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Recommend Apple, Lose Your Job?
rocketjam writes "While examining whether outsourcing tech work to India is really cost-effective, Robert X. Cringely takes a look at the old conspiracy theory that IT doesn't recommend Apple solutions because they need less support, thus endangering IT professionals' job security." Cringely argues: "Ideally, the IT department ought to recommend the best computer for the job, but more often than not, they recommend the best computer for the IT department's job."
This argument makes the assumption that IT is ever properly staffed in the first place. IT people almost universally want to lessen their workload so it falls more in line with their actual [underfunded] workload capacity!
I went absolutely nuts updating machines in my workplace for the MS Blaster worm. Take a look of one of my user's desktop for an example of why.
I have to say: updating these machines is a completely and utter waste of my time and skills but it definatly keeps me employed. My boss is so apathetic that he never wants to make changes. I've offered on several occasions of virus outbreaks in the company to switch everyone to mozilla mail so we'd stop getting those Lookout (Outlook) viruses. But no!
I swear if i ever own my own company, everyone will Linux dummy terminals or iMacs, etc -- something ease to remotely update and maintain.
- tristan
This is totally true. Take a look at small offices that don't have or can't afford an IT department and you'll see they normally use Macs. Why? Because if you have a company with 12 people running Macs you don't need an IT department. Look at Vice Magazine for an example of what I'm talking about. I'm moving into the realm of home business and you know I'll be making the switch. Then again, I'm in graphic arts and all the labs at my school are Mac labs.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
First, I think Cringely is great. I mean who else would let us buy video tape of them having a nervous breakdown?
However, I think he's *WAY* off base here as to why Linux is being adopted faster than Apple. If I need a 64-way Linux machine, I can get it. If I need a cluster I can get it (off the shelf). If I want some funky hardware bit, I can get that as well.
My reason for not choosing Apple is vendor lock-in. If I can keep something that allows me to pick and choose parts from a wide variety of sources, I can build solutions that fit the need.
The one place where he might have a point is on the desktop, but I don't see a lot of Linux migration on the desktop. It's still Windows. People want Office even though they hate it.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
Cringely's close, but off the mark.
1) Pricing: Mac's are significantly more money. And if you thought the Microsoft OS costs were bad, looks at Apple's. OS X launched in 2001, and, if you were a 10.0 buyer, while 10.1 was a free upgrade, 10.2 wasn't, and 10.3 is coming fast! And from the end user perspective, these have all been largely mandatory upgrades -- many apps now won't work unless you are running 10.2, for example.
2) Usability. While there are a lot of things that work smoothly under OS X, there are still some issues, ESPECIALLY with Windows interoperability -- and any company of size is going to have a significant overlap. So you'd have to train IT folks (or hire new ones), and still have some userland issues.
Another serious concern for IT has been how quickly Apple has outdated machines. Didn't we just see today that a number of machines aren't going to have proper functionality? Again, this is on fairly new machinery! Concerns have to be that Apple is quickly going to invalidate the G3 and G4 (over the next 24-30 months).
Those are my thoughts as a fairly PHB who started using OS X on a TiBook back in 2001.
Steve
Actually the reason why no software house will produce bug-free products is that, beyond trivial things that are provably correct, it's impossible.
first, i'd have to play with mac in non-critical settings to be familiar with the platform to form my own opinion and figure out the gotchas. now that's going to cost me around $1500. lotta money for playing around. (vs. $300-$400 for a system that'll run windows or linux etc.)
second, once i did bring up using macs instead of wintel for regular users. my boss scoffed at the idea. lesson here is: it's not up to me.
the reason i was successful with linux is i got the 'throwaway machines' after the office went thru a hardware upgrade. i then proceeded to wipe those machines clean, installed linux and has since been running file servers, print servers etc. so eventually i was able to convince buying hardware specifically for running linux. can't do that with a mac (start out with throw-away machines, that is) i even got a mosix cluster of older computers that they were ready to toss out.
so maybe there's more to the CLI than just pure nerd testosterone. evolutionary adoption? vs. the disruptive adoption that a mac would require.
I used to work for that same company .. but in a restaurant I have a similar story to that myself right down the road from where the company you used to work for is now, there lies a building of unspeakable evil wherein I worked with my current roomate for several years. The two of us did teh entire Mac phone in support for the nation within the first 90 days of sale and the paid support afterwards we had one mac to work off of between us and had to enter our calls in on the PCs. Well there were 2 of us and about 80 PC techs but here is the really interesting thing He and I averages 70-80 calls a day each the other side was lucky to handle 1/3 of that each. Nationally there were about the same number of trouble calls per machine ... but our calls to much less time.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
You ignore two factors that also go into TCO. One, how long can you use each box? Hardware quality aside, at what age would you retire a PC compared to a Mac? Two, for how much can you sell the old box?
I can't answer the first question for you, because that has to do with usage patterns. Many people do claim that a Mac stays usable longer than PCs.
The answer to the second question is clearer, though. Macs are worth a lot of money in the resale market, while PCs aren't. Browsing on eBay, I see a 400 MHz iMac receiving 18 bids at $325 right now. On the PC side, a 1 GHz Pentium III is at $102. Now, I'm not saying these two are equivalent computers. I'm saying you should factor that difference into the TCO.
But even if you totally omit the cost of hardware (not unreasonable, as it is maintenance that really costs), the XServe isn't any easier to maintain than Linux is. I find OSX to be much harder to work with, from an administration perspective.
It's a better DESKTOP than Linux (not a ton better, but better) -- but as a SERVER it's not as good. The hybrid OS it's running will run most open source stuff (thanks, fink guys!) but getting that stuff working is often a royal PITA, *harder* than it is on Linux.
And the marriage of the Mac's non-cap-sensitive filesystem with the fundamental case expectations of Unix is FAR from a match made in heaven. It is just awkward and annoying as hell.
OSX is really pretty, and I own a dual G4 tower myself. But I seriously question the constant adulation it gets here on Slashdot; I have often wondered if the place is being astroturfed. Yes, it's pretty; yes, it's Unix. Apparently their laptops are pretty sweet. But as a desktop, I see it as being competitive but hardly compelling. I don't think it's going to be any cheaper to maintain than a well-run network of XP machines. And as a server, it's a LOT harder to deal with. I assume part of that is the learning curve, but it's not an instant fit to most open-source stuff the way Linux is.
On top of that, I don't particularly trust it. From a security perspective, I'm not at all sure about the quality of the design. Consider: the nidump utility dumps out *encrypted passwords* to ANY user on the box, even 'nobody'. In other words, OSX doesn't even have the equivalent of shadow passwords! That is just so overwhelmingly boneheaded that I wouldn't trust it with my critical data. Sure, I could remove nidump, but it's not SUID or anything -- at some interface level, the box will happily spit out its encrypted password hashes to any user, and it's not like Joe Hacker is going to have a hard time ftping nidump back in. Their password hashes may be better than most (no idea), but even if they are, that doesn't excuse handing them out to just anyone. No matter how hard they are to crack, the advance of CPU power makes them constantly easier. This is just *so* stupid that I question the fundamental design; are they even thinking about security at Apple?
The only spot where I can see Apple being really compelling is in the Unix laptop space. If you want Unix on the road, Apple is far and away the best choice, probably years ahead of anything you can buy in the Intel space. But for the "normal OS" laptop market, I suspect that a Centrino Thinkpad will mostly run rings around a Powerbook; similar build quality, equivalently nice screen (though not in widescreen format, AFAIK), better battery life, much faster, and cheaper.
I generally like Cringely, but this week's column is just purely ignorant. He's making absolutely wild assertions on no evidence whatsoever. IT people are under incredible cost pressure; if Apple was really cheaper and better, they'd be switching in droves.
And don't even get me started on "12 people and a bunch of contractors would run IBM's network better".... for a network supporting THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND EMPLOYEES plus god knows how many customers, directly or indirectly, dependent on that network.
Words fail me.
Engineering!=CAD
I am an engineer. I've worked on many engineering studies over the past few years. I run a engineering company now. The number of times I've had to use a propriety CAD package I can count on my right hand.
Thanks to all of the open source packages out there, there are plenty of engineerng apps available for Mac OS X.
The Xserve only has one power supply... in a similar price range Compaqs and Dells come with redundent power supplies.
I realize this is a minor thing, but from the initial research we did at my company (a less then 100 person firm), we just didn't get the feeling that Apple really knew how to deal with the corporate market (e.g. redundency, dependability, interoperability, snapshots of drives, etc). More like they were counting on the 'cool' factor that makes them a good desktop machine, but not server.
Now on the flip side the group who designed thier RAID box does seem to understand...
Which is why Mac power users buy their favorite replacement mouse with multiple buttons and scroll wheels. If you can scrape together at least $15 to $30, you can buy a decent mouse.
Mac OS X has full support for multiple buttons (right mouse button works for contextual menus) and scroll wheels.
If you want to pop up a contextual menu without the right mouse button, you hold down the Control key and click with the mouse. Simple.
The better question is who sold you on that BS that it takes a smaller number of admins to maintain a Linux network?
I am one of two admins where I work and we have a network of about 15 Windows servers, 2 HP N-Class systems, 275+ desktops and all the associated network equipment. We have absolutely no problems handling everything. The important thing to know, however, is that the primary reason that there are even two of us is for redundancy. My employer is willing to pay for the peace of mind that comes from not having to call the admin back from vacation early because something happened. Someone is always onsite. Neither I nor my partner have had any problems maintaining the entire network with the other gone.
From the article:
Now, I think differently. Now, I think Macs threaten the livelihood of IT staffs. If you recommend purchasing a computer that requires only half the support of the machine it is replacing, aren't you putting your job in danger? Exactly.
Normally I agree with Cringely but this time I'm just going to have to call B.S.
I'm a sysadmin for a small bank (about 175 workstations spread out of 17 rural locations) and the reason our IT Staff here doesn't look at MAC (or linux for that matter) is that virtually none of the necessary banking software is put out for mac (or linux). And it's not like we're running some obscure banking core software... we're an ITI/Unisys mainframe shop.
Furthermore, no other sysadmin that I've ever talked to has had the attitude of "lets choose something that's difficult to use for job security"... that's just crap. Most of the IT shops I know are, if anything, understaffed and have plenty of job security because of it. We're not about to go looking for more work for ourselves... if anything it's just the opposite.
I use what the industry allows me to use, not what makes my job more secure...
- The auditors said to secure the server... hand me that duct-tape -
I would be surprised if a web site ran on an iMac because of their screens.. it takes up a bit of space for nothing in the server room. We used to run part of our website on 6 iMacs but we switched things around so the things that used to run on iMac now run on older G3/G4 towers and the iMacs are in the field. The towers are more easy to stack in a rack and have more CPU power per unit volume. Especially the dual processor macs.
That being said, I can think of no technical reasone you couldn't do the same with iMacs. Kidda a waste with that nice LCD, though.
However, among the about 20 people in my sub-department, there are three with an Apple laptop for home use. One was always a Mac fan, the other took a good look on what as on the market, and the third talked to a bunch of people (including me) which laptop would be the least hassle. We all said: You don't want to have to fool around? Go get an Apple. Note that I've been a Linux person for ten years know, but I like my friends and intend to keep them. Linux on the laptop sucks, not because of Linux, but becaue of the laptop makers.
Anyway, we now have a small but critical mass of people who are getting everybody else interested, and keep bugging our tech people if they can get their Macs linked up to the rest of the system so they can do work from home on a real computer (company policy seems to say "no"). Also, they flash their iBooks around as Apple users are wont to do, and yes, those things are seriously cool. The design makes other laptops look like they were designed in the Soviet Union.
Buy an Apple desktop machine? Hell, no. I can get a far better deal with off-the-shelf x86 parts and SuSE. Buy a laptop from Apple? Yes, I'd switch, and I think most people in our department would, too. But official use? I don't see the inertia being broken. There is truth in the statement that nobody ever got fired for using Microsoft.
Care to give a url of a nice iMac web server to slashdot, and we'll see what OS is superior?
:-)
Here you go, as requested, an iMac server. This one happens to be an older G3 iMac running OS X, so......Do your worst, but know that all IP's are logged.
This little iMac get about 30k hits/day and is rock solid. One of the best $600 I ever spent.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I had this case just today. I was talking to my Administrative Assistant friend, and he was just getting off the phone with IS with regard to the Blaster worm. Seems the auto-update thing didn't work for his computer. That turned out to be because he was running NT with service pack 4, and you need SP6 to be able to install the patch.
No biggie, right? But get this - IS's first recommendation was to upgrade to Windows2000. Why? Because "Windows 2000 already comes with SP6". Which is crap, they just meant that the Windows2000 that they would have installed would have already had the correct service pack needed to install the patch - but they still would have had to install the patch!
So, rather than upgrade a perfectly functional NT box (my friend only needs Outlook and Netscape, really) to SP6, they wanted to spend $250 to upgrade to 2000.
Which wouldn't be a big deal if we had money to burn, but we don't. And the best part is, we're a friggin' *nix company!
To all those who denegrate Apple.
Feel free to express your opinions about Sun, SGI, or any other System V Unix. Wait, let's throw in BeOS, OS/2, OS/2 Warp, xBSD, or GNU HURD. Oh, wait, you've never used those platforms? Oh, well I guess you are an expert then.
As for those that have used the current Mac platform and like to spew vitriol for it, whooptie freakin doo, you are apparently clueless enough not to be able to learn something _different_. It's called adapting, humans are supposed to be one of the best of breed in that realm, but it's not happening for you. I guess Darwin didn't think about you with his theory of evolution. Oh, wait, he did, it's called WEAK!
Yes, Apple has issues. The OS has some things that work really well, others that need work. I can say the same thing for Solaris, Windows, HURD, xBSD, and most definitely Linux. Got any other nuggets of wisdom to drop on us?
Crigley is meerly making a statement about things that he notices. He notices that there are companies using Macs successfully and asks the question, "Why can't other companies do the same and be successful? Maybe because they don't want to be."
You know why Apple has such poor support, or fewer applications, or any of the things that Windows or other platforms has that Apple does not? Because of a smaller user base, smaller funding, and smaller demand. It's that simple. If they had even double the userbase, they'd have twice as many applications, twice as many features, and maybe even quadruple the support options. The reason they suck is that they _are_ small. Deal with it. Sun, in all it's glory, is small. Everything is small compared to Microsoft. Linux is tiny. HURD doesn't even show up on the map.
Feel free to correct me with conjecture and commentary about how you _know_ Windows is better because the majority uses it. The majority thought the world was flat in 1400. Does that mean the majority was right? Oh. Sorry, you didn't pay attention in geography because you were too busy being cool. Well, in that case, feel free to walk off the edge of the world...
Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
The bottom line: Cost of PC: just hardware. Cost of Mac: hardware + software. You can't "share" a single user license between a PC and a Mac the same way you can share a single user license between two PCs. Macs look expensive at any place where people tend to cut corners with licensing. A new platform forces people to fork over the bucks for a valid license for the new computer.
I was working at a university a while back. I found myself in a PC dominated research group. One of my co-workers was talking about how he was going to replace his old Mac with a PC. I asked him why and he said that "there's no software for the Mac". I immediately shot back with all the standard answers--Office, many Adobe products, several scientific and engineering packages, etc.
His response was that purchasing Office and all the other software that he wanted would be too expensive; he would save a bundle of money by copying the software from the university.
This attitude isn't limited to the academic world. Many small businesses play fast and loose with software licensing, and the extra cost of buying legit Mac licenses drives up the cost.
I wonder if Microsoft is really shooting itself in the foot with Palladium.