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US University Dumps Windows to go All Mac
MacKeyser passed us a link to a MacWorld article about a University doing things a little differently. Instead of sticking with their inefficient mix of Apple and PC systems, the college is doing a 'total technology refresh', and adopting an all-Mac policy on the campus. Previously, a class at Wilkes University would be outfitted with something like 20 Macs and 20 PCs, to allow for individual preferences in software and OS use. With Boot Camp students at the Pennsylvania liberal arts college will be able to switch between Windows and OSX, choosing which applications and OS to use at any given time. "[Scott Byers, vice president for finance and the head of campus IT said] 'We think it will save $150,000 directly, in buying fewer units - even though the Macs cost more per unit than PCs.' The school, which enrolls about 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students, will reduce its inventory from nearly 1,700 computers to around 1,450 after the change over. Other costs savings, however, will be harder to measure. 'By standardizing, the IT department should be more productive,' Byers said."
I was just looking at the majors they offer and I'm trying to figure out how Wilkes is an art school. Liberal arts university, sure, but that's it. In fact, the only art program they offer is a minor. Also note that they have about 2,200 students.
Dumps Windows because the new Macs can all run Windows?
That title is very misleading, it is only the hardware that is switching to mac, no the OS. It says they plan to use boot camp to dual boot OSX and windows. Hardly what you'd call a mac campus. They're just making it so that hardware wise they only have to buy macs rather than macs and pcs.
The university is not dumping windows at all.
They're dumping generic PCs in favour of mac PCs. They'll still purchase windows licenses & allow dual booting.
It's a hardware story, not a software story.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I think you're confusing Liberal Arts with Art.
Take a look at the undergraduate majors:
http://www.wilkes.edu/pages/143.asp
Accounting, Air & Space Studies being the first two on the list...
Apple has nothing special for "Arts", Photoshop etc are all available on Windows as are drawing tablets. If you want specalised hardware for art then you shop Wacom and others not Apple.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
At my university, we have half Windows and half Linux. And in one lab, we have 1 Mac. I have never saw anybody to use it more than 10 minutes.
plus Apple care of $119, plus AMP agreement of $79.
www.itjerk.com
This 'dominance' is slipping away.
The Mac offers nothing special or unique in the field of digital arts today.
It used to be the case that the Mac had better software tools and better color management but this is no longer true. The same software and specialist hardware is available for Windows and many cost-concious design shops have gone over to Windows on generic workstations.
A lot of designers still use Macs because they've always used Macs - simple as that.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Macs are generally considered more user friendly for novice users, a group that I would guess video/graphics professionals would probably tend to fall into.
Even in the summary, it states they are intending to use Bootcamp: "With Boot Camp students at the Pennsylvania liberal arts college will be able to switch between Windows and OSX, choosing which applications and OS to use at any given time."
So they arent dumping windows, they are just going to a more manageable single-source hardware vendor, whch just happens to be Apple.
Sure, its a good thing as more students will get a taste of OSX, but please be a bit more accurate here of what is going on. Geesh.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You obviously have never tried to maintain more than a few computers at a time.
The main reason IT departments tend to be "monoculture" when it comes to hardware is the sanity of their IT staff.
You will note that they did NOT create (another) OS "monoculture". The users now have the choice between the two top-selling OSes, and the University gets to buy less hardware.
Oh, and since they are Macs , they can, through Parallels, even designate some or all of the machines to run nearly any other OS on the planet.
No other hardware vendor can offer that (at least not legally).
None. Period.
This comes from the faculty - all real-live professionals in their fields. While lots of folks use Macs - they're perfectly capable critters and I constantly drool about switching, to be perfectly honest - there isn't any drastic need to do that. At least while XP is still supported....
This argument is really pretty foolish anyway. It's not the OS that does the work - it's the app. And Photoshop on the Mac is just like Photoshop on the PC. If you can't make the switch between the "Mac" squiggle key and control (or Alt, whatever), you've got some serious issues.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
As much as I like the Mac, it's marketshare has not increased significantly over the years, and has dwindled a bit with every major technology change they've made
Mac sales growth up over 100 percent in January
Net Applications: Apple's Mac 'market share' continues rise, hits 6.38% in February 2007
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
This is a myth. There is no dongle embedded in Intel Macs. Newly shipping Macs have no TPM chip, and the ones that did didn't use it for anything.
Because it was, for a long time. In fact, it still seems to be somewhat faster than Intels SIMD instructions. The Altivec gets its amazing speed by being a very, very simple piece of hardware. Using it properly is not easy at all, and in some cases it simply can't provide the precision you want.
But Apple and Adobe seem to have discovered that it's even faster to have a dedicated GPU do this work. And so the important use cases for SIMD have evolved in Mac OS X, edging more towards a scientific and gaming bias. But anyone can tell you that the Altivec, with its lack of double precision floating point support, is not well suited to scientific applications. The difficulty of using it properly is also a major limiting factor in games. Intel chips have other advantages which end up giving a net win to things like CoreImage, but that assumes that you can farm out work to the GPU.
People like to say Apple pulled a 180 on this, and I suppose there is some merit to that. But it's also true that Apple Engineers decided they found a better way outright, and the marketing engine didn't fight them on that, unlike in some companies we've seen (Intel with the P4 architecture, for example).
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
For me, the big thing about using the mac for everyday tasks is that the UI is way less cluttered and navigating the filesystem is an order of magnitude faster. Simple file management works far better than in Explorer (and OSX's finder is still a steaming pile of shit).
Also, bouncing back and forth between open windows and applications and [more or less] system-wide drag and drop make many operations a breeze.
Another big thing for me are apps and utils that are only found on the mac. Adium, TextMate, Quicksilver, Transmit and Unison. There really is no equal to those apps on any other OS.
Free programming tools also are a huge plus. Applescript, perl, php, python, gcc all being shipped with the system (although the later languages all needing the dev tools to be installed).
That's one reason why I hope to hell that I never go to work at another shop that's windows only. My productivity dropped to unbelievable lows and I hated my job. I thought I didn't wanna do computer stuff anymore until I switched jobs.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...