Should have got a Mac

I heard the Health Secretary on the radio this morning being asked about yet another government IT debacle as GPs refuse to use the new ebooking system for hospital places. John Reid said at one point that the NHS was "Bill Gates' 3rd biggest customer."

Oh dear oh dear.

It's a slightly not-known fact that many doctors actually prefer to use a Mac in their practice. I base this on the good evidence that a lot of them buy their Macs from a company I might have worked for at some point, mentioning no names.

It's also a known fact (to me) that even software that looks and feels quite good on a Mac, Microsoft Office, for example, can be absolutely shite to use on a PC. There's just no avoiding the fact that people who are very time and production sensitive - like graphic designers, publishers, video and music producers - people on deadlines and with limited time - like GPs with full waiting rooms - often prefer to use Macs because they can get more done. Windows software is clunky, slow, nothing seems to work the way it's supposed to, which is not even to mention security issues like spyware, worms, and viruses which do not afflict Macs to the same degree.

Someone wrote to MacUser magazine a while ago pointing out that an NHS Mac implementation would cost a fraction of the big Windows/PC rollout. I've believed for a long time that IT consultants who specify PCs into production-sensitive environments are charlatans and thieves. Anyone who doesn't consider the total cost of ownership is just plain thick.