Apple Polishing Mac OS X for Uncle Sam?

polarfleece writes "A report on Macteens that the latest build of Panther contains strong evidence that it is being customized for U.S. Government applications. I, for one, can't wait to see a whole lot of Apples being toted by gummint men (and women). Of course, do we REALLY want those gummint agents having access to the same technology we Apple users enjoy so much? On the other hand, to quote story author Clark Mueller, 'it just might be one of the more intelligent steps taken towards U.S. national defense.'"

Comments

Gummint Mac use

[nystagman]

For eight years I have had to battle tooth and nail to push my Mac purchases through, in contradiction of the VA's official approved platform BS. It's not impossible, merely ludicrously convoluted.

As I am a researcher, not an "information worker," (irony at its finest) my argument has always been that I know better what I need to do my job, than does some IT clown who wouldn't know scientific computing if it bit him on the ass. Yet EVERY computer-related purchase (right down to a cable or toner cartridge) must receive IT approval at some central location before it then takes weeks/months to actually GET purchased.

One thing that has helped is that I have completely segregated our laboratory network from the hospital network (which, by the way, for the longest time used unsecured WiFi until I showed them how easy it was to rummage around), thereby avoiding having to suffer through the mandated computer "training," which I can assure you is a complete waste of time, energy and money.

The IT guys here all know me, and are amused by me attempts to keep the lab Mac-based. I, on the other hand, am always amused by the nonstop labor on their part to keep the wintel stuff from falling apart. (Blaster, anyone?)

I hope that this offical addition of OS X to the supported list will make it easier for me to buy some G5s soon... Then I can pass some G4s down the line to the "Medical Media" (graphics) department, who were forced to switch from Macs several years ago. Not a popular decision. Not in the least.

Re:Gummint Mac use

[Anonymous Coward]

be careful how you word such requests. example (from a gov't organization):

my boss once ordered a "mac flatscreen". request denied: you don't need a flatscreen monitor.

the boss then ordered a "cinema display" (the same thing). response: here ya go! have a good day sir.

Re:Nice move

[IM6100]

Do the Bostisch Staplers, Canon photocopier, and 'HON' filing cabinets get old, too?

Geez.

It's just office equipment .

Great for enterprise use

[dschuetz]

I used to support a three-letter-agency (I still can't bring myself to say it out loud :) ), and we were 100% NeXTSTEP on the desktop.

It was fantastic -- trivial to administer, and every machine was configured such that absolutely no user-specific data or configuration information was stored on the local desktop. You could log in to your officemate's computer, another one down the hall, or clear across the country, and everything was exactly as if you were at your own desk (though cross-country use was a little slow at times). This is something I've never seen done with Windows.

It also made changing out hardware in case of failure a no-brainer -- grab a spare slab out of the closet on your way to the person's office, power down, swap units, power up, leave. 15 minutes, tops.

Just about all the users loved the system, too (imagine! Secretaries, using UNIX! :) ), but they all wanted Microsoft Office on it -- that was the main reason they finally dropped NeXT for Windows (well, that, plus NeXT pretty much closing up shop to remake apple).

Anyway, if the MacOS X boxes are anywhere near as reliable and easy to manage as NeXT was, then I'd really hope that Apple starts to push the enterprise angle stronger....

Re:embedded images?

[patman600]

The fact that they have every logo in there suggests to me that they will not have specialized builds, but just include them into the OS. If they were going to have specialized builds I would think that they would just have a specialized build for each division. Since they are just icons, and only take up a miniscule amount of space it seems easier to just have them in the commercial OS.

oh you americans

[BortQ]

Now that it's becoming uncool to buy microsoft because of their egregious security (even though they are an american company) it's good to see that the US gov is turning to another american company to throw their moneys at.

Not that I blame them. One of the jobs of government is to promote local businesses. The US would do well to develop many different competing computer platforms, rather then have all their eggs in one (shoddy) basket.

I'm also pleased that some other governments (germany, some asian ones) are trying to do the same. Perhaps we may have a range of interoperating platforms after all!

Re:Lockout?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

What I find interesting about this post is the assumption that there has to be a single vendor for anything. This mindset seems to me to be the product of the Microsoft era; I don't know how many comments I've seen, in many different contexts, of the "Well, replacing Microsoft with ___ would be just as bad." ("___" is usually Apple, although I've seen Sun and, lately, Red Hat.) In fact, of course, "Microsoft or ___" is a false dichotomy. Buyers -- especially government buyers, although I'd argue that large business acquisitions should follow this policy too -- should insist on interoperability standards which all vendors will follow, and then pick and choose systems that meet these standards, making a deliberate effort to avoid vendor lock-in and the "monoculture crop" security problems that inevitably follow. There's no good reason that a single organization can't have machines running Windows, OS X, Solaris, Linux, and God knows what else sitting side-by-side and working with each other, as long as buyers insist on it.

Seems unlikely to me - probably a demo build

[Angostura]

Yes, Seems an extraordinary decision to me, if this is right. I suspect that something is being mis-reported here. What does Apple do when the Department of Whatever becomes a customer, patch the general distribution of Mac OS X? That sounds sensible, and scalable - not.

Surely Apple would be much more lilely to create a separate 'Government Edition installer' that wouldlet the customer define a logo for the start-up screen and a message etc.

I suspect this build has some demo code in it, or that someone is pulling someone's leg.

Re:Lockout?

[fermion]

Actually, in my experience the only time one gets a 'single vendor' policy is if one uses MS. Even in the old days, Apple products inter-operated with other machines unless those machines were specifically designed to work only with PCs. And if they were, one found that they were obsolete much faster than general machines.

With OS x the choice becomes even greater. The Mac has entered the *nix community and represents choice for the user. Web boxes do not have to be running IIS with the accompanying license and month patches, but can be Apache boxes with reliable support contracts. For the data entry person, a x86 Linux box running thin net to the application and data. More secure that a full fledged Windows box in which the person has rapid access to all the data. For the superuser who needs more box, a Mac or even Sun Blade. Oracle or MySql would handle the database needs. Standardize on MS Office and StarOffice. Administration is the pretty much the same on all machines. The kernel is customizable, and shell commands can be added or subtracted as need.

Hell, you can even put in some windows machines for the apps that require it.

No MS is the definition of single source. Everyone else knows how to play together.

Re:Lockout?

[tres]

"Lock" is the key word here. If you look at the way that OS X is built, you see that Apple isn't trying to lock anything. They're pushing a hardware platform that can interoperate with your pre-existing legacy systems. They're doing it by using open standards and open source.

Really, I think you're mixing Apples and oranges. When you talk about a vendor lock in, it's where systems aren't interoperable with software or equipment from other vendors. If you want to use a BSD or Linux server on your network, OS X will work quite well with it. If you want to put a Windows server on your network, OS X will work quite well with that. It goes the same for our UNIX cousins. By utilizing open standards, Apple has made a system that doesn't lock you in to any vendor.

This is where Apple "gets it," and Microsoft never will. Using open source and open standards gives the users the choice, not the vendor. When the entire commodity of your company is based on "intellectual property," when there are no tangible items being traded for money, of course you're locked into protecting that property by locking other people out of it.

When you are providing a real good, i.e. computer hardware, you don't have all the restrictions that tie up a company like Microsoft, that tries to sell intangibles as if they were goods. As a hardware vendor, you want to provide people with the ability to integrate your systems into different environments. Making your system more extensible means that you will sell more.

I think this was a hard lesson for Apple to learn, it almost drove them out of business in the '90s, but it seems evident that Apple doesn't intend to lock anyone in or out.