Why Is the PC vs. Mac war still raging?

Macs vs. PCs vs. Linux arguments are dominating two mailing lists I'm on. The vitriol may be slightly less than in the past, but many of the same attitudes exist with subjective arguments trumping logic on both sides. While I can ignore fanatics on a mailing list, owners and managers in businesses have to coerce all sides of the operating system wars into working together. Let's look at three issues in this discussion: who owns the computers, whether software availability forces your decision, and the costs of acquisition and ownership.

Technology people in big companies will say, often forcefully, that the "personal" in personal computer denotes a single user, not user control. The computer belongs to the company and the IT department, and the employees are granted its use at the discretion of the company.  

But the issue is more about control than ownership, because the company owns the computers just like they own the desks on which they sit. This means you have no legal expectation of privacy on a company computer. In fact, your download stupidity can get your entire company in trouble, so they have every right to monitor what you do with your computer.

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Macs vs. PCs vs. Linux arguments are dominating two mailing lists I'm on. The vitriol may be slightly less than in the past, but many of the same attitudes exist with subjective arguments trumping logic on both sides. While I can ignore fanatics on a mailing list, owners and managers in businesses have to coerce all sides of the operating system wars into working together. Let's look at three issues in this discussion: who owns the computers, whether software availability forces your decision, and the costs of acquisition and ownership.

Technology people in big companies will say, often forcefully, that the "personal" in personal computer denotes a single user, not user control. The computer belongs to the company and the IT department, and the employees are granted its use at the discretion of the company.  

But the issue is more about control than ownership, because the company owns the computers just like they own the desks on which they sit. This means you have no legal expectation of privacy on a company computer. In fact, your download stupidity can get your entire company in trouble, so they have every right to monitor what you do with your computer.

Too many small companies, however, let employees control what's on the computer, and sometimes what type of computer is on that desk. As companies grow, controls tighten up and the company dictates more details about the hardware and software available to employees.

If your company allows employees to choose what hardware and software they want, then this discussion doesn't matter. Mac fans get a Mac, Windows fans get a PC. One way or another, you pay whatever it costs to buy and maintain the hardware and software employees want.

Personally, I can't call letting the employees get whatever they want a "best practice" for IT management. You must decide who's in charge of computer systems, management or employees. I suggest you chose management.

When specific software needs force you into buying a specific hardware platform, don't fight it. Graphics people, for instance, invest years in learning to maximize the value of their software, and that software almost always runs on a Mac. Offering them the same or similar software on a PC won't change their mind, because versions and subtleties differ between the platforms.

Graphics professionals will argue all day that Adobe's InDesign CS4 page layout program, for example, runs differently on Mac and Windows, even though Adobe says it's fine on both. When the cost of software acquisition, training and experience adds up to far more than the cost of hardware, don't quibble about the hardware. If your point of sale software only runs on Windows, Windows it is.

That said, most office workers do not spend their day working inside high-end software tools. Look around and you'll see coworkers using e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets and browsers. Sometimes they use their browser for all of these programs. When general office productivity software tools determine your hardware, you can buy PCs with Windows or Linux, or a Mac, and get the same results 99.5% of the time.