Please help a paper that’s considering a switch from Macs to PCs
Michael Dupras, graphics/web development editor of The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y., writes:
Our management is considering converting our graphic artists and designers from Macs to PCs.
I’m part of a team, which includes folks from Newsroom Systems and Information Systems, looking into the feasibility of such a switch, including cost, cross-platform compatibility, software, and the myriad issues, concerns, and possibilities involved.
As part of my research, I’m looking for newsrooms, and in particularly graphic/art departments and design desks, that have either made the switch or considered it.
I understand the Pilot switched to PCs and wonder if you can tell me about the experience and what you learned from it, the advantages and disadvantages, what went well and what failed, and what you discovered along the way.
Thanks!
Heh. You’re welcome, Michael…
First of all, here’s what you expect to hear: Most of us hated switching.
Many Apple users are downright militant about their computers. I know I am, and for more reasons than just the name stamped on the side of them.
Our designers were well into the changeover when I arrived at the Pilot in September 2003. The decision had already been made to switch in the graphics department before I took over as graphics director. In fact, I essentially signed off on the decision by taking the job in the first place.
My take was this: The Mac is a tool. That’s all it is. Something that you use to get the job done.
When I was in college, I learned how to use brush and ink and border tape and Rapidograph pens and the other tools of the day. A few years later, I pretty much tossed them all out when I learned how to use a Mac.
I learned MacDraw. Then, I learned Freehand. Then I ditched Freehand in 1994 when I made the switch to Illustrator.
So, when put into perspective like this, why be so anal about a Mac? You learned Macs. You can learn PCs, too.
That was my logic in 2003. So I took the leap, came to the Pilot and oversaw my department’s transition from Macs to PCs.
Oh, yeah; there were major snags in the process. The biggest one for us was that the PCs we were originally given didn’t have the juice to do the job. It took us a couple of years to get it right. Once we did, we were able to work just fine.
As you’re compiling your report, Michael, make sure you take into account what kind of chip you’ll need to push around pixels in large Photoshop documents, or — God help you — Lightwave files. Take into account the extra RAM and Video RAM you’ll need to install on the PCs. Take into account that PCs don’t have dual processors. So they’ll need to be souped way, way up in order to match the speed and power of even older Macs.
I’m betting that once you’ve taken this into consideration, you’ll find that you’ll spend just as much money on the PCs as you would on the Macs. I don’t believe the financial benefits are all that great. If you discover otherwise, please let me know.
Also, Michael, take into account:
* That you’ll have to repurchase much of your software.
* That you may have font issues between the platforms. Addressing these issues will require either major expense or major hacking by your programmers.
* That you may be opening the door to a network attack. After all, Firefox or Safari on a Mac are relatively safe; Windows with Internet Explorer has many, many documented security issues.
* That you’ll have training issues with your staff.
* That you may run into attitude problems with your staff: “You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead hands from it.”
You may even run into resistance from unexpected sources. I recall one job candidate who, when he turned down our offer, told me the Mac vs. PC thing was a big factor in his decision. Show him a paper that forces its artists to switch from Macs to PC, he said, and he’ll show me a paper that cares more about saving money than it does getting good work onto the page and in front of its readers.
That stung.
At the very least, being a PC-based shop might be a small recruiting deterrent.
So why is this photo in a post about Macs and
PCs? Because Justin Long — the ‘Mac’ guy from
the ‘Mac vs. PC’ commercials, above left — got
to play kissy-face with Lindsay Lohan in the
2005 Disney movie ‘Herbie: Fully Loaded.”
Oh, the things you learn on the internet.
I’ll bet you feel smarter already…
—
Naturally, I still prefer a Mac. My laptop is a Mac. I constantly find myself unsuccessfully using certain keyboard shortcuts at work, forgetting I’m on a PC. Or at home, forgetting I’m on a Mac.
And I know how to troubleshoot a Mac — or, at least, to some degree. On a PC, I’m more dependent on the Pilot’s help desk team.
But if I can make the switch, dude, you can. So take heart.
The bigger issue in the Pilot’s graphics department was the elimination of Freehand in favor of Adobe Illustrator. That decision, too, was made before I came to the Pilot and ultimately proved to be a bigger obstacle for us than did the platform issue.
So to sum up:
* Switching was a real bitch.
* I don’t believe the financial savings are all that great, especially if you soup up the PC to more closely match the performance of your Macs.
* It could become a catalyst for attitude or recruiting problems.
* At the very least, factor in training and software costs. Both will be a lot more than you think.
* But yeah, it can be done. And well, too.
After all, every page you’ve seen come out of the Pilot since the fall of 2003 was built in InDesign on a PC. Every infographic you’ve seen come out of the Pilot since the fall of 2005 was built in Illustrator on a PC.
—
I told Michael I’d post his question and my response and then open this up to you guys.
What do you think? Has your paper gone PC yet? Has it talked about going to PCs? Tell us how you’ve handled the change — or, perhaps, how you dodged the change.
Michael and I would both appreciate it.
—
As pure dumb luck would have it, Robb Montgomery posted earlier today on this same topic, but with a twist: If switching to PC would help a news graphics operation produce material for the web.
—
And now, to close with a little humor, here’s computing guru Chris Pirillo to tell you that Macs never, ever, ever crash. Enjoy:
March 17th, 2008 at 10:08 am
“My take was this: The Mac is a tool.”
It certainly is :-)
Seriously though, I’m fine with both. I grew up on PC and then started using Macs when I got into design, and I’m about equally comfortable with both (though opposite from Charles, I can troubleshoot a PC better than I can a Mac). There are really just two reasons I haven’t switched to a Mac at home:
– Cost (more below)
– The holier-than-thou attitude of the Mac culture. Basically, I like Macs, I just hate Mac users (well, just some of them :-).
Here’s how I look at the cost issue: If you’re running resource-intensive programs, then yes, a suitable PC probably would cost about as much as a Mac. In those cases, I have no problem with shelling out the cash for a Mac. What I do have issues with is when someone who doesn’t need that kind of resources or doesn’t really use the cool software that comes with Macs (which are used to justify the cost) buys a Mac. Yeah, iMovie and GarageBand are great … if you actually make frequent use of them. If not, it’s like a suburban soccer mom driving an SUV. I spent $700 on a Dell 3 years ago for design work involving mostly Adobe CS, and it’s been working fine for me and probably will do the job for another couple years. The fact that a PC costs so little also makes it possible for me to upgrade to a new PC sooner without having to rob a bank to pay for it.
Get the right tool for the right job at the right price. Paying more for tools you won’t use makes about as much sense as getting something less than what you need just to save a buck.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
We just discussed this yesterday in the graphics group here.
http://visualeditors.ning.com/group/graphics/forum/topic/show?id=1985197%3ATopic%3A15704
I think we came to the same conclusions, just not as eloquently put.
And to answer John’s issue of why Mac’s have such high hardware standards, it really just an Apple philosophy of user experience. All Mac’s are equipped to do multimedia with iLife (iMovie, iDvd, GarageBand, iPhoto). Plus OSX requires a little horsepower to make all of this work seamlessly.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I have no problem with either honestly. I do majority of my work on a PC simply because I’m poor — but at work, I use a Mac and have become quite proficient at it.
However, I have found one, in my opinion, major flaw with PCs and InDesign: Alternative keys.
The shortcut for something like a bullet on a mac is a simple alt+8. However, on a PC, I have no idea what it is (alt + 4 numbers) and I’d have to look through glyphs to find it. Many of these glyphs are important for maintaining proper typographic style.
It seems a bit ridiculous that Adobe can’t get a work around to fix this on PCs and it is alone the only reason I’d ever choose a mac over a PC for design purposes.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Chris, I’ve always done Alt-8 for a bullet on the PC version of InDesign CS2. Could it be something in your shortcut key settings?
March 18th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I guess I fall into John Zhu’s hated Mac user category because, years ago, for a short 6 month period I had to work exclusively on PCs. I wept bitter tears every time the crude Microsoft Windows splash screen launched, as the icons created by a two-year old filled the excessively pixelated screen. Even now I twitch in agony thinking about it.
Having said that, Charles is right that it’s just a tool. But, if you reached into your tool box for a hammer and had a choice between one with a stick for a handle or one with a nice heft and feel and balance, which would you chose?
Our graphics department successfully fought off a push to go all PC a few years ago and what kept the PC at bay was the upgrades the PCs would require to match off-the-shelf Macs that are ready to go. I think the PC priced out $400 higher than the Mac Tower (at the time).
March 18th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Somebody’s not doing the math. Make sure the cost of Microsoft CAL’s, doubling support staff, and quadrupling the cost of downtime is added in because at minimum, that is what you will face.
A very thorough study done by Gistics, Inc. a number of years back that included over 10,000 businesses using Macs for graphics found that Macs had a higher ROI, produced more revenue per user, and spent 30% less time on technical support. The differences were significant. And those were in the days when Macs really did cost significantly more than a PC counterpart.
One of Senior Project Engineers came from a company that thought they could save money by switching. They went from a small IT department in a room to needing a whole building to support the same group of users.
If someone thinks you should switch, then ask if they are willing to be held accountable when the Total Cost of Ownership doesn’t work out. Because it just won’t.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
i’m the art director of an affiliate television station and my department is completely mac based. in my 18 years in the industry, i’ve never had to work in a windows shop, which is fortunate because i certainly wouldn’t want to.
to those who say a computer is just a tool, you’re both right and unfortunately wrong. yes, it’s a tool…but that being said, you don’t tell a painter which brush to use. you don’t tell a sculptor what chisel to work with…if you want the best work out of an artist then you let them choose the tools they feel will work the best. a productive happy artist means better art in less time and that’s where the real value is.
several years ago, my company tried to switch off macs because the IT guys and accountants thought it made sense to standardize on a single platform. the artists fought it tooth and nail and the ultimate decider was the significant dollar amounts required to replace not only the hardware, but software… especially when it comes to software outside the group licensing, stuff you use every day and now need new equivalents for.
to my mind, it boils down to one simple question, “what is the right tool for the job?” if you’re in accounting, you need windows. that’s the best tool. if you’re running a server, you might need linux. that might be the best tool. for me, the mac is the best tool for my job. the reliability of the hardware has been impressive. i’ve had great uptime with very little maintenance involved. add to that the relative absence of viruses and the ease use and it all adds up to a very good thing.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I’m assuming the motivation to switch to PCs is based on cost. I say this, because the PC platform is neither more capapble, more stable nor more secure than the Mac platform. With that said, total cost of ownership (TCO) should be taken into consideration. I have yet to see a legitimate TCO study which favors PCs. Anecdotally, my wife is the director of technology for her school district. Their district is a mixed PC and Mac environment. The PC environment gets nearly 3 times as many incidents (repairs, configurations, etc.) as the Macs do. Consequently, the technician staff is allocated 3:1 in support of the PCs.
I do agree that in the end, both platforms are tools that are capable of doing the job. However, there are non-cost related issues with not providing your creative staff with the tools of their choice.
Finally, general office PCs have very meager system requirements in comparison to the needs of graphic artists. The PC market is more price competitive at the low end of the market. However, with higher end workstations, Apple is typically more cost competitive than PC brands. Try comparing a Mac Pro to a similarly equipped Dell by comparison. When this is coupled with TCO arguments, security issues, etc. it seems hard to justify the massive cost of switching platforms.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Hey, dead-tree publications are all going the way of the dodo anyway. PCs will only enable them to crash and burn faster. If they think that using inferior tools will enable them to do a more efficient job, then they deserve to die. Dinosaurs, they are.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Friends don’t let friends make mistakes.
Where is the cost savings?
Hardware of similar specifications across the two platforms is pretty close in price; in some cases with the advantage going to Apple.
Although I won’t pretend that Apples are totally secure, a newsroom full of journalists reading every email sent their way and opening every attachment either out of necessity or ignorance will not end well in a Windows environment.
Let’s also not forget whose operating system causes more problems with false-positive anti-piracy measures. When last I checked, Apple didn’t even require a serial number for installation, much less ‘break’ computers found (correctly or incorrectly) to be using ‘pirated’ serial numbers.
Oh yeah, then there’s site-licensing antivirus software too. When I stopped using Windows a couple years back, there weren’t any good freebies that could legally be used in a commercial environment. Mac still has ClamXAV.
Anecdotally, Apple hardware lasts longer. I’ve been in newsrooms with 10-year-old G3’s and G4’s still happily chugging away. I, personally, have never had a PC last longer than 2-3 years before being partially or completely rebuilt.
Additionally, the cost of replacing all the Mac software licenses with Windows software licenses is prohibitive as well. Why do it?
The industry is all over the place these days. Why compound staffers’ misery by handing them new computers (and delays stemming from problems in roll-out) to add insult to injury? That’s just mean.
Lastly, what is the significant monetary advantage of switching? I can all but guarantee you that admin costs for Windows machines is higher than Apple (but probably lower than various *nix distros). Even if there are a couple bucks to be saved in the hardware, or even possibly in the software retraining and support have to make it less than money-saving.
The only place I’d go against the Apple is the XServe. That specific hardware is a colossal waste of money when compared to similarly equipped Windows or even Linux hardware.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:59 am
First, thanks for the great input and feedback, and thanks again, Charles, for helping me cast a wide net for opinions. Keep them coming!
To give you all a little more background on our particular situation, the question of switching to PCs is indeed one of cost. In mid-2007, I sought to replace the nine Macs we have for graphics artists and designers. The newest machine in that fleet is 4 years old; most are 6 and 7 years old. Most have had a processor and RAM upgrades at some point over the years and are maxed out. But as Will says, they’re still chugging away.
My impetus for seeking new machines was mainly CS2. We were finding that on the older G4s, Illustrator in particular was a problem. InDesign wasn’t so bad. We also needed new monitors (most of those are just as old as the Macs). And we recognized the need to switch to Intel processors before long so we could switch eventually to CS3 (and wanting to add Flash, that would soon be necessary).
I initially asked for top-line iMacs, but our IS department advocated, to my delight, getting quad MacPros and new widescreen LCD monitors. We bought three machines, replacing the three oldest Macs, and gave them to the three artists who do information graphics (and so use Illustrator more than the others, addressing the most critical performance and productivity issue). We then planned to purchase the other six machines in 2008.
Then the budget numbers came back — sorry, no new Macs in 2008. And maybe when we do replace those machines, we should get PCs.
So I’m working with our IS department to determine whether it would really be cheaper, what the hidden costs are (the TCO), and so forth. They’ll be setting up side-by-side testing for compatibility and functionality as well. We have until the fall to pull together a final report. The feedback I’m getting from all of you will be part of it.
So again, keep it coming, and thanks for the help!
– Mike
March 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
We did buy some of the new 8-core (2 x Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors) Mac Pro workstations in January to replace some of our dual G5 workstations that we run our 3d software on. I just went to the Dell site and tried to configure something similar. The Dell was costing 1.5 to 2 times more.
March 20th, 2008 at 2:38 am
We’ve just been through a four-month assessment, trialling high-end Dell machines and there’s very little difference between the two. However, we’ve decided to keep our artists on Macs for the next year at least because the move to online work is happening so quickly we don’t know how things will change. The main obstacle for a shift was FinalCutPro, which is Mac-only. We’re not even using it yet, but we felt if we are doing video for the web, FinalCutPro is the way to go.
I’d suggest side-by-side testing is pretty much a waste of time. The Dell machines were just as fast as my Intel Mac.
As for cost, the Macs were more expensive, but not enough to make a difference either way.They would have been running Parallels and Windows XP so we can use InDesign integrated with our main system, but that’s another story.