This is a great blog – I\’ll have to come back again!…

As the years went on my machines changed but I stayed on macs as I had a very large investment in Mac software – much of which only ran on a Mac at the time (Quark Xpress, Photoshop, Freehand, FormZ, Vellum 3D, Minicad etc).

In 1999 I bought my first PC to run SolidWorks. So at that time I was running a SGI Visual NT workstation (which I picked up ex lease for £600 – a bargain!) to run a customer's copy of SolidWorks. Then a funny thing happened.

All the software that I was running as Mac only suddenly started to appear on Windows as well. What was more (and to this day only original Mac software does this) these same companies let users run the software on either Mac or Windows – at no extra cost! So by 2001 I was running FormZ, VectorWorks, Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt and Graphite on the PC. With no issues. faster than on the Mac.

I've asked many of these developers why they started offering Windows versions in the late 90s and they all say – because that is where the CAD market was and at the time Apple was in dire straits and in decline and Windows machines were a lot cheaper. It was only when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and OSX was released that Apple's rise started again – but by this time the CAD market had switched almost entirely to Windows.

So here's the thing now. I run 2 Macs (a G5 and an Intel iMac – I've also got an old Powerbook but its never used now), 3 PCs (a newish workstation and a workstation laptop that is on its last legs, and an old Dell workstation used as a print server).

Pretty much all the CAD is done on Windows machines. All the graphics and internet stuff is done on macs. I have CAD applications that run natively on Macs but I still choose to run them on Windows. Why? Well because they run better on windows. Why? I have no idea, but they just do. Take Ashlar-Vellum software as an example. It has always been Mac, but it runs far better on Windows – the graphics performance is significantly better. You could argue this is down to the programming – perhaps – but I see the same with FormZ and VectorWorks (in 3D).

Contrast this to graphics applications like Adobe CS4 and Quark Xpress. Here, the Mac is better. Everything is more fluid, better linked, more stable. I did dabble with CS1 on Windows for a while but compared to the Mac version it was crap.

When Apple announced Intel hardware I thought I would switch the hardware to Apple but having considered all this long and hard I just could not justify the cost vs the benefits. When I upgraded my main CAD machine last year I was faced with a choice of a Mac Pro at £2500 with 3 year Apple care warranty plus a new screen cost on top, or an HP xw4600 (XP/4GB RAM, Quad core) with more hard drive space, a decent certified Quadro card (FX1700), and an HP widescreen display….and a 5 year on site next day warranty…..all for £1300. As they say it was a no brainer. As much as I like Macs they are just too expensive at the entry level (which I always buy at).

When I replace my laptop soon will I opt for a new Apple MacBook Pro or a Dell? Now that is one I'm not sure about. On a laptop I can see the benefits of having it all. I can run all the graphics apps and the CAD apps under Bootcamp…..but…..I cannot get a certified system to run all the gizmos in SolidWorks.

So OK this is along post but it is not always a case of Macs are best, or Windows is better. There are benefits to both platforms. Would I switch to a new CAD system if it ran natively on macs? No. Platform is not the decider I use – it is the quality of the software. If SolidWorks ran natively would I switch? Possibly. Because this assumes that if it did run natively they would enable things like RealView etc to run on Mac hardware and typical graphics cards. Not only that I would have to be convinced that the performance is as good or better on mac – as knowing what I know about native Mac software I don't think this is always necessarily the case.

Good to hear, hope more companies follow

People who don't use Mac have a great deal at stake in this argument. We have fought to get the software to where it is in terms of functionality and stability, and to throw it all away just for a small minority of users (and non-users) whose heads have been turned by marketing gimmicks would be unfortunate. Throwing all of the necessary development $$ into a Mac version would be a colossal waste of money.

How many more customers will someone like SolidWorks gain by adding a Mac version? Very few. If people really need something like SW, they are using something like SW on Windows because nothing is available on Mac.

How many customers will SW lose because they don't change to Mac? None until maybe another SW-esque product makes the jump. And by that, I don't mean NX, Rhino, VectorWorks, AutoCAD, Bricscad, Alias, et al, I mean Inventor or Solid Edge.

If you don't buy your own CAD software that you use for a living, shut it up.

As I mentioned, I have practical, real reasons for running both Windows and OSX. Neither of them are driven because one is “more stable” than the other; because it isn't true, as you are obviously unable to admit to yourself.

2. I didn't even come close to saying Unix, Linux and MAC OS are even close. What I did was make a comparison between UNIX vs. Windows. There is however no viable arguement today UNIX vs. Windows, therefore my example stands as MAC OS is a UNIX variant. Remember Nextstep? No, didn't think so.

Don't get me wrong, I used to own $10,000 of Windows equipment. My solution was to hold it until it depreciated then purchase a MAC. I'm thrilled that NX is coming over to the Darkside. More to come I suspect, again since MAC OS runs Windows better on a MAC. You know the saying, once you go MAC you won't go back…. Just smile.

“Does it qualify as a native app?”
I didn't have to reboot into windows to open my UG file. Native enough for me. That perspective may change with more time behind the wheel.

If you use the hardware/software from Apple. good. if you don't. Shut it up. Simple man.

Sure, Solidworks, and all other CAD software, crashes frequently. I haven't seen Windows crash in years. WinXP/Vista is not Windows 95.

My wife's old Mac used to crash at least once a week, running OSX 10.2. So by my personal experience my Windows (both at home and at work) was significantly more stable than her OSX.

Then again, if you can prove that Windows is less stable than OSX, go ahead.