I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC

My sister used to work at Intel. At the time, if you were a Mac fan you had to hide that fact. There was no speaking of Macs and there was certainly no having Mac in the building. My sister told me that many went through great measures to hide their Mac from prying eyes. Getting caught literally got you fired.

I can only imagine the same would be true at IBM. Well, perhaps at one time, but no more. Apparently IBM has started embracing the Mac and its OS as a means of reducing the company's dependancy on Windows. The article is here.

It's actually a pilot program to gauge initial user response. The reasons given:

Alternative to Microsoft Windows
Less prone to security issues
Widely used in the academic world with which Research has close ties
Many new hires are more comfortable with the Mac and lately asking for it
Growing Mac community in Research and within IBM that finds the development environment on Mac more convenient
Growing acceptance of the Mac as a consumer and business oriented client platform
WPLC strategy includes significant investments in achieving the Mac platform parity

After the first phase of the program, they got this feedback:

Of the 22 of 24 who responded, 18 said that the Mac offered a “better or best experience” compared to their existing computer, one rated it “equal or good,” and three said the Mac offered a “worse experience.” Seven reported having no or marginal prior knowledge of using Macs, while 15 reported having moderate or expert knowledge of the platform.

So at IBM users felt the Mac was better than their own PC's? No surprise to me. I've used both and you couldn't pay me to own something I had to run Windows on. The best quote is this:

“This can free us from the Windows stranglehold.”

Welcome to freedom. Welcome to Macintosh.