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Ah yes, the guy WRITING about a field is more knowlegable than the people doing the work? Be real. Macs lost the IT battle years ago.

So, your solution is that IT, which you claim is already too expensive, should support 2 different platforms for N years while the whole organization slowly changes OS and hadware, and that this will save money?????? Obviously you've never planned an IT budget.

Sure its PCI, but whos got the drivers? Eh? You know what MS's single biggest competitive edge is? DRIVERS, pure and simple... I may be able to plug some obscure PCI card into a mac, but that doesn't mean I can use it effectively... Also, how many PCI's can I get in your best MAC? Do I have countless options like PC, or a limited subset of whatever the heck APPLE decides I need? In PC land I can get whatever I want, if I am willing to pay, countless manufacturers fill the gaps that the mass producers avoid.. .Mac has not the ability nor the budget to ever offer some of the hardware configurations I can find off the shelf for PC motherboards....

Macs are nice machines, and I am glad they went to a unix based OS, but they aren't going to take over the corporate desktop... I've walked through apple headquarters hallways, I know people who work there, they do some really neat stuff, but they are not going to become the Enterprise desktop computer.... that's just reality.

Sorry, Mac has lost the battle, its been over for close to 20 years... anyone thinking MAC is even a player in Enterprise desktop is dillusional.

IT decisions are made by inertia... what will give us the biggest improvement with the least pain! Period. To justify PAIN or potential pain in any way shape of form the payoff has to be huge, or it doesn't happen, and guess what, MAC's don't offer nearly a big enough pay off.

Less software, less supported hardware/drivers, less installed base, less developers, less trained administrators, higher acquisition cost, retraining costs, non standard costs and issues... you just won't get it.

Mac is a nice dorm room porn downloader, and "niche" egalitarian fringe toy... and it has some limited adoption in specialized areas in organizations, but its not now, nor any time going to be the desktop of the enterprise.... I've been listening to MAC fanatics make claims like this for about 20 years now, and I counter them all by one simple proven fact.... NAME ME 1, just 1 fortune 1000 company that has in the past 20 years made a corporate wide change of its entire desktop operations to Macintosh? In 20 years of computers, if the benefit were so great, at least 1 company would have done it... and none have, and none will.

I have worked with companies still running software written before I was born! No one even knows exactly what it does, they know they have to execute it to perform a neccessary action, but in terms of the line by line execution no one in the company can tell you... and they are going to just eat the redevelopment costs to go to MAC? Please.

MS moves 17 Million copies of XP in less than 2 months after its release... Macintosh's entire installed base is maybe 2 Million and that's being generous! In fact unit sales have been decreasing consistantly and significantly according to their 10k filings.

Macs are fine machines, and the company does some neat stuff, but arguing that MAC will ever own the desktop enterprise market is humorous.

Macs are fine machines, and the company does some neat stuff, but arguing that MAC will ever own the desktop enterprise market is humorous.

Neither I, nor the author of the article, are arguing that Mac would or should "own" the desktop market... merely that it has a place and one that can make things less expensive.

As to Robert X. Cringely, he has been writing about and advocating the MS standard for years. I recall reading his articles in 1981. He is pointing out a theory for the lack of attention the Mac has received... and correlating information and quoted remarks received from the very IT managers about that lack of attention... and making a strong case.

Perhaps, large businesses with their tunnel-visioned IT departments, will never switch to Macs... but they represent only 40% of American business. 60% of Business in America is small business. I can tell you from my own experience that in the small business environment Macs offer a much more economical TCO than the PCs once you figure in maintenance costs, upgrade costs, and the cost of fighting the various virii that infect your prefered world.

The small business owners that I work with that have switched to Macs from PCs are grateful for the switch... and snicker when their competitors complain of MSBLAST.EXE and SOBIG-F or the latest problem du Jur that requires either their preventive intervention or someone else's corrective intervention.

A few that were forced to move from Macs to PCs because of single platform software requirements look longingly back at the Macs and swear at the costs their PCs bring them... one found a Mac solution to his application needs and it was amazing how fast he moved back. With the Macs now being UNIX, many more vertical solution and business applications are available for those who choose a Mac solution.

It is absolutely amazing how quickly PC snobs appear on these discussions claiming superior knowledge about something they have only tangentally looked at or read about in articles mostly written by people with the exact same mindset. It is also amazing how quickly they turn insulting in their attempts to "set us Mac users straight."

Your snide commentary about the Mac being "...a nice dorm room porn downloader, and "niche" egalitarian fringe toy... " show that your mind is completely closed and that you actually have very little knowledge of the Macintosh and its capabilities.

Others are not so closed minded:

Business Week Article: Picking Apple as a Server Solution