Before buying a Mac you need to test compatibility:
1) Make sure there are Mac versions of apps you need - obvious.
2) Make sure the websites you use are compatible - not so obvious and getting worse all the time.
3) Mac sure the people you do business with will not send you MS-Office files with Macros, etc.
There are workarounds including installing Windows in a VM on the Mac. But it is a pain in the arse.
Thanks for the suggestions. If I bought a Mac, it would be for home use, not the office. We have to use Windows at work (in part) because there are commercial websites that are IE-centric and FireFox running under Linux won’t function on those sites. I blame the owners of those sites for not creating browser-neutral content. Finally, I prefer documents and spreadsheets without macros — such things are trojan horses. Not as versatile, but safer.
That is not true. There have been many business sites that when appraised of the facts, such as there are approximately 25,000,000 Mac OSX/Safari users in the United States, most of them consumers, customers they do not want to piss off, have changed their websites to be Mac compliant.
ChevronUSA's website is one that comes to mind. The website literally required customers to be using a PC with an Intel processor, a Windows OS, and Microsoft Internet Explorer to use it. I first tried to use Firefox and the website insisted that I had to use Internet Explorer. So I opened the site with IE for the Mac and the site told me I had to be using a Windows OS... so I fired up VirtualPC running WindowsXP SP2 and used IE for windows, and was informed by the website that I had to be running a PC with an Intel processor... I had an AMD machine here that I was working on for a client and fired it up, only to be informed that I had to be running with an Intel processor! Talk about restrictive.
After getting no response from repeated emails to their website managers, I wrote a letter to both the President and CEO of Chevron complaining about their PC/Intel/Microsoft only website. In my letter I politely pointed out that I spend almost $3,000 a year at Chevron Stations, that there were (at that time) 22,000,000 Mac users like me that would be offended by their website requirements, and then asked if Chevron was in the business of selling gasoline of promoting Intel and Microsoft products. I received very polite apology letters from both the President and CEO saying they were unaware of the problem. Two months later ChevronUSA's website was fully international HTML compliant.
Just five years ago there were FAR more non-standards compliant websites than there are today. Apple also wants to be informed of non-compliant websites and will work with those web designers to redesign their sites using international HTML standards so that they are compliant.
3) Mac sure the people you do business with will not send you MS-Office files with Macros, etc.
Then don't get MS Office '08 for the Mac... buy a copy of the older version which works fine. The fact is that very few organizations use Macro's any more because so many places will strip them out because of the threat of Macro viruses.
Your last two points are just FUD. 99% of people will not have a problem. A2 more and more of the now 32,000,000 Mac users complain to the owners, presidents, CEOs (not the offending website builders) of companies with non-compliant websites, more and more of them will move into compliance with international standards rather than building sites with tools from Microsoft that are designed to maintain their monopoly.