My, My, I certainly stirred up a hornets nest with my last post, the simple objective of which was to point out how technically undemanding and cheap it is to upgrade 'legacy' Macs such that even those in the 7300/7500/7600 family can be made to go as fast as 'you know what off the proverbial shovel'. And all without any help from or taxes paid (in the form of 'all-new G4 workstations') to BD!! Since then, we have heard disturbing news from Keith who reckons that BD have not even upgraded Cellquest to PowerPC native code, let alone to be Altivec enhanced (for G4s, or upgraded G4s). Keith also politely (I think) pointed out that is very simple to install a ADB:USB dongle (which it now is). However, I recall when the drivers first came out for this adaptor, a number of users had problems. Of course they have been updated (yet another new one last week) to the point where even a PC user could probably do this without calling the IT department. The point however is that other connectibility issues outlined in my earlier epistle (such as installing SCSI cards, USB Zip drivers etc. serial/AppleTalk printers, floppy drives, Superdrives, etc.) are nowhere near as simple, cheap or idiot-proof as installing a G3 or G4 upgrade card into a fully functional workstation, that in many labs is networked to other cytometers, computers, printers etc (i.e., legacy peripherals). Next, Mario opined that the G4 was 'significantly faster' even taking into account the clock speed of the processor'. The only explanation for this observation is that other parts of the G4 are responsible for these speed increases. G4s come with more (and faster) RAM, more (and faster) Video Ram, the Bus speed is faster, the Video subsystems are faster (blah blah). However, for non-Altivec enhanced apps, G4s are NOT any faster than G3s at the same clock speed, as orginally stated. There have been hundreds of controlled tests performed (check out xlr8yourmac.com) comparing the same computer with a G3 or a G4 (at the same clock speed) on Altivec enhanced versus non-enhanced apps: The results are always the same, the G4 blows the doors off G3s (and PCs) on Altivec enhanced apps such as Photoshop. On other apps there is NO difference between G4s and G3s!! I hope Mario is correct when he says that more apps are to be made 'Altivec aware', starting with the software that about 90% of BD users require, i.e., Cellquest!! Incidentally Mario, the G4 Cube does not and probably never will contain (for cooling reasons) dual G4 processors. Thereafter, Paul himself weighed in with estimates of Apple's market share at 4%, (a later post reduced this even further). Regardless of whether these numbers came from the 'Microsoft Book of Facts' (apparently a very thin volume indeed) or other reputable sources, the point is irrelevant, even if Apple did sell to all areas of the World (which it does not). Whether Apple has 12% of the US market, or 40% of the K12 education market in the US, or 45% of our Research Institution, any other market share, is also irrelevant. The one relevant statistic for me is that of the 4 sorters and 6 bench-top cytometers in our 'Research Flow lab', 80% of them are running Macs and Cellquest. I suspect similar situations can be found elsewhere. I do not think we need to get into 'Mac vs PC' or 'BD versus Coulter' stuff. DIVERSITY IS IMPORTANT!! While BD have taken a bit of flak over their failure to provide timely upgrades to the software that most BD/Mac combinations run on, it is my understanding that the software at the heart of the Coulter operating system is still (for almost all users) DOS based. It was not until the recent (I think) availability of 'EXPO' software, that you could even run Windoze on an XL/PC combo. (I suspect the ability to do the latter might not be seen by some as a step forward). Even so, we regularly take listmode files from my collaborators (who have a Coulter/PC set-up) and publish them in color via FACSConvert and Cellquest on my Mac. At the end of the day, the 'Figure' is simply superior. Regardless, without both manufacturers competing for sales, things would be far far worse for us consumers. Its the same with Mac versus PC. Whether you use either or both platforms, only knuckleheads would disagree that DIVERSITY IS IMPORTANT!! After all, without Apple and others, who would Micro$oft get its ideas from? Like Karim, who stated "I've worked on both platforms and believe me I wouldn't even think about doing my FACS work (or any other daily lab tasks) on an NT machine", I hope BD continue to support the Mac OS (and improve it!). Finally, in his latest post, Paul asks 'how long will the Mac be around?' I do not think that the 'pin-striped reptiles of Wall Street' should be influencing your short and medium term purchasing decisions. Did you also notice that Intel was down over 50% from its yearly high, Dell too, Micro$oft too, etc., etc. Has anyone on Wall Street 'written off' these companies? Of course not. What happened that made Apple's previous valuation of $17.39 billion suddenly drop to $8.4 billion? As detailed elsewhere (http://macweek.zdnet.com/2000/10/01/1005everywallst.html) Apple only made about $1.9 billion this year, instead of just over $2 billion It only grew about 20 percent this year, instead of a little more. "Oooh, scary stuff -- the company is doomed, doomed I say! Sell now while you still can. This crosses the line from stupidity into insanity". Lets support diversity (and keep G4 Cubes out of Mario's flow lab, - I hate it when coffee gets spilled into the CD-Rom reader!!). My very last 2c worth. Rob Sutherland University Health Network University of Toronto
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 03 2002 - 11:56:13 EST