This is currently correct. AutoCAD was available for the Mac quite a few years ago but supposedly due to a threat from M$ (they had purchased a strong competitor) to enter the CAD market if they did not go Windows only, AutoDesk (the developer of AutoCAD) dropped development for all other platforms.
I use AutoCAD daily (as an engineer) running on my Mac Pro under VMWare and Windows XP. It runs as fast (actually faster in some ways) when operated this way then it did on a PC.
Today, the Mac makes a GREAT engineering workstation in that you can run Windows and Unix engineering software as well as Mac software all on one box; the only platform where this can be done. 5 years ago had anyone suggested that a Mac would be gaining market share in the engineering workstation market I would have thought they were crazy; now it is happening quite rapidly. Many engineering firms I consult with have Mac and plan to purchase more. I my self only moved to the Mac in 2006 (after leaving the Mac in 1995 because AutoCAD was no longer available). I would never go back now.
Dave
Regardless, there is no CAD programs for Mac OS X that is at least currently maintained. Even if a firm decides to buy a Mac, they're going to need to load Windows on it, which equates to money in the pocket. Microsoft doesn't sell computer hardware, so they couldn't care less as to what platform it's used on.
I'm studying Mechanical Engineering now, and for the most part, for some inane reason, we use Solidworks. It's not a bad program, but I know AutoCAD is used extensively in my field of study (and I believe there is even a specialized version for Mechanical Engineers, I know there is for Architects).
I have a Macbook Pro, and I ran Solidworks under XP and Vista (and performance was poor under both, but I think it had to do with me not using Apple's drivers and rather using beta nvidia drivers). When under Vista/XP on a Mac, performance is the same on a same specced computer (yes, I know about the stupid article that was written a few months after Vista was released that said a Mac was the best computer to run Vista on, but that had more to do with the bloatware most PC manufacturers load on their PCs, which is a TON, and less to do with the hardware). That's not to say it's a bad or good thing. The Apple badge doesn't give a performance boost.
After reading all this post, is funny how some info changes:
- Mac does window, did you know that Mac runs Windows better than any PC box out there.
Did you know that simply isn't true. A Mac does NOT run Windows any better than a PC with the same specifications.
The article you're referring to is this one:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/136649-3/in_pictures_the_most_notable_notebooks_of_2007.html (and you can click it for more info)
First of all, I didn't see any of the laptop specs in the article, except for the Macbook Pro's.
Second of all, there are multiple reasons that even with the same hardware, there can be differences. The most common is drivers (did they load each laptop up with the same drivers for the video card? I doubt it since the manufacturer provides the video card drivers, unless you go to LaptopVideo2Go), and many manufacturers load bloatware with their laptops. If you buy Vista and load it on your Mac, you won't get bloatware. If you reformat the other manufacturer's laptops, and load in a fresh copy of Vista (ie, minus the bloatware), performance is significantly better. One of the most guilty parties is Sony, who charges money to get a laptop bloatware free, although that may have recently changed. Lenovo is another company that's pretty bad about bloatware on their thinkpads. They are loaded up with redundant crap (like battery monitors... WTF!).
Also, they claimed they beat a gateway by a single point... Sorry, but any other place that's reputable (like Anandtech) knows that a single point is not enough to crown a winner, and in fact, they should have said that the two performed the same.
