Jon's Network

Fortune Small Business published this drivel in response to a serious question: Is it time to consider moving your small business to Macs?

Their answer: it makes sense for maybe 20 companies out of 100, up from just 5 a few years back.

Here are the reasons Macs won’t work for your small business:

• The slogan “Designed by Apple in California” posivitively shouts at you from the box.
• “On” switch is not on the front of the monitor
• Not enough USB ports (didn’t mention how much would be enough)
• GoToMyPC doesn’t work
• Same driver issues as with a Vista upgrade (this one I just don’t believe without the details)
• Small business users too stupid to use Spaces
• Different keyboard commands (this takes like 3 days to get used to)
• The Mighty Mouse only has one button
• Time Machine retrieves backups with too much fanfare
• Syncing Blackberries and smartphones can be a pain
• Terrible problems getting company programs to work properly (again, no details)
• After months of comparisons, no efficiency was gained doing critical business functions

This is probably the worst article I have read on the topic. You gotta love the last line:

Windows Vista, properly installed and used in tandem with Web-based productivity tools, is a powerful, powerful alternative.

That conclusion doesn’t follow from the explanation. One valid point that it hints at though is that if you are using web-based tools, it doesn’t matter what OS you are using.

The author didn’t offer enough detail about the valid concerns (GoToMyPC work-arounds, syncing problems, programs not working on Macs) to help any small business owner make the decision. He also didn’t mention the well-known desktop virtualization phenomenon that is fueling the trend of small biz Mac switchers. Being able to run Windows on your Macs using Fusion or Parallels reduces the risk of switching and eases the transition.

As for using a Mac for months without efficiency gains, I believe that most small businesses would increase their productivity by using Macs. I haven’t done enough research on it to state it as a conditional fact yet, but I have a fuzzy idea of why it would be.

1. Macs get you out of the filing paradigm. You don’t need to stuff all your emails and files into folders. Use keywords. Use something like Quicksilver to make any file on your machine a few keystrokes away.
2. The services menu and the Cocoa framework
3. Applescript
4. Less expensive, faster (the article did mention these two), more reliable

This all needs to be clarified and quantified, but that is a project for another day.