Macs in Academia

[Scott A. Stockwell]

Dear Colleagues:

Just for the record, I am not in "academia," but I use a shiny new PowerMac
6100/60AV for all of my work.  As an officer in the Army I have to endure the
frequent loss of my favorite Mac at my old station and the year-long battle to
acquire a new Mac at my new station (why is that I always seem to go into units
where no Mac has gone before?).  They usually try to push one of those IBM PC
clones on me ("Uniformity! Standardization!" they say), but I just push them
right back.  I would rather buy and use my own Mac (and don't think I haven't!)
than settle for one of those DOS machines.

In my opinion, the military, and the government in general, really blew it when
they failed to adopt the Macintosh as their standard hardware/software platform
when it first came out.  Lets face it, if standardization is what you want,
then the Mac is it.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of Macs in the
system.  Several military organizations rank among the top 100 Mac users in the
U.S.  I am told by the computer system admin guys here that my own organization
is about 70% IBM PC (350) and 30% Mac (150).  The problem is that about one
third of those PCs are redundant because they sit next to a Mac and are not
used, or are used for only one purpose (which can also be done on the Mac).  I
wouldn't want to be there when the GAO finds out how much money was spent on
superfluous (IBM PC) computers in government.

I am pleased to see so many academic institutions going Mac.  Eventually,
EVERYONE will graduate a Mac user and these discussions will be a thing of the
past.


Scott A. Stockwell, Ph.D.
Captain, U.S. Army
Research Entomologist

INTERNET:  stockwells at simsc.si.edu             Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit
BITNET:  stockwells at simsc                                Museum Support Center
Voice:  301-238-3165                                   Smithsonian Institution
FAX:  301-238-3667                                       Washington, DC  20560

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                       Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit
               Division of Communicable Diseases and Immunology
                   Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
                          Washington, DC 20307-5100
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