Losing our Macs to PCs because of $$$$

835dusseault · #1 March 6th, 2007, 04:12 PM

We are converting our G4s to PC because of the high cost of new macs and the constant upgrades to software. What's going to be the worst quagmire that we're looking at? We're going from Quark to Indesign and CS2.

Natobasso · #2 March 6th, 2007, 05:12 PM

First off, there's no need to upgrade just becase upgrades are available. I'm still using InDesign CS just fine, even though some of my vendors already have CS2...

You're not going to like the PC workflow as much as the Mac; not only that, your virus threats and IT support time just went up considerably. Has your company factored that into their numbers?

Converting Quark files to ID is problematic at the BEST of times, though Adobe InDesign works great on the PC:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...atform=Windows

Q4 files open natively but Q5-7 do not so you either have to back save those or use Markzware's QuarktoInDesign plug in (you'll need this $300 plug in on each computer).

Your company needs to add up the numbers and factor in at least that much more for maintenance and issues. You have to give up all your mac fonts too...

sylense · #3 March 6th, 2007, 05:21 PM

Speaking of constant upgrades to software, now is not a good time to switch to PC. With Vista on the horizon, you may have more software upgrade headaches than ever before.

sgould · #4 March 6th, 2007, 05:22 PM

When you did the cost comparison, did you include the cost of training and support? When you include these costs, the Mac is quite competitive!

835dusseault · #5 March 6th, 2007, 05:48 PM

I don't know if my boss factored in the training costs. I am worried about the font conversion as our IT dept. is a little on the light side right now due to loss of personal. Thanks for the info.

nixgeek · #6 March 7th, 2007, 09:13 AM

The fact that your boss is switching to a completely different platform just makes everything that much more expensive than just upgrading the Macs, or even upgrading to new Macs which can run both Windows and Mac OS X, thereby giving you some scalability as to which applications you can run and whatnot.

Considering that Vista is the only thing you'll find on PCs nowadays (unless the business purchase has a special request for XP instead), you might even come face to face with software incompatibilities. The fact alone that all of the current Mac software would have to be replaced doesn't help matters financially either.

To put it simply, this is a bone-headed decision IMO on your boss.

Tommo · #7 March 7th, 2007, 11:00 AM

Vista will run the software he mentions with no issues at all, I know I had to test it. Working for an IT department using both PCs and Macs I would have to say that the cost implications of using Macs over PCs is very high, especially if you are looking at Mac Pro over iMac.

The cost of my Macbook Pro would have paid for three PC laptops of very similar specifications that are in use on site here. My feeling is that the boss wants to move from Quark to Indesign regardless of platform and as it runs well on PCs has gone that way rather than replacing ageing Macs.

In this case application training would be needed anyway and training to use Windows rather than OSX should not increase the cost more than the price of a Mac Pro.

Natobasso · #8 March 7th, 2007, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 835dusseault

I don't know if my boss factored in the training costs. I am worried about the font conversion as our IT dept. is a little on the light side right now due to loss of personal. Thanks for the info.

This is further proof that you should NOT change your platform at this juncture.