Tenthline and the “Cult of Mac”
Friday, December 5th, 2008 by Enrico
It has been way too long since I’ve last written in this blog. I’m always working hard to implement great identity and content management solutions for our clients and sometimes that cuts into the time I’ve got to write for the blog. I’ve got a moment to breathe so I thought I’d write about something amusing from our company culture: the proliferation of Macs.
When Michael and I started at Tenthline, he quickly bought a MacBook while I had just sold my PC laptop and was doing most of my work on office workstations. He seemed to really enjoy using his MacBook for both work and play and I started to consider it as a possible investment in the future. Zahid already had a MacBook, though he usually booted it into Windows via Boot Camp.
I was on the fence about whether I wanted to save up for a MacBook Pro or buy one of the current MacBooks. The MacBooks didn’t have quite the specs I was looking for but the Pros were way too expensive. The recent introduction of the new 13-inch MacBook brought the specs much closer to the Pro: I had finally found the machine I was looking for. I bought one right away.
…and shortly after that, Jeff bought one too.
In my humble opinion, MacBooks are a joy to do software development work on. I made the switch and I haven’t ever looked back. The OS is simple and intuitive to use on a day-to-day basis but under the hood is a POSIX-compliant Unix system with rock-solid stability. For web developers, it is hands-down the best development machine.
And so, the “cult of Mac” slowly seeps into Tenthline. Our recent hire, Faisal, will probably be feeling it soon too. =)
December 5th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The funny thing is, I got a macbook largely because of the long battery life. Were it not for the excellent hardware, I might have gone the linux laptop route.
That being said, up until about a year ago I was a windows guy. XP forever, as far as I was concerned. However the massive failure that is Vista and Microsoft’s unwillingness to provide reasonable software for a reasonable price point was the clincher.
Conversely OSX doesn’t come with any kind of authentication or password — it just only runs on Apple hardware. The ease with which OSX can be pirated is a clear indication that Apple has made their operating system a loss-leader, focusing to rack up huge profits on their hardware instead. This is -exactly- how a loss-lead should be done.
So in the end, I got a Mac because it was “not Windows.” I can honestly say I’m happy with the purchase though. It’s largely hassle free, and the cost-effectiveness of mix-and-match purchasing and upgrading has gone way down recently, especially when compared to the value of my time and the need for a machine that “just freaking works.”