X vs. Y

I came across the following link, and while it's on a pro-Apple site it makes a pretty good point about IT debates in general.

http://www.tuaw.com/2014/03/12/why-the-mac-vs-pc-marketshare-debate-is-outdated/

Most of my IT career has been spent supporting Apple products - let's say 18 or the past 20 years. I got tired of the Mac v. PC debate after, oh, year 2. After that it was more of a parlour game, till, say, year 6. After that - really, I have better things to do with my time that argue que es mas macho, Apple or Microsoft, Macintosh or Windows.

Most products have certain strengths and weaknesses; that's how they compete. There are certain things they have to be able to do - but how well, how interoperable they are, what sort of network effects they burnish - all competition. In my current role, I see this playing out against numerous requirements:

Lync v. Jabber
Jive v. Sharepoint
iOS v. Android
Mozy v. CrahsPlan
Cloud v. On-premise

Even outside IT, you'll find people arguing Ford v. Chevy, stick v. automatic, hybrids v. SUV maybe. Do we still even have SUVs?

Putting on my MBA hat, all we should care about is how much does it cost and what service am  getting out of it. Most large organizations have multiple platforms, and supporting them all raises costs. Yet, to drop a platform may mean shuttering a process or service that someone, somewhere, considers to be vital.