I'd like to direct your attention to a research study I recently discovered that was done last summer by Gistics Incorporated, a market research firm that investigates the buying and using experiences of technology customers. Gistics sampled more than a dozen production studios that converted from Macintosh to Wintel and found five critical consequences. Overall productivity falls by 27 percent, and stays at that level with little or no appreciable improvement for nine months. Studio profitability plunges. Administrivia, format changes, and configuration issues suck up 20 to 30 percent more time than expected.
Users become depressed, output plunges, profits vanish.
Nearly half of the creative team resigns. Long time Macintosh users deeply resent the forced march to what they consider plainly inferior, less productive, clumsy, and wasteful Wintel platforms. The replacement pool of available, proficient talent shrinks by 63 percent. The studio will find that most journeyperson craft professionals do not and will not use Wintel platforms, forcing the studio to hire young, naive, unskilled, and, generally, the least productive workers. Quality of work declines.