John,
I work in the PC-dominated IT field, but at home, I use a Mac and have since '86.
Since the OS and the hardware are designed to work together, you get far fewer conflicts than with PCs, (although to be fair, Windows has improved considerably in this respect with the release of XP.)
The downside is that the Mac doesn't handle Java apps quite as well as PCs do and if you have many apps open at once, doesn't multitask quite as fast. At least this has been my experience.
You will also occasionally find that a PC version of such and such software has been released but the Mac version release is lagging or not planned at all.
OTOH, I have never had a virus or any sort of malware attack on the Mac.
And the Mac's backward compatibility is far better than Windows; I have apps from '86 that I can still run on my latest and greatest iMac.
Microsoft Office has a Mac version that is typically more evolved than the PC version, and you can share Office docs with PC users transparently and vice versa.
The Mac browser, Safari, is the best I have used; far faster and more stable than Internet Exploder or even Firefox.
Plus, I enjoy the aesthetics of the Mac. To me, it is a more refined, and intuitive OS than Windows, although XP has closed that gap somewhat.
As for the niche market apprehension, just remember that Lexus also sells into a small niche. <g>
Hope this helps,
Ken |
