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My comments are about NORMAL businesses with NORMAL margins, not the Google's of the world operating at 60%+ margins with the ability (and a need due to taxes)

My comments are about NORMAL businesses with NORMAL margins, not the Google's of the world operating at 60%+ margins with the ability (and a need due to taxes) to burn cash. > Employees are increasingly going to start demanding them Employees who demand that a NORMAL company pay 10x for a computer are not employees. They are babies who have not a clue as to how business runs and don't care to burn cash in exchange for zero returns. They either get fired or not hired at all. > An organization will run more efficiently if the employees are more comfortable in their computing environment Well, how do you explain the fact that PC's running various versions of Windows grotesquely dwarf Mac installations in companies of all sizes around the world? Want them to be more productive? Buy them a second monitor. A Mac is going to do exactly zero. BTW, I am not a PC or Mac fan-boy. We have large numbers of both platforms, with PC's running Windows or Linux depending on usage. However, we have them for a reason and not because we like one or the other. In the case of Macs the only justification we've been able to find so far is working on iOS apps. Other than that engineering, business, graphics, etc. can be done equal to or better than on a Mac on PC's running Windows or Linux. NORMAL businesses can't justify paying 10x for computers just 'cause. Let's put it this way. Money isn't infinite. NORMAL company: A CEO decides to allocate $200K towards buying a bunch of Macs ('cause they are cool) instead of spending $20K for an equal number of equally capable (in a business context) PC's and allocating the remaining $180K towards sales and marketing efforts. Again, money isn't infinite. Do you know what you are looking at in this scenario? A CEO about to be fired by the board. One of my standard interview questions is: If we hire you, what kind of a computer do you need? You can learn a ton about a person from the answer to this question. Some will say "anything will do". Some will say "I have to have a Mac". Yet others will ask pointed questions about the tools we use, how we use them, how the various teams work and what the various business processes require. The last group are the keepers. And, you know what, in a lot of cases the right answer turns out to be that they need one of each, or even three computers. The point is that they UNDERSTAND these are tools that have to exist in the context of a business process, not on a teenager's desk at home to watch YouTube videos and be cool at Starbucks.

robin_reala 11y ago
So IBM, one of the biggest consulting companies in the world, is rolling out Apple Macs to 50-75% of their workforce because they want their employees to be cool at Starbucks? I’d suggest you’re missing something in your analysis.
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  Did you even BOTHER to read the FIRST LINE? Fabricating a conclusion from something I did not say is remarcable but nothing less than utter nonsense. You went from me talking about an inmature engineer wanting a Mac for the wron reasons to claiming I said companies deploy such technology to have employees look good at Starbucks. And that's exactly the problem: People are in love with Apple and the ability to reason goes out the window. Again, read the first fucking line. 99% of businesses in the world are NOT IBM. They simply cannot spend 10x on hardware that buys them exactly nothing for the money or close to it. The myopia that exists around Apple is truly infuriating at times. It is completely irrational by almost any metric. The evidence is in the tens of millions of businesses world wide who do not use Apple computers and never will. Because it makes no sense whatsoever from a purely objective point of view.
  - robin_reala 11y ago
    Fair point, I’d forgotten the first line by the end of your comment. Mea culpa and I’d give myself a downvote if I could. Either way, let me give you the reasons that Macs were cost effective from the point of view of a small (20 person) agency I recently worked for: * primary development of the web stack we worked on was on Macs. Windows PCs were difficult to get running properly, and Linux while generally OK often had smallish bugs unless you were using LTS releases which quickly became outdated. * Our designers used Photoshop and other Adobe products and helped out with front-end dev so they were stuck on Mac full-stop if they wanted one machine. * We had an Apple store 5 minutes walk from our office, so hardware support was immediately available if required. * Standardised hardware on the Mac platform meant standardised connectivity: everyone had a Mac charger at their desk, mini-DP screens, AppleTVs in the meeting rooms to stream your desktop to etc. * Clients that were buying design services felt like they were getting their money’s worth if they walked into a room full of people with beards and Macs (I know you’ll hate that point, but that doesn’t make it less true). * The PCs we had in the office on average had more hardware problems and needed to be replaced more often than the Macs. People weren’t forced onto Mac hardware (we had Linux users too) but objectively it generally made more sense for my company for the reasons above.

robin_reala 11y ago

So IBM, one of the biggest consulting companies in the world, is rolling out Apple Macs to 50-75% of their workforce because they want their employees to be cool at Starbucks? I’d suggest you’re missing something in your analysis.

rebootthesystem 11y ago
Did you even BOTHER to read the FIRST LINE? Fabricating a conclusion from something I did not say is remarcable but nothing less than utter nonsense. You went from me talking about an inmature engineer wanting a Mac for the wron reasons to claiming I said companies deploy such technology to have employees look good at Starbucks. And that's exactly the problem: People are in love with Apple and the ability to reason goes out the window. Again, read the first fucking line. 99% of businesses in the world are NOT IBM. They simply cannot spend 10x on hardware that buys them exactly nothing for the money or close to it. The myopia that exists around Apple is truly infuriating at times. It is completely irrational by almost any metric. The evidence is in the tens of millions of businesses world wide who do not use Apple computers and never will. Because it makes no sense whatsoever from a purely objective point of view.
- robin_reala 11y ago
  Fair point, I’d forgotten the first line by the end of your comment. Mea culpa and I’d give myself a downvote if I could. Either way, let me give you the reasons that Macs were cost effective from the point of view of a small (20 person) agency I recently worked for: * primary development of the web stack we worked on was on Macs. Windows PCs were difficult to get running properly, and Linux while generally OK often had smallish bugs unless you were using LTS releases which quickly became outdated. * Our designers used Photoshop and other Adobe products and helped out with front-end dev so they were stuck on Mac full-stop if they wanted one machine. * We had an Apple store 5 minutes walk from our office, so hardware support was immediately available if required. * Standardised hardware on the Mac platform meant standardised connectivity: everyone had a Mac charger at their desk, mini-DP screens, AppleTVs in the meeting rooms to stream your desktop to etc. * Clients that were buying design services felt like they were getting their money’s worth if they walked into a room full of people with beards and Macs (I know you’ll hate that point, but that doesn’t make it less true). * The PCs we had in the office on average had more hardware problems and needed to be replaced more often than the Macs. People weren’t forced onto Mac hardware (we had Linux users too) but objectively it generally made more sense for my company for the reasons above.