03-28-2010, 03:18 PM

Perhaps the decision making process is flawed. If the tech department is not knowledgeable about Mac then why do they make decisions on the platform?

Another way to look at it would be to consider that it is not the Tech department that uses the computers. Perhaps the choice should rest with the user of the computer. Could you conduct a poll with your users and see what platform they would rather work with?

Another thing to look into is the details of the hardware they want to replace your macs with. Since a designer's job is all about the way things look, what screen do the tech guys want to use? Most PC screens are utter crap (excuse the french) even down to their technical specification compared Apple screens even an iMac screen is about $600+ for a 24" equivalent from DELL, (on a good day) and from the user comments it seems half of them complain about poor image quality.

Another thing is, small things like color coded file labels don't exist on Windows, this may seems small but I find the productivity is increased because of this. Perhaps you can ask your PC tech dep. to give you solutions to these missing features?

Something else missing from Windows 7, is image previews, on a mac you can preview any file's contents in the Finder. Windows 7 has these for only basic files like Office files and image files, and then only some formats. This is also a time and productivity saver on the Mac platform. Basically I would make the argument that you need to run OS X for best productivity and Windows is not a reliable alternative.

Perhaps before the Tech guys can go any further they should provide you with a detailed sheet of specifications from everything from the computer hardware to the monitor to the keyboard to the mouse and whatever your department needs so that you can see if the hardware really hold up against Apple's hardware.

03-28-2010, 03:35 PM

Last but not least: Macs have repeatedly-proven lower TCO and higher ROI. Mac users are (again, this is supported by studies) 33% more efficient than PC users doing the same jobs. They have 70% (yes SEVENTY PERCENT) less downtime, and are strongly preferred by all the top talent in creative fields. Macs are HIGHLY dominant in all publishing, photography, audio and video fields, despite there being very fine software available for PCs in all those arenas.

Tell your IT department to find evidence refuting those claims -- or just poll the designers to find out how many of them would leave -- before you'll consider making the switch. Creative people are not a commodity and shouldn't be treated as such. To do their best work, they need the best equipment. That would be Macs.