NZMac.com - Supporting the New Zealand Mac community

On the Stuff website this morning. I know I want to believe it's Microsoft being its usual despicable self, but I'll wait until there's a little more info before I think that...

One thing made me smile, when they talk about how NeoOffice is an alternative:

But Mr Le Sueur said the NeoOffice website warned users to expect problems and bugs.
"That's not the sort of software we should be expecting kids in New Zealand to be using."

Problems and bug-ridden software? That's exactly what we expect kids to use if we're giving them MS software...

E.

I don't know that I blame Microsoft here - I have to wonder if there isn't a Mac vs PC agenda running somewhere inside the MoE.

It's also interesting the numbers in the story:

25000 macintosh computers in schools across New Zealand.
Only half had Office installed.

2.7M in licensing for 25000 machines - $108 per machine.

All the Macs will have TextEdit and possibly more sophisticated word processors. So long as they have Keynote installed on them, the only problem that would need rectifying would be to replace Excel. This could be done by reverting to the less powerful AppleWorks, Tables or some open source application.

Nice to see that they are contemplating open source, just I think they should look further afield than NeoOffice.

Slightly bigger article here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=221&objectid=10442388

All the Macs will have TextEdit and possibly more sophisticated word processors. So long as they have Keynote installed on them

I wish it were that simple in a lot of cases. I can recall in the last school I taught in, having a very intelligent staff member tell me we should get rid of Macs because that's not what people would experience in the "real world". Even with Office available at the time (albeit a really bad version) this person was adamant that the PC experience was what kids should have....and I think this is exactly the tactics that M$ hope will happen with such things.

Now we could argue (like I did for months) over how absurd the argument is, but when I see emails going out at work because someone is trying to prove Macs are not as energy efficient as PCs and therefore only PCs should be bought from now on...you start to realise that in many instances, the people making the decisions won't look at the big picture or the amazing software that comes with all Macs...including how creative and astoundingly superb the products are for Macs...they'll just sit there and think "Oh god, we can't use Office unless we pay much more".

Phil
Ps...moving this to education section as it is more relevant there I think

We are about to migrate our 300 users from Macs to PC's - don't ask. One of the current stumbling blocks is the PC's inability to shut itself down whilst still being logged in. Our Macs are set to save any open documents and then shut down in the evening and start up in the morning, thus saving the company money and reducing our carbon footprint. The energy efficient argument just doesn't sound right to me, how can an flat panel iMac use more power than the latest Dull offering with a separate screen?
We are still running the current OS on 5 year old machines with no problems but facts like this seem to pass those in control by.

They probably don't fit some requirement for technology that only exists in the PC world. I love the one about the Canadian or US regional education authority that wouldn't allow schools to buy Macs because they didn't run the authorised anti-virus software (didn't occur to the 'experts' they also couldn't run the viruses)

One day IT will be outcome-oriented, 'productivity' will be a KPI not a marketing buzzword and the easily-fooled will step away from the detail and get on with something useful. Then we'll be Mac-ready.

McD

Even if you want to run Windows, a Mac is a great machine.

The thing I love is that it's so easy to get the drivers and install them. I've got an Asus machine and it's such a hassle! Different installations for graphics, audio, chipset, ethernet, wireless, card reader and a couple of other bits and bobs. With the Apple drivers it's all wrapped up into one installation which is brilliant.

They run Windows really nicely too.

The energy rating is utter rubbish. Even if the PC is more energy efficient the machine is only as good as the OS and Windows is NOT energy efficient. Windows keeps powering itself up from sleep. Why? The virus checker. Also Window's RAM management is pathetic which means it must read from the drive more thus more energy usage than say Linux or of course Mac OS X. I might argue the energy efficiency if the PC was running Linux but they're not so the energy efficiency is moot.

Incidentally, Nick, one of the guys just bought an iMac today for that very reason. It's easier to keep a Mac up and running than it is to keep a PC running Windows up and running. People who don't do research should never have a say in purchasing. Unfortunately our company is full of them.

charlieabbottuk wrote:
We are about to migrate our 300 users from Macs to PC's - don't ask. One of the current stumbling blocks is the PC's inability to shut itself down whilst still being logged in.

The systems locally just shut the machine down. The understanding is that when you (the employee) leave work for the day you tidy your computer desktop - closing files, etc. The system then shuts your machine down at a specified time after closing.

If having your workstation shut down on you is a problem, you can opt out of the shutdown system.

lowededwookie wrote:
The energy rating is utter rubbish. Even if the PC is more energy efficient the machine is only as good as the OS and Windows is NOT energy efficient.

Are there any figures available on this kind of argument? I'd love to push this angle locally - but without firm evidence it's difficult to get listened to in this day and age where the body corporate has finally begun to demand that IT justify it's statements and back them up with evidence.

lowededwookie wrote:
People who don't do research should never have a say in purchasing. Unfortunately our company is full of them.
It may be that what the rationale for purchasing has nothing to do with energy efficiency. Locally, the rationale is the upfront $/year/machine, and Dell wins out with $1200 systems with 19" LCD monitors unfortunately.

duck wrote:
Are there any figures available on this kind of argument? I'd love to push this angle locally - but without firm evidence it's difficult to get listened to in this day and age where the body corporate has finally begun to demand that IT justify it's statements and back them up with evidence.
I do remember an article talking about how Windows was not energy efficient on account of the virus checker bringing the machine out of sleep mode constantly. Unfortunately I can't remember where it was. Something tells me Treehugger but I can't confirm or deny.