80% of US businesses have Macs

I wonder if this includes guys like my former employer who (in 2003) was rockin' a Powermac 9600 (I think) that he never even used, but kept prominently displayed at the secondary workstation in his office because he figured that clients would want to see that the owner of a print design company was cool enough to use a Mac just like the designers in the back. Those weren't his exact words, but that's what it boiled down to.

And even then, the designers had both Macs and PCs, but he would only buy PC software, so there were two pretty nice G4s sitting back there that didn't get used at all. The man could burn through money, if only he knew how to spend it on the right things.

Then he decided to eBay the 9600, and he hired in a Mac specialist at something like 80 or 90 dollars an hour... to help him put it on eBay.

One of the last things I said when I quit was that I would have put his 9600 up on eBay for him for only $50 an hour.

For some odd reason the Mac community seems to have gotten excited about this report, with even a couple of sites reporting that this is evidence that Microsoft's reign as the leader of corporate computing services is coming to an end. This is clearly nonsense.

Firstly, the article is definitely bunk because there is no business case for deploying Macs unless there's a job you need doing where only a Mac will do. In some companies that may be the case, particularly those involved in media, for "standard" office companies a Mac is going to be a worse choice, simply because the likes of Office 2007 is superior to the equivalents on the Mac. While most of us like the fact that a Mac runs Windows today, particularly given the convenience of VMWare/Parallels, for normal use this is ridiculous. If you are going to "go Mac", then do it completely.

Secondly, Windows is much more than simply the Windows client operating system. Love 'em or hate 'em, Microsoft has built the Windows platform to comprise of servers, applications and services that all work with each other, and the Mac has nothing to compete with that beyond OS X Server. If you already have an investment in the Windows platform then clearly introducing Macs will not deliver benefits.

Let me be very clear here. I love my MBP, and use it for day-to-day work in a big corporation. However, because a lot of applications are run under Windows via VMWare Fusion to access the resources of the company, deploying Macs widely in the company would be nuts. You either need the Macs to work seamlessly with the Windows platform (Exchange support and better Active Directory support will be a start), or Apple needs to deliver a Mac platform that competes with Microsoft's Windows platform far more than it does today.

no matter how you spin it I highly doubt the numbers are accurate. Usage may be up but I can guarantee that 80% of business don't have at least one mac.

I have never seen a fast food restaurant in 15 years of servicing their equipment ever use a mac, and fast food makes up 15% of all businesses in the US. Furthermore I have seen but handful of them in major retail in that same 15 year period and none of them were major retailers or grocers. Between those two industries they make up nearly 35% of all US workplaces. The only way they could skew the numbers to 80% worldwide is to see if one person in some far flung corporate office that has nothing to do with actual operations uses a mac and claim the entire company uses a mac.

Think this has anything to do with the fact that the Mac can now run Windows??? Hmmm, and people are surprised??

Had the Mac been "backwards compatible" with Windows earlier, Apple would have been much farther ahead... they lost a lot of ground when this gap was widening... now at least they are regaining some of the ground lost.

Thanks patrick and Lawrence for the tips. I have used NeoOffice too and believe me it doesn't work either. I guess the fault may be on the part of Microsoft too for not making Excel 2003 macros work in Mac Office 2008. However, my argument is that when a person changes from xp to mac he/she doesn't become more efficient for a long time until he/she learns every small tricks in the OS. And Apple is no better than MSFT when you try to learn the OS. I certainly do enjoy some features in Mac such as spotlight, Safari, Y! Messenger, Skype, iCal and others. But when it comes to productivity apps such as Office I must use XP untile Mac Office is upgraded to run Old Macros.

It's NOT that 80% of user's in companies use Macs, but that 80% of companies have at least 1 Mac.

I work for the largest internet company in the world and been using MBP for last 2 months. I don't see any reason people should change to MBP unless they need to use specialized tools that work only for OSX. I found it amusing that people say Mac is more efficient in terms of usage. Some one like me who uses spread sheets a lot have 4-5 of them open at the same time and with Mac I always have to click on expose to access others. In windows you can always switch between multiple open instances of the same application with Ctr + Tab. And, every time I open a large spread sheet ( and I mean large i.e. 35 mb file); OSX crashes the application. Integration between XP and Office is just amazing. Luckily my company has given me VMware fusion so I can run xp and osx simultaneously. Now a days I end up running only XP the whole day because it is so much more efficient. Those who are complaining that XP is not powerful doen't necessarily know small features in xp. Another example is that I can use XP for the whole day doing my work without touching a mouse. And, using keyboard shortcuts is way way faster than using mouse (and it lowers risks of carpel tunnel).

I work for the largest internet company in the world and been using MBP for last 2 months. I don't see any reason people should change to MBP unless they need to use specialized tools that work only for OSX. I found it amusing that people say Mac is more efficient in terms of usage. Some one like me who uses spread sheets a lot have 4-5 of them open at the same time and with Mac I always have to click on expose to access others. In windows you can always switch between multiple open instances of the same application with Ctr + Tab. And, every time I open a large spread sheet ( and I mean large i.e. 35 mb file); OSX crashes the application. Integration between XP and Office is just amazing. Luckily my company has given me VMware fusion so I can run xp and osx simultaneously. Now a days I end up running only XP the whole day because it is so much more efficient. Those who are complaining that XP is not powerful doen't necessarily know small features in xp. Another example is that I can use XP for the whole day doing my work without touching a mouse. And, using keyboard shortcuts is way way faster than using mouse (and it lowers risks of carpel tunnel).

I agree that Macs are increasingly becoming more and more productive for everyday use and business use. But to say 80% of the business world is using Macs?? The survey sounds very doubtful.

If anything the article is mis-leading, it doesn't necesarilly mean that they are exclusively using Macs. Many high-profile business applications still run on Windows only, ofcourse you could always use a WMware app for the mac but its more of a hassle for a everyday business user. I still doubt the survey and its results. I don't know a single firm or business that uses mac in my client roster except for regular usage of email, web, and music.

Not to bash on Mac or anything as I recently got a Macbook for my girl and really liked the OS in fact. Just in my profession (accounting and taxation) theres not a single tax program that runs on Mac, and the same goes for a lot of other businesses and professions. Unless the business is primarily runned through web portal programs I dont see Macs being that huge of a business tool just yet.

what?? did i fall through a bizarro wormhole last night in my sleep or something??