Articles/Evange

Just a few reasons why a Mac is better than a PC:

Many Windows applications require an uninstall program to get rid of all the bits and pieces. On the Mac, just about the only programs which force you to use an uninstall utility are those from Microsoft.

Macs are by far the easier to set up.  A 10 year old was pitted against the Editor-in-Chief of a major PC magazine at a Software Publishers Association meeting to see which platform was the easiest to set up. The 10 year old took 16 minutes and 15 seconds to get his Mac up and running. The Wintel expert clocked in at 26 minutes and 15 seconds on his PC.  The iMac is, of course, even easier to set up.

Pop a floppy disk in a Mac and there it is on the desktop. Windows 95 plays hide-and-seek somewhere in the "My Computer" folder.

Macs are faster. In fact, Windows 95 in all its bloated glory can run quicker on the fastest PowerMac than it will on the fastest PC.  The PowerMac G3 processor has been (independently!) tested at up to twice the speed of the Pentium II, and the PowerBook G3s are the fastest laptops on earth!  The new G4 is nearly 3 times faster than the Pentium III.  Also, despite being much faster than Pentium processors, the G3 and G4 are smaller, use less power and run cooler.  This means Apple can use the same G3 processors in their laptops that they use in their desktop machines, instead of having to design special 'mobile' processors which don't drain laptop batteries.  And you thought Intel were supposed to be on the cutting edge......

The Mac is the multimedia and design platform of choice. Even the art departments of organisations such as PC Computing, PC Magazine and PC World use Macs exclusively. Star Wars The Phantom Menace is just one of the latest movies to make use of the Mac. In fact, the Intel Pentium Processor TV commercials were produced on Macs!

You can format a floppy in PC format on a Mac, as well as reading and writing to foreign disks. PCs expect everyone else to learn their language.

Although Windows 95 & 98 finally allow for long filenames, Windows 3.1 still translates them back into its own code, making file sharing between the two systems a nightmare. The Mac, however, has always allowed for 31 character filenames.

Don't let those PC-centric IT staff tell you that you can't network Macs into Windows - you can generally network a Mac into a Windows NT server quicker than you can link a Windows machine.  You can print to virtually any laser printer on the network straight away, with no need to install aditional drivers! And the Location Manager on the Mac will let you instantly swap work environments changing network settings, printers, internet preferences - far easier than anything in Windows.

Macs have much lower ongoing costs, specifically because they do not require so much training and maintenance.  This has been shown in repeated independentstudies.  Intel Corporation itself estimates that you need one technician for every 12 Wintel machines, but has itself only three Mac techs for 400 Macs they use in graphics and publishing. The ratios are similar for Microsoft.

The Queensland Police Force uses Macs for 90% of their IT needs.  In the first comprehensive Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) survey in Australia, based on Gartner-Group methodology, a NetBridge study found that the Macs delivered cost benefits of AUD$30 million in 1998 compared to the alternative Windows based technology.

All Macs come ready to talk to one another though LocalTalk. It's virtually impossible to link a Pentium to an older 286.

All PowerMacs come with built-in speech recognition.

Macs are not affected by the millennium bug.  Yes, even when they were building the very first Macintosh, Apple had the foresight to actually make the thing work past the year 2000!

And if that isn't enough - give some thought as to whether Bill Gates might already have enough money........