[Phormic]

Hey Judy,
I can sympathise with your concern. I'm a graphic designer who was putting off the switch to MacOS X for as long as possible. After the logic board on my old Mac nuked itself, I was forced to make the jump with my new equipment. My fears about the changeover were totally unnecessary. The new operating system requires little learning and the stability is wonderful. I also jumped to InDesign so I could say goodbye to classic and seemed to master that within a few days.
All in all, a really smooth transition. Come on in the water's fine!

[Zitta]

I think the switchover is eventually inevitable, but can be put off for a while. I just made the switch both a home and work and I am overall happy, but there are small hiccups. At home I was slowly upgrading hardware to make things run smoother.

[rdurham]

Although I was worried about going to OS X, I did the whole thing at one go. (On one computer) I ditched Quark (Yeaaa), went to InDesign and upgraded all of my Micromedia and Adobe apps and I can honestly say that would not go back to OS 9 for any reason. I never crash. I did the OS X beta thing with many others and that was not so great, but now I can honestly say that I have not crashed (now with three computers on OSX 10.2.6) since beta days.
I think it is the mind-set that we don't want to have to learn new OS's that makes so many people afraid of OS X. I still have one computer on OS 9 because the person using it is afraid to change, and that one crashes.
If your computer can run the latest apps and OS, I would switch because it is ineventable that sooner or later you will have to do the change anyway. It is scary at first because I felt like I had no control over the computer, but within two weeks I was as happy as a lark with warm weather.

[mavapa]

You have several issues. I can address only one, and that is how much better X is than the previous Mac OS. I had reservations about switching, but when I got a new TiBook I had to. I find going back to my old OS 9 desktop almost painful now. Using OS9 seems like working with one hand tied behind my back. It is similar enough to the old OS that I doubt you will have any problems getting used to it. It adds some interface capabilities that were sorely needed (and, I might add, available in Windows already). It is without doubt more stable. You can crash an app without crashing your system. I personally have never had a system crash in the five months I have been using OS X, but I cannot say it won't happen today. I think if you do switch, you should upgrade your system to the fastest availble. It's not that expensive any more.
Although some people still claim they prefer earlier versions of the Mac OS, I feel confident enough to predict that you will like it.

[surtur]

OS X is better than OS 9 because all the technology related to it is better, the hardware, the programs, drivers, printers, cameras, etc, it's all better. The question should be, does the technology that OS X brings to your business justify the switch now? Are you using older equipment like serial printers/scanners on a G3? Like another person pointed out, OS X is designed for the latest Apple hardware, not 5 year old G3s.
I not only get excited about OS X but all the new technology that it brings with it, over 1.4+Ghz Macs, the new FireWire, etc...

On another note, but somewhat related:
One of the "other" mags I have read over the years is InfoWorld. Tom Yager's recent column "Windows doesn't live here anymore" (titled "Windows Has Left The Building" in print) is a read...
http://www.infoworld...8OPcurve_1.html
The reason I bring this up is many Mac users do not have accesss to these kind of (trade) magazines so they do not see the acceptance of OS X in the computer community at large. Now if Apple should ever run on AMD or Intel then it will truely be a different ballgame!

[Buko]

You may want to look at InDesign2 its light years ahead of Quark and works in both OS9 and OSX. InDesign3 which will be OSX only may even be released before Quark 6.