[Sigia-l] Just b/c I love a good Mac/Win flame war ... ; ) ... seriously though

[Fred Beecher]

On 4/6/06, Todd Warfel <lists at toddwarfel.com> wrote:
>

> What's holding them back? Not what you'd suggest. If there's software
> to do it on Windows, there's the equivalent to do it on the Mac 99%
> of the time. And the reverse is true. In fact, in many cases,
> especially graphics software, the equivalent software on Windows
> actually lacks many of the keyboard shortcut commands that exist on
> the Mac side (e.g. Illustrator).

What I'm mainly thinking about is compatibility. Yes there is a *way*
to do, e.g., wireframes on a Mac. But have you ever tried to exchange
files between Visio and OmniGraffle? It's possible to do, but it's
really not practical at all. When you have to work in a mainly PC
environment, compatibility is not an insignificant concern.

> d) In the rarest case, sometimes the corporate environment they work
> in does require some things that don't work on the Mac (e.g. activeX,
> Access). This is extremely rare, but does occur.

Well, that's my case for sure and likely for any other usability folks
who use Visio. I often find myself collaborating with clients, in
which case we need to exchange files that we can each work with
without messing up. Also, I use Axure a good deal and that is
definitely PC only. That was the real hook keeping me in PC Land, that
and problems integrating PC and Mac Outlook calendars. Where I work,
there is an explicit ban on multi-platform environments due to bad
experiences in the past. So XP on Mac will get me over that very large
hurdle and let me have the experience I want to have while having the
ability to get done what I need to get done.

FWIW, I now know of five people, including myself, who are planning on
getting a Mac as a result of being able to use Windows on it. Granted,
they're all people like us (they'd have to be to know about it the
same day it's announced), but they're still real people with real
money that will turn into real profit for Apple.

Interesting times!

- Fred