--- Forwarded Message from "Francois Crompton-Roberts" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>From: "Francois Crompton-Roberts" <[log in to unmask]>
>Organization: University of London
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 15:02:17 +0000
>Subject: Re: Mac and PC Language Lab - help the argument
>Reply-to: Francois C-R <[log in to unmask]>
>Priority: normal
>In-reply-to: <[log in to unmask]>

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> We run a small language lab here at the University of Rochester with
> both PCs and Macs. We would like to keep it  that way but we are
> getting pressure from the "management" to abandon the Macs and go
> completely PC. So we are trying to come up with very compelling
> reasons to convince the "management" that we need to keep the Mac
> platform.
> 
> Any suggestions you might have to the argument: why the Macs need to
> stay, would be appreciated.
> 
> We have some compelling reasons but feel we need more fuel to add to
> the fire, so any help, past experience from other LLTI-ers would be
> great.

Funnily enough, we have the opposite situation: The people running 
our computer system would cheerfully throw all the Macs on our campus 
(especially iMacs!) into the Grand Union Canal which borders it. It 
is a number of members of our academic staff, some of whom are very 
powerful (indeed, household names), who are demanding that we support 
Macs. I must say that although officially I have to be neutral, I 
have a great deal of sympathy with them. It doesn't really matter, in 
the long run, if we have sleepless nights figuring out why for 
instance running the e-mail client together with the virus-checker 
causes the machine to lock-up, so long as they can "get on with it" 
and write up their reserch without having to think about the 
software. I know what I'm talking about: One Professor of English 
here has finally taken the plunge and is abandoning her trusty 
WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS this term, replacing it with Word. She says 
that in doing so she's losing a term's research time, which will 
ultimately impact on us all...

So: "Users want it and the user is always right!"

Francois C-R