Business on a Mac: Fodeo
Friday, December 5, 2008 at 11:27AM 
This is our first in a series of weekly posts looking at how Macs are being used in different types of businesses. It's not always easy, and sometimes it's downright challenging to use Macs for business. Other times, The Mac gives a distinct business advantage.
Countryside, Illinois - based Fodeo provides in-store and online dvd photo montage services. While we'll see in some of our future profiles that Mac integration isn't always headache-free, Fodeo is doing just fine. Here's a Q & A with Fodeo's Valarie Moody:
Give us an overview of your business:
Our business solves the question of what to do with digital photos when you have very little time or technical knowledge.
How do Macs fit in your workflow?
We use Macs for everything! (Well, except for our POS right now, but that will change). Our video editors use Final Cut Pro, our project coordinators use Photoshop on a Mac for retouching photos before editing or printing, our accounting person uses Quickbooks for Mac, and we will also be tracking our shipped items via a Mac when we switch our POS system to Lightspeed.
What percentage of your business uses Macs?
98%
Why do you use Macs?
Their friendly and reliable!
Would you recommend Apple to other retailers?
Definitely. We've had no issues with viruses or crashes in 4 years of business. Because of our retail set up, many of our customers are surprised to see so many macs. All of the macs are networked with the rest of our equipment, and we've never had a problem with any of the computers, which we can't say the same about the one PC we have.
What specific software do you use on your Macs?
We use Quickbooks software. I use my MacBook Pro as my lifeline. I use all of the Office products for planning and budgeting.
What's the biggest advantage to using Macs for you?
Speed and simplicity, which means less labor costs. Not to mention the more creative things you can do with Macs vs. unreliable PCs.
What's the biggest drawback/issue to using Macs for you?
It used to be the lack of good POS software, but now that's not an issue. The only other drawback is the unfriendliness of some websites dealing with Safari. But even that is barely an issue these days.
If you have a business running on Macs, let us know: feedback@thedigitallifestyle.tv