I agree with Andrew B., Linux is the future with a whole new class of affordable computers being powered by it. Instead it would be better to use software that works across multiple platforms.
I do see the point about Linux support but that's more for the future - its a growing, rather than pre-existing market. We have an estimated 10-15% Mac owners NOW so if effort has to be rationed then I would suggest they have to have priority. I do agree that the ideal is to have software that works across all three platforms - like FirstClass does for us now - but it does have to work equally well across platforms and not be dependent on other software. There's no point, for instance, having something that works within a browser but only certain makes and flavours of browser.
I don't agree that Mac owners should get priority over Linux users. If we go that direction it will just make it harder to support Linux in the future as we will be increasing problems by concerning ourselves with two lots of proprietary software rather than taking an approach early of concentrating on platform neutral approaches. As for first class we should stop distributing the client as it has a web front end now that will cover the basic functionality. Firstclass isn't great anyway (I have suffered it as a user) so best to find a new approach.
Has no-one heard of VMware Fusion and other similar apps? You can emulate a windows environment on a Mac so I don't see why that isn't the solution. I don't think you can expect every bit of pc software to also be created compatible for Mac. Macs account for a relativley small amount of the market and get a lot of software later than PC apart from software from giants such as Adobe so they should be used to it.
Surely the OU could get a very good price on VMWare Fusion and OEM copies of XP due to economies of scale. A copy could be sent to anyone with a Mac and never would any Mac users moan again (well, don't bet on it).
I don't really rate Macs for an everyday machine, not finding them as flexible as a PC or with anywhere near as much 3rd party software. For a professional environment they are fine as they are robust and offer arguably better stability than a pc due to their carefully selected components, meaning there is typically less to go wrong. But then you pay a premium for that...
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