What should I know before buying a Mac?
Macs have conflicts with some of the applications most commonly used by faculty and staff in the College of Business; this list outlines the problems our users have experienced. Please review this list before making a final purchae decisiion.
OS
- Many users lack familiarity with MacOS X and get frustrated when they realize that it harder to use than an iPhone or iPad
- Macs are more difficult to integrate with the Univeristy's Active Directory (used for all security and communication functions)
Software
- SAS is Windows-only
- SPSS has both Mac and Windows versions, though most people are used to Windows
- Microsoft Lync has a Mac client, but it is not full-featured
- Visual Studio is Windows-only
- Running Windows in Parallels forces an OS and application step by step installation (significantly longer setup times)
- Parallels not as 'fast' as new Windows machine, so upgrading for a faster machine by getting Mac with Parallels may not be faster.
Databases
- Trouble connecting to SQL databases
Lync
- Audio settings for Microsoft Lync are difficult to use and do not function as well as in Windows; settings need to be changed every time
- Cannot do Call Forwarding or delegation along with other functions used in Windows Lync
- No headset or handset is completely functional; a couple 'mostly' work but they still have issues with answering a call or adjusting volume control from the headset