London based design agency, Thirdperson, run by Tim Reed and Richard Newey were investigating making the move from Mac OS 9 to the now industry leading Unix based Mac OS X.

At MacExpo Tim and Richard came across the MacAssist stand and found answers to the questions they had been asking about making 'the jump to X.'

"We knew that we'd have to upgrade to X eventually and we didn't want to leave it until the last minute." said Tim. Richard voiced concerns about running programs like Quark Xpress in the Classic environment under OS X, but was pleased to learn that MacAssist were aware of the issues and their relative solutions.

"MacAssist didn't do the whole geek speak thing. They talked our language."

Convinced they had found a Mac support and consultancy company that really had hands on experience with OS X, Thirdperson asked MacAssist to help them upgrade to OS X at the beginning of 2003.

The first thing MacAssist did was to carry out an audit of their hardware and software to ascertain exactly what hardware and software they had installed.

With this information MacAssist were able to give a complete report on Thirdperson's readiness to move to X as well as the costs involved. Companies don't have to make the move to X right after the audit, but Thirdperson were keen to 'get the ball rolling' and so ordered the required new software along with a new 1GHz G4 tower. On February 13th and 14th the upgrade took place.

The upgrade went precisely as planned with no complications and very little disruption to Thirdpersons usual daily routines. Tim said he was "amazed" at just how smoothly the move to OS X had gone. He was back at his Mac with all his data unaffected, and now using OS X, in just two hours.

So it's been a while now, what do the guys think of OS X now they've had some time to get used to it?
"It looks beautiful, its fast, its reliable and actually a lot easier to get to grips with than I thought it would be. Everything in OS X is so well thought out and structured. You quickly begin to wonder how you ever managed in OS 9! " Comments Richard.

When asked what they didn't like, Tim said "In all seriousness. nothing. It's a stunning operating system that makes OS 9 look old and clunky. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending both OS X and MacAssist's OS X migration service to any who uses a Mac."

As well as moving them to OS X MacAssist also advised Thirdperson on better ways of working with their Macs and changing their setup to dramatically increase network performance.
"The previous company had left a 12 port 10/100 network hub which we weren't utilising, MacAssist reconfigured our network, provided wireless access to our laptops through an unused Airport base station, and configured the network to allow us to connect to our Macs in the office from home. I'm not kidding when I say that they revolutionised the way we use our Macs. I couldn't be more impressed."

MacAssist have already upgraded many companies to OS X. Our Move to X service is proving very popular indeed and our advice to companies who rely on their Macs is not to wait for key software like Quark Xpress to be updated before you move to X yourself. The switch can be made smoothly now, there really is no reason or advantage in delaying this crucial upgrade.

Why not take the first steps toward preparing for X by contacting MacAssist today and arranging a hardware and system audit so we can help you take full advantage of Mac OS X in the same way that Thirdperson creative communications have already.