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It is one of the prevailing pastimes of our culture. From Hatfields vs. McCoys to democrats vs. republicans to the Giants vs. the Dodgers, our history is rife with rivalries. These groups willingly, often gleefully, pit themselves against their self-made counterparts, and you often wonder how one side would even function without the other.
But there are few rivalries as rich and as entertaining to us as the one that we know as Mac vs. PC. To one side, it is a simple, almost casual, choice of hardware; to the other side, it is a religion. On the one hand, you have a group that feels the overwhelming force of momentum; the other, an inalienable sense of righteousness. One side feels that it is a minority, and the other...a minority-and therein lies one of the more fascinating angles to the rivalry that shapes the computing landscape in general, and the publishing niche in particular.
Roseanna McCoy moved in with Johnse Hatfield, millions of democrats voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and Dodger great Dusty Baker is now the manager of the Giants. Likewise, the lines in the great OS rivalry are getting a bit fuzzy, and as we enter the 00s (we'll leave it to you to decide how you want to pronounce it), the probability is high that you will question your allegiance, wonder about the other side, and consider just how green your grass is.
To tens of millions of computer users, the great OS debate is moot-Wintel is the corporate standard, you work for a corporation, there is a beige box on your desk; that's what you know, that's what you use and the discussion is over. The tiny minority of Mac users knows how to make a fuss about those new fruit-flavored computers, but it has no impact on you whatsoever. Even if you wanted the choice, you wouldn't have one but to publish on your PC.
So thank goodness for Corel's products and the cross-platform versions of Adobe and Macromedia applications. They are primarily responsible for the tools that PC users need to publish professionally. Even most Mac devotees today will acknowledge that Adobe PhotoShop looks and acts the same if you start it from the Finder or from the Start Menu. And many of them will have to begrudge that CorelDRAW 9 has features and capabilities that they haven't seen anywhere else.
This parity has made it possible for smaller businesses, design firms and freelancers to choose Windows as their standard, but that decision hasn't been easy. Do they go where the money, the cheap hardware and the masses are, or do they follow most of their fellow graphic designers to the G3 and the land of different thinking? Designers and publishers who stay within the gigantic universe of Windows make up a curious minority.
And if you were to seek out designers and publishers who adopted the Mac and ask them what it has been like to be part of the Mac minority, they might look at you strangely. Minority? With every colleague they know publishing on a Mac? They're not the minority-the ones trying to do it over there on Windows...they're the minority.
Desktop publishing began on the Mac and will probably forever have its most respondent chord struck by Mac users. But the fact that the Macintosh lifeline almost disappeared just one year ago has made this group even more fierce and loyal over its territory. Add to that the fact that the Evil Empire has never been more evil-with Anything But Microsoft fast becoming a favorite software choice-and you have the ingredients for a happy renaissance among the true blue (and now blueberry and grape).
But the world of publishing is too vast for any Mac-based design firm or freelancer to consider any head-in-the-sand strategies. Sheer numbers makes the body of Windows users-including the millions who use their PCs to design and publish-a faction that cannot be ignored.
All of this leads us to the question of the day. If you are not locked into one platform...if you are exploring your options...if you are thinking about retooling your business...if you are sensing the handwriting on the wall, what factors can help you choose a platform? All Y2K jokes aside, what will your desktop look like when we reach the new millennium?
Still the One
There seems to be little doubt that Apple and its Macintosh are back, except to note that the artists in the house will argue that they never left. Loyalty and confidence proved to be virtually unshakable through the crisis years, and now in greener pastures, creative professionals are heading to the Mac in even greater numbers. According to TrendWatch, the Rhode Island-based market research firm for the graphics industry, over 17,000 design and publishing houses plan to purchase Macintosh computers in 1999. This represents a 3:1 ratio over the 5,100 companies that intend to purchase a Wintel machine for the same purposes.
While most of those 17,000 are deciding to buy new Macs to replace their old Macs, defection from the Wintel side is evident, and likely traceable to three factors, one psychological factors and two physical:
* OS X: While the new operating system for the Mac offers no additions that are specific to graphics or publishing, it does offer improved and simplified networking, an area that Wintel has led in over the years. The new OS proves to be much more robust in its multitasking, Web server capabilities, and administration support. Those who have screamed "bloody nightmare" over the specter of networking Macintosh systems might have to recant with the entrée of OS X.
* Service Bureaus: No matter how beautiful it looks on screen, push becomes shove the moment that your work makes its way to paper or film. That is done by a service bureau, and nine out of 10 times, that service bureau will use a Macintosh to do the job. The path of least resistance, therefore, is to speak the same language as your service bureau, and to speak that language with the same type of computer.
* Doubt: There is probably not a single creative professional using Windows who has not at least once wondered if life wouldn't be easier with a Mac. The sentiment is so pervasive as to be palpable-from the clever advertising that never misses a chance to get a Windows jab in, to the Nike-like mantra hummed by so many that Macs simply do it and do it better. The validity of the claim is almost irrelevant; Windows users hear it regularly. Mac users seem much more intent (obsessed, some would say) about expressing a platform opinion than their PC counterparts, and again, the strength of their claim is overshadowed by the zeal with which they claim it. PC users who don't care as much-or aren't particularly fond of arguing in favor of Microsoft-typically refrain from participating in the debate. But they hear it. They also hear about how easy the Macintosh is to use, and if caught on a bad day-when a rogue Windows application is wreaking havoc-it's easy to wonder...
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"I got my start with Macintoshes," says Lynda Weinman, a prominent Web designer in an interview on Apple's Web site, "and most of the artists I know who've been in this business for any length of time got their start on Macintoshes. Even with the past ups and downs, I've always been an advocate because the Mac has soul."
This is an argument that is difficult to rebut, as Apple's advertising often speaks directly to the ephemeral, and again, who among Windows users wants to claim an emotional connection of any sort with Microsoft? With so many questioning whether the man running the company has a soul, not many would assign any sort of lifelike quality to the box itself.
If you place stock in some of these psychological factors-if you want your computer to have a soul-then you really only have one choice of platform. If you want to buy a computer, turn it on, and not worry too much about the software running therein, the Mac is the easier choice. If you want to guarantee compatibility at the service bureau, the Mac represents lower risk. And if you want to be part of the majority within the minority, that phenomenon is enjoyed by the 17,000 or so who will buy Macs this year.
Can You Publish in a Window?
It's more than a little ironic that the factors that might weaken the spirit of Windows-based designers and publishers are the same ones that strengthen that spirit. We'll elaborate soon, but what needs to be said first is that the Windows platform has reached parity in many critical areas of the graphics niche. The most popular programs-Macromedia Freehand, Adobe PhotoShop, QuarkXpress-are not simply as good on Windows as they are on the Mac; they are identical. They look the same, they function the same way, and they create files that are binary equivalent. And what's more, Corel's offerings of Draw, PhotoPaint and Ventura are regarded by many critics and journalists to be at least equal to their more popular counterparts, and superior in several areas.
In many ways, Corel has done more to define the profile of the PC-based graphics product than any other company, and that is both good and bad. In the early 1990s, Corel got literally millions of Windows users to buy into the notion that a graphics product could help them in business. The box was stuffed with tools, features and extras, and Corel's advertisements were equally stuffed. Professional artists who used Windows squirmed at the unrefined, supermarket style of Corel's marketing and product packaging; professionals on the Mac side simply turned their noses up.
And with such a powerful tool in the hands of the uninitiated, CorelDraw became responsible for some truly hideous work by those who simply didn't know better. It wasn't the tools that were inferior, it was the design skills of those using the tools, and that went a long way toward cementing the reputation of the PC as the inferior platform for graphics and publishing.
Many Windows loyalists won't fight this reputation-it's not that they don't disagree with it, it's that they simply don't care to. It's not that important to them, and this speaks to the largely indomitable spirit of Windows-based publishers. They know that their platform isn't going away anytime soon, and they also know that with a minimum amount of under-the-hood know-how, they can create a killer system for creating any graphic or publishing project imaginable. They don't need to spend the mental energy defending their choice of platform or extolling its virtues. They've got better things to do, and its very existence does not depend upon that.
"The Mac/PC argument is a bit tedious," believes Beth Mohler of the Calgary-based Artifax Publishing and Design, speaking out on the i/us Web site. "I don't know why people take their computers and OSes so personally. After all, these boxes that sit on our desk are just tools to get the job done....they aren't religions."
While that point would be debated by many on the Mac side, it is succinct and very much on-message for PC users. The computer itself is simply not worth the emotion. The typical PC veteran buys the box and CPU from one store, orders RAM from another, pulls the video card from the outgoing machine, and then stitches the OS and the applications together from multiple sources. The savvy PC owner takes much more pride in his or her handiwork than in the computer itself. And it is the handiwork that can make a PC outperform a Mac in many benchmark tests.
The service bureau issue will always be a thorn in the side of a Windows user, but today, you don't need to suffer through the SB operators shuddering when you tell them that you have a CorelDraw file. Instead, you create an Adobe Acrobat file, and when they ask you from which application you created it, or even on which platform, you tell them to kindly shut up and image your file, please...
It Only Matters if it Matters
Not to end with a thud, but your choice of hardware is not nearly as important as it was just two years ago. All of the major players offer cross-platform, binary-equivalent versions of their applications, service bureau issues have been rendered all but moot, and price-performance ratios are much more comparable since Apple's price reductions.
The whole question is whether it matters to you. Do you feel loyalty to your Mac and the entire culture that exists for it? Or do you like the notion of being able to build a PC from dozens of different vendors and mold it into exactly the machine you want? Is it important for you to be on the same page with fellow graphic professionals (many of whom will draw conclusions about you based on your platform choice), or are you content to let your work speak for you?
These are the kinds of questions for which there can be no absolute rights and wrongs. The only thing that you can comfortably take to the bank is this: If you have the creativity, the imagination, and the will to share your visions, there is a tool to allow you to do it, and it won't matter which side of the fence you journey to get the tool.
For the lighter side of the great OS debate, try your creative hand at this month's Quiz of the Month on my Web site.
Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. R. Altman & Associates.
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