Trying to convince an Exchange server use to a Mac

[brainwave89]

In a two person home based company I am trying to convince one of the users to get an iMac instead of a PC. They both utilize an Exchange server to get their email in Outlook. This one person performs Word, Excel, email and web browsing on her computer.
With the addition of the new Office for Mac supporting Exchange Server in Entourage what are some of the pros and cons of her having an iMac instead of a PC?
Though she wants 3 monitors I know that it is not possible with an iMac.

Thank you for looking and your suggestions.

 

[belvdr]

I haven't tested the latest Exchange support, but back in the day it was very basic. Several calendaring quirks were common, and quite honestly, it was a pain in the neck.

For example, I had to use iCal for calendaring and Entourage for mail. If someone sent an invite, sometimes it wouldn't import into iCal. It was a poor solution.

Again, that was back in 10.4, and if I were a business, I'd stick with the one stop solution. Why are you pushing them to Mac anyway? What's in it for you?

 

[bigandy]

Entourage/Office 2008 has supported Exchange since being released last year. This new version brings nothing new except for name.

The inclusion of Exchange support in Snow Leopard is a far more compelling option as it completely avoids the crapness of Entourage (which I just personally hate, despite it not being too bad at handling Exchange related tasks), however we're unable to test it as yet as our Hosted Exchange provider hasn't upgraded to Exchange 2007 Server. We keep bending their ears in hope that they will...

I'd say that if you are on the latest version of Exchange, it wouldn't hurt to see if some testing can be done. However, you're at a loss for three monitors (even if that sounds like complete overkill for an Office user) with an iMac. For the power requirement, if she can deal with two, a Mac mini will work fine driving two displays. If she doesn't like it, take the machine back or chuck Windows on it.