Mac vs. Windows?
Not really. Our shop is about half Mac and half Windows workstations, and we have had to learn to work together. Although the corporate giants have often made it difficult to work in a mixed environment (including our numerous webservers, which run UNIX), we have found ways to work with all three platforms.
All of our designers use Mac Pro's running Adobe Suite, including Acrobat, which has become an indespensible proofing tool. We've moved from Quark to InDesign for print layout, and for Web development we add Macromedia Studio 8. It will be interesting to see what Adobe comes out with with the release of CS3. Adobe just bought Macromedia and is saying that this is the biggest software release in the history of the company.
Our programmers tend to use Dell Windows machines, as do most of our editors and support staff. Windows is necessary for working with IU financial systems; Macs just do not work.
Windows machines require more attention to security threats, but updates and virus checks are run automatically, and our main threat vectors have been social engineering attacks such as the I Love You virus and the more recent Credit Union and Paypal phishing scams. We will not be moving to Vista anytime soon. For one thing, most of our machines, which are run on a three-year replacement cycle, would not run it well (we could run without Aero, the new graphic interface, but then the only advantage would be security, and XP is to be supported for another five years.) So although new machines will be "Vista ready," it may be a while before we are all using it (hopefully after the first service pack is released).
On the Mac side we have different concerns. Macs are more like a sports car than station wagons (that's Windows, you know, you've seen the commercials.) They are more finely tuned and run more complex programs, usually all at once. They are run hard and put to bed wet, but just keep on ticking. Font conflicts often cause print jobs to go wrong, so here is a shout-out to Linotype Font Explorer X: you rock! Free, fully supported software from a font giant that works like ITunes, it is the best font software I have ever used.
Recently we have been having some workflow problems within the Web team, as Dreamweaver does not interact well with itself on different platforms; files get locked and users get frustrated. We have pretty much fixed this problem by having our designers log into our OS X server using SMB only; then the confict does not occur. Our programmers use Windows as the main platform with a Mac Mini to do compatibility testing, but as we are still having some issues, this may reverse, with everyone on the Web team (except the editors) using Macs as their primary workstation.
On the server side we have one OS X Server with X RAID, which serves files for Creative Services, and three Windows servers, one with a large RAID array for backup of all of VPUR, one to serve files for our cousins in Media Relations and Marketing, and one to run our test Web server. All but the Web server are in our rack in Poplars, which will soon move to a real server room in the Von Lee.
Bottom line: Although Windows machines are more vulnerable and perhaps XP is now boring, they do the job, and with auto-updates, are stable and useful. Macs are much more elegant and full featured, built for the heavy lifting required by designers and programmers, but they can be touchy and still require some fine-tuning and upkeep. Are Windows/Macs worth the trouble/extra expense? Ask any user!
