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NSW Traffic Authority Switches to Mac

groovebuster said:
In case you have "left overs", I can give you my address... 😀
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Here is my answer to the question of "leftovers". Okay, I over-ordered laptops (background), so maybe, just maybe..... 🙂
 
Hiroshige said:
As the trade federation guy said, "At last we are getting some results!"
I think he also said, "Ah, victory!"
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Ya mean Nute Gunray?

. . .God, I'm such a nerd . . .
 
Les Kern said:
Here is my answer to the question of "leftovers". Okay, I over-ordered laptops (background), so maybe, just maybe..... 🙂
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Nice pic, but... is the guy giving us the finger? 😉
 
abbazaba said:
theres no such thing as too many macs 😎
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Yes, there is.

Too many Wintel boxes=anti-trust lawsuits, monopolization, and other bad things.

Too many Macs=same result as too many Wintel boxes.
 
jrv3034 said:
Nice pic, but... is the guy giving us the finger? 😉
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Uh, yes he is, or rather, I am. It was inresponse to the request by someone who wanted a free Mac, not to this gentle group! 😛
 
love the emac(s) photo.. are those cleared out 1Ghz models, or new 1.25's?

i think now that apple is unix based, you'll see a lot of legacy stuff being moved over, or perhaps redone for osx. this includes a good chunk of stuff government agencies run. i like osx as the 'perfect balance' unix workstation: powerful but friendly (and not butt ugly). seems like theres always quite a trade between the three in the unix world. anyone done video editing in irix, or software development in solaris/freebsd? interface looks a bit nicer than win32 but not by much.

[ack, AU has a "free trade" agreement with the US? 😱 nothing's for free. 😀]
 
iggyb said:
Yeah, I had a bad day at work on Monday...must be Dubya's fault. I had a bad hair day yesterday....Dang that George!!! Ever since he was elected, I've gained almost 20 lbs. ARGH! Dubya made me gain weight!!!! 😱
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You obviously missed the point I was making ( although I got corrected by another poster from OZ saying the exchange rate was great for Australians)

My point was that ever since George W sent US troops into Iraq looking for Weapons Of Mass Destruction (also known as Iraq's Oil Supplies), the US economy has been languishing, the unemployment rate has increased and the currency rate of almost everyother country outside the US has risen while the US dollar has dropped in value against most other currencies in a big way.
If you think I am miss informed then prove it.
Cheers
 
cogent said:
Due to the new US-Oz trade agreement (no tariffs on almost all imports), the price of electronics is set to fall. Both sides have yet to ratify the agreement in Congress/Parliament, but the timing may just be on the side of those with telescopes who are eyeing up the G5 powerbooks due September...
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I have doubts this will get through the Australian Parliament because it has been reviewed and found far to favourable to the US. More Words of Mass Deception that a jaded Australian society will be reluctant to believe.
 
cait-sith said:
love the emac(s) photo.. are those cleared out 1Ghz models, or new 1.25's?
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The 1Ghz model. I had a timed lease and couldn't wait for a .25 upgrade revision. (I generally don't chase revisions... I'd be waiting forever, then even if I did something new would come out a week later!)
They all have 1GB ram and SuperDrives, FCP, Keynote, Adobe Creative Suite, Office and other apps. The laptops all have 640 and combo's. The kids should have some creative fun with these... all connected to our curriculum, of course.
 
reaper said:
I agree that this is a step in the right direction for Apple. However, it seems that the iMac is still a high price point for many governmental agencies who want to switch to open source.

The iMacs are competitive on price (as noted above), but when budgetary constraints are concerned, the lower the price the better. Rather than see governments go the linux-box route, does anyone think Apple will start making lower end (i.e. cheaper) flat screen boxes for government/large corporation use?
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Probably not, because it's not an issue. I've worked for both corporatins and the government where price cutting methods were tried using clones or otherwise cheap PCs. It quickly becomes evident that it costs more in support and replacement costs to buy cheap machines than to buy decent machines. Yes, they always like cutting a little off the budget costs, but the first time it comes back and bites them, they learn to spend decent money for decent hardware so that it costs less in the long run. What they're going to want is a reliable computer with good support that won't have to be replaced in X amount of years. Macs fall under that and are not any more expensive than similar PCs. Until Dell starts offering desktop linux boxes, corp and governments are going to be looking at Windows or Macs for desktop computers.

I think that Apple should look at entering the enterprise space as a desktop solution to companies who have *nix servers and applications. Linux on your server and OS X on your desktop.
 
well this is good news. 🙂 i also hear that the Tax Dept. is moving to Open Source as well... perhaps some more iMacs there?
 
Pricing

Ah the ternal deabte about ticket prices between one coutry and another...

here goes:

1 Aust is a much smaller market that the US and smaller markets generally attrach higher prices.
2 Apple may have a higher market share in Aust than the US (imagine!!
😱 ) and thus the company thinks the market can stand higher prices
3 Taxes, levies, border charges etc Given the minefield in the Aust tax system who knows... you can get a break on the duty if you are a vetran or only have one leg, however. Its true!!
4 Airfreight - it all comes in airfrieght and I can tell you that international fregiht rates are only going one way at the moment - up!

Bottom line is that you pay what the market can stand. A far more useful comparison woudl be between the relative price of Wintel boxes and Apples in other markets... headlines ticket prices on selected items are just no good in this respect 🙂
 
The most significant part of this decision is not the the choice to not go Wintel. That would have been easy given the Unix backend of their apps.

What's really significant about this decisions is that they decided not to go Linux

This to me proves that Linux isn't the great savior so many in the media and beyond think.

Surely it would have been significantly cheaper to buy Linux boxes?? Yes of course it would. So why didn't they?

I think because only OSX is both Unix compatible and has the key products from the Big 4 software vendors (Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec and Macromedia). Top that off with the ease of use, ease of support, stability and robustness of OSX, plus the support of Apple, and it's easy to see why they'd chose Macs.

This decision is a blip on the radar for Microsoft, but a major setback for Linux.

Until Linux can match Apple for support from those four vendors plus , they will struggle to make any impact on the corporate desktop.

Apple on the other hand... there's never been a better time for them to get back into the game.
 
fatbarstard said:
Bottom line is that you pay what the market can stand. A far more useful comparison woudl be between the relative price of Wintel boxes and Apples in other markets... headlines ticket prices on selected items are just no good in this respect 🙂
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Apple should be looking to shoot for better market penetration in preparation for a more aggresive move into Australia (NZ) by way of a store in Sydney. Keeping prices lower and marketing up, would allow them to capture more market share which will have big dividends for the future...
 
RTA blew me away with its efficiency and friendliness

(if Aussie bureaucracy is anything like American) is make it so the numbskull who tells you that you've got to wait another hour so they can process such and such a piece of paperwork to get your liscence will be working on a cool looking computer.
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Actually in my experience the NSW RTA is remarkably efficient. Coming here from the UK, with a UK license, I expected a long wait, lots of bureaucracy, inefficiency, annoying jobsworths with bad attitudes... but I got none of that. I walked in, explained what I wanted (an Aussie driving license). They gave me a computerised skills test there and then, evaluated it on the spot, photographed me digitally on the spot, took all my details and in about 10 minutes I had my license - all with a very friendly and efficient manner. I was blown away, and very impressed. And that was before they got Macs, now they'll be even more cheerful!
 
aswitcher said:
A nice win for Apple Australia. Now if they would look at the bloody exchange rate and do something nice for us all -> at least they got the emac costing right but why should we suffer over inflated prices on most other things, ESPECIALLY software. Glad to see that got hammered by the Barrow in the Australian on Tuesday. Damn right.
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I agree in this case, but normally "The Barrow" is a jerk. I hate reading his column (though I am compelled to because it's about Macs). He mostly serves up cold news that I read over a month ago on Slashdot, usually stated as fact without critical analysis, and the impression it leaves one is generally not as positive towards Apple as a reading of the original story might suggest. He appears to me to write up FUD which actually does little to promote Macs, maybe he's really working for the other side? The SMH does a far bettr job in its "Icon" supplement. (Recent stupid iPod scare stories apart that is).
 
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