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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."
And for years to come, you can always just add more RAM or upgrade the CPU(s) in the Linux box. "Upgrade time" for the Mac means buying a whole new X-Serve. Once the hardware for the Linux box becomes too impractical to upgrade, it's flexibility will allow you to use it in some other fashion, like a thrid tier firewall or as a database server for some small intranet need, or just the box that runs your help desk ticket system.
I thought this was obvious.
My friend is a teacher at Cleveland Schools. He reccommended to students that they get an Apple computer, because they give discounts to students, and inner city, and employees of the government. Some company sent a cease-and-decist letter to him.
..somebody in India starves because of lack of tech support calls.
Please. Think of the Indians. Buy PC.
So this is kind of like "Nobody ever lost their job for buying IBM"?
Nobody ever kept their job for buying Apple.
Has a nice ring to it, I can see it on the adverts now.
as I mentioned in a response to Bob.
It's an issue of comfort.
Everyone is comfortable with windows, even if they don't like it.
Many admins are comfortable with Linux/Unix. It's what has gotten the job done for years.
I have used lots of different operating systems, CPM/TRSDOS/OS-2/VMS/Unix/Windows but have
NEVER used a Mac, so I'm not comfortable recommending it. I expect it to be very different
from the CLI world I'm used to.
In order for me to get comfortable, I'd have to play with it. If MacOS ran on PC hardware,
I would consider setting up a partition to boot it, but that's not the case. It's expensive
to learn, and I have no incentive.
Robert
--- If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in Perl!
Anyone who buys into this 'conspiracy theory' has had their brain fried by the Apple reality distortion ray gun. Here are a couple reasons why the company I work for has never, and probably will never, consider Macs:
cost
Check gotapex? or techbargains and you'll see Dell P4's for $400-500 bucks. Seriously, what Mac can compare?
software
AutoCAD? GIS apps? Engineering apps? (Canvas doesn't count. Get real.)
Those hip, trendy commercials don't help either. I want a box to crunch numbers, not to make a fashion statement.
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!
Used to work as a contractor for a major pizza company that used to be in Kansas. They were an entire Macintosh place, had systems for about 700 - 1000 users I think it was.
Then a large soda company bought them and felt that 'they all needed to be the same' even though the Microsoft Offices the platforms ran worked together.
So, we went from the two of us supporting 700 - 1000 users to 18 people.
And the user populace was not happy. The standard rebuild time of a machine went from 'when they got new ones' to once a week. We had device driver issues, and SLAs of getting machines back up and running in two hours so we ended up just ghosting machines over and over to clear up whatever went wrong.
Weird.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I'm an applications admin. ClearCase and ClearQuest specifically. I also support a host of other engineering applications. Most of those apps were never and probably will never be ported to the Mac and I'm willing to bet that other engineering shops are in the same boat.
Sure, I figure that Macs might have a place in a business or accounting context but not for engineering. Anyone got a counter-example?
Blaze a trail to the New World
Every IT dept I've ever encountered was overburdened to start with. I can't imagine they would not want a break so they could attend to more important things than Windows crashes. Not only that, but the techs _hate_ dealing with this stuff.
Imagine how much money you could save your organization if you had the time to verify all backups and replace old, failure prone disk drives before they crash.
There is always more to do in IT.
sPh
I'm sure things have improved tremendously, but in the previous decade, Apple computers were a severe pain in the posterior to support in a large enviroment.
There's a lot of things about Appletalk that didn't scale well at all. I wasn't a member of the Mac support team, but oh, the stories I could tell... Oh, the hacks that were needed to get them onto the regular TCP/IP network...
If sysadmins aren't installing Macs now, maybe that's why. Maybe they are just afraid.
So how easy are they to integrate into a large network these days?
Self Interest is human nature. Are you REALLY going campaign for a product that will possibly help you meet your own economic demise?? Chances are no, especially if they clientel (sp?) are easily swayed and lack knowledge.
This is more trollish than insightful. The XServe is exatly like any other rackmountable machine. The only difference is it has a different type of CPU and can run OS X. Nothing's keeping you from upgrading anything in the XServe either.
Heck, it even runs Linux. The parent is simply spouting old anti-Apple rhetoric.
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
But if I was looking at the exact same comperable solutions, and I knew 1 would benefit the IT department vs. hurting the IT department's job security, I go with the one that is going to secure jobs to my hardworking co-workers (and I) ... The CEO makes more than all of us combined, We lost our coffee machine.. it's fair!
http://use.perl.org
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.
End tutorial. Should all be familiar from there.
Sort of facetious, but, well, not really. Try it. Take a half hour out of your time. If it's not that easy, well, then you now know you're making the right decisions instead of wondering "if".
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
- Macs are not that expensive. What you get with a Mac makes up for slightly higher prices. They give you what you need without having to tack on lots of "extras."
- Macs can do everything you need. We use a mixed environment transparently. There is nothing I cannot do with a Mac that I want to do, nor am I prevented from interacting with Windows boxes or Linux boxes. It just works. Transparently.
- Macs don't waste your time. Every security update from Microsoft means the Windows guys are running around updating. The Mac guys just sit there and keep working. The Windows guys keep updating their virus software. The Mac guys just sit there and keep working. And although some people report problems with Apple hardware, and I respect those opinions since any hardware can go wrong, our uptime has been great.
As for the Linux guys, heh, they love Linux and take care of their boxes without any questions or issues coming up. Patch needed? They do it on their own time. Uptime? Forever. Problems? Nil.In short, don't believe those who say that you can't do things with Macs, or it causes problems interacting on the network, or the usual FUD. Although I'm sure there are specific instances where problems might occur on the edges, my real-world experience has shown that the Mac and Linux boxes are the ones that just work in my company. Any problems we have are with the Windows side. I can well believe that you need more IT staff to keep the Windows boxes going. There is very little you need to do to keep the alternatives going, and they interact just fine.
So if you love Window boxes, good for you. But if you hear the FUD about Macs not working well with others, I'm here to tell you that it's just not so.
Hopefully this was a one time slip, and not representative of his overall performance:
A very good friend of mine (one of Microsoft's major customers at the time) recommended to Redmond precisely the e-mail safeguards that would have made this week's problem impossible.
Unless I'm mistaken, msblast (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't spread by e-mail. Is he confusing 'e-mail' with 'the Internet', or did he not do his homework.
I dont think the vast majority of tech support places do this. Ive been working in various industries as tech support and have always recommended what I thought was best for the customer, whatever I would recommend for my mother or would buy myself. To some, especially in the graphics industry I always recommend the macs, even if theyre using linux. For many others who wouldnt take the headache of linux configuration and smaller software base, I recommend windows 2000.
Some people in college where I worked as tech support did ask about buying a mac. I told them its very robust and they'll love its working, but they'll have issues with software and had better go with IBM or Dell. They took my advice. I similarly have a few Dells at home and no Mac yet.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
i think bob is missing something, until Mac OS Server 10.2 macs really weren't capable of doing everything a normal IT admin would need it to do. their AIX servers were great, but very un-mac like, their ASIP servers were great for serving Macs but nothing else. until OS X you couldn't run Apache on a mac server. this is the first time they've had a REAL serving OS.
sure, NOW an Xserve with OS X Server is price and performance competive and it's easier to maintain. but Apple has a decade of either lame performance, lame sever OS or too high pricing to erase from the minds of IT professionals. despite all of Apple's consumer "Mind Share" convincing an IT person to all of a sudden adopt a new product that used to suck isn't going to be easy.
that being said. OS X and an Xserve really is all that. people complaining that they're too expensive need to take a closer look.
Don't kid yourself. Technology choice is rarely, in any organisation, done for purely altruistic 'what's good for the company?' reasons.
Instead, the technology chosen is one of two choices:
1) What people are comfortable with. A lot of people want an easy, safe, predictable decision.
2) Resume fodder. What do the decision-makers want to add to their resumes? What's missing?
Analyse the average IT department's choices and one of those two is almost always the cause. Let's face it, most of us would also be guilty of these; picking what we're used to and what we think would be fun or useful to learn.
I think we all know that until a second button makes it onto the Mac mouse, they will never achieve corporate recognition. x86 platforms are up to 3 sometimes even 4(!) buttons. Forget the color, its the buttons that matter!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If this is in fact true, how would it be different than any other department? The Legal department recommending the strategy that best behooves the Legal department; the Marketing department making recommendations that behoove the Marketing department... It's made to sound like this is bad for IT departments to do when there might otherwise be no IT department. Why would an organization recommend their own demise?
You can apply it to entire industries as well. The Music industry making recommendations that behoove the Music industry; the Finance industry recommending things that benefit the Finance industry...
I think it's called 'enlightened self interest', or something like that.
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 person obviously sees only part of the bigger picture. Supporting the hardware/software is part of the total cost of ownership. If a company deems it a better deal to purchase PCs over cost of support issues, then they'll be picked. Not to mention, most users have a PC at home. Why burden them with learning a different platform at the office?
Bottom line, you can go buy a new PC motherboard, sound card, video card, etc for a few bucks. Replacing Apple parts are a bit more expensive and harder to come by.
If Apple had wanted a larger share of the office market, they should have been there to compete for it all these years. Nothing against them, but they focused almost entirely on the home user market and photoshop crowd for the past ten years, leaving PCs for the miscellanious work. You don't get your hardware stocked in offices by being innovative, you do it by being consistent and monopolistic.(
This isn't a blanket assumption that PCs are the better answer for all office situations, but those are the reasons none of my shops have been Apple shops.
Please don't get all zealoty and mod happy, just an honest opinion from an honest joe who's set up more office networks than most. My karma is still recovering from the last time I posted to a Mac thread.
Would consist of Linux servers and Macs used as terminals. Why? You get the best of both worlds, cheap, fast networking apps with Linux and almost no need to muck about with users' PCs. As a practical example, I set up (in a school) a Linux server running netatalk and Samba, plus around 30 old Macs (MacOS 7.6.2) that would otherwise have been thrown away. There were 15 brand-spanking new PCs running Win2K on the network as well - all the kids could use their files on either platform as we had both set up with Office, and the file servers sharing from the same directory. I spent at least 3 times as much time fixing PC problems than I did Mac problems.
Add to that the fact that OSX is Unix, and therefore can be locked down very tightly (nothing worse than lusers being able to play) as well as natively supporting most, if not all, common file-sharing methods - Appletalk, NFS, (shudder) SMB - makes it a very attractive proposition for people like me who don't enjoy having to hold the hands of lusers. Even if they are fit Janice from Accounts...
And yes, I'm typing this from my iBook, going through my Linux firewall/proxy/web/file/database server...
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.
Over 20 years ago I introduced the first personal computer to the organization, an Apple II. That was 1979. I started with Visicalc, the Data Factory, and a weird word processor called Zardax. Life was good. I added several more Apple II's for a couple of years. Ultimately, I stuck a CP/M card in the first Apple and used dBase II to automate payroll and accounts payable. Yeah, I had to move to III to get more than two tables, but the sucker ran for years. In fact, an Intel version STILL RUNS for another organization I gave it to. It's had a fifteen year run!
Then IBM came out. Apple competed with IBM head to head--same price. However, the clones came in under: $700 for an 8088. Then my mainframe vendor decided to do a backup system onto 5-1/4" floppies, and chose Intel. Then my service bureau changed from Hazeltine Modular One dumb terminals to an emulation package (3270, I think) -- based on Intel. The dye was cast. It was just a matter of time.
We didn't have much money, but the basic math was this: Buy two Intels or one Apple. My goal was to get a computer on the desk of every employee. I chose Intel for monetary reasons.
Now I have two PCs for every employee. Dell "sticks it to me" for $700 a PC with the O/S, a meg of RAM, and a ridiculously huge hard disk. But it's easy. I get office for $50 bucks a pop. The guys browse the web. They still telnet. They don't really need anything else. Maybe the Art Dept could use Macs, but I'll tell you what. They all run Pagemaker and Freehand, so what's the big deal?
Point: I started out a loyal Apple user. They had to work hard to get me to change to Intel. I resisted at first, but they finally won. I left, and neither I, nor my organization, will ever look back. It's really too bad. The quest for high margins and a bit of greed did Apple in, and THAT's why their market share ever dwindles. I'm really sorry, but I've gota business to run.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
A lot of low verbal scores on SATs around here.
/.'ers only see the brand of computer on their desk while it is packed up on a container ship along with the job they used to have.
This article was about outsourcing IT overseas and unnecessary cost layers. The conclusion was all about local talent using open source vs. proprietary tools being more efficient than outsourcing in general and particularly overseas -- a particularly strong argument to be made in the current economy. Obviously it is not just the CEOs and CIOs that cannot see the forest for the trees when even
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
Oh, bullshit. Unclick the "AppleTalk" button in the Network System Preference, then; no more AppleTalk. Now it's just talking tcp/ip, so no excuses.
So that's the case for OS X--and you can turn off AppleTalk in OS 9 also, one click. Since, I think 8.5 (about 5 years ago) it would then be able to talk tcp/ip as well.
You may have issues getting your Macs on the network, but AT ain't it.
--
$tar -xvf
Whatever the conventional wisdom or the Microsoft marketing message, Macs aren't dramatically more expensive to buy and on a Total Cost of Ownership basis they are probably cheaper.
Cool! Where are the numbers to support that? Probably isn't going to cut it.
Then a little later....
I am not claiming that every organization should throw out its PCs and replace them with Macs, but the numbers are pretty clear
You mean, those numbers that you didn't include? How are they clear? Once again, Probably isn't cutting it here.
Macs reduce IT head count while Linux probably increases IT head count, simple as that.
AS PROBABLY SIMPLE AS THAT!!
There's that probably word again! Ok, so it's obvious he's a Mac user. I'd probably take him a lot more seriously if there were a lot less probablies and a lot more proof and information. I'm PROBABLY going to stick with Linux for my IT needs for now.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Know the whole world knows! All of us IT types are really all sitting around in a room filled with exotic dancers, pool tables, video games, and food. We don't really do anything. And it all gets so boring that we go LOOKING for systems to give us more work to do!
In reality, 99% of the IT people that I know would practically sell their left arm to have systems which required less of their time.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I'm tired of hearing this. Last year I decided to try the Mac, with a 866MHz G4 Powerbook. Even with 768MB of RAM, the thing was sooo sloooow. I got to watch Chimera render web pages. Mac Mail was like molasses in January. Word couldn't keep up with my typing, and moving between cells in Excel was an exercise in patience.
I now have an IBM T40 (1.3GHz P-M, 512MB RAM) and this thing just smokes the Powerbook in everyday usage.
IT is like a priesthood. Only the priests understand the computers, so they have this absolute control over the decisions that upper managements makes. You think that the president has any clue what to do about IT? Hah.
So, yeah, IT people like Windows because it keeps them in a job. And Microsoft feeds right into this. Ever noticed how there's ALWAYS a workaround in Windows/Office/whatever? There's almost always some way to get the software to do what you want, even if it means hours of registry hacking or whatever. Microsoft probably makes sure that every bug in their database is resolved to at least "Workaround exists" status and then they ship it.
Linux is also happy for IT depts because it's infinitely configurable.
Apple, on the other hand, makes systems that are designed to NOT NEED ADMINSTRATORS. Thus, it follows that no system administrator will ever buy one.
THat's why apple doesn't have much chance of breaking into the corporate market, frankly.
simon
home page
I think regarding OS X it is too soon to call. From what I see it is a very nice OS and those boxes are sweet to (albeit more expensive). In my opinion you should give at least 3 years for any changes to happen. And again like with Linux those changes will happen from ground up. Offer any CIO right now the option to switch to OS X and he will tell you that you are nutts. And he will tell you a lot of reasons. And I bet that half of those reasons will be bogus. But this is how things are in the real world. If on another hand you will tell you your sysadmin that you would like to have Mac in your office (and if he is reasonable guy, which is almost always true ;) ) I don't think he will object as long as your boss is Ok with it.
In my opinion Apple still feels a backlash from the years of MacOS 7.x. Which was a dog. I know that for sure because at my graduate school for some reason a lot of people liked Macs and for some strange reason I became a "support guy". Those were the days when your Mac crashed several times a day. And that was also a time when major fallout happen on a sofware vendors side. A lot of companies droped their support for Macs.
Another "perception"/legacy problem that came from those days (and I think that might still affect IT guys) was that Mac OS for a guy with unix or Windows background looked like a debilitating mess. Those days Apple was clearly behind in design and features (just remember TCP/IP implementation) plus they always targeted "creative" people. So for those "creative" people to be able to manage thier computer Apple came up with set of "metahpors" that were, to say the least, very unnatural for IT guys. So you had system extentions, control panels, prefernces and God knows what else. Every other program you install always would add something in your system folder. Then you had to get a programm that would hunt down conflicts between those extentions. Then you had to install "crush" analyzer that would freez your box even more often. And so on ad nauseum. So if you follow the logic of the article Mac OS was suppposed to be IT's bread and butter. In reality IT guys were running away from it like from leper.
Personally I am not Mac fanatic. But I think Apple has a good chance with it's current line of software and hardware if they combine that with more aggressive pricing they'll do great.
- Back off man. I am a scientist
Is it me or is Cringely a bloomin idiot? He starts off talking about outsourcing then Apple, then back to India. He states that using more Macs in the office would decrease TCO without giving any numbers or any statements to back up that opinion. And it isn't even his opinion! He got the idea from a reader, no less!
Macs reduce IT head count while Linux probably increases IT head count, simple as that.
I didn't come up with this very smart idea, it came from a reader.
Whomever gave this guy a pulpit needs to be shot. This guy obviously uses a Mac.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
My company used all MicroCrash Windows machines and servers and everything. Then I sent out a memo recommending Linux for our workplace and, barring that, perhaps G4s with OSX (though I am not necessarily an Apple fan).
I promptly lost got a memo saying that I was fired. It was from some guy named Ballmer.
Jagoff.
Recommend apple, lose paradise!
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Hey, I used to work for a company where we had about 200 PC users and 30 Mac users. The Mac users were self-supporting (they had to be--the IT dept had no Mac support resources), yet I still found myself helping out down in the Mac area on occasion. For PC support, we had: Me. We had a help-desk, but most of the help desk was dedicated to supporting our in-house order-entry and order-fulfillment applications. We had a phone admin/sysadmin responsible for Novell, I helped out some on Novell and Unix, and we had Unix admin work being done by our programmers.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the ratio was one guy for 200 PCs to nobody for 30 Macs, the real support burden was on about 4 or 5 Mac users, and they were, to put it mildly, getting really pissed off at their Macs. Their Macs crashed a lot. This was in the days of Mac OS 7.x when Apple claimed that Copland would fix everything.
On the PC side, we were running some OS/2, some MS-DOS/WfWg 3.11, some DR-DOS and some Novell DOS. The Windows users suffered from typical Windows lousiness, but when NT 4.0 came into the company, the Mac users seriously considered switching to NT.
It never happened, for whatever reason, but that's how fed up the Mac users were at the time. Keep in mind that before Mac OS X brought NeXTStep/BSD goodness to the Mac world, Apple's Copland initiative would have only brought Macs to the level of Windows 95 (in terms of memory protection and pre-emptive multitasking).
Now that Macs have OS X, I'm willing to consider them, but good luck getting any of the apps I need to run on them.
And it goes like this for Apple:
Cringely just discovered the problem with outsourcing your IT competence. Someone pat that genius on the back.
Of course IT seeks to remain relevant, just like any other department. Most internal money is spent on make-work that just reminds everyone of everyone else's role. Hell, half the feature creep and spec shifting is just management's way of reminding everyone that the middle-managers exist. After all, their sole purpose is making life easier for the workers, but if they did that successfully, like security experts, they would appear completely redundant.
It's a wise CE/IO who keeps IT in-house, thereby tieing their livelihood to the success and well-being of the company. Outsourced IT is like paying a pharmacological company for drugs for a terminal patient. They'll help keep you alive to profit from your problems, but they won't want to make you better since then you might not need them.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
XServe might be nice but OS X Server is not. I've just spent the last few weeks upgrading OS X Server and migrating OS9 clients to OS X and it was pure hell. I could write an essay about all the troubles we experienced.
The OS X Server manual, first off, is pure crap. Information is missing and just crossreferences everywhere. But who needs a manual, right? The bundled server apps, like Workgroup Manager, is extremely buggy and crasches now and then. It also caused the entire Netinfo database to be corrupted. I had a backup of course, but it would load. I had the reinstall the entire server. Then halfway through we discovered undocumented missing feature. We wanted to use netboot without local disks as you can do fine on many unixes. OS X Server doesn't support this. You MUST use a local drive. And even nicer: once you have a working netboot disk image, there's no way you can upgrade it.
I think I'll stop here, there were many other strange bugs and missing features... finally got it to work after devious bootscript hacking and trial n errors.
I REALLY hope Apple makes a better job with Panther server. What they have now doesn't feel mac'ish at all. I love OS X (and apple generally), but OS X Server is really bad and can easily be replaced by Linux.
Ciryon
PS. Really tired, grammar nazis beat me.
Cost I'm willing to bet is more the case than some grand conspiracy by the IT world. Sure they cost less to support, and increase productivity, but when the initial outlay is more than a compatible x86 box, the people in charge of budgets start screaming. No one thinks about the saved cost in the future, it's all about now.
IE: Should I spend $3k (CND) to buy a swanky new apple powerbook (or more for a new g5?), or should I spend $1000 and upgrade my current x86 system to be a pretty kick ass gaming box, which can also act as a high powered linux server? Pretty easy choice if you see my bank account.
Sure in a year or so I'll want to upgrade again, or I'll have a MB or DIMM or hard drive go and will have to buy a new part, but that's ok. Because the cost is down the road, and therefor, doesn't exist.
Note: the last sentance was intended to be sarcasic or ironic, depending on your view.
Ten years ago, nothing beat appletalk from a user's prespective. Finding printers was easy and straight forward, as was finding servers. It was easy to share your work with others. And at the time, there was (and still really is no) equivilent in the Windows or Unix worlds.
/. users (preceived costs, lack of apps, unfamilarity, high cost of experiment, vendor lock, ...).
I've heard administrators horror stories of dealing with apple talk, but they don't seem to much worse than other horror stories. And even if they were the cause of a little more pain, isn't that the price of providing a good network solution to the users.
At my former company, when it was time to move away from appletalk, the network adminstrators jumped as fast as they could to replace it. But they didn't have horror stories of having to patch thousands of users computers, or bringing down entire networks as reasons for their JOY of seeing appletalk go away. Instead, it was that appletalk "slowed down the network".
So, we got a new network where we had to remember the IP address of any printer we wanted to use and any server we needed to access, and to share our work we had to tell everyone our IP address and hope that they wrote it down or you'd be telling them again, and again, and again... We went from a user centric network to a faster IT centric network.
Although I am a big Mac fan, I don't agree with Cringley on this issue. There are other reasons that Macs are being used in most businesses besides IT looking out for their own jobs. And most seem to be outlined here by
But whenever I think about the lose of AppleTalk, and now see it being blamed for Apple's shortcomings, I really wonder who IT thinks they work for. Always thought the user, but maybe not...
I am living proof of the Peter Principle
What hardware we "nerd ego" bound IT types buy IS LARGELY NOT UNDER OUR CONTROL. How many organizations do the IT types really hold the purchasing power? Damn few.
We have:
1) Demands of a certain app must run on a certain hardware
2) Prejuidices of management
3) Biases towards COTS hardware for repair and upgrade concerns.
There are lots of reasons Macs don't penetrate much into many companies. Same reason as you go into your average small widget-making business you will likely not see a Sun or HP server there. Because the customer wants small and cheap and "common" and the IT staff may be Bubba's nephew.
Macs have changed alot since 1984. Whenever I hear a PC user say Macs are slow, they are basing this on a comparison of their 2GHz PC at home and the crusty IIci in the school's Career Center. That IIci is 15 years old!
Macs aren't more expensive than PCs, UNLESS you want the absolute cheapest possible PC you can get. You won't get a Mac for $499.00. But you can get alot of Mac for $999 or even less. Mac laptops are often a couple hundred dollars less than comparable PC laptops. And Mac desktops and tower units are competitively priced. The only difference is that Apple doesn't make the ultra cheap, bottom line computers. Most people wouldn't be happy with a KMart special anyways (at least I wouldn't).
Macs have networked over TCP by default for 5 years. Macs have supported TCP/IP networking for over 10 years. The current Macs running OS X use standard Unix networking technologies. It's really easy to set up and configure, even on Wi-Fi. As a matter of fact, it's easier to set up than a PC for networking.
AppleTalk was great in the early days, easy to set up and all, but once networks went corporate, it's chattiness didn't make friends with IT. AppleTalk runs OVER TCP/IP now and it's not actively chatty. The old method still works (for printers and such), but that isn't passed by most routers or bridges anyways, limiting that traffic to the local network segment. I use Gimp-Print to print over TCP/IP on Wi-Fi since my WAP doesn't bridge AppleTalk. Works great.
Essentially what you get with Mac OS X is two operating systems. You can fire up Terminal and do all the Unix stuff, but you've also got a rich GUI there as well. Some things are easier to do in the GUI, and sometimes you want to reach for the power of some classic unix commands. Mac OS X lets you do both, without the clunkiness of X.
I'm a firm believer in using the right tool for the job and am devoutly multi-platform. I think every IT department should install a Mac in their office and use it. People fear the unknown, but what they know is less scary. Any good IT person should strive to learn as much about as many platforms as possible. It makes you more valuable. Anyone that knows only Windows is only limiting themselves in my book. Windows and Unix is better and Windows, Unix, Mac is even better.
It's stupid for companies to force Windows on people that use Macs and are productive. Let the accounting folks use PCs and let the Art Dept use their Macs. And the IT guys can use Linux boxes or whatever they want. The machines chosen should be whatever the people using them can be most productive with, not whatever is cheapest or whatever is most convenient for the IT guys. Use the right tool for each job and hire the appropriately skilled IT personnel to support that.
What do you expect from Cringely? He has basically missed almost every boat that's docked in his port. He was Apple employee #26 and he turned down the option to get stock options in the company. He wrote a column for years and then lost his identity to the company he worked for. The last two articles I read of his were equally ridiculous: one suggesting people put a wi-fi PC in their attic to hide mp3s from investigators, and another suggesting a goofball anti-spam technique where people pay to send/receive email.
Cringely, unfortunately, is the Latoya Jackson of the computer industry.
Bottom line, the reason I didn't recommend Macs at my job is because of the built-in infrastructure. We recently upgraded our old Novell 3.1 server to Windows 2000 SBS. I didn't want to risk upsetting anything or compatibility problems. It's been in place for less than a year, and it got hacked. We weren't even that far out of date on the patches. I'm beginning to wish that I had recommended an xServe. It wouldn't have been hacked, I know now from experience that it would do our file-sharing and proxy server stuff just fine, I'd have software that I enjoy working with (mySQL instead of SQL Server, PHP instead of ASP, etc), and I wouldn't have to walk back into the server room DAILY to look for patches (as I now have to do).
Honestly, the vast majority of the infrastructure stays the same. If I were to switch out this company, the only difference would be instead of buying new PC's, I'd buy new Macs. I wouldn't go through and scrap everything, nor would I have a reason to do so. For our purposes, Mac's play completely nicely with the Windows stuff, and an XServe can play completely nicely with windows clients. The only thing I'd be starting from scratch is my relationship with our reseller.
I havne't used a mac in years, but when someone asks what computer to buy I recomend a mac. For my own protection. I don't use windows, but I get many questions on Windows. I have no idea how to deal with a windows machine that is described over the phone as having given a dialog box that mentioned registery corruption. With a Mac I'm comfortable that I won't get a call like that. Those details are taken care of, so when something bad happens they can normally deal with the problem. (and it doesn't happen as often)
I couldn't imanging my grandpa on a windows machine, but he can work his mac just fine.
Printing to a Sharp AT-810 printer? Sorry, never had to do it, and I'll take your word that it cannot yet be done. I was only offering my experience and, clearly, YMDV. That's fine, it's the nature of anecdotal evidence.
Slightly higher prices? I only go by what we pay, and we mostly use laptops, and laptops are not as cheap as desktops no matter which platform.
Can't afford it because you are a student? I hear ya. You do ask for the student discount right? If so, and you still cannot afford it, there's not much I can say. You do what you can when you can.
Macs have automated updates that require rebooting? Horrors! Well of course Macs have that. However they are usually not emergencies, or in response to the latest worm or virus, they can be scheduled at your convenience, and no need to reboot at that time unless you want to. This ain't Windows! Macs just work when you want, how you want.
Your experience is different? That's cool. You made your post just as I made my post. We share experiences. All I wanted to do is to share my experience. Before I tried Macs, I thought I would have problems in a Windows environment. Once I tried it, I found I have no problems whatsoever. Nice for me. Just wanted to share. Thanks for all the feedback, good and bad.
To all those who insist on putting the price of a PC up against the price of a "comparable" Mac...
Let's get something out of the way right up front: a Mac is a Mac and a PC is a PC. Sure, that's obvious, but it surprises me how little it's acknowledged in these kinds of discussions. $1500 worth of PC hardware won't give you a Mac no matter what you put on it. The same goes the other way; Mac hardware and software will never get you a PC no matter what combination you use. In the end, a PC is still a PC and a Mac is still a Mac. Play with numbers all you want, it won't change a thing. Folks who want a Mac will not be happy with anything but a Mac, not even a comparably spec'd out PC, period. The reverse is just as true.
Comparing Apple computers to PCs is like comparing Palm devices to ring-binder planner systems (nothing should be implied by the order in which those items were listed, by the way). Both serve similar purposes, and there are folks who use each who would never think of ditching their choice for the other. So would it be safe to say that all Palm users should ditch their Palm devices for ring-binder planners purely on the basis of a price tag? I think not. Palm users love their expensive Palm devices and binder planner users love their slightly less expensive binders, and neither is going to be wrong for sticking to their preferences.
I find the whole Mac vs. PC debate silly for the reasons described above. I use both, although I prefer my Macs to my PCs. That's just me. My wife loves her PCs and despises my Macs. Life goes on.
>You can add memory, but at a higher price when compared to PC.
BS. Same memory--go to crucial or anyplace you want.
"Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible" -Jacob Bronowski
Why is this modded as informative? It's misleading at the very least.
First off, the XServe is already running at 1.33 GHz (single or dual processor), so what's the frelling point of putting a 1.2 GHz processor in there? The upgrade you cite is designed specifically to fit in one of the older-model G4 machines (running significantly slower than 1 GHz).
The price difference is not just the chip. The G4 upgrade is a daughter card with a processor and cache memory (including L3 cache on most G4 daughter cards, these days). If the card contains L3 cache, that's about a megabyte or more of expensive high-speed SRAM.
The Athlon XP 2100 is a stand-alone chip, which I might add still requires a heat sink. No L3 cache, though, and no daughter card, so of course it's going to be cheaper.
Technical professionals won't recommend Apple or linux because they recognize that the best tool for the job is one that employees understand.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
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 -
The numbers are out there if you take the time to look. I only have old ones, 'cause I don't do this stuff any more. But Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) used to do periodic TCO analyses of Windows vs. MacOS in Fortune 500 environments. IIRC the difference was about $5000/yr/desk for Windows, $2000/yr/desk for MacOS.
Mac user productivity was higher (the machines just worked, were easier to use with more consistent UI, and didn't go 'blue') but mainly support was much cheaper (less upkeep, much less helpdesk, much less reloading of OS, much less backend work on the server & network infrastructure to keep the workstations going.
I haven't kept up so I don't know if they still do the analysis. I was unable to find an old reference on their website, sorry. You'll just have to take my word, or look it up at ZDNet or something. But as several people here have noted, a typical large mac installation seems to require about 1/5 as many people as a large MS installation.
I personally know at least one consultant who shifted from Macs to Windows for exactly the reason Cringely stated. He found that his Windows clients needed him a lot more => he made more money, and was glad to do it.
In my one stint at a $n billion company they spent over $5 million in support, plus unknown lost time, dealing with one virus event (Nimda?). With about 20,000 PCs that works out to $250/pc just for the one event. If you add 2 hours of lost time per person (over 1/2 professionals), that's another $200 in loaded costs. They banned Outlook Express from the company after that incident.
I also note that a couple of years ago when some big virus/worm came round, all of the Big Five (or however many they are now) accounting firms used Unix servers except KPMG. KPMG was down - the entire company as I recall - for a couple of days, while the others continued operating with a few limps here and there. That probably cost almost as much in lost time as their entire hardware infrastructure's capital cost.
People tend to forget that a single onsite support visit of two hours will cost as much as the entire PC, and a single helpdesk call costs from $20-30 minimum, up to hundreds of $. (I used to worry about the cost of my time setting up open source software, but found that it took just as long, usually longer setting up Oracle & iPlanet.)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Okay, here goes:
The Apples I've had headaches with range from the humble LC III to the PPC 7200, through the forgettable iMac phase, and to the Mac G4.
In most cases on the earlier machines, I had to install OSX on the ones that would take it. That at least got around the horrible memory management (or lack thereof ) of MacOS9 that let one ill-behaved program (usually Finder) bring down the entire machine.
But of course OSX is far from perfect. As one example, a clean install of OSX 10.2 onto an iMac, resulted in an email client icon that, when clicked, would instantly lock the machine. Oh yes, that was before the internal CRT died, but luckily this was a very rare iMac that had an external VGA port.
And don't get me started on Appletalk (spits).
The 'Other Platforms' include Windows 2000 and Red Hat Linux. Linux requires the least maintanance, but I find myself spending more time on Linux servers, simply because there is so much more useful administration stuff you can do with them.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Having worked in a public school district, I'd say the answer to that is a big, fat "no". Admittedly, Windows tends to eat itself every so often, especially if people are adding and removing software, so it'll probably need a reinstall slightly sooner.
However, with all the voodoo that a Mac entails - magic types, blessing bits, PRAM/XPRAM, and all that, it's hardly uncommon for someone to end up with a Mac that's in perfect working order, other than it just doesn't want to boot, and the user doesn't have a clue what to do. People play around in the System Folder, adding unnecessary extensions, and end up with it in an unbootable state. The OS crashes inexplicably one too many times, and the filesystem starts acting weird, so you have to have third-party repair tools handy.
Also, dealing with Apple's service can be a nightmare, especially with their AppleCare parts ordering, and the billing, especially when they screw up your billing, and start claiming that you owe them money for parts that you shipped back to them. Or when you order, and the order for the part gets lost - with an online ordering system. Always fun. (The place I worked for was AppleCare certified, so they dealt directly with Apple for parts - on more than a few occasions, we wished there was someone else to deal with that headache.) I hope they finally fixed the AppleCare online ordering, because it was really bad.
The fact is, Mac, PC, Linux box, whatever - a computer is a complicated device. A lot can, and does, go wrong - especially when most of the people using them can turn them on, run a few apps, and that's about the extent of their skills. Whether it's an actual failure, or just someone screwing around with things till they finally broke something, things will get screwed up, and techs will be needed to make them work again. If you really think "Ooh, if we just buy Apple, this will never be a problem again!" you're just deluding yourself.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
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.
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.
I have to help a company that was running a bunch of workstations for graphics design. They were a design/pre-press outfit. OSX ran terrible and always had problems.. It crashed all the time... Even after rebuilding a machine you would have problems not too much later. You just had to push it. Let's not even talk about Mac fonts... Geez the old Mac's were worry free.. Now XP runs circles around OSX.. IMO! Maybe if you just play with the Mac it still holds it's own, but in a business environment like the one above, they are a real pain. Nice little hex dumps when an applications fails.. Come on apple... At least they didn't leave a stupid hole in the OS like the Windows and RPC... Support free they are not...
"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."
Kinda like McDonalds recommends their own food, EB Games pushes their special magazines and BestBuy recommend a warrenty/the items that give them the most profit and kickbacks.
I guess this is another one of those WELCOME TO CAPITALISM!!! WHERE YA BEEN!?!? moments...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Ok, I have tried to read as may of the moderately rated posts as possible. What I have found was (sorry about the length):
-Many of the negative comments are based on issues / biases that have been resolved for several years. (Pre Mac OS 10.2 at least, most pre Mac OS 10.1)
-There was a post that complained about the difficulty of using Mac OS 10.2 Server. I personally find it extremely easy to use and manage. Mac OS 10.3 Server is making advances on that including adding the ability to act as a primary domain controller thanks to the inclusion of Samba 3. For the poster that did not like the management apps they have been completely rewritten as well as being able to be managed via the command line. On the documentation side yes it is a little light. That too is supposed to change in 10.3 Server. For more information on 10.3 Server go to for information on the currently shipping 10.2 server Oh and one more thing. Mac OS 10.2 Server received Product of the year from NetworkMagazine.com () that has to be worth something right?
-Cost. While Linux and BSD systems cannot be beat for cost. The amount of dedicated support and liability that they have can be. Microsoft on the other hand can be beaten in the per user license realm. Both in desktop OS and server OS Apple's Macintosh licensing fees are reasonable and flexible. The general single user licenses are free with purchase of a machine and $129 standalone. Apple can be flexible on this with large or educational purchases. The server version of their OS is even better priced $499 for a 10-user license and $999 for and unlimited user license. They also provide a plethora (sorry you never get to use that word enough) of support options all reasonably priced.
-Reliability and Stability. The one thing I absolutely love about Mac OS X is the stability it offers. This is part due to the OS and part hardware. The key thing here is that Apple controls them both. I don't have to worry about the hardware I'm running being compatible with the OS and vice versa. Apple has already done that for me. The result uptime. Which at the end of the day is worth the extra dollar for me. For instance the PowerBook, which I am writing this on, has had uptimes on the order of 80 days (I just put it to sleep when traveling.) The only time I have to reboot is when an update requires it.
-Major OS releases. When Apple releases a new version of its OS for example the to-be-released before the end of the year Mac OS 10.3 and Mac OS 10.3 Server add several new features and improvements not just "bug fixes." And the nice thing about the releases is that Apple takes feedback about its products and if the demand is high enough put it into its next release () for the client version and () for server. I want to see that from a major commercial OS.
-Open Source. Mac OS X is built on open standards, and open source. You can download and tweak Darwin, upload changes. The same features that you get with all open source projects. The exception to this is the GUI interface. Most other commercial operating systems do not give you this ability. Also check out Fink a package manager (based on the Debian package manager) for ported open source projects.
-Security. Mac OS X abandoned telnet in favor of the more secure SSH in 10.1. Apple has a quick response time to up coming security threats and releases an update to fix them (). Apple provides easy and efficient methods of applying the updates via "Software Update". The OS ships in a secure fashion with all incoming ports closed. There is a good paper on securing Mac OS X available at () There are A/V solutions from all of the main companies (Symantec, Sophos, Virex.) Tripwire has been ported for host based IDS. You can run snort, nmap, nessus, etc.
-Expandability and performance. The Power Mac G5 can handle up to 8GB of Ram. Show me a desktop PC that can handle that much memory. The G5 processor has a half speed front side bus so the Dual 2Ghz has two 1Ghz FS
my xserves have never failed. redundancy doesn't mean shit if the product isn;t good to begin with. I got lucky with super micro and in fact the latest 2000 cpu cluster at my company is super micro too. but frankly the other copanies on paper were actually better.
the only reason I dont buy more apple xserves is that as long as I can get lucjy the linux boxes are cheaper. but if I had to pay anybody the same as an apple i'd rather have an apple since I know it will work. you can have your redundant power supplies.
the key if finding a good vendor and sticky with them.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How is pushing a button on a keyboard *and* the mouse at the same time "easier" than having a mouse with two buttons in the first place?
Apple aggressively marketed the one button mouse concept for years to promote their own unique slant on "easy to use" and then when world+dog discovers that the human hand has more than one finger, no one stops to ask what they were smoking.
What boils my cheese is how Apple gets away with a vacuous redefinition of the word easy.
Easy is one of the most complicated human criteria in human language. For a two year old, it is easy to go down stairs on your bum. That is how I always felt using a Mac.
When a teenager I discovered that stairs (on the way down) were mostly optional. I discovered that I could make it all the way to the bottom in a single bound, two steps from the top. Then one day my forehead sailed into the overhang, dropped me on my ass halfway down, with a concussion and a damaged tailbone. That's how I feel using older versions of Windows.
One Christmas morning I spent at my girlfriend's, she had an older house where the carpet was not glued onto the steps, but pinched down with metal rods at the nook of each step. The steps underneath were the old wooden style with the rounded projection. There were shiny patches from long years of use worn into the stiff carpet bubbles folded around the stair edges. I put my bare foot onto a shiny patch as slippery as a skating rink, then smashed my leading heal on every step all the way to the bottom. That's how I feel using Unix. Ten years later, that same heal still hurts in the shower.
One time I worked in an office building with highly depressurized stairwells. Because I still had my keys in my right hand, my pinky was folded outside the handle. I pulled hard to crack the airlock, the door swung open ballisticly (which I was prepared for), I was just to pull my hand free when hard steel door handle crushed the small knuckle of my pinky finger against a decorative rockface. What I didn't realized is that the decorative rockface stuck out six inches from the plane of the door hinges so it crushed my finger well before it finished swinging to 90 degrees. This left me with a mild, permanent disfiguration of that knuckle. I'm not sure what OS that represents, but both Windows NT and VMS spring to mind.
So here Apple comes along and proclaims that their stairwell is easier to use because there design has only one handrail, so you don't get confused about which handrail to grab, nothing can go wrong, and I'm supposed to feel impressed.
I think I could fill a 500 page book on stairwell design factors: step dimensions, surface materials, footwear, footsize, materials carried, overhead clearance, emergency lighting, evacuation, firefighting, bannisters and handrails.
At the end of the day the answer would be that different designs are better for different people, different tasks, different situations.
Not even a common stairwell has a one-size fits all solution.
One decision has made my life easier: never underestimate the complexity of the task you are facing. After beating myself senseless on dozens of different stairwell designs, that's the only kind of easy that still interests me.
I wonder when the last time was that this guy actually worked in a computer department? In the early 80s when departments were well staffed?
I'll ask my work tech admin if he's happy dealing with the fall out from Windows Viruses or if my boss is? I know what the answer is "we have better/more enjoyable things to do than patch windows".
There are more simple reasons why companies don't use macs.
There is a perception that you are 'bound' to Apple in terms of hardware, rather than the vendor independence afforded by Microsoft
There is less business software. We use a call centre package at work. Is there a Mac version? Nope. What about something like Coda? Nope.
You can't so easily get developers to write software for Macs. I know that's a vicious circle, but that's the way it is.
They are perceived as being "for graphic designers".
I'm sure many people just running Word and browsing the net can manage fine with a Mac. Personally, I'd rather stick with Microsoft or bank on Linux.
They know windows, most of them do atleast, and thats all they know...
At my old company we had about 10 mac's but there wheren't supported by IT, since they wanted courses first.
I also worked at the IT dep and i would look at them with my coworker, but we where the system programmers....not the support staff...
And ofcourse its true that MS creates lots of jobs with there windows, since it needs loads of support. I advice MAC's to my customers, since i own a mac, my girlfriend does and it works fine. And as an PC Repair Man we also have MAC jobs todo, since they have problems too, but most of the time you can really help automate these people instead of putting your time in support. Thats what IT should be about, automating things instead of supporting. Computers are like TV's you turn them on and they work, unless you buy crap.
Support usually costs a fixed amount per purchase or per year, and not per support call, so recommending a solution because it requires _more_ support would be shooting yourself in the foot
Having sold wintel to companies ranging from mom&pop to SBC, Coke and FedEx I think I'm qualified to point a few things out:
Software is god. Usually software requirements drive hardware requirements. Perception is more enterprise stuff runs on wintel. Reality: many enterprise apps are bad ports of stuff writen for other platforms. Also: vendors typically appear to charge a little less for their wintel software and make up the difference in gold and platinum support contracts that are just a part of the deal on their AS/400 or Unix versions.
Strategic IT Purchases are Political. With the exception of very small companies, IT platform decisions are not usually made by the CIO. The CIO and IT managers act as advisors as the CFO or Controller, CEO and other executives make a committee decision. The result is that decisions are made based on sizle, perception and consultant's advice more that anything. Believe me - you aren't hearing Gartner, Bearing Point, Accenture whispering "Buy Apple" in anyone's ear.
Most Wintel v. Apple (or Unix) decisions are about should we switch to Wintel. That's right. Most of the time it works like this: CEO and CFO tell IT to get rid of Apple (except for the marketing VP's staff) and Unix. The IT team has to then decide to 1) fight for keeping Unix and possibly loose job and 401K vesting or 2) Manage a glorious rollout project that will result in more $$$ at the next place.
Perception v. Reality is not in Apple or Linux favor in the board room. Right now, MS has done an amazing job of teaching their vendors to sell "low total cost of ownership (TCO)." TCO basically says when you buy take into account all the costs associated with the purchase over the life of the product. While reality is that Apple and Linux systems require lower headcount and generate less downtime, most TCO models assume that the IT department will remain the same size and require more educated errrr expensive people. They also don't factor in software upgrades.
Future Development is to be on wintel. Many companies claim that they are moving future development to Wintel for their package. Buyers see this as validation that the world is changing to their point of view.
Salesmanship. Disclaimer: there are some really smart, dedicated and professional salespeople in the Apple and Linux world. The brutal facts of reality are that most Apple and Linux reps are good geeks but not good salespeople. This statement does not apply to IBM.
-- $G
There are really only 5 CAD packages that matter. AutoCAD, ProEngineer, I*DEAS, CATIA and Unigraphics. There are lots of other packages out there, some pretty good, some not so good. But the 5 I mentioned above are the "standards" (for lack of a better term) that are used throughout industry. Those others that were mentioned (ArchiCAD, CADintosh, ..., MacSchema, PowerCADD, VectorWorks, etc) are not widely used and present potential compatibility headaches if you want to exchange electronic drawings with suppliers or customers.
Want to work with DaimlerChrysler? You need CATIA. Ford? I*DEAS. GM? Unigraphics. If you work in the aerospace industry, chances are very good that you will need CATIA. If you are doing 2D CAD, AutoCAD is the standard everywhere. If these CAD packages are not available on a mac, then the mac doesn't have any CAD packages that matter.
Believe me, I'd love to use a Mac for CAD work but it's simply not an option right now. Now that it is unix based, there is a prayer of seeing CATIA, I*DEAS, UG and ProE on a mac since they also have unix versions already. AutoCAD is unlikely to come to the Mac anytime soon I think. They're tied too closely to Windows and have no real reason to change that.
OS X is BSD based. You have most of the things you have in Linux, such as a Terminal with bash or tcsh (you can also drop the GUI altogether if you edit the startup file), where you can edit your scripts to your heart's content. A lot of stuff is different but available (ipfw instead of iptables, netinfo for users, groups, network config etc etc) and you should find your way around quickly.
I get irritated by so many people who used Macs back in the OS 6-9 days making authoritive statements about the OS of today. It seems similar to someone here making authoritive statements about Linux based on knowledge of setting up slackware in 1998, or of Windows based on experiences with Win95 or WinNT.
Time moves on, things change.
In my professional opinion, Cringley is full of it. I've been a unix sysadmin for the last ten years. I've run big shops and small ones, I've been a grunt and a manager. There is exactly one reason that Apple doesn't have MS's mindshare in industry: marketing. Period.
I have recommended Macs as desktop machines to all kinds of customers just about forever. Believe me, it won't put me out of a job. Configuration management, software distribution and system administration tasks that are not the end-user's reason for being employed will have to be taken care of by someone no matter what platform is used. No business wants to have its accountants, programmers, scientists, photographers, etc, etc, etc spending their time messing with their computers. There will always be a role for professional IT people.
My experience has been that when I argue in favor of Apple, the pointy-hairs essentially come back with all kinds of marketing rhetoric. MS wines and dines them. MS gives them slick presentations with lots of big numbers. MS gives them free stuff. MS whispers FUD in their ears. Apple does none of this, they just sell a better product. Apple doesn't give those slick presentations. They don't offer to help port your legacy code for free or to send legions of droids to the customer's site to hold their hands during the conversion. They do not fight Microsoft's mass-market juggernaught.
The only conspiracy is the one in Redmond. Technical IT people aren't stupid and they aren't gullable. Having better tools would mean being able to get more done, not less work to do. If everyone used Macs instead of Windows, productivity would improve, but so would demand. Users would expect to get more and higher quality work done. Demand for IT support wouldn't go away, by a longshot. Cringley: try actually working in an IT shop sometime.
I taught high school computer science last year in a 2-year-old Mac lab. We started with OS 9, but soon upgraded to OS X because OS 9 was so unstable.
OS X was stable, but never worked right for us, causing immense problems with its built-in menuing and security features for multiple users. (apparently implemented without using UNIX file permissions or groups or other seemingly obvious features, which would have seemed the obvious solution). Life would have been much better if we had an OS X server, but I ran stand-alone Win98 labs years ago, and found them much easier to manage (though admittedly less stable) than the Macs.
The lab was intermittently unusable for at least a quarter of the year as I waited for our support people to find ways to fix our problems, some of which they just couldn't figure out.
Our PC labs, on the other hand, had 80-90% uptime, with their greatest source of problems being physical network issues and physical issues of mice, keyboards, and cables being damaged by students.
Part of the issue was definitely the quality of our Mac support people, but after that experience, I don't want to deal with Macs, especially in an educational setting, ever again.
My own, admitedly limited experience says that a Mac really does need less support. We had about 50/50 macs & pcs at my educational publisher employer several years ago. We had four PC support specialists and one Mac guy (me) who also admined the groupwise, firewall, db, and web servers. The # of Mac tickets was REAL low, so my job was really interesting--80% server, 15% mac desktop, 5% firewall, vpn, etc.
What do you think we did? Went to 70/30 Windows to mac ratio, added two more people and eliminated Groupwise (a godsend if you've ever been stuck with any version of exchange) in favor of... Exchange. Ugly. Ugly Ugly. We were in the office for two straight days to implement the whole mess. My job became a nightmare of updating Windows security holes opened by Outlook and fighting the exchange server's constant memory leaks.
Predictably, the number of PC tickets went through the roof. So a bigger budget was needed for the IT department, more employees, more prestige for VP of IT as his head-count, budget, and value to the company went up. Just a cluster-fuck for users and support staff. I left a month later for a job supporting heavy duty hospital software and its database/EDI functions for a nice raise.
Who did what now?
I like reading Cringely, even if he's a bit whacky at times. At least he's a good kind of whacky. But this is the biggest load of paranoid crap I've seen in a long time. (Not counting some real tinfoil-hat ravings from other sources. Those are really in an entirely different league of whacky.)
I've worked at half a dozen shops in the past 15 years, from a huge mega-corp to a couple of dinky start-ups and various sizes in-between. In every case the IT department, if it existed at all, was overworked. They may want all-PC shops for various reasons, but it's not because of some vast protectiveness of their own jobs.
There are several reasons for wanting an all-PC shop. The first is that PC techs tend to be more readily available than anything more esoteric. This actually works out fairly well, because most office workers tend to equate "computer == Windows". So the office workers get Windows PCs and the IT staff hires a bunch of Windows monkeys to support them. The problem is that this creates two classes of techs, the Windows techs and the non-Windows techs. The non-Windows techs can generally service Windows machines, but not necessarily the other way around. There's a natural tendancy to buy equipment that most of your people know how to service.
Of course, there are actually some very talented IT people who honestly believe that Windows is the One True Way. I've worked with a number of them. They're not stupid or incompetent by any means. They know Windows inside and out and can force it to do darned near anything. These people may have dabbled with other OSs, but (not knowing them well) couldn't make them work as efficiently as they could make Windows work. This only reinforces the idea that Windows is superior for everything. Whenever a new system is needed, naturally they'll install a Windows system.
And even with all that, everywhere I've been has had one or two token Mac or Unix machines around. Even the staunchest PC supporters have to admit that there are a few niches better served by another OS. Generally these black-sheep machines are unsupported by the IT department simply because there's no one around who knows anything about them other than the people who use them every day.
There's no need to invoke conspiracy or paranoia to explain why other OSs aren't as popular. Face it, for the most part Windows is "good enough" for the job. Unless there's a killer app that demands something else, Windows is going to be the popular choice.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.