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Princeton University Students Switching?

hechacker1 said:
I work for UCSD's Resnet department and I have also noticed a sharp incline of mac users this year. A little under half the support calls/appointments I get now are for macs (which says something about their ability to "just work").
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Or perhaps that the majority of 'instructions' for how to connect to other systems/networks are written for Windows so they need translating?

My cousin once called me because she was desperately trying to follow some IT-sent instructions for how to get her Mac on the network. Unfortunately they were for Windows so she was having little success... even more sadly, the Mac was pretty much there and just needed the password entered. She'd wasted an hour attempting to do the configuration that her Mac had already automatically done for her...
 
ArizonaKid said:
However, when money is on the line I would never choose a Mac in our business. They simply don’t have a competitive advantage and are not able to offer any software that would make our business more efficient. Now I could argue that software developers can be blamed for not offering Mac versions of critical applications, but I really don’t care.
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What do Mac users do when the Windows Virus of the Month strikes the office?

They keep working...
 
krykert said:
My point exactly. Square institutions like Princeton and Yale are well known for, well, being square. It's no surprise a distinct minority of students there are Mac users (even if some of the rest are switcheurs). Take a walk around an Ivy League school with a student population in command of a more comprehensive understanding of aesthetics--Harvard, Brown, or especially Columbia with its boho-beat appeal--and you can't help but notice the difference. Students at these schools, unlike those at Princeton, are natural-born Mac users.

That, in short, is why it's wrong to paint all Ivy Leaguers with the same broad brush. You're not a bigot, are you?
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I'm surprised you had so much time to attend every Ivy university in your 4 years as an undergrad, that's impressive. I guess you also know the ins and outs of every club, group, team, dorm, and department at Princeton as well. That really is impressive, I didn't get close to that in my 4 years there in engineering.

Having attended an institution that is so impressive (harvard, columbia??), as you undoubtably have, you should have been able to pick up on the fact that the 45% was not the university wide "market share" of Apple. It only refers to this years sales by OIT. Sure that's been on the rise, but many students purchase computers outside of OIT, as they prefer more custimization. OIT is a great part of the University btw, and they are very platform nuetral (I worked there for 2-3 years).

Anyways, I hope "mac users" such as yourself are on the decline. I'd prefer to see stuck up, snotty, bigoted, prejudice @$$holes such as yourself be drowned out by the masses of "Switcheurs" as you call them. At least they enjoy their macs instead of putting down people for their choice of University or their lack of "purity" as a mac user.
 
blackcrayon said:
What do Mac users do when the Windows Virus of the Month strikes the office?

They keep working...
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True. You have a very good point I don't argue against. Windows takes much more maintenance. However, the security for a small business is not that hard to control for admins. Antivirus applications combined with strict security policies are very effective. Clients don't have admin rights, and that helps prevent dangerous applications from being installed.

But going to the Mac simply to lower the threat of viruses is still not the most efficient choice in our business. That is my point, and a point most business use in making purchasing decisions. They cost savings of a better secuered OS (OS X) is not worth losing some core applications.
 
ugh, Princeton

i would RATHER row for Dartmouth than be caught dead any where near the rusted gates of Princeton, myes... As a resident student at the fine university of San Francisco State, I must say that the idea of Princeton getting good publicity is highly dubious... indubitably...
seriously people, does it matter where we go to school? does it say anything about us? well, yes, it does i suppose, but anyone so self centered or insecure that they need to project their own self worth off of that where they study is a very unfortunate person...
sorry for the rant, g5 powerbooks and iphones tuesday.
GO GATERS!
 
In my triple here at colorado college... we have 3 macs and no pcs ;)

Granted my room is a bit of an anomaly, but.. still.. there's a lot of macs around ;) (We have 2 macbooks (1 black, 1 white), and my iBook g4)

And.. if apple would hurry up and update the MBPs.. We'd have one of those too :D
 
macs

cool info, sure would be interesting how many are running bootcamp and or parallels.... i'm going with 75% + .... switching is not all that easy... okay at least for me...

DD
 
Both on campus and off, I've seen a massive increase in macs in my field (biology) over the past 5 years.

At an international conference I've been attending for decades, last year I saw only one PC... all of the rest of the presenters were using macs. A few years previously, the opposite was true.

I was talking to the computer guy at the campus bookstore the other day, and he said that now well over half of their sales are macs.

I think the tide has turned.

Now if only Apple could get the C2D MBPs out to take advantage of it!

Cheers
 
As a parent...

As a parent of a college freshman, after having dealt with Windows computers for many years, I can't imagine sending the kid off to school with a Windows machine. So far, not one problem with his macbook, not one virus, not one problem with spyware. Not one problem with theft! ( I locked it to his desk and won't tell him the combination....) ( he did come home the other day asking where my skill saw was, however,.... Hmmmmmm.....)
 
APPLENEWBIE said:
As a parent of a college freshman, after having dealt with Windows computers for many years, I can't imagine sending the kid off to school with a Windows machine. So far, not one problem with his macbook, not one virus, not one problem with spyware. Not one problem with theft! ( I locked it to his desk and won't tell him the combination....) ( he did come home the other day asking where my skill saw was, however,.... Hmmmmmm.....)
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Now locking the computer to his desk and not telling him the combo seems a bit ridiculous.. you may as well have bought him an imac and gotten a faster processor, bigger screen, and paid less...
 
For what it's worth, I know at Indiana U and Oberlin, they really push Macs because (at least they say) support needs for them are much lower.
I'm not surprised - a couple of times while I was at a small liberal arts college viruses essentially took down the whole campus network. Even though most people were up-to-date and secure, it just takes a couple of unpatched [Windows] systems...
 
ArizonaKid said:
I have to disagree. I really don't think it is that sophisticated of an issue. It comes down to software and deployment. The people on this board are quite intelligent, so I would expect they can concede Windows rules the software market.

I am the network admin, on the side, for a small business. Additionally, I am the purchasing manager, and as the purchasing manager it is not prudent for me to purchase any Macs. Windows 2003 SBS (small business server) is an excellent backend server. Remote access, VPN, and exchange server simply are amazing tools for collaboration and connectivity to peers. On SBS 2003 they are all included.

The computers I purchase must have Windows XP Pro, which is a must for our domain management. I have actually added a Mac to our active directory, and had Entourage running off Exchange, and I can tell you it was a big pain in the ass. HP Business Computers are excellent at providing a clean install of Windows XP Pro. I simply don't see a decent argument for an employee to have a Mac when all the programs they are required to run are on Windows. Additionally, I will not waste time or money purchasing additional licenses of XP Pro for Macs, and then have to install it. Since we are a construction company we are heavy into Timberline (SQL based estimating and accounting...amazing application), Access, Visio, Project, and AutoCAD. I have yet to find viable alternatives on the Mac that has full compatibility.

In your argument you mentioned iTunes. Well I have that for Windows. I find Picasa to be a better application than iLife, and I don’t use Garage Band or iMovie.

Of course for home use there are plenty of software choices that are arguably the best in their class, such as iLife. However, those specific applications are not significant value added tools for our business.

The truth is I own a Mac at home for simple entertainment. It’s fun to use a different platform from time to time. However, Ubuntu and OS X are still entertainment OSs for me and not much more.

However, when money is on the line I would never choose a Mac in our business. They simply don’t have a competitive advantage and are not able to offer any software that would make our business more efficient. Now I could argue that software developers can be blamed for not offering Mac versions of critical applications, but I really don’t care.
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While I really dont like what you say Im afraid I completely agree, apple has done a great job of challenging windows in the home market, and it seems also the edu market, but the corporate market, apple has a long long way to go!
 
Lollypop said:
While I really dont like what you say Im afraid I completely agree, apple has done a great job of challenging windows in the home market, and it seems also the edu market, but the corporate market, apple has a long long way to go!
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I think Apple would be all too happy to just own the home and edu markets. If they get back up to 30% of the edu market and can match that in the home market, I think they'd be ecstatic, since their total market share would probably more than double to 10% or more of the overall market.
 
Yep - lots of bad I.T. workers around....

Your company's I.T. "professional" is obviously not keeping up with things, but that's all too common in the industry, unfortunately.

Still, I'd say that honestly, there are far more businesses out there staffed by I.T. people who do know what they're doing. Despite being a Mac user at home, I support a Windows PC network where I work. At this point in time, a switch to Macs really isn't feasible. It's not that we couldn't use newer Macs here. (Well, we couldn't before Intel Macs came out, because we rely on several proprietary software packages that are made for Windows only.) But reality is, Apple isn't really ready for "corporate America". They're inching ever closer to being there, but it's just not a market-segment they've concentrated on in the past.

It's easy for a Mac user to get "smug" about things, and say "Look how much easier I can do this!" with a task. But in the corporate world, there's usually more to it. They may be under an expensive service contract with an existing software package, so switching means flushing tens of thousands of dollars down the toilet for that pre-paid support plan. They often need to be able to make use of proprietary hardware or interfaces that just can't attach to a Mac. (Quite a few industrial controllers have been designed to plug into PCI or ISA slots on a PC, and they don't make a USB version!)

There's also a lot of interest in the ability to easily service one's own equipment, at least in smaller companies. Many I.T. departments like the generic, standard components found in most Windows PCs. If a power supply goes out, no problem. Grab any ATX supply from the shelf at CompUSA and drop it in. Back in business. Need a video card? They're sold everywhere. On a Mac, you're stuck waiting on a part from Apple themselves - and paying a premium for it.


Some_Big_Spoon said:
I think this is the #1 reason people don't switch; They think that the difficulties of windows are how computing is supposed to be, namely, complicated, expensive, and time consuming.

I have to fight tooth and nail at my company to use a mac because, and I quote my "IT Professional"; "Macs are too expensive, they get too many viruses, and they're too hard to network and support". Now, granted, this woman isn't bright and was "promoted" to network admin from some receptionist job at some point, but this is how most companies think.

When she sits down at my mac to "fix it" (break something), she spends minutes looking for the complicated way of doing something instead of checking a box or pushing a button. The Principals of my company are the same. I'll do presentations in Keynote or make marketing movies or DVD's that the rest of the company loves, but since it's not supported on windows, the initiatives go nowhere. It's a mixture of ignorance and IT weasels looking to hold on to their jobs. If we had macs at work, she'd be out of a job and she knows it.

I hope Princeton's policies are platform agnostic, otherwise all the new mac users could find themselves in a difficult situation.
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About time!

Having been a CIT (prior to OIT) support staffperson at Princeton, I felt that the upper administration seemed to be focused on Windows (could it have been the academic-relationship with W. Gates, by its former VP of IT) and turned a cool shoulder toward the Mac.
Even colleagues there now, in systems, have a Mac Mini to be familiar with (however, they still use Windows and Unix ... but they need to. Adding or returning to the mac makes sense for students. It's just easier to use/configure).
Just remember that this requires the need for broader support. And for this, they (university comptrollers) need to start "allocating" funds to the right places.
Afterall, what good is a campus, that is now winning back mac-using students, but lacks the financial direction toward keeping "up with other campuses" by allocating value to those departments that assist the students, staff and administrators.
I applaud this news. Go Tigers!:)
 
Testify!

I'm currently in college. I just made the switch, and instead of saving the $2700 I spent on my iMac for tuition, I decided I would be happier with a computer that works. :)
 
generik said:
Bravo.

Exactly, it is just a brand of computer... a tool if you will. Not a bloody religion which changes your whole mindset and world view to the point that you are prepared to strap bombs to your chest to "defend" it.
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New to Macs, I take it ;)
 
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