Student Newspaper Needs to Upgrade—Intel or G5?

[jaw04005]

I have been chosen as an editor for my college's student newspaper. We have three PowerMac G4 (Digital Audio's) and a Windows Server box that will need to be upgraded in the next few months.

As editor, I'm trying to pick replacement desktops that will last the university at least three years (the Digital Audio's have lasted almost five). I don't know what to purchase—the G5 is obviously on its way out and we don't really have the desk space to house a PowerMac G5 anyways.

If I purchase new Intel iMacs, I run the risk that my section editors will have to suffer through Rosetta emulation until Adobe decides to release a Universal Binary of CS2 or releases CS3. That could be late summer or even later.

It's a really tough decision. If it was for my own personal use, I would choose the Intel iMac and suffer through the transition, but from a business/educational institution perspective I just don't know.

We are also looking to purchase seats for Office 2004 and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

 

[matperk]

well, from what is being said, what you're talking about should run quite fine under rosetta and is probably a better long term perchase. The pro apps are getting universal in march so i'm assuming adobe plans to have updates around then also. I think it'd be better to go with the intels. you may have to suffer through non-spectacular performance for a few months, but it will be worth it in the long run.

 

[Abstract]

If your student newspaper has the money to purchase new, Intel optimized versions of Photoshop with universal binaries when the program comes out, then sure, get an Intel Mac.

However, if your newspaper doesn't have the money to just upgrade software on a whim, get a G5 Mac, since you already have software that runs perfectly with the G5 chip, you probably already have some sort of special license that allows you to install this software on multiple computers, and there's no need to upgrade your software when it's all compiled with universal binaries. I guess you can run all your current software on an Intel Mac under Rosetta, but honestly, what's the point?