Macs in the work place

johnsmith13

Hi Guys

I am a developer thinking about moving into Mac development. I have several years experience designing Invoicing\Accounting systems for windows. I have done some searching on the web and there doesnt seem to be any good invoicing\accounting software in ireland for the mac.

What I was wondering is do many companies use Macs in their business?

Does anybody have any taughts about this idea?


Thanks in advance

Pixelcraft

Most designers I know do. Thing to remember about invoicing & accounting software is it's all moving to web apps which are obviously cross platform.

antoinolachtnai

JobproCentral is a software package for project management and invoicing on the Mac.

I really agree that web-based is the future for this type of software.

stcstc

myob is mac too

there are a couple of filemaker based things too

burrentech

johnsmith13 wrote: »

Hi Guys

I am a developer thinking about moving into Mac development. I have several years experience designing Invoicing\Accounting systems for windows. I have done some searching on the web and there doesnt seem to be any good invoicing\accounting software in ireland for the mac.

What I was wondering is do many companies use Macs in their business?

Does anybody have any taughts about this idea?


Thanks in advance

There is always a market for apps aimed at the small business man. MACs are a niche market in themselves, and not many small businesses will use them.

As has been stated a number of free and not so free apps are available in the cloud. I'd be wary of putting my stuff there myself especially after recent hackings of PSN, and Amazon's outage.

You might be better targeting the iPAD and its Android competition. Its a growing market and probably larger already than the MAC base.

johnsmith13

Thansk for the replies guys

As for the web apps, I am aware of these but i would be looking at sites with a higher volumne of sales and customer turnover. web apps are slow if their is a line of customers.

I would be more interested in small to medium retail sites.

I will be moving into the iphone/ipad market but would also prefer to have a mac offer and then have the iphone/ipad as an additional feature

mccabecc

I know that a lot of printing houses and newspaper's editors uses Macs because they have great software .

burrentech

johnsmith13 wrote: »

Thansk for the replies guys

As for the web apps, I am aware of these but i would be looking at sites with a higher volumne of sales and customer turnover. web apps are slow if their is a line of customers.

I would be more interested in small to medium retail sites.

I will be moving into the iphone/ipad market but would also prefer to have a mac offer and then have the iphone/ipad as an additional feature

You'd have more success with designing the app first for the iPhone/iPad and then having a port for the Mac. This from the macrumors the 2011 figure includes the iPad sales, can't say if MAC sales held their own or not, but 4:1 for iPad v. Mac sales would give you and idea of your market. I only know one business customer who is considering moving to Mac, but their accounting software is, and will remain Windows based.

You might also consider the home user. In today's economic climate there could be a market there. Found this one, at least it gives an idea of the prices being charged.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

burrentech wrote: »

You might be better targeting the iPAD

Could you imagine how horrific it would be to do accounting on an ipad or smart phone? No thanks, the thing with software is once MAC hit the tipping point that makes the account packages find it worth while the big players will then develop them.

In the mean time people will continue to run a windows OS in the background to use what they are familiar with if need be. And PC's will continue to be cheaper to buy, therefore admins / accounts departments will continue to be given PC's to preform the tasks.

burrentech

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

Could you imagine how horrific it would be to do accounting on an ipad or smart phone? No thanks, the thing with software is once MAC hit the tipping point that makes the account packages find it worth while the big players will then develop them.

In the mean time people will continue to run a windows OS in the background to use what they are familiar with if need be. And PC's will continue to be cheaper to buy, therefore admins / accounts departments will continue to be given PC's to preform the tasks.

Agreed, there is an app that will allow you to emulate Windows on a MAC, so you don't have to throw out your old apps when you move to Apple. I've not tried the iPad myself, only seen it in the store, and its not something I'd use myself, however it is popular with the 'in crowd' so as a developer you'd have to target the market!

srsly78

Macs cannot run proper Microsoft Excel (only a useless gimped version). And no, there is no replacement for Excel. Sure Word and stuff can be replaced easily, but Excel is a whole "ecosystem" on it's own with plugins and VBA etc.

Thus for example, NOONE in finance uses a mac. Try telling an accountant he won't be able to use Excel on his new machine

As for "emulating" windows.... lol. So slow as to be useless. Better idea: install windows on the mac and you are laughing. However it's not a mac anymore then is it? Don't get me wrong, macs are great yokes and can do 99% of what windows can. But some people simply do not understand how important Microsoft Excel is. I used to think residual momentum made the earth go around, but now I now that it's actually terrible little VBA macros running in spreadsheets that does it

johnsmith13

Removing the accounts side. does anyone know any retail outlet that uses macs (except stores selling Macs)?

DubTony

I've seen Macs used in many office environments over the years. I tried to bring them into a retail environment about 12 years ago but at the time I couldn't find a simple till scanner that was Mac compatible. I've never seen them used in a high volume retail environment, but have seen one used in a ladies boutique (sorry, can't remember where). I've seen quite a few of them in locations where a database is the main use. One was a doctors surgery.
Another was one of the casino's in town. (With a barcode scanner) I'd say that the main reason they're not "out there" is down to price.

Re Accounts software. Mamut produces MYOB for Mac http://www.mamut.com/ie/myob/accountedgeplus/. I'm not sure how powerful this is, as the only accounts software I've used was Big Red Book (on a Windows partition on the Mac :rolleyes:)

Pixelcraft

first off macs can run anything a pc can - as they can run windows. For retail there's http://checkoutapp.com/ which appears to be good

srsly78

It's not a mac if you install windows on it, feel free to completely miss the point. Macs and pcs both have the same hardware these days.

But yes, if you want the best laptop money can buy get a macbook, then install windows so it's actually useful.

Pixelcraft

Um yes it is, it's not OSX, but it's a mac

Mr. Presentable

Pixelcraft wrote: »

first off macs can run anything a pc can - as they can run windows. For retail there's http://checkoutapp.com/ which appears to be good

What's the point? If you want Windows get a PC.

In my company there are no Macs. I have 900+ clients and am aware of none outside of publishing who have a Mac. They are a niche system for a specialist market, or are used by fashionistas to be cool. Like an ipod when you wanted an mp3 player.

Axwell

Keep the thread on topic - dont turn it into another Mac vs PC debate or it will be locked up, and I will throw away the key..

johnsmith13

Axwell wrote: »

Keep the thread on topic - dont turn it into another Mac vs PC debate or it will be locked up, and I will throw away the key..

I agree. So lets change it to


Who here uses MACs in there business

Kinetic^

johnsmith13 wrote: »

I agree. So lets change it to


Who here uses MACs in there business

Not a lot of people outside of the design world will see the extra cost as worth the investment. Your average administration/accounts/marketing/sales employee only needs a basic computer so for about €400 they can get a PC + monitor against €800 for an imac (both are ex vat).

Small companies will also most likely be running Small Business Server 2003/2008/2011 and will generally have more control over a windows based client than a mac client.

Market share of ipad & iphone versus android/rim/symbian compared to the market share of mac versus PC is a lot more favourable.

thecommander

Using MYOB accounting Plus here. Works great.

bruce wayne

if you wanted to use mac's in the workplace you could also run an application called Parallels, that allows you to run a "image" of a windows installation. That way any application that was built for a windows environment can then be run along side the Mac OSX. I have this installed on my mac pro and I can run a windows 7 installation, including proper windows excel inside a mac environment. It even has an option that merges the two environments together to make it seem like both OS's are running in Parallel ! I'm sure the pun is intended.

http://www.parallels.com/landingpage/dskd63-5/?source=g_69&gclid=CJDNgsLr5KgCFUEb4Qod3h_-Dg

there are also a number of business related apps that run on mac, such as quickbooks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsaxQqLv04M , moneyworks etc....not specifically for the Irish market, but I'm sure they could be tweeked.

For EPOS systems there is Lightspeed (http://www.xsilva.com/index.php?id=322), for example.

there are lots of options out there for mac users, but as someone mentioned earlier its more about cost, macs are more expensive then pc's so therefore pc's will be the machine of choice. Its only when there is a need for software that is better suited to macs such as design software then that need dictates that macs should be used.

Seperate

I recently bought a mac for my office. I process alot of pictures & video so it was an easy decision.

Would be interested in some suggestions for accountancy type software (cloud or otherwise), so I can retire the Windows machine fully!

bruce wayne

There are lots of them my favorite of the cloud based ones are

http://www.xero.com/
http://www.kashflow.com/index_form_a.asp
http://www.freeagentcentral.com/

all for in and around €20 a month, which includes support, upgrades and storage/backups. The advantage of the cloud based ones are they can be accessed from any machine and OS, some even have ipad/iphone/android versions.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

srsly78 wrote: »

Macs cannot run proper Microsoft Excel (only a useless gimped version). And no, there is no replacement for Excel. Sure Word and stuff can be replaced easily, but Excel is a whole "ecosystem" on it's own with plugins and VBA etc.

What are you on about? Excel 2011 is superior to anything on the PC. It just takes a bit of getting used to like and microsoft new version. I've been using it for several months now and have both Excel 08 and Excel 11 on my Mac. I've never found it restrictive and run insanely complex systems in excel. You can even get outlook on Mac since the 2011 version came out.

STBR

Everybody I know using Macs for business are using invoicing web apps anyway.

Seriously, desktops apps are on the way out, so it would be a better use of your time picking up some web skills.

srsly78

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan wrote: »

What are you on about? Excel 2011 is superior to anything on the PC. It just takes a bit of getting used to like and microsoft new version. I've been using it for several months now and have both Excel 08 and Excel 11 on my Mac. I've never found it restrictive and run insanely complex systems in excel. You can even get outlook on Mac since the 2011 version came out.

Just no. It's difficult enough to get complex systems running on windows, 64bit Excel still doesn't even work properly. We are talking about insane addons for Excel here like managed XLL and so on. No offense, but it's a step up from what you are likely used to. Please trust me on this.

Apart from (advanced) Excel tho, macs can do almost anything yes.

DubTony

srsly78 wrote: »

Just no. It's difficult enough to get complex systems running on windows, 64bit Excel still doesn't even work properly. We are talking about insane addons for Excel here like managed XLL and so on. No offense, but it's a step up from what you are likely used to. Please trust me on this.

Apart from (advanced) Excel tho, macs can do almost anything yes.

And probably a step up from anything anyone here is likely to use.

srsly, as an aside, this is the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum. It might be a good idea to take your preferences and / or prejudices somewhere else.

PeakOutput

people state mac are niche all the time and I dont really think its true, sure the overall pc market they have low penetration but in their market(pcs over 1K) they have a 90% market share.

I believe this converts over to business. Any industry that actually need a computer of power (video editing, designing, development(particularly ios development, audio editing etc) are equally reliant on macs as they are windows if not more so. You know there is no point trying to target insurance companies or banks but there are numerous small - medium audio studios, video studios bespoke software companies that rely on macs and I would say they would appreciate the attention of a small developer with a good solution for their accounting or invoicing