to switch is a no-brainer
i use to work for the very largest pharmaceutical co and was responsible for strategy and architecture ... and which excluded MAC's.
It was back in 1992 that we begun to banish them from the empire. However, with Steve Jobs getting back in charge, I begun to watch them with interest. After all the 'wasted effort and costs: associated with Y2K and fed up with the constant problems associated with viruses, spyware and children "messing up" the configurations of my home PC, I brought an iMAC. I've since retired and subsequently brought 6 MAC's in 3 to 4 years (for the home that is).
I've just brought a MACbook for my wife who has to pass the ECDL (UK) exams.
So the MACbook arrives, I turn it on and with in minutes I have all the software we need to do almost anything.
I then got to work setting up Windows. It took me best part of six hours to configure XP, Office, anti-virus, printers, networks etc.... (and I'm pretty quick at doing that on any machine!)
To me it's a no-brainer.
NeoOffice works great. Also, as a early adopter of paperport in the corporate space, I've actually found that the HP software that comes with those all-on-1 printer/scanners etc. pretty much does what I wanted out of paperport. Haven't tried converting anything, but export will work.
As for file compatibility. No problems these days. Only thing to watch is the file name length, because I'm running a combination of NTFS, Linux EXT3 and apple.
and finally... of course you can run one of Parallels, VMWARE or Q (open source) in order to run those Windows programmes on board MAC OS X. I'll installed all three on my big 24 boy, plus bootcamp. I actually don't run any, and don't need too - which tells the story. Except bootcamp on the macbook for the ECDL training. On VMWARE I'm also running UBUNTU. You can try all these for thirty days free before buying.
one final word which which I think is going to be the nail in the coffin for the redmond boys.... WPA is truining out to be a big pain for those of us who want to 'mess around' with different configurations of hardware and software and is another good reason to switch. Going back 15+ years when we all thought buying h/w components was a great way of playing with the technology, upgrading etc. well today, i doing think very many people do that, except maybe the boys who play games... so as you see from my list of hardware... getting away from the h/w hobby is something MAC users do!
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24" imac, 17" G5 imac, 15" G4 imac, MacBook, 14" G4 ibook, 12" G4 ibook, T40 thinkpad, R50 thinkpad, Toshiba satellite, Linksys NSLU2, Snazio 1350, HP2575, Brother DP117c
