(FORTUNE Magazine) – Sure, the Apple Macintosh is a superior machine, but most businesspeople shouldn't buy one. So much important work gets done these days on dynamic networks of plugged-in PCs that corporate computing is becoming an exercise in togetherness. The technical difficulty of making all these machines collaborate enforces stricter conformity than most of us have experienced since high school. And the fact is that 90% of the desktop computers used in business are IBM-compatibles, not Macs. If you want to hang with all the other information wonks at your virtual corporation, you'll want a compatible just like everyone else's. As anyone who believes in market forces would surmise, IBM-type machines dominate for good economic reasons. Since Apple is the only company that supplies Macs, it has long been able to charge far more for computing power than can the fiercely competitive makers of compatibles. That is how Apple historically maintained gross profit margins of some 40% to 50%, while price- warrior PC vendors like Dell made do with 20% to 30%. Although Apple has noisily lowered prices on its most popular models, most recently in July, it still demands stiff premiums for the specialty items, such as big hard drives and color monitors, that business applications such as desktop publishing often require. That's one reason some companies have rejected Macs. Price is not the only economic issue. People use computers to run software, and much more software is available for compatibles than for Macs. That's because software companies, which need to amortize their substantial investments in product development, recognize that the IBM world offers the potential for substantially higher unit sales. Quark, a Denver maker of desktop-publishing software, is one of many companies that used to sell only Mac programs but are now defecting, developing new versions that run on compatibles. Unless Apple can reverse the trend, the most exciting new programs will be written for IBM-type machines, and Mac-heads will miss out. Don't be fooled by Macintosh ease-of-use claims: Although Macs are undeniably easier to master than compatibles, they are still about as ''intuitive'' as saxophones. I recently drummed my fingers for more than an hour while two colleagues using PowerBooks struggled -- and failed -- to print an ordinary file. ''We must be doing something wrong,'' one exclaimed. ''The icon is frowning!'' The value of Mac's much touted design advantages is fading fast. Chief among them is the elegant operating system software, which lets users control the machines by making choices from menus with a mouse. It's the perfect technology for a society that regards multiple-choice questions as education. But since Microsoft has finally worked the most conspicuous bugs out of Windows, IBM-compatibles have become nearly as easy to use as Macs. The PowerBook's conveniently placed trackball has been outclassed by the cute little pointing device embedded in the keyboard of IBM's ThinkPad. In my view, such design advantages as Mac still commands aren't important enough to justify the inconvenience of being outside the mainstream of computing. Then there's the question of obsolescence. Macs derive their brainpower from Motorola microprocessors. But Apple is rebuilding its product line around a new family of chips called PowerPC, the product of an IBM/Apple/Motorola joint venture. How well existing Mac software will work on the new machines remains to be seen. Major incompatibilities could force some Mac owners into a costly and hellish transition to new programs. Macs still make sense for loners: students, artists, homebodies, or anyone in a business employing fewer than a dozen or so people, where industrial- strength networking and access to the latest software isn't essential. Larger corporations, however, should buy Apple only for those specialized applications at which Macs excel, such as image processing, or for high- ranking computer illiterates who want PCs but will never master the network. Having said all this, I must admit that I'm not wild about Windows. That's why my PC runs IBM's OS/2. This operating system effortlessly handles standard DOS and Windows software, and offers users the same graphic doodads as Mac and Windows -- icons, point-and-click menus, the lot. It's generally faster than Windows and better at allowing several programs to run at once, and it rarely crashes. When an applications program does go down, OS/2 courteously saves all your data. To operate OS/2 satisfactorily, you'll need 40 megabytes of unused hard-drive space and at least 12 megabytes of memory -- but since OS/2 runs on IBM-compatibles, the extra hardware won't cost you an arm and a leg.

FOOTNOTE: You can reach Strat Sherman electronically via Compuserve at 76330,540.