TECH/TOOLS: Need more opinions (long-ish)

["Branchaud, Paul" <pbranchaud -at- UTSOFT -dot- COM>]

First of all, thanks to all who submitted their opinions on my "wish
list" from last week. I got back to some of you, but not all, so I am
taking this opportunity to thank you all. One caveat before I begin with
the latest issue: this is not intended to be a Mac Vs PC holy war; I
want facts and how performance and productivity will be affected.

I'm beginning to think this "tools evaluation" will never end! Still and
all, it's fun to see how much money I can get the company to commit to
spending before the year is up. ;-) I appear to have approval to order
FrameMaker 5.5, Illustrator 7, and Photoshop 4, among the list I
detailed last week.

When I finally submitted my document recommending software, books, and
training, it was surprisingly well received. I got word from the company
president that we should buy two of everything (Adobe software and
training). So far so good, right? I was also told to evaluate the
possibility of migrating the Technical Writing department (all two of
us) from our current Windows 95 to Macintosh.

I haven't worked on a Mac in over 5 years and I don't know how they
compare to PCs, especially with regards to Frame, Photoshop, and
Illustrator. Our current systems are Pentium 90s, 32Mb RAM, 1Gb hard
drives, and 4Mb video cards. We are aware that we must upgrade our
systems to fully benefit from our tools; I'm thinking Pentium 233s, 48Mb
RAM, 2Gb hard disk (min.), and 8Mb video cards. I've been asked to look
into PowerPC Macs.

We will be delivering online docs first (~1000 pages) with the
possibility of print manuals later. Color printing is still undecided at
this time. We might also be creating multimedia presentations to
demonstrate the product to customers. Macromedia Director and Quark
Imedia have been mentioned as possible programs (I know Imedia is Mac
only...).

What I would like to know (ASAP to boot!) is how will productivity and
performance be affected with either of these platforms. I would be
especially interested in hearing from people who have worked in a Mac/PC
environment. I know Adobe products are supposed to be fully "binary
compatible" (go from Mac to PC to Unix with the same file), so how would
we be affected if our print shop had a different platform from us. Both
local Adobe vendors seem to have a Mac inclination (one is a confirmed
Mac hugger/PC detractor), although one admitted that performance would
probably be equal between a P2 and a PowerPC.

I need an answer to this in a very short period of time.

Thanks for your help, once again.

Paul
----------------
Paul Branchaud                  Technical Writer
pbranchaud -at- utsoft -dot- com           UtiliSoft Inc.
(514) 747-1400 Ext. 211         555, Dr. Frederik-Philips, Suite 210
ICQ: 4161320                    Saint-Laurent, QC Canada H4M 2X4
                    "Out of my mind. Back in five minutes..."


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