I have had this endless debate with colleagues, students, and friends for years. "Which is better, the Mac or the PC?" My June 2010 answer has to be the PC.
Why? I have been spending months creating assignments for my bio-statistics classes and have run into continuous problems with the Mac. For starters, excellent stat programs like SPSS (statistical package for the social sciences) won't even run on the new Mac OS operating system (snow-leopard). The frustration my students who use the mac have had to endure is hard to describe without explicatives. New versions of the software work with the mac - but they are expensive.
Now enter the Microsoft excel problem. The new (well, not so new as the 2010 version is out) Excel 2007 has a great statistical feature called the Analysis Tool Pack (ATP) that can easily do advanced statistical analysis. This is a great solution for cash strapped students who already have doled out lots of cash for Microsoft software. PC users can add this Tool Pack with a simple add-in.
Mac users are not so lucky. The Tool Pack is not available to them as an add-in. You must download another program (StatPlus:mac LE ) to get the Tool Pack. And here's the kicker - if your want the advanced analyzes, you have to by the upgrade for $250. And the download warns about the instability of the program. I'll have to let you know about that in another post after I test run the program on my Mac.
I know that this must be some continuous way for Microsoft to rule the world, but today the PC wins.
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