Saturday, October 07, 2006
Switching
Another hiatus. This time I'm moving my new application work from Windows to Mac. It's a time-consuming process.
For years I made my living coding or consulting on coding Windows programs. Very difficult stuff--but the harder, the better: You can charge more.
But I don't do that anymore and now I just want things to work. And at the same time, I found myself needing to have my ALG programs run on servers other than MS--not possible with C#, .NET and SQLServer. So I've been writing ETC3 in Java, using MySQL as the DB. I started on a PC, to satisfy myself that it would work. It is.
I'm not entirely new to Java, but pretty close. So there's the learning of the language. And there's the learning of MySQL (entirely trivial actually). And the learning of a new IDE. (Those who exclaim that real programmers program in emacs will forever be casualties on the competitive landscape.)
And then, there's the move to my lovely new MacBook. In recent years, I have only touched a Mac to access the online card catalog in the library, so there's a learning curve there. But my oh my oh my! What a sweetheart this little guy is. The DB ported with nary a hitch (I had a little trouble with the UNIX command line, until I remembered to prefix commands executing in the current directory with "/.", but that's more an embarrassment than a problem). And the application port is going OK--once I figured out that Sun's Studio Enterprise is just NetBeans. (I'd used SE on the PC, but there is no Mac version.) I started with Eclipse on the Mac, which would mean an awful lot of rewriting to address that guy's GUI lib. Switching to NetBeans seems to have solved that problem.
All through this process, I've been stunned with the superior quality of the MacBook and OS X. I knew it was better, but had no idea it was this better. So far, there is no single function, process, or feature that I can say is better implemented on the PC. Reasonable observers could not disagree that the Mac is the superior machine.
So riddle me this: Why hasn't the business world caught on? Any business that replaced its PCs with Macs would, after absorbing switching costs (which would be significant) enjoy an enormous increase in productivity and a huge decrease in operations expense.
This is reminiscent of my experience with Unisys technology in the early '90s. I was in a sensitive position, comparing various midrange systems for a new implementation, including IBM's AS400 line and Unisys's A Series. I knew the AS400--very solid. But compared to the A Series, amateurish. You just couldn't compare those two lines and not conclude that the A Series was better in every possible way. Unisys engineering is just about the best there is. But the company is imploding at an ever-increasing rate, simply because it hasn't been able to sell itself.
Hey Steve, take a page from Bill's book and learn how to sell!
# posted by Jim @ 9:16 AM 
Comments:
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About switching costs, i think the cost for Vista's hardware requirements are going to push a lot of IT departments over the edge towards Mac. With Mac's switch to Intel and recent Intel price drops and drops in LCD costs, those previous Mac hold outs due to hardware price differences have little to argue over.
Here is an recent article from Small Business IT World about this very issue.
Here is an recent article from Small Business IT World about this very issue.
# posted by 
: 7:29 PM
: 7:29 PM
I wish it were that easy. The hardware cost is the least of the switching costs. A business would have to retrain users, retrain system administrators, resolve server and remote access incompatibilities, replace (or rewrite) applications, and retrain or replace its Windows developers. Some of those developers won't (or won't be able to) make the change. (There is going to be a lot of demand for talented Windows programmers as Vista lifts its scaled head from the sea.) Some will leave and some we'll fire. Regardless, we'll incur some recruitment costs. There will be decisions about databases (keep that SQLServer we know so well on one of the few Windows machines we have left or port that complexity to another commercial product or maybe an open-source product?). We need a plan for maintaiining compatibility with Office. Our customers use it and so do our suppliers. (BTW: The one application that really sucks on my Mac [slow to load, etc] is Office. What about those ActiveX controls we've depended on in our standard IE implementation? And on and on and on and on.
It would take a tough CEO to push through such massive change, someone talented enough to manage the process and someone capabable of articulating the business value to shareholders. But over time, I really do believe the upside would be worth it.
The lesson for startups: Resist least resistance. So far as IT is concerned, think strategically.
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It would take a tough CEO to push through such massive change, someone talented enough to manage the process and someone capabable of articulating the business value to shareholders. But over time, I really do believe the upside would be worth it.
The lesson for startups: Resist least resistance. So far as IT is concerned, think strategically.
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