Macs in the Enterprise

Tom Thompson

With a few notable exceptions, the Macintosh has been shunned by large companies ever since its introduction in 1984. In the past, there were some valid (and some not-so-valid) reasons for this. But many things have changed over the past few years, and it's time to revisit these reasons.

The Mac is expensive. This was certainly true until 1989, when Apple launched its first low-cost Macs. By sticking with proven components and slashing costs, Apple has made present-day Macs price-competitive with most PCs. In fact, in some cases Macs actually cost less than comparably equipped PCs. Today's Macs aimed at the business market ship with built-in Ethernet, built-in SCSI, 16-bit color, stereo sound, and integral plug and play. Several independent studies show that Macs are less expensive to set up and main tain in the long run.

The Mac is a proprietary system. This is a valid concern for managers who must live with the decisions made regarding the purchase of hundreds of computer systems. However, now that Apple is licensing the Mac OS to other vendors, this objection will soon go away.

Macs are slower than PCs. This charge takes two forms: on a general system level and in the area of floating-point performance. Those who criticize the Mac's overall speed are generally comparing it to DOS or Unix. When you add a GUI, such as Windows or OSF/Motif, to comparable hardware, the difference disappears. Also, note that you typically need a 486-based PC to run Windows 3.1 at nonfrustrating speeds, while 68020- and 68030-based Macs still perform respectably with System 7.5. Power Macs run much faster, edging out today's Pentiums.

Any difference in floating-point performance is due to the overhead of the Mac's numeric API, which interfaces with the FPU. Most software developers who wrote programs tha t required heavy floating-point processing took the compatibility risk of bypassing the Mac API and talking directly to the FPU. This issue becomes moot with the Power Macs, for two reasons. First, the PowerPC offers tremendous floating-point performance. Second, Apple is encouraging developers to use ANSI's FPCE (floating-point C extensions) to access the PowerPC's FPU directly. This should provide powerful floating-point performance while offering cross-platform compatibility for software developers.

The Mac requires nonstandard peripherals. Actually, Macs work with just about any printer, modem, or SCSI storage device that's available for PCs. Keyboards and mice don't work interchangeably because of the Mac's ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) connectors, and RS-422 serial ports require special cables or adapters. However, the Mac established SCSI as a standard for CD-ROM and storage devices, and some of the latest models (e.g., the Quadra 630 and the PowerBook 150) even use PC-style IDE drives. An optional mo dule allows the 500-series PowerBooks to use PCMCIA cards, and future Power Macs will have a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus, thus tapping into a growing market of industry-standard peripherals. Apple's recent announcement that it will move toward the PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform) standard also bodes well for the future.

Macs cannot run specialized in-house software. This is another valid concern for business managers. Commercial software generally isn't a problem; most popular applications come in both Windows and Mac flavors. However, companies with lots of custom PC software often face a difficult job of porting those programs to the Mac, especially since there's no Mac version of Visual Basic (which is the business world's most popular development tool for Windows).

In many cases, the best solution is not to port the PC program at all, but rather to run it directly on the Mac. SoftWindows, from Insignia Solutions (Mountain View, CA), offers software emulation on a Power Mac t hat ranges from a 25-MHz 386 to a 25-MHz 486. Another alternative is an x86 add-on card, available either from Orange Micro (Anaheim, CA) or Apple (see the text box ``Houdini Reappears''). If you decide to port the custom software instead, a couple of rapid applications development tools are HyperCard (from Apple) and ProGraph CPX, from ProGraph International (San Francisco, CA).

The bottom line? The Mac deserves a second look from managers who may have dismissed it several years ago for reasons that are no longer valid. The price/performance balance has changed considerably, and the Mac's easy setup and low maintenance are only now becoming appreciated by PC users struggling with the outdated PC architecture.

In addition, many companies are reducing their work forces and turning to telecommuting, and millions of people are starting businesses and working out of their homes. With no on-site MIS department to turn to for help, these people need computers that aren't a hassle to set up and maintai n. The Mac offers all these capabilities now and is much easier to network in small workgroups with other Macs and printers.

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Tom Thompson is a BYTE senior technical editor at large with a B.S.E.E. from Memphis State University. He is an Associate Apple Developer and the author of Power Macintosh Programming Starter Kit (Hayden Books, 1994). You can contact him on AppleLink as T.THOMPSON or on the Internet or BIX at tom_thompson@bix.com .