Slashdot Mirror
Enterprise CTO Switches to Mac OS X
louismg writes "BlueArc CTO Geoff Barrall, using a PC day in and day out, found things becoming progressively more difficult as they increased in complexity. After one final straw, he sought out an alternative, and switched to Mac OS X -- in a corporate environment. His column, titled 'Rethink Before You Reinstall' documents the challenges facing Mac OS X in enterprise, and how he has changed his views." We've not had a switcher/MS-bashing/Apple rules/etc. article in a little while, so here you are.
Ok, so the guy does nto have an issue with windows per se. He's "installed this particular OS many times over the years", which means that he's not using XP, that's a mistake there. if you use windows and its not at least 2k, preferably XP, you are asking for trouble. His problem is with Office, so what is his solution, to move to a Mac and use Office. Hmm...... Sounds like a paid advertisement to me. I own machines that run 98SE, 2k pro, 2k server, OSx, XP, linux, BSD and IRIX. The 98 machine is the weakest link and will soon go XP, but every other machine on MY networks is rock solid. My linux and IRIX boxes mount NFS volumes from each other and SMB volumes from the windows boxes, and my windows boxes mount SMB volumes from each other and NFS voles remotely as well. With a quick google search for NFS clients for windows, yours can to.
OSx is a fine OS, but its not the end all - be all. If Office is the problem use something else, like 602Suite or StarOffice or OpenOffice, but don't blame windows for it.
...if he'd switched over his entire company or consultancy. It's not news that you can "fit in" to (and even "stand out" from) a corporate PC IT environment, I did it for years at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Indeed, when I worked at AC -- an actively Mac-hostile environment that in 1998 was forcing its DTP people to give up their Macs -- I found everything worked BETTER for Macs (we could access printers and file servers far more easily and reliably than could PC users). None of this is new or OSX related (there are new buzzwords to be compliant with is all).
What really annoyed me then and continues to annoy me now is that people standardise on the wrong things: platforms instead of protocols. Indeed, often vendors instead of protocols. "You can buy any computer solution you want, as long as it's from Compaq." But, we can't use Macs because "that would lock us in to a single vendor".
I figure he probably knew enough to install Windows, which honestly a trained monkey could do nowadays, but not enough to try Linux - so he went with his other major alternative, a Mac. Though honestly, RH8 is probably easier to install than Windows XP. I mean, really. I figure the guy just really, really had a few grand to blow and really, really wanted an excuse to buy a Mac. ;)
Prepare to be burninated!
_Your_ problem may be that he's using a Microsoft product, but that's not what _his_ problem was.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Powerpoint pure and simple. Linux has absolutely nothing that works with Powerpoint simply and effectively. At least on a Mac he can use a current version of Office, or if he's really adventurous, he could use Keynote.
Also, by being on a Mac he has access to the most stable and feature rich graphics apps on the planet. (yes, I know all the same apps are available for Windows, but they tend to be flakier on that side of the fence.) Linux just doesn't cut the mustard yet when it comes to graphics.
Pooty tweet
As a systems admin who recently switched to Apple, I thought that this story might be worthy of forwarding to my boss. Unfortunately the article doesn't address anything of particular interest.
For technical people, the reasons we use our computers go beyond simply writing Word documents or opening Excel spreadsheets. The average clod in a company though doesn't care what their hardware is, what their operating system is, they just want to know that Office is there.
Therefore an article that simply talks about how Office works on a non-PC platform is nothing worth getting a boner over. If he'd spoken about Keynote, addresses the advantages of an open file format, spoken about how his company had developed software to write customized presentations based on info pulled live from their database or something - hooray. Perhaps he could have mentioned how easy it is to produce PDF versions of pretty much anything - which in this cross-platform era is a good thing since your document will look the same anywhere. I think my point is understood by this stage.
Me thinks that this whole article is a way to get people to his company's website.
I think it's great that somebody is keeping an open mind about another OS besides Windows. It took me months to get my company to let me use a Mac. Then again, I'm a graphic designer. You know, right tools for the job, and so on...I'm the only guy in a nationwide company of 45,000 employees who is on a Mac, and our IT people don't seem to have a problem with it. I do have to use Outlook in Classic for email, and that bites.
I'm glad this guy thought about OS X, but I'm not sure he really needs it. I'm glad he's trying it, but some of us Mac folk don't want EVERYONE to make the switch. If they did, OS X would no longer be the cool, esoteric, artsy operating system that it is.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
No problems with it in a corporate env. I use it daily.
__joel
Apple's high end is a bad deal, but their laptops and low-end stuff isn't too bad. Get an eMac or an iBook.
Is this guy trying to get Apple to notice him and include him in "CEO Switcher" ads?
If you're going to use a Mac, why use all Microsoft software on it? Heck, I don't even use MS Office on my Windows box!
And what's with the "blue screen" comments? Like most Slashdotters, I don't like Microsoft - but to suggest that Windows has problems with "blue screens" is, like, so 1999.
One other observation: Apple uses the "blue screen" thing as part of their FUD on Windows. But isn't it funny how most of their users are still using Mac OS 9.x, which is far less stable than WinXP?
Does anyone have the balls to stand up to Microsoft?
I didn't get the sense at all from the article that Mr. Barrall was afraid to stand up to Microsoft. I think it's more likely that he was just complaining graciously and trying to avoid being rancorous. That this kind of writing is exceedingly rare on Slashdot might make it harder to recognize.
And, actually, he does mention the problematic OS when he describes "using a popular Windows office suite."
One thing I really liked about this article was that, possibly for the first time out of the many switcher articles I recall, the writer doesn't confuse his ignorance of a platform's abilities with limitations of that platform's abilities.
I was shocked that he actually bothered to learn how to set up NFS on a mac without spending at least a paragraph or two whining about how long it took him, or that he had to download some 3rd party software if he wanted to configure it with a GUI. Most 'switchers' probably wouldn't have even figured it out before they wrote their article, and instead would have complained "macs can't do NFS", propagating FUD, just because they don't know how.
As for the rest, yes, it isn't really all that radical. For the most part he just uses the same Microsoft apps on a different platform. However if you look at it realistically, that's what alot of businesspeople have to do to get by.
Sure, he could have tried Keynote and/or OpenOffice, perhaps some time in the future he will. Berating him for using basically the same software package he's allways used isn't very realistic.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
I'm so tired of hearing that PC's are cheaper. THEY ARE! but who cares. You get what you pay for. Give me a break. You nerds afraid to pay a little more for a computer that you sit in front of for 14 hours per day. Who cares is a Mac is $1500 while a PC is $600. You buy one every year, spend the extra money and get something cool. You guys act like you have no money... live a little!!!
Is anyone else thinking that this guy could have had one of his IT people build a laptop/desktop with linux based stuff (free and open) for this? Without shelling out top dollar for an Apple laptop?
What do you think the fully loaded per hour cost of an IT guy is? How much time is he going to spend configuring a system that going to the CTO? That's hundreds of dollars. That besides the fact that Apple laptops aren't unreasonable expensive by Dell, Compaq... standards.
I think it's probably more along the lines of politesse - it's more polite to promote the good than insult the bad - a trend less than common here on Slashdot.
The point he's making isn't 'I Use OS X because other stuff sucks' (which also implies that OS X's only redeeming quality is that it's the least bad), it's 'Use OS X because OS X is good'. This 'positive' approach is much more 'journalistic', or 'dignified' - traits, again, not often found on slashdot.
I have the balls to stand up to Microsoft, but I'd rather focus on the good than the bad. Unfortunately, I can't find as much good to speak of as bad for most products nowadays. Macs seem to be the only exception I can find. Dommage.
--Dan
First off, Apple notebooks aren't much more expensive than PC notebooks, especially since most PC notebooks force you to buy the MS license anyway. In fact, Apple's high end notebooks are way cheaper than IBM/HP/Toshiba high end notebooks. Secondly, what makes you think his IT people know anything about linux, or that they have the time to do this? Third, just because the initial cost of linux is zero, doesn't mean it's free. It takes time to install/configure/learn/etc and often time is more valuable than money, especially for a CTO. Finally, KDE/GNOME and OpenOffice + Evolution are not even close to OSX and Office for X. If you put the KDE/GNOME laptop and the Apple laptop in front of a non-technical user and give them a month to play around with both, Apple would win hands down.
Actually that's been changing. Prices are dropping frequently across all Apple lines as the economy sags. They even released a single CPU PowerMac again to lower the price a bit. Most users would be happy with an iMac. The desktops are really intended for professionals who can afford it and also want to be able to upgrade it. You can't upgrade the video card or use a SCSI drive in an iMac.
I actually bought a PowerMac G4 Dual 1Ghz MDD a few months ago. Why would I want to spend that much? I had bought a PowerBookG4 550Mhz a few more months before it. I fell in love with the platform and I wanted a highend desktop with DVD burner and dual 17" flat screens. It's been an absolute joy! Worth every damn penny too! Plenty fast enough. In fact, I would say it feels faster than any PC I've used and I've used the top of the line Pentium and even a Dual AMD. Speed to me is not how fast the CPU clock runs or how quick a Window draws it's pixels but how fast I get my work done. Reliability and satisfaction are much more important then if it's a couple seconds faster!
The point is that his $2500 ThinkPad didn't work and his $2500 PowerBook does. It's not that he's enjoyed reliable Microsoft-based computing for years and suddenly something's gone wrong and he should just get a newer version of MS Windows. He mentions that he doesn't want to do that again. Your answer is "more Microsoft" and that's the answer he specificially didn't trust because they've failed him too many times.
The reason he's writing an article is obviously because he himself was somewhat surprised at how easy it was to do all the things he wanted to do with an Apple system. He just moved from DOS to Mac+UNIX almost overnight and it was easy and he is better off in every way. Even the Microsoft software is better on the Mac, and you can admin it, because it's not soup.
I've used MS Windows, Mac OS 9, and Mac OS X extensively, and the standards are just higher on the Mac. The software is backed up by the hardware guarantee. You get no guarantees at all with MS Windows so no wonder it doesn't work, and all your other software runs on that and is made less valuable.