TechImpact / it happens there first

No stolen state secrets here, so those who found us looking for a conspiracy, this is FAR worse.

I was a Windows user for - when did Windows 3.0 come out? You know, Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, bleh for Workgroups. Basically since I was a child. Not only have I used Windows since pre-puberty, but I have on a number of occasions championed it's cause. This included a rather tense corporate battle replacing dumb terminals with Windows work stations, Novel with Windows Server, and a host of Sybase running on Aix machines with MS SQL. I have in deed lived the MS life.

A few years ago (10ish to be more correct), I started experimenting with Linux. Eventually using it extensively to replace Windows servers. I found a great love for PostgreSQL, Samba, and Apache in all of it's glory. Still, my desktops have always booted up to a familiar logo, good ol' Windows.

As of Friday, this has come to a sudden halt. My thick black plastic laptop case has been replaced with a thin aluminum shell with a silly little apple carved out of the back. I spent the next few days feeling as though I had just killed my brother's dog. I am a little different.

First off though, I have seen numerous other stories sharing their reason to migrate. Every one I have read has bordered on the inane, and frequently to the just plain ridiculous. I have seen reason that include "social status" and "bragging rights". Fortunately for me, my reasons have nothing to do with such

Reason 1: iPhone development. I have worked in the mobile space for a long time. Having a device as exciting as the iPhone to work with is a great joy. Of course, many will say that Android is a great competitor, and I agree. The only problem is -- you can program for Android on an Apple, you can't work on iPhone on a PC.

Reason 2: It's Unix. back behind all of the over-hyped graphics is a core that I know to be strong and mature. Windows has for years tried to re-architect and revise to have the strength of Unix, and while it is slowly moving that direction, I prefer to use an OS prior to the little green men taking over the planet. Oh yea, that is going to happen -- some day.

Reason 3: Parallels. It's a great system that runs Windows almost as good as on a separate box. And as far as I've seen, you can't even get close to doing that the other way around.

Of course, this would not be fair if I didn't look the other way. So here it is.. my main regret in switching to OSX.

Reason 1: I spent nearly $3,000 on a laptop with a FREAKIN 9600 class NVidia graphics card! For those who don't know what that means, I paid for the top of the line Apple laptop, and have the graphics ability that's ALMOST as good as the PC I bought four years ago for less than $1,000. Yes, Apple has a lot of advantages, many of which stem from it's paranoid level of protectionism, but those advantages come to one key point. The consumer gets to pay out the nose for having something that works just a little bit better than the competition.

Of course, after over 20 years on Windows, I was ok with paying the money, if nothing else, than just to see a different logo on the start up screen.

by Chris Gamble