How FM use impacts purchasing decisions

[Rene Stephenson]

Hi All,

My PC laptop is beaten up so badly it's barely stable anymore, so it's getting time to start the process of identifying the next workhorse for me. (Yes, I am rough on a laptop and rely on it very heavily. Any testimonials of your laptop successes are more than welcome!) 

I have gotten rather irritated with Microsoft since Vista came out, and I really am reluctant to get a new PC laptop due to it shipping with Vista and all the exponentially increased hassle factor that will entail. Frankly, I don't have time to spend 30 minutes per product just to load the software and get it functional by jumping through all the hoops required now. I "get" that it's piracy protection, and I "get" the concept and am not trying to circumvent any copyright laws, but it really just feels like my time and purse are being taxed because of other people's lack of ethics. 

I have some friends who have moved to the Mac platform for their laptops, and they swear by them. All the IT gurus I know swear by Unix/Linux and open source development. But, then I get the cold water splashing in the face: the majority of my computer use is work related, and the majority of that work is done in FrameMaker, and FM seems viable only in PC world. 

Am I missing something, or is this really the trap it seems to be? If I'm going to continue working with clients whose environment, architecture, workflow, and staffing all revolve around FrameMaker, am I forced to concede to all the baggage that comes with the PC world? Or is there a viable way to use FrameMaker on a new Apple laptop/notebook/etc., or on a Linux laptop, seamlessly with FM files saved by and shared with FM PC users? I can't risk hosing anything in these single-sourced shared-file environments...!

Thanks in advance,

 
Rene L. Stephenson