OS that will run whatever office software we have to use.
If Macs offered that level of support and were cheaper, we might have them instead...

As for apps for IOS and Android, many if this will be developed in house by developers, or commissioned for a specific job, and I'm sure that both can work equally well on either Android or Apple - both are *nix based.

Most of ours are Windows Mobile or Andy. Fewer actually do iOS, because so few of our contractors have Apple devices.

But there are flaws with some of the stock basic Android apps that seem poorly developed, Gmail for example.

Haven't noticed a problem myself... what are the flaws?

And Android does seem to work best with the Google infrastructure

It probably does now they bought Andy, but my 2.3 is pretty Google-free. I avoid apps that require GoogleServices to be running wherever possible.

if you are a corporate throwing round lots of money,

What, actually SPEND money??!!
What about our stakeholders and Executive Direc... err, I mean 'Shareholders'?

they won't be paying retail prices for Appl s kit, and they may consider the long term cost of ownership better value for money.

Despite having hundreds of millions in profits, we only recently got Windows 7.
I don't think we'll be buying into Apple any time soon...!!

And 'works' is what a lot of home users want to.

My experiences from listening to Mac-friends whining is that everything has to be the special Mac version. I can't give them a file because it's not recorded from a Mac-compatible tape recorder, in Mac-compatible format on a Mac-compatible flash drive with Mac-compatible encryption, Mac Mac Mac... all while telling me my PC is so inferior.
Mac has always sounded like it's the Apple way or the highway. You cannot use any other company's software to do anything unless Mac own them.

Not everyone wants to mess about with drivers, overclocking or finding the latest and greatest GPU.

And that's fine. Macs are for those people.
But the instant you want to change hardware, software or do something that isn't aligned with the business model Apple has designed for you, it seems there are problems.

But that can (perhaps to a lesser extent) be done with OSX.

It's that greater extent that always rears its ugly head, though.
Having converted MacFriend to PCs, he swears he will never buy a Mac again... and this was pretty much the stereotypical 'Mac Guy' in almost every respect... I don't believe he reads The Guardian, though!