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."

Comments

Apples requiring less support?

[Trogre]

Sure, if you don't do anything with them.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the variety of Apple computers kept where I work cause proportionally far more trouble than other platforms.

A linux admins rant

[natet]

As stated in the subject, I am a linux admin. So take my comments with a grain of salt. I disagree with the IT Myth that it takes more people to manage a large number of Linux boxes than it does to manage a similar number of Windows boxes. That has never been my experience. I would guess that it is the opposite, but I don't have hard data to support that. If you manage your entire windows network with 2 IT people, you should be able to manage a similar Linux deployment with the same nubmer of staff. True, you may need to hire new people, since in my experience, Microsoft certified employees are often too inflexible to learn new technologies.

There is also the idea (and this could be true) that Linux admins cost more than Windows admins. Again, this hasn't been my experience. I certainly don't make six figs, or even close to that amount. Do I feel that I am underpaid? No. Judging by all the salary surveys that come out in my area, I am well within the average for my job description.

Finally, my aversion to the Mac has nothing to do with my desires for job security. Partly it has to do with a number of really bad experiences with them when I was doing support at the junior college I attended. Admittedly, I lack experience with os 10, My experiences were with os 8, but trying to troubleshoot network problems with the Mac interface was difficult at that time, due to the fact that some of the network settings were buried in one location, others were buried in an entirely separate location. I have also never gotten used to the corporate mantra "more is better." Even when spending someone else's money, I could never justify to myself the extra $600 - $1000 that purchasing a Mac would cost over a similarly powered PC. Robert X. Cringely might consider that an insignificant amount, but coming from my small town background, I never could.

Finally, I have never considered the mac interface to be beautiful or intuitive. Come on, dragging your floppy to the trash to eject it from the drive? I have always hated that context sensitive menu bar accross the top of the screen, the happy smiling icons staring back at me from the monitor, and the file system where if you wanted to get to something quickly, you had to put it on your desktop.

Anyway, I have ranted enough.