Let's Get Digital

Whenever someone needs a new computer, especially if they’re not a veteran user with ingrained preferences, I get asked if they should go for Windows or Mac. Here’s my thinking about this. It’s a little nuanced, but I definitely have a pretty strong personal preference based on bang-for-the-buck. But like most things, the answer is really: “It depends”.

I used to be a business software developer and ran an IT department. We turned up our noses at Macs – tried to keep them out of our networks. Macs were and are much more expensive than comparable Windows PCs. We lived in a world dominated by Microsoft Office, so it was a no-brainer for us to standardize on Windows. I think we let some marketing people use Macs but they were not really in the mainstream of the business anyway.

Mac people will tell you all about how much better their computers are because of the superior user experience and imperviousness to viruses and other malware. I think that nowadays with Windows 7 being the standard for PC operating systems, we are much less susceptible to infection and the stability of the operating system has definitely improved over Windows XP or any previous OSes (and I go back to DOS 2.1). I hardly ever have to reboot my laptop, and I’ve had it for over a year and a half.

I did recently become aware that the value proposition is not quite as cut and dried as I thought, though. My considered opinion was that Macs are nice (I was sorely tempted by the newest MacBook Air 13) but that you pay 2x to 3x premium for comparable hardware nowadays. There is one countervailing fact: Macs hold their value way better than PCs do. A four year old used Mac can be sold for real money; a four year old PC is junk. You should still do your cost comparisons pretty carefully, but it certainly improves the case for Mac hardware investments.

But since I’m mostly living in the Cloud, I don’t care anything about Windows vs Mac. What matters to me is the browser, not desktop software which I use very little of. We’ll be discussing web browsers very soon – now there’s a subject worth getting worked up about!

If you’re doing high end stuff with sound or video and graphics, then it would appear that the Mac platform is going to be the place to be. The software is great and it’s the professional standard and you can’t really do this kind of work with web based tools (yet).

If you’re still doing a lot of work on corporate networks I’m sure you’ll continue to be better served by a Windows platform and Microsoft Office (although Google Apps has MS Office firmly in its sights).

Software developers will pick their own spots depending on where their customers are. The sizzle is in Web applications and mobile apps for IOS and Android, but surely the business market at least will be heavily dominated by Windows for years to come.

Recommendation: unless you have specialized needs as a designer or a software developer, buy the fastest, lightest laptop you can afford, with as much memory as you can put in it. Don’t worry too much about internal hard disk storage. You can always add disk storage either internally or externally. Windows based laptops with comparable hardware specs will be a lot cheaper than Macs, but the Mac will hold its value better and will almost certainly deliver a more pleasant user experience. But please do consider that more and more you will be using web based software and services and which operating system you’re using will matter less and less.

A later thought: what about Linux? I’ve never lived with it, so I don’t know, but if you are really committed to web based software, it should be a great choice of platform.

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