Thinking about moving to Windows??? Think again…

[Bill Davis]

Interesting, but it begs the question of overall corporate needs.

Most business functions for computers have little to do with creativity or choice.

Display the numbers, handle the email, manage the schedule.

Necessary functions, but relatively simple and tool agnostic.

It’s only as the user gets more responsibility for not just managing data, but actually creating content, that you need anything beyond the cheapest, most basic box that can get the job done.

In jobs where raw information access is critical, the iPad form is making incredible strides since it does that so elegantly – and with so little training or operational overhead due to the simplicity of the touch interface.

But I doubt any “premium” choice will ever supplant the most basic box you can stick on a desk for most computer users in the corporate world.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Frank Gothmann]

I think it rather says that the people who are more productive and make more money more often use Macs now (and specifically, I assume, certain types of Macs like the Macbook Pro and Air plus, of course the obligatory iPhone and iPad). The question of the hen or the egg.
Not a surprising since Apple products have become hip lifestyle products which is also why you see them pop up in almost every blockbuster movie or tv show. It’s good stuff to show off a bit. Let’s be honest, we all know a Mac user or two who is annoying that way.
People who are successful and make money want to show their success and they can hardly do that with a 100 dollar Android from China or by driving a Toyota. But I doubt their success depends on that device.
I absolutely doubt there is any difference in productivity wether you are using After Effects, Cinema4D or MediaComposer on a Mac or a PC. Why should there be one, once you are in the app you’re in the app.

[Shawn Miller]

Odd,it doesn’t sound like the study compares specific peer groups (mid level execs to mid level execs, for instance). It seems to compare high level employees to folks who don’t have any choice of over what they use at work.

I work in a company where a hand full of sales folks use iPads and MacBooks… they make more than our .Net develpers that work in Singapore… does that mean that our Mac using US sales folks are smarter and more productive than our developers in Singapore?

Shawn

[Michael Gissing]

Hmm I use Macs, Win and Linux. I am most productive on the Win based Fairlights because they have the best editing ergonomics and thanks to their Crystal Core I/O processor cards they have the most grunt of all.

Really it is about software and ergonomics for me. Anything that is overly mouse, gestures and keyboards will lose to a proper ergonomic controller.Any software that has too many keystrokes and eye movements to do simple oft done tasks is also inefficient. I find FCP much slower than a Fairlight for most editing tasks.

Linux is handling reliability tasks like HTTP & ftp servers and the office computer so I can handle all drive formats and safe internet interface without needing anti virus on the Win machines.

[Andrew Rendell]

Um, there was recently a story going round over here that people who use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are/were less successful than people who use Google Chrome (or Firefox), which got into a couple of newspapers as well as internet news sites. It turned out to be a misunderstanding of a PR puff-piece, and essentially meaningless.

[Phil Hoppes]

I’m an original Mac Fan-Boy (first Mac was the original…. many since then) but come on. Ok, Win XP and it’s entire ecosystem is nothing short of a major PITA but Win 7 is really pretty good as OS’s go. To be able to truly measure productivity the study would have to have side by side comparisons of people doing exactly the same tasks but on different platforms. I don’t believe that study did it that way. Yes, OSX is a great OS and for the standard “Office Worker” I’m more than sure they could do their daily tasks quite nicely.

As to the 44% richer? Me thinks I would attribute that much more to the fact that (Warning Gross Generalization Ahead) I believe a substantial proportion of that group are very independent thinkers who take no issue with picking the tool that suits them best, IT departments, corporate policy be damned. Their independence and drive have lots more to do with the fact that they make 44% more, not just because they use Mac’s.

Use the tool that works best.

[Robert Brown]

I’ve got the best of both worlds with a Mac Pro and Boot Camp. As much as I like OSX I would have to say Win7 has an advantage in memory management. Meaning I load the exact same project in Nuke and After Effects which is a big one with a 30 second shot of 2k material and OSX will really start to bog and the disk paging becomes quite annoying. Windows seems to cut off the ram usage of the app to keep it from paging to disk. But OSX is better with the Kona in After Effects. It’s a toss up but I’m liking Win 7 better for the super memory intensive stuff. I have a 12 core with 32 GB ram BTW.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

https://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos

[Phil Hoppes]

Yea, my MBP is a recent (June) version with the SandyBridge CPU. It has an 512Gb SSD with 8Gb of ram and I bootcamp it to run Win7. Have FCPX on the Mac Side which is nice along with a few other Mac apps I still use. Win7 is the workhorse for me with Maya, Nuke, PP, Vue and AE. Both run fine. Would like to put in 16Gb but the cost of that upgrade is just stupid at the moment. A year from now it won’t be so bad I’m sure. Without a doubt this is the finest laptop I’ve ever had running OSX and Windows and it screams.

[Daniel Frome]

I fit directly into this category. I work at an “all avid, all PC” facility. I bring my macbook pro to work every day. Why? Because I have customized my laptop to death, to the extent that I cannot replicate it on a stock machine. Little things like having dragon dictate installed, meaning that I never ‘type’ log notes in, I just say them into the computer — makes me able to work longer without breaks. And my wrist thanks me.

My bosses are aware of my improved efficiency but don’t know the details, other than the fact that I churn through footage faster than my coworkers. They obviously praise the effort, but sometimes it creates an interesting situation that might be worth exploring on its own one day: Last week I was asked to withhold some of my logging data because it would “create an unfair advantage to my team.” I guess that’s an office politics matter, but bottom line: these small customizations, when added up, give me a noticeable advantage against the worker who relies on the locked-down work machine, which has zero extras besides a retail copy of Avid.

So in conclusion — I think that ANY worker who brings in their laptop is going to be more efficient. The majority of people who do such a thing just also happen to buy macs.

[Robert Brown]

Check out Crucial.com for memory if you don’t already. 32gb was around $500. Not cheap but lot better than the Mac stores I was checking.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

https://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos