Adobe's Mac Support Wavering?
March 26, 2003 9:40 PM Subscribe
A study posted at Adobe's website describes how traditionally Mac-centric tasks (rendering using After Effects, Illustrator & Photoshop) are all faster on a PC. These kinds of studies are a dime a dozen; what's interesting isn't which platform is faster, but that Adobe would host a page proclaiming the PC is the "preferred" platform for such tasks. Given the notoriously fickle folks at Quark, I would have pegged Adobe as the biggest Mac boosters in the third party software market. Are times changing?
Uh, It's the title of the link, Waldo. The URL is "PCPreffered.html". Also the language on the page ("consistently outperformed the Mac machine, at an impressive rate") seems pretty clearly in favor of PCs. Don't get defensive here, no one is coming to take your Mac...
posted by jonson at 9:49 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by jonson at 9:49 PM on March 26, 2003
First: The website is linked to from a page that asks people "Prefer a PC for DV Editing?" Adobe isn't proclaiming anything, pcpreferred.htm can be read as PC-Prefer-Ed(iting).
Second: The graphs for the benchmarks are approximated. Graph 'em yourself, and lay one set over the other in Photoshop or what not. They don't match.
posted by Jairus at 9:50 PM on March 26, 2003
Second: The graphs for the benchmarks are approximated. Graph 'em yourself, and lay one set over the other in Photoshop or what not. They don't match.
posted by Jairus at 9:50 PM on March 26, 2003
To clarify: The page filename references the fact that the page is for USERS who prefer a PC to a Mac for DV work.
posted by Jairus at 9:53 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by Jairus at 9:53 PM on March 26, 2003
The graphs for the benchmarks are approximated. Graph 'em yourself, and lay one set over the other in Photoshop or what not. They don't match.
Again, it's not the results of the survey that are important, it's that Adobe is hosting a page claiming that a mid range PC outperforms a near top of the line Macintosh "at an impressive rate". This page may not use the phrase "PC Preferred", but it sure as hell implies that PCs are the better (read: faster) platform for their products.
posted by jonson at 9:58 PM on March 26, 2003
Again, it's not the results of the survey that are important, it's that Adobe is hosting a page claiming that a mid range PC outperforms a near top of the line Macintosh "at an impressive rate". This page may not use the phrase "PC Preferred", but it sure as hell implies that PCs are the better (read: faster) platform for their products.
posted by jonson at 9:58 PM on March 26, 2003
My 800Mhz P3 with 3-year-old parts Photoshops faster than my new iMac at work. While OS X is prettier (as well as Macs in general), I've found OS X to be less responsive than Windows (there's a noticeable delay when I try to open a new web browser window or look for a file through directories), and not as fast. And barely a fraction of the freeware and shareware available for the PC. (I will admit, I wish my PC had NewsNetWire.)
Here's a more official benchmarking analysis, and an analysis of why Adobe may be siding with PCs (Apple's starting to hurt Adobe's business).
posted by gramcracker at 10:00 PM on March 26, 2003
Here's a more official benchmarking analysis, and an analysis of why Adobe may be siding with PCs (Apple's starting to hurt Adobe's business).
posted by gramcracker at 10:00 PM on March 26, 2003
...mid range PC outperforms...
Since when is a P4 3.06ghz with a gig of 1066 RDRAM and a 7200 rpm 120 gig hard drive a mid range PC?
posted by SweetJesus at 10:03 PM on March 26, 2003
Since when is a P4 3.06ghz with a gig of 1066 RDRAM and a 7200 rpm 120 gig hard drive a mid range PC?
posted by SweetJesus at 10:03 PM on March 26, 2003
Since when is a P4 3.06ghz with a gig of 1066 RDRAM and a 7200 rpm 120 gig hard drive a mid range PC?
I was really just focusing on the processor speed (as that's all that's shown on the page I linked to) - the RAM & HD are comparable in the Mac, I'd imagine. The processor in the PC is a 3Ghz, when 4Ghz processors are available, and you'd be hard pressed to find a desktop machine at a retailer with less than a 2Ghz processor. But feel free to nitpick...
posted by jonson at 10:07 PM on March 26, 2003
I was really just focusing on the processor speed (as that's all that's shown on the page I linked to) - the RAM & HD are comparable in the Mac, I'd imagine. The processor in the PC is a 3Ghz, when 4Ghz processors are available, and you'd be hard pressed to find a desktop machine at a retailer with less than a 2Ghz processor. But feel free to nitpick...
posted by jonson at 10:07 PM on March 26, 2003
Just a note on the graphs being 'approximate' - if you look closely, you'll notice the first graph uses 100 second minutes. The red bar should be 2/3 the length of the blue bar, not less than half.
posted by blamb at 10:08 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by blamb at 10:08 PM on March 26, 2003
D'oh! Scratch that last post - my bad, a 3Ghz IS the top of the line. Clearly I don't know my PC specs as well as I should.
posted by jonson at 10:09 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by jonson at 10:09 PM on March 26, 2003
The source article also fails to mention what was done to the OS/Software before generating the benchmarks... Were the XP 'themes' turned off for extra CPU cycles? Was OSX left in it's default not-so-ideal-for-DV configuration? Were there other apps/TSRs/services running? Is this a fresh format and install? This is a pretty shoddy benchmark, really...
As for the fact that Adobe is hosting a page saying some systems work faster than other systems in some situations, I don't really see the big deal. Adobe touted mac-centric benchmarks for years, but the processor-technology gap is getting too big for Apple, and this is just a reflection of that.
After all, it's not like they're directing outright hostility at Apple users (like Quark has done), they're just calling it as they see it.
posted by Jairus at 10:12 PM on March 26, 2003
As for the fact that Adobe is hosting a page saying some systems work faster than other systems in some situations, I don't really see the big deal. Adobe touted mac-centric benchmarks for years, but the processor-technology gap is getting too big for Apple, and this is just a reflection of that.
After all, it's not like they're directing outright hostility at Apple users (like Quark has done), they're just calling it as they see it.
posted by Jairus at 10:12 PM on March 26, 2003
Good point, SweetJesus. I think comparing them cost-wise would have been a better way to frame it--from a quick visit to apple and dell, the 1.25 dual processor Mac costs $1999, and the 3 gig dell with 1 Gig memory is $2037. Bang for the buck, I gotta say PC wins.
posted by gramcracker at 10:17 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by gramcracker at 10:17 PM on March 26, 2003
Apple issued a response basically saying 'try those same premier tasks in Final Cut Express and compare the speed difference'. Funny.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:18 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by Space Coyote at 10:18 PM on March 26, 2003
Actually, in light of gramcracker's intriguing post, that Final Cut Express comeback is snappy indeed. That link probably explains why Adobe is taking their current stance, interesting to see a divide between such staunch allies. I've already betrayed my tech ignorance in this thread, but isn't the OS X rendering system based on Adobe technology or something?
posted by jonson at 10:21 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by jonson at 10:21 PM on March 26, 2003
blamb: Earlier today the page did show "metric minutes" (0:54 = .54min, 1:25 = 1.25min) but the graphs have been repaired. They also changed the introduction text which originally described the PC in question as a mid-range 2.53GHz, which was the cause of some confusion.
posted by Monk at 10:23 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by Monk at 10:23 PM on March 26, 2003
But feel free to nitpick...
Ok, but it's the inner software engineer doing it.
Megahertz mean nothing, really. They're basically used as marketing fodder (more mhz means it's better, right?) What matters is not only the clock speed (mhz) of the machine, but the amount of on board cache space and the bus speed. The P4 running at 3.06mhz has a bus speed of 533mhz with a 512 LK2 cache printed with a .13 micron technology (basically this means that the size of the chip is smaller, so it takes less time for the electrons to get from place to place). The Mac dual 1.25 ghz G4 has 167mhz bus a 1mb DDR cache and I believe uses .17 micron production technologies. It's too late, and I don't want to do out the math, but the P4 beats the hell out of the mac, and it beats the hell out of just about any chip on the market at this point. But it's not a mid range PC chip, it's a very high end PC chip.
Also, the amount of memory is important, but so is the speed of the memory and the bus width. The Intel machines are using RDRAM, while the macs are using DDR RAM. The fastest DDR RAM tops out at 400mhz. The RDRAM Intel is using runs at about 1066mhz (which is really just a double-pumped bus, but it still runs at 100 or so mhz faster than the Mac ram). The effective bandwidth of the ram RDRAM is about 2.1 gigabytes a second, while the effective bandwidth on the Mac ram is between 1.6 and 2 gigabytes a second, depending on the clock byte width of the Mac ram (I couldn't find it anywhere).
The Intel machine is just really a hell of a lot faster, and it's going to run any application you throw at it faster than a Mac will.
D'oh! Scratch that last post - my bad, a 3Ghz IS the top of the line. Clearly I don't know my PC specs as well as I should.
Oh, well, whatever. I typed this whole thing, and maybe someone will find it interesting...
posted by SweetJesus at 10:46 PM on March 26, 2003
Ok, but it's the inner software engineer doing it.
Megahertz mean nothing, really. They're basically used as marketing fodder (more mhz means it's better, right?) What matters is not only the clock speed (mhz) of the machine, but the amount of on board cache space and the bus speed. The P4 running at 3.06mhz has a bus speed of 533mhz with a 512 LK2 cache printed with a .13 micron technology (basically this means that the size of the chip is smaller, so it takes less time for the electrons to get from place to place). The Mac dual 1.25 ghz G4 has 167mhz bus a 1mb DDR cache and I believe uses .17 micron production technologies. It's too late, and I don't want to do out the math, but the P4 beats the hell out of the mac, and it beats the hell out of just about any chip on the market at this point. But it's not a mid range PC chip, it's a very high end PC chip.
Also, the amount of memory is important, but so is the speed of the memory and the bus width. The Intel machines are using RDRAM, while the macs are using DDR RAM. The fastest DDR RAM tops out at 400mhz. The RDRAM Intel is using runs at about 1066mhz (which is really just a double-pumped bus, but it still runs at 100 or so mhz faster than the Mac ram). The effective bandwidth of the ram RDRAM is about 2.1 gigabytes a second, while the effective bandwidth on the Mac ram is between 1.6 and 2 gigabytes a second, depending on the clock byte width of the Mac ram (I couldn't find it anywhere).
The Intel machine is just really a hell of a lot faster, and it's going to run any application you throw at it faster than a Mac will.
D'oh! Scratch that last post - my bad, a 3Ghz IS the top of the line. Clearly I don't know my PC specs as well as I should.
Oh, well, whatever. I typed this whole thing, and maybe someone will find it interesting...
posted by SweetJesus at 10:46 PM on March 26, 2003
clock byte width
I mean, the bus width, in bits, of the ram.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:50 PM on March 26, 2003
I mean, the bus width, in bits, of the ram.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:50 PM on March 26, 2003
gramcracker: At that price, the Mac only includes 256MB of PC2700 SDRAM. Bump it to a gig to match the Dell (as was done in the test) and you're looking at $2374.
After looking at prices on both Apple's and Dell's site I noticed that Dell now bundles Adobe Acrobat for free (normally US$249) when you choose an office suite. Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier and After Effects are also available as options at prices less than those offered on Adobe's site.
Looks like both companies are throwing business each other's way.
"Dell and Adobe sittin' in a tree..."
posted by Monk at 10:54 PM on March 26, 2003
After looking at prices on both Apple's and Dell's site I noticed that Dell now bundles Adobe Acrobat for free (normally US$249) when you choose an office suite. Illustrator, Photoshop, Premier and After Effects are also available as options at prices less than those offered on Adobe's site.
Looks like both companies are throwing business each other's way.
"Dell and Adobe sittin' in a tree..."
posted by Monk at 10:54 PM on March 26, 2003
Adobe Acrobat for free (normally US$249)
Adobe Acrobat Reader or Distiller? The reader is free, but the distiller is 250 bucks, and not many people need it.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:56 PM on March 26, 2003
Adobe Acrobat Reader or Distiller? The reader is free, but the distiller is 250 bucks, and not many people need it.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:56 PM on March 26, 2003
PC's are faster than Mac's at just about every computational task, as well as their "percieved" speed (inside the OS). They are particularly faster at Photoshop applications (numbers). This is not the reason Adobe wants to prefer the PC, however (disregarding the fact that the only mention of preference is the URL).
The two main reasons Adobe prefers PC's over Macs are simple:
1. The percentage of ownership
- Not really a problem however, since Adobe codes there stuff in both platforms.
2. Three words: Final Cut Pro. The sole remaining reason (and a damned good one) to keep your Mac around, this piece of software was originally designed by Adobe's Premiere team to follow up 4.0. The team had its differences, and jumped ship to Macromedia, who made a deal with Apple and gave them the best Digital Video editing program around.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:01 PM on March 26, 2003
The two main reasons Adobe prefers PC's over Macs are simple:
1. The percentage of ownership
- Not really a problem however, since Adobe codes there stuff in both platforms.
2. Three words: Final Cut Pro. The sole remaining reason (and a damned good one) to keep your Mac around, this piece of software was originally designed by Adobe's Premiere team to follow up 4.0. The team had its differences, and jumped ship to Macromedia, who made a deal with Apple and gave them the best Digital Video editing program around.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:01 PM on March 26, 2003
No one would say that Motorola isn't pathetically behind the times in their chip delivery at the moment, however if the tech sites are to be believed IBM is about to come out with a POWER4 variant called the PPC 970 that looks to be custom made for Apple, while they want to use it in rackmount linux systems.
The latest rumour is that Apple has delayed their upcoming World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco and moved it to a bigger convention centre because it plans to unveil the 970 at the show.
Right now Intel holds the advantage of a better manufacturig process and a ridiculously long pipeline, which breaks instructions up into tiny sub-instructions and shoots them through the pipeline faster. Basically like sticking your thumb in the garden hose, the water comes out at a faster speed but you're still moving the same amount of water.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:05 PM on March 26, 2003
The latest rumour is that Apple has delayed their upcoming World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco and moved it to a bigger convention centre because it plans to unveil the 970 at the show.
Right now Intel holds the advantage of a better manufacturig process and a ridiculously long pipeline, which breaks instructions up into tiny sub-instructions and shoots them through the pipeline faster. Basically like sticking your thumb in the garden hose, the water comes out at a faster speed but you're still moving the same amount of water.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:05 PM on March 26, 2003
Hey, who replaced my Metafilter with Slashdot? April Fool's Day isn't until next week!
posted by jjg at 11:31 PM on March 26, 2003
posted by jjg at 11:31 PM on March 26, 2003
3.06GHz isn't a mid-range PC - it's the entry level processor that will support Intel's hyperthreading technology - which is one of their marketing thrusts at the moment . . . which this may very well be connected to in some "we'll stroke your back if you stoke ours" in your marketing copy way. (sickening myself with the knowledge after sitting thru "training" recently by the company those of us in the PC industry love to hate and the marketing dollars that come with them)
"Dell, Adobe, and Intel sittin' in a tree..."
posted by nyoki at 11:52 PM on March 26, 2003
"Dell, Adobe, and Intel sittin' in a tree..."
posted by nyoki at 11:52 PM on March 26, 2003
SJ>What matters is not only the clock speed (mhz) of the machine, but the amount of on board cache space and the bus speed.
Uhhh, I have to take issue with that. What _really_ matters is how many cycles it takes to execute an instruction.
If you have a processor that takes 10 cycles to add but runs at 3.0 Ghz and another that takes 1 cycle to add and runs at 300 Mhz, they are the same effective speed.
I'm pretty sure the Athlon, for example, is a much more efficient chip than the P4 (as is also the P3, which was the last intel chip I respected). That's because better pipelining and overall design that minimizes how many cycles each instruction takes lets it get more instructions executed per second.
posted by shepd at 1:28 AM on March 27, 2003
Uhhh, I have to take issue with that. What _really_ matters is how many cycles it takes to execute an instruction.
If you have a processor that takes 10 cycles to add but runs at 3.0 Ghz and another that takes 1 cycle to add and runs at 300 Mhz, they are the same effective speed.
I'm pretty sure the Athlon, for example, is a much more efficient chip than the P4 (as is also the P3, which was the last intel chip I respected). That's because better pipelining and overall design that minimizes how many cycles each instruction takes lets it get more instructions executed per second.
posted by shepd at 1:28 AM on March 27, 2003
these adobe calculations seem to assume a linear relationship between the cpu/ram and the speed of the programs.. which is not the case for two reasons: (1) different instruction sets within the Intel and Motorola processors and (2) different OS-level APIs that the (yet again different) codebases of say, Photoshop on Windows and same program on the Mac are addressing. #1 can be factored into the equation but getting #2 right is next to impossible - unless you assume that the expertise of the Windows and Mac programmers at Adobe is strictly identical according to some mysterious criteria.
posted by bokononito at 2:56 AM on March 27, 2003
posted by bokononito at 2:56 AM on March 27, 2003
whoops.. forgot to mention.. i'm talking about what the speed of the programs could be, not what it is. that's what sleepless nights do to you.
posted by bokononito at 2:59 AM on March 27, 2003
posted by bokononito at 2:59 AM on March 27, 2003
Apple's response (which was out on Tuesday, pity it wasn't integrated into the initial post) is that this is really about how After Effects performs on PCs vs. Macs rather than on differences in platforms: Apple argues that a Mac running Final Cut Pro/Express performs better. While Mac users are going apoplectic on every discussion board across the web, it's important to keep this in perspective.
Apple and Adobe compete in the video editing arena: while Adobe is very likely platform-agnostic when it comes to Photoshop or InDesign, I'm sure they'd rather have people using Premiere and After Effects on a PC than Apple's Final Cut Pro or Express on a Mac. (Sure, they'd be okay with Premiere and After Effects on a Mac, but who are we kidding?)
posted by mcwetboy at 3:53 AM on March 27, 2003
Apple and Adobe compete in the video editing arena: while Adobe is very likely platform-agnostic when it comes to Photoshop or InDesign, I'm sure they'd rather have people using Premiere and After Effects on a PC than Apple's Final Cut Pro or Express on a Mac. (Sure, they'd be okay with Premiere and After Effects on a Mac, but who are we kidding?)
posted by mcwetboy at 3:53 AM on March 27, 2003
shepd: the number of clock cycles that it takes to execute an instruction doesn't matter nearly so much as what you said, seeing as all the major processors these days can work on a large number of commands during each cycle. After all, if a 3GHz chip takes 10 clock cycles to execute each instruction, but is executing 20 instructions at once, that would make it equivalent to a 6GHz chip, by your logic.
That being said, it's hard to find a poorer cross-processor performance measure than MHz, so the whole thing's moot.
posted by mosch at 4:51 AM on March 27, 2003
That being said, it's hard to find a poorer cross-processor performance measure than MHz, so the whole thing's moot.
posted by mosch at 4:51 AM on March 27, 2003
For Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign, I have found from personal use that the applications just run better on a Mac than they do on a Windows machine. I have an 1.6 GHz WinXP machine, and I have a Dual 867 MHz, and I always use my Mac for my digital work. It just feels better. Which makes me work faster. And no matter how fast it can process, I can always stay ahead of what it is doing.
I doubt Adobe would abandon Photoshop or Illustrator or InDesign for the Mac platform, but when you've got Final Cut Pro, a program that is infinitely better than what you are offering, than yeah, you might get a little defensive.
Course, they may know something about an advance Apple made photo editing and design software, integrated, costing $200, coming out soon, that we are not aware of.
posted by benjh at 5:15 AM on March 27, 2003
I doubt Adobe would abandon Photoshop or Illustrator or InDesign for the Mac platform, but when you've got Final Cut Pro, a program that is infinitely better than what you are offering, than yeah, you might get a little defensive.
Course, they may know something about an advance Apple made photo editing and design software, integrated, costing $200, coming out soon, that we are not aware of.
posted by benjh at 5:15 AM on March 27, 2003
I'm trying to buy a new laptop and it's been very hard to try to justify the switch to OSX. I want to do it, but I feel like I'm paying 33% more for a machine that's much slower than an "equivalent" PC. I want the iApps and OSX and the integration with iPods and iSync, etc. but it's become harder and harder for me to justify it to myself. Plus the new Centrino/Banias chips are faster and use less power than P4 Mobile chips. I went in wanting a 15" TiBook but may end up with an Alienware Centrino.
posted by gen at 5:22 AM on March 27, 2003
posted by gen at 5:22 AM on March 27, 2003
The trend I have noticed is that there are more *young* people using PCs for Photoshop, Aftereffects, and (I know this isn't an Adobe product... but I am sure it is on their minds...) Flash. Adobe probably knows this... Most of their product will be sold to these younger people in the future anyway...
PCs are cheap... they can run practically anything... and it just seems that it is the older graphics folks that are stuck to the mac.
I know I use a PC... I am a graphics artist... My friends use PCs... they are graphics artists...
Most of the design houses I know that hire younger people prefer the PC... That's just the way it is... well here in Texas anyway. Matter of fact, we consider the people who ONLY use macs to be a pain in the ass to have to work with.
Plus you won't see the design department of a large corporation using macs because the IT dept. doesn't want to support anything but PCs...
posted by LoopSouth at 5:58 AM on March 27, 2003
PCs are cheap... they can run practically anything... and it just seems that it is the older graphics folks that are stuck to the mac.
I know I use a PC... I am a graphics artist... My friends use PCs... they are graphics artists...
Most of the design houses I know that hire younger people prefer the PC... That's just the way it is... well here in Texas anyway. Matter of fact, we consider the people who ONLY use macs to be a pain in the ass to have to work with.
Plus you won't see the design department of a large corporation using macs because the IT dept. doesn't want to support anything but PCs...
posted by LoopSouth at 5:58 AM on March 27, 2003
My 800Mhz P3 with 3-year-old parts Photoshops faster than my new iMac at work. While OS X is prettier (as well as Macs in general), I've found OS X to be less responsive than Windows (there's a noticeable delay when I try to open a new web browser window or look for a file through directories), and not as fast.
This has been my experience as well, with 512mb of ram. I like my mac, but perception counts a lot.
Of course, my pII 233mhz laptop with 392mb ram feels snappier with the gui, but the interface is so ugly it depresses me sometimes.
posted by mecran01 at 6:52 AM on March 27, 2003
This has been my experience as well, with 512mb of ram. I like my mac, but perception counts a lot.
Of course, my pII 233mhz laptop with 392mb ram feels snappier with the gui, but the interface is so ugly it depresses me sometimes.
posted by mecran01 at 6:52 AM on March 27, 2003
Plus you won't see the design department of a large corporation using macs because the IT dept. doesn't want to support anything but PCs.
And those IT members should be fired.
The purpose of IT in a company is to allow the people in the company who actually produce income to produce more income. Period. Any decision made by IT that says "It'll be harder for you, but easier for us," is fundamentally flawed, and the IT person proposing such should be fired. As long as the systems are supportable, and the budget can afford them, you should provide them, if that will make a given person more productive.
The ultimate expression of this (and the ultimate sign that your IT guys are incompetent) is "We have to have a standard config for support purposes." Bull. What that's really saying is "We're lazy. We'll tell you want you can use, and you deal with making it work for you." Of course, this also means that all of your servers and workstations are identical. Nice when you can replace every machine at the same time, every time. Otherwise, they aren't identical, and IT is selling a bill of goods.
I call this "Debug by Ghost", and it's wrong. (Oops, your machine's messed up. I'll ghost the standard config over, and it'll work. Oh, you had data on that drive. Sorry.) Learn your jobs. The secretaries won't want emacs, the developers don't want Powerpoint, and the executives wouldn't know what to do with an IDE. Why are you installing them on those machines? ?
If I had an art department? Macs. Unless they really wanted PCs, Macs. Furthermore, Macs are trivial to support, even the OS X versions -- keeping watch on a dozen or so would increase my workload almost none -- and with OS X, many of the maintenance tasks could be done via ssh.
So, when the IT department stands up in a meeting and gives you that bull, fling it back in their faces. Ask them (with the CEO listening) how much income and revenue they bring in. You're the one generating dollars for the company, IT is there to serve you, not the other way around.
posted by eriko at 6:55 AM on March 27, 2003
And those IT members should be fired.
The purpose of IT in a company is to allow the people in the company who actually produce income to produce more income. Period. Any decision made by IT that says "It'll be harder for you, but easier for us," is fundamentally flawed, and the IT person proposing such should be fired. As long as the systems are supportable, and the budget can afford them, you should provide them, if that will make a given person more productive.
The ultimate expression of this (and the ultimate sign that your IT guys are incompetent) is "We have to have a standard config for support purposes." Bull. What that's really saying is "We're lazy. We'll tell you want you can use, and you deal with making it work for you." Of course, this also means that all of your servers and workstations are identical. Nice when you can replace every machine at the same time, every time. Otherwise, they aren't identical, and IT is selling a bill of goods.
I call this "Debug by Ghost", and it's wrong. (Oops, your machine's messed up. I'll ghost the standard config over, and it'll work. Oh, you had data on that drive. Sorry.) Learn your jobs. The secretaries won't want emacs, the developers don't want Powerpoint, and the executives wouldn't know what to do with an IDE. Why are you installing them on those machines? ?
If I had an art department? Macs. Unless they really wanted PCs, Macs. Furthermore, Macs are trivial to support, even the OS X versions -- keeping watch on a dozen or so would increase my workload almost none -- and with OS X, many of the maintenance tasks could be done via ssh.
So, when the IT department stands up in a meeting and gives you that bull, fling it back in their faces. Ask them (with the CEO listening) how much income and revenue they bring in. You're the one generating dollars for the company, IT is there to serve you, not the other way around.
posted by eriko at 6:55 AM on March 27, 2003
what eriko said.
and may I go on record to say how much I hate adobe. hate, hate, hate. I am a graphic designer and feel like they have my profession in a strangle hold. and it is fine with me if they are no longer in bed with Apple. now if you'll excuse me, I have to go touch up these scans in photoshop. grr.
posted by whatnot at 7:41 AM on March 27, 2003
and may I go on record to say how much I hate adobe. hate, hate, hate. I am a graphic designer and feel like they have my profession in a strangle hold. and it is fine with me if they are no longer in bed with Apple. now if you'll excuse me, I have to go touch up these scans in photoshop. grr.
posted by whatnot at 7:41 AM on March 27, 2003
It's not just speed, but stability that counts for me when I'm deciding between PC and Mac. I'm on Windows 2000 pro now, and so far Premiere's only crashed a couple of times, but of course the less the better. If FCP on a Mac runs a little slower but crashes less often, I might prefer the Mac.
posted by Poagao at 7:48 AM on March 27, 2003
posted by Poagao at 7:48 AM on March 27, 2003
seriously, every single designer that i know personally, myself included, uses BOTH PCs and MACs, at home or at work or both. I don't trust people who don't know how to use both.
get with the times people, go bi-platform.
posted by th3ph17 at 8:41 AM on March 27, 2003
get with the times people, go bi-platform.
posted by th3ph17 at 8:41 AM on March 27, 2003
Eriko...
It is very hard to stand up against the status quo at an intenched corporation... This aint the dot com boom anymore, pal...
Step up in a meeting and "fling it back" into IT's face and you are instantly branded as a "troublemaker"...
But that isn't even the point.
The fact is, at alot of corporations, IT does indeed have a stranglehold on the technology that gets deployed. It is just a fact of life. Period...
Dept. managers aren't going to argue with IT, and thus upper management, (because remember, IT is overhead budget... so they want to pinch pennies whever possible anyway... hence single platform support... Upper management can't see farther then a few quarters ahead.... they don't, and will never, understand why supporting dual platform might make money.) because a few people want a mac. They will just, simply, hire PC people...
There is a huge stack of resumes to choose from and there are plenty of people who would be glad to sit in that cube and do the work on a PC.
The corporate world sucks, Eriko... you either deal with it, or walk.
I think I'll "deal" with my dual processor (dual monitor) PC with "only" a gig and a half of ram... that IT so graciously provided me with...
Because for the same price they could have only purchased a shit mac and they don't have people to support it anyway... (Not that I would want them touching my shit...)
IT gets a budget like everyone else... And unlike the work I do, the work they do doesn't directly generate a profit...
And I'm sorry, dude... there is really nothing that can be done on a mac that can't be done on a PC... That will certainly be IT's argument.
posted by LoopSouth at 9:17 AM on March 27, 2003
It is very hard to stand up against the status quo at an intenched corporation... This aint the dot com boom anymore, pal...
Step up in a meeting and "fling it back" into IT's face and you are instantly branded as a "troublemaker"...
But that isn't even the point.
The fact is, at alot of corporations, IT does indeed have a stranglehold on the technology that gets deployed. It is just a fact of life. Period...
Dept. managers aren't going to argue with IT, and thus upper management, (because remember, IT is overhead budget... so they want to pinch pennies whever possible anyway... hence single platform support... Upper management can't see farther then a few quarters ahead.... they don't, and will never, understand why supporting dual platform might make money.) because a few people want a mac. They will just, simply, hire PC people...
There is a huge stack of resumes to choose from and there are plenty of people who would be glad to sit in that cube and do the work on a PC.
The corporate world sucks, Eriko... you either deal with it, or walk.
I think I'll "deal" with my dual processor (dual monitor) PC with "only" a gig and a half of ram... that IT so graciously provided me with...
Because for the same price they could have only purchased a shit mac and they don't have people to support it anyway... (Not that I would want them touching my shit...)
IT gets a budget like everyone else... And unlike the work I do, the work they do doesn't directly generate a profit...
And I'm sorry, dude... there is really nothing that can be done on a mac that can't be done on a PC... That will certainly be IT's argument.
posted by LoopSouth at 9:17 AM on March 27, 2003
The purpose of IT in a company is to allow the people in the company who actually produce income to produce more income. Period.
bulllllllshiit
Every company is made up of almost 70%-90% support staff to the small percentage of "earners" (whatever the fuck that means). Is that CEO you want him to stand up to a so called income producer?
It is everyone's responsibility in a company to balance fiscal responsibility with thier area of expertise. And THAT is how a company is profitable. I'm not saying that Mac's shouldn't be supported and most companies have someone who will support the Mac however, by your logic the IT department should be supporting OS 9 and OS X for design, Win98, and XP machines for the desktops Windows NT, 2K for email, Solaris, Unix, BSD Linux for web serving, Palm OS Windows CE for handhelds, and whatever OS's the other departments deem necessary?
The revenue the IT department brings in? It's all the money they don't have to spend supporting every damn thing the prima donna's think they need.
posted by bitdamaged at 10:00 AM on March 27, 2003
bulllllllshiit
Every company is made up of almost 70%-90% support staff to the small percentage of "earners" (whatever the fuck that means). Is that CEO you want him to stand up to a so called income producer?
It is everyone's responsibility in a company to balance fiscal responsibility with thier area of expertise. And THAT is how a company is profitable. I'm not saying that Mac's shouldn't be supported and most companies have someone who will support the Mac however, by your logic the IT department should be supporting OS 9 and OS X for design, Win98, and XP machines for the desktops Windows NT, 2K for email, Solaris, Unix, BSD Linux for web serving, Palm OS Windows CE for handhelds, and whatever OS's the other departments deem necessary?
The revenue the IT department brings in? It's all the money they don't have to spend supporting every damn thing the prima donna's think they need.
posted by bitdamaged at 10:00 AM on March 27, 2003
I don't think anyone's mentioned the fact that on dual-CPU Macs, Adobe applications don't use the second processor. Note how the benchmarks for the dual 1-GHz machine are not much faster than for the 933-MHz machine.
posted by oaf at 10:10 AM on March 27, 2003
posted by oaf at 10:10 AM on March 27, 2003
bitmanaged -
Fuckin' eh, man... hehe...
I was in IT before I ever entered a graphics dept... I know how it is from both sides... Everyone is just trying to do their jobs, you know...
IT is pressured to stay under budget... but at the same time they are expected to support everything... eventually a foot has to come down.
IT will like you alot more if you are willing to work with them towards a compromise. Trust me...
posted by LoopSouth at 11:19 AM on March 27, 2003
Fuckin' eh, man... hehe...
I was in IT before I ever entered a graphics dept... I know how it is from both sides... Everyone is just trying to do their jobs, you know...
IT is pressured to stay under budget... but at the same time they are expected to support everything... eventually a foot has to come down.
IT will like you alot more if you are willing to work with them towards a compromise. Trust me...
posted by LoopSouth at 11:19 AM on March 27, 2003
Keep in mind that geeks like to spend money on toys. In the boom days, management might let that slip by. But today, it's hunker down, spend only what you have to spend and that' that.
In several firms that we do support for, we've moved to recycling old PCs the new hires and rotating those old PCs until they're absolutely useless. No more "keeping up with the Joneses" - as long as the computer does the job - it stays.
Apple's biggest problem right now is its growing price-performance gap. As someone else out there mentioned: I want to get a Macintosh, but the price difference between that and a faster PC is immense. It's terrible, but true.
Style and design only go so far, as many of the other posts here have pointed out: there is almost nothing out there that is Mac-exclusive anymore. And increasingly software is Wintel-exclusive.
While I personally disagree with the philosophy of "its's good enough", that seems to be the mantra that more people are adopting when it comes to computers, much to Apple's detriment.
posted by tgrundke at 12:36 PM on March 27, 2003
In several firms that we do support for, we've moved to recycling old PCs the new hires and rotating those old PCs until they're absolutely useless. No more "keeping up with the Joneses" - as long as the computer does the job - it stays.
Apple's biggest problem right now is its growing price-performance gap. As someone else out there mentioned: I want to get a Macintosh, but the price difference between that and a faster PC is immense. It's terrible, but true.
Style and design only go so far, as many of the other posts here have pointed out: there is almost nothing out there that is Mac-exclusive anymore. And increasingly software is Wintel-exclusive.
While I personally disagree with the philosophy of "its's good enough", that seems to be the mantra that more people are adopting when it comes to computers, much to Apple's detriment.
posted by tgrundke at 12:36 PM on March 27, 2003
Oh, and another thing: am I the only person who gets peeved when people use the terms "PC" and "Macintosh" as if they were two distinct identities?
Am I mistaken in the assumption that "PC" stands for "Personal Computer". Of which, the Macintosh is one?
Ergo, I think the term "Windows PC" and "Macintosh PC" makes more sense, or "Wintel" and "Macintosh". (though, Wintel precludes AMD...oh well)
Just a nit-pick.
posted by tgrundke at 12:44 PM on March 27, 2003
Am I mistaken in the assumption that "PC" stands for "Personal Computer". Of which, the Macintosh is one?
Ergo, I think the term "Windows PC" and "Macintosh PC" makes more sense, or "Wintel" and "Macintosh". (though, Wintel precludes AMD...oh well)
Just a nit-pick.
posted by tgrundke at 12:44 PM on March 27, 2003
It's ludicrous to say you're "more productive" using Mac's or PC's when the simple fact is that you'll spend 80% of your time in a single application. Photoshop on the Mac is Photoshop on the PC. OSX and WinXP have very, very little to do with it. Of course, if your similarly-priced PC is a lot faster, you will see a difference in PShop. Or, if your OS is bloated down with fancy GUI effects, you'll see a difference. I am pained when I use Macs because under severe memory shortage or serious processing, the mouse and/or GUI freezes. "No, no, don't click anything... just let it think." That's simply terrible coding. NO application should ever take control away from the OS. Any programmer who allows for such mistakes should be taken outside and have large, wild dogs set upon them.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:33 PM on March 27, 2003
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:33 PM on March 27, 2003
Don't PC users have anything better to do than pick on mac users?
I'm a recent switcher, and the only problem I've encountered while using my iBook is the damn Wintel users.
I really don't understand why this debate still happens. Neither side is ever going to convince the other. Can't we get back to arguing about the war?
posted by esch at 4:28 PM on March 27, 2003
I'm a recent switcher, and the only problem I've encountered while using my iBook is the damn Wintel users.
I really don't understand why this debate still happens. Neither side is ever going to convince the other. Can't we get back to arguing about the war?
posted by esch at 4:28 PM on March 27, 2003
esch: I have problems with Wintel users when I use my Powerbook, too. They come over and ooh and aah at it, telling me how beautiful of a machine it is.
posted by benjh at 4:59 PM on March 27, 2003
posted by benjh at 4:59 PM on March 27, 2003
I am pained when I use Macs because under severe memory shortage or serious processing, the mouse and/or GUI freezes.
Well, frankly, I've seen the same thing on Windows (in fact I've managed to bring Windows 2000 to its knees more than once by inadvertently opening up multiple copies of the Eclipse Java IDE on a machine with only 128MB real RAM).
You let any OS start swapping, everything's going to get really slow. I have 1GB in my G4, and on occasion I've awakened to find my Mac really sluggish in the morning. That's always a sure sign that one of the apps I left running when I went to bed has a memory leak.
posted by kindall at 5:38 PM on March 27, 2003
Well, frankly, I've seen the same thing on Windows (in fact I've managed to bring Windows 2000 to its knees more than once by inadvertently opening up multiple copies of the Eclipse Java IDE on a machine with only 128MB real RAM).
You let any OS start swapping, everything's going to get really slow. I have 1GB in my G4, and on occasion I've awakened to find my Mac really sluggish in the morning. That's always a sure sign that one of the apps I left running when I went to bed has a memory leak.
posted by kindall at 5:38 PM on March 27, 2003
"I know I use a PC... I am a graphics artist... My friends use PCs... they are graphics artists...
Most of the design houses I know that hire younger people prefer the PC... That's just the way it is... well here in Texas anyway. Matter of fact, we consider the people who ONLY use macs to be a pain in the ass to have to work with."
I have no idea what kind of Microsoft fantasy world you live in but I don't know a single Graphic Design shop that uses PCs as a majority in the creative workflow.
Windows STILL lacks half-decent font management and support.
Windows still uses a non-standard typographic measurement for fonts.
And the shops I am referring to are about as close to Wintel groundzero as possible - Seattle.
Hell, it's even a widely known fact that Microsoft's own design departmant uses Macs.
All that being said, I, being a huge Mac dork, can wholeheartedly admit that PCs are faster than Macs for a lot of tasks.
The higher end PCs are faster than the fastest Mac. Period.
But that has little or no effect on me because I don't sit around waiting for progress bars all day.
Now if PCs had some sort of 'creativity accelerator', I might just be interested.
Hopefully the PPC970 will change these things and get Apple some respect from PC hobbyists.
I mean, it's gonna be the first 64-bit consumer processor in standard systems.
We all know Apple's gonna milk that fact until it's dry.
(negligible performance gains from 32-bt to 64-bit processing notwithstanding)
posted by cinderful at 7:49 PM on March 27, 2003
Most of the design houses I know that hire younger people prefer the PC... That's just the way it is... well here in Texas anyway. Matter of fact, we consider the people who ONLY use macs to be a pain in the ass to have to work with."
I have no idea what kind of Microsoft fantasy world you live in but I don't know a single Graphic Design shop that uses PCs as a majority in the creative workflow.
Windows STILL lacks half-decent font management and support.
Windows still uses a non-standard typographic measurement for fonts.
And the shops I am referring to are about as close to Wintel groundzero as possible - Seattle.
Hell, it's even a widely known fact that Microsoft's own design departmant uses Macs.
All that being said, I, being a huge Mac dork, can wholeheartedly admit that PCs are faster than Macs for a lot of tasks.
The higher end PCs are faster than the fastest Mac. Period.
But that has little or no effect on me because I don't sit around waiting for progress bars all day.
Now if PCs had some sort of 'creativity accelerator', I might just be interested.
Hopefully the PPC970 will change these things and get Apple some respect from PC hobbyists.
I mean, it's gonna be the first 64-bit consumer processor in standard systems.
We all know Apple's gonna milk that fact until it's dry.
(negligible performance gains from 32-bt to 64-bit processing notwithstanding)
posted by cinderful at 7:49 PM on March 27, 2003
« Older The Subway Page | Robert Fisk in the Independent Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by waldo at 9:45 PM on March 26, 2003