Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X Gaining Ground In Corporate Environs
nonsuchworks writes "MacWorld quotes a Jupiter Research report on the increasing penetration of Mac OS X in the business world. From the article: 'The report found that in businesses with 250 employees or more, 17 percent of the employees were running Mac OS X on their desktop computer at work. In Businesses that had 10,000 or more employees, 21 percent of employees used Mac OS X on their desktop work computer.' Analyst Joe Wilcox adds, 'Companies that were considering Linux are now buying Mac OS X instead.'"
Wow, first comment! If MacOSX overtakes Linux, well, at least a platform that adopts some open standards will overtake Windows eventually. It's better than Windows/MS dominating the market place, and might force innovation. In the end, innovation benefits the end user....
"I'm surprised to see just how much Mac OS X has captured the interest of potential Linux switchers," said Wilcox. "Companies that were considering Linux are now buying Mac OS X instead."
Why? They run MS Office products without having to have an additional layer in between the OS and the software (i.e. Wine, VMWare, or any of the various other solutions).
The only thing that surprises me about this statement is that companies are willing to spend 2x as much on the hardware and the additional money on the OS. Yeah, in corporate environments it's probably not as big of a deal but when you are talking 25+ of 10k+ machines that's a lot of cash you could have saved by going w/cheaper hardware and a free OS.
But you told me One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense
Is it perhaps that in those businesses, 17% and 21% had people using Macs?
I'm a Mac user, and at my company we have about 10% Mac users.
I'm not saying it's impossible that TWENTY ONE PERCENT of the businesses out there exclusively use Macs... I think it's unlikely, and that the article is misrepresenting the data...
But then, I haven't read the Jupiter report.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I call shenanigans on this survey. I've worked educational and corporate IT, and Macs have NEVER been this prevalent. This article's suggesting that 1 in 5 business desktops are macs. Sales show this is more like 10x the real figure.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
"in businesses with 250 employees or more, 17 percent of the companies had one or more employees who were running Mac OS X on their desktop computer at work. In Businesses that had 10,000 or more employees, 21 percent of the companies had one or more employees who used Mac OS X on their desktop work computer."
That sounds more likely.
Most evil is done by good people, and not by accident, but deliberately; motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.
Why does the share of employees running Mac OS X increase as the company gets bigger?
And why shouldn't it ... it'll save millions of dollars wasted in cleaning spyware/worms from Windoze machines. Also the luser-friendliness of Mac means fewer calls to tech support.
out of 7000 users we have 3 Macs(in the graphics arts dept of course). If they polled who had a Mac at home the number would be significantly higher, I can count at least 10 people in my immediate area who use Macs at home(including me). You can't trust these reports.
This is just proof that there is a lack of knowledge among those in charge of IT these days. The IT department at a place that had products that ran on unix had XWindows and Motif on the unapproved software list. When I finally got through to them that those were part of most unix environments they finally moved it to the approved side. These are the same people who are gonna buy Macs.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
I am your run of the mill Mac enthusiast, but for 12 hours a day at work, it's Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 all the way.
They're workhorse OSes, they're quite reliable, and most of our internal tools require IE6 or Windows only patch-distribution systems. The investment in Windows-only software is immense. Our most critical system is from a defunct company and was just barely ported to win32. It's not going anywhere.
There is one G4 tower, and it is used to test our one Apple-compatible app. The rest of the time it is used for fullscreen music visualization at 80fps. Uptime: 400 days.
There really isn't anything wrong with Windows at work. It's just that nobody wants to go home to the same shitty experience.
This is why I got my first Macintosh, and shortly thereafter gave away my PCs.
The few data points they give us alone mean nothing. These percentages aren't exclusive, and don't tell us what percentage of machines at these businesses are using OS X. What if they marked "Yes" because they have one computer in the corner running it? It's too bad you have to be a paying subscriber to Jupiter Research to be able to view their actual data. Anyone have some more details? As it stands, this data is pretty useless and difficult to draw conclusions from.
I'm not surprised based on who reported it that the particular used in the article is all that was reported. Did the same survey also show that 99.9% of these businesses had some form of Windows running in house as well?
What?
I've been noticing the trend for enterprise acceptance for Macs for a while now. It started with some of the industry mags (not just MacWorld and Mac Addict) writing about Macs. Perhaps it was the introduction of XServe with its UNIX power, Mac ease of use, and cheaper licensing. Or maybe it was an offshoot of the move to Linux. Whatever the case, I've seen more and more actual stories in the different magazines that weren't simply bashing the Mac as in the days of old. Rather, the writers were talking about each new Mac OS release, the performance, etc.
I find it especially funny how it contrasts the "market share" numbers published. This is certainly higher than the 3-4% you commonly see. One could say "well these numbers are business numbers so they must have higher acceptance in the enterprise than for home users", which once again goes against everything we've been taught over the years. "If you want a home machine, a Mac is ok. But for business, you need a PC".
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Of course they are. Why? Because there are a lot of legacy applications that write closed format documents with versions for Mac and Windows, but not Linux. This means that if a company wants to get the benefits that Mac and Linux offer over Windows, it will either have to buy Mac, or find some way to port its library of legacy documents over to an open format.
There are certaintly ways to do this in many cases, but going the Mac route would probably be easier, and maybe even cheaper or at least as expensive if you take man hours into consideration. Plus you have a strong corporate label backing your Mac setup, which you don't necessarily have with Linux, and this is very important to people.
After all, this is from the people who've been telling us that that PowerPC processors are as fast as Intel chips for years now.
I hate to blow smoke up Steve Jobs arse, but even with all the little quirks you get "everything" in the os you could want. Unix, Graphics, usability.
Being able to run this OS on the most abundant and popular hardware* in the next year or so is going to really be awesome for OS X.
If I was a musician also I'd probably never leave the house.
My point is from top to bottom it has it all.
If you use nothing but windows or linux you really should get your hands on a used Mac or something and see what it is like when you own it.
I feel like a marketing dork, but ever since Amiga went the way of the dodo I've been wanting something to replace it.
OS X blows the doors off what Amiga wanted to be.
--------------- *Yes you will somehow be able to run OS X on your AMD/Intel PC. So stop blathering on about it.
I just converted my primary machine from Windows to Mac. I'd been using Macs again since 10.2, but with 10.4 it was finally good enough. No more virus worries, Word works if anything better on the Mac, you have all the benefits of Linux with none of the costs.
I'd tried Linux for the desktop so many times but it always was a very frustrating experience. OSX has some related problems. The fact is that SAMBA browsing of Windows networks isn't anywhere near as easy as using a Windows box. If I was on a Windows network where all the IP addresses were dynamic, I might think twice about a Mac or Linux. But once you get past the networking problems, the Mac simply is a better experience.
I wish Linux well. But configuration is simply too hard. It still feels like things are 90% done with that last 10% being too frustrating! I think many people won't mind. But for many people the effort just isn't worth it.
After publishing a questionable study about macs, Jupiter Research's exposure went up dramatically.
And when I have a few extra bucks to spend, I will buy myself one. But in a workplace unless I'm a graphic designer (and even then, the AMD PCs tend to render faster, ala Star Wars and Sin City), I don't think it's worth it for me in a corporate environment.
What does a corporate environment need? I mean, it's easy to throw numbers out like this, but a Mac cannot achieve a lot of what is needed in corporate environments. Linux on the other hand, can do that -- Red Hat and Novell's SUSE distros have enterprise tools that make managing servers, profiles, software, etc... relatively painless.
Unless Macs are being used as servers as well as desktops, I don't see them doing as good a job as Windows or Linux for their respective 'corporate' environments. I can be wrong of course, but then again.. I'm an MCSE. Go figure.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Protools is the audio editing tool that is considered the standard in the industry. Any company worth thier weight that even deals minutely in audio production will have a Macintosh, because Protools will run on a mac with a standard soundcard, while a PC user will have to either buy a $1,000 breakout box on a PC in order to run the $299 software (for a total of $1,299 WITHOUT the computer!) OR you'd have to buy a separate internal soundcard costing $200, plus a special version of protools that will ONLY run with that line of soundcards (for a total of $499, without the computer).
OR, you could buy protools and a mac for $1,299. Cost efficiency says the mac wins.
There is also a misconception that in order to run QUARK or Adobe's Creative Suite series of digital editing tools, you *NEED* a macintosh. This perception was destroyed with the NVIDIA line of Video cards, that are now the standard on all Macintosh PC's.
So what's the deal here? It's called misguided propaganda.
22% of those surveyed isn't alot considered that the businesses questioned - and where they're located - nor the NUMBER of business surveyed - were disclosed. So what kind of controlled study is this, or is it just the usual FIREFOX is better because those we surveyed say so argument, when it's obvious the user base is flooded with IE?
BROOKLYN
The INSEAD business school in France for example has outsourced their computer administration to some large company that ONLY supports Windows for example. This position is going to become less and less tenable as OSX users start growing and asking for their OS to be supported too. In order to reduce the work load of the support company and avoid having to deal with the subtleties of every OS they will, in the end be forced to work with standards: ie ldap, WEB-DAV, imap, correct html, etc... Once that is in the door for linux and Open Solaris users will be comfortably open.
Why will OSX users be better able to change support organisations? Because these users will probably have a lot more political clout, and certainly won't be the kind of users to be happy with some clever perl hack around a stupid administration. Also it will be difficult for support organisations to argue that OSX is more difficult to support, as all my experience points to the contrary.
I have, in my relatively short career, worked for numerous large corporations (5000+ employees, Bell and Southern Company for example) and have only known the print shop and the marketing department to use Macs. I cannot think of one instance of someone using a Mac on a day-to-day basis. What could possibly be the benefit of OS X as a desktop computer?
Mod me down if I'm wrong but this has been my experience.
/. spaztech
That it doesnt matter who's the best, or the worst, but as long corporations feel that they have someone to blame when something goes wrong.
They want an alternative, but when one stares them in the face, they still choose something that while nice, (and yes, I lust for a 15" powerbook, too) will require you to repurchase every single bit of functional software you have, to make it useful. And most of the things that someone would use a mac for, are not cheap applications, photoshop, office, illustrator, etc. easily another grand invested in software for an already way expensive platform.
But it still comes down to having someone to blame. Same reason just about every linux distro is pretty much created equal (insert flame war here) save for the package mgt tools, what do most companies that want to 'get on this linux thing' end up doing? Buying RedHat, every single time. Why? because if something goes wrong, they've got someone to sue.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
Why do I automatically think "Windows" when I read a phrase like "increasing penetration in the business world...?"
Here all along I thought one of the main reasons for using Linux was its availability for the low low price of FREE! This along with the fact that it doesn't require closed hardware supplied only by a single vendor. Boy was I wrong.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Being able to run MS Office and other business software (too many to even try to mention) helps in making Macs acceptable in the corporate environment. It also doesnt hurt that is far more secure and stable than Windows. Industrial design of Macs are big plus too seeming image is very important in any business. The thing is though migrating to Macs should be done by those who are ready for the switch. Imposing a change of computing environment to people who're barely grasping Windows or too scared of advances may not work out.
Or at least the report of the report.
On the face of it, if that large a percentage were using Macs, Apple would have shown tremendous market share gains in its past several quarterly announcements, and its share would now be somewhere in the neighborhood of HP/Compaq. (The ~33% gain of this last announcement was Apple's own year over year--terrific, and I'm glad I own stock--but not against the industry as a whole.)
I agree with an earlier post, that the percentages must be the amount of businesses that have at least one Mac, not the percentage of employees using Macs.
But most of all, I haven't had to spend $129 a year keeping it updated.
Overall I don't like Microsoft, but there are things I don't like about Apple either -- usually different things.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Just thought I would add: 100 computers on my network, two of which are Macs (graphic design and music recording).
MacWorld quotes a Jupiter Research report on the increasing penetration of Mac OS X in the business world.
But seeing as we're talking about the Mac, it was backdoor penetration.
I read that a bit differently. As I first read it, it seemed to say that in a given individual business, there were this percentage of Mac users, with the rest presumably being PC users. Not that the stated percentage of businesses were exclusively Mac.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
We have a small (60 people) shop and allow our users to chose their platforms and applications. About 6 people have OSX and maybe 2 have Linux (for desktop). The others have various Windows iterations. A couple have switched over to OpenOffice. When allowed to chose and given enough information, users sometimes gravitate to non-MS solutions.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Does anyone have an idea when the macMinis are coming out with x86 chips..
i'm just wondering how they cool those puppies..
/me peeks under desk /me peeks in boardroom /me peeks in pr department /me peeks in noc
Hmmm...for a company of 12,000, I sure wish I knew where they hid all these Macs! Seriously though, I wish this were the case, and perhaps it is...somewhere, but I haven't seen it in the last 4 places I've worked (I'm a contrator).
Anyone with more sightings? Are they replacing desktops (/me hopes) or are the Xserves going to take off? (/me doubtful)
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
Dell Precision M70 1.6GHz/80Gig/256Mb/15.4" lcd $2,400 + (Tax everywhere)
Apple G4 1.5GHz/80Gig/512Mb/15.2" lcd $2,000 + (tax in california only)
I wonder how many of these are in the creative/graphics department though.
I have to admit that I love the terminal program on OSX. The computer lab I use has 100 windows PCs and 8 Macs, which are never used, and not having to stand in line is the reason I started using the Mac away from home. It's amazing how much work I can get done comfortably because Mac OSX comes with SSH and GNU Screen already installed. I'm almost tempted to buy a Mac, but there is just too much useful software that works in GNU/Linux w/o a compatibility layer, that I would definitely miss.
Nothing will rile up a bunch of linux users like a mention of Microsoft and Windows. But nothing riles up Windows users like mentioning Apple.
Linux still has a long way to go in usability polishing, but it's getting there. As a recent Ubuntu convert myself I keep running into situations where I miss the polish pro of XP. Another year or so, and I think we'll be closer.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
You're right about blowing smoke. Your OSX next year is only going to run on Apple Intel hardware. You're not going to be buying cheap boxen from Dell for it.
But on the upside, you'll be able to run Windows Longhorn on your shiney new Apple-Intel tower -- if it ever ships, that is.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I haven't really done any carrer-related jobs, but I've worked at a financial institution, and all computers I've seen there were what the company gave the employees (I think they are all Citrix workstations now, but anyways). Are that many businesses really that flexible letting you choose your computer? I would think most wouldn't be due to compatability problems and needing IT people for "the other platform", even if the software you used was on multiple platforms.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Gary Canterbury, the director of technology for the eighth largest school district in Ohio, which runs 4,400 Macs and 400 Wintel boxes.
"The TOC (total operating cost) for the Wintel machines amounts to $253.86 per year, every year until it is retired," Canterbury told Sellers. "The Macs run us $53.25 per year. Quite a difference and one our board and parents heard loud and clear."
Lynda Nichol, director of technology for cross-platform Shawnee Public Schools in Shawnee, OK, is also cited saying: "The cost of maintaining the PCs is one-third more than maintaining the Macs."
Mr. Sellers quotes Dean F. Sutherland of the Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science department saying that their "desperately overloaded facilities staff" includes only one Mac expert who is currently cross-training in Windows support the University's approximately 500 Macs don't have enough problems to keep him busy full time. "Overall, the Macs are the lowest maintenance, most trouble free machines in the department," affirmed Sutherland
"When you have a network full of Macs that's running smoothly, and users who are getting their jobs done, how do you point out that standardization has more to do with your work than your hardware?"
http://138.202.192.14/~trembath/smon/tco.html
What would have made more sense would have been to wait for the Apple-Intel boxes, and then be able to run both operating systems as needed on the same hardware. This is not the moment I would be inventing in PPC-based Macs, much as I love the chip.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Not Linux, BSD (actually, a variant). BSD is actually Unix, whereas Linux is "Unix-like." Mind you, this distinction is only important to lawyers and zealots.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
what are the odds?
The only thing I am missing with Powerbooks is a decent dockingsolution beyond bookendz.
Something with good OS integration, plus maybe a PCI(e) slot and space for a good 3D grafikcard.
Qualitywise I would opt for somethin like a thinkpad dock.
It is not possible to use technology to solve social problems
" ... non-trivial amount of futzing to just get the god damn file and printer sharing working."
Yeah ... right. Click a couple graphical check boxes. That SURE is a lot of futzing. And that is to share YOUR machine via CIFS on a network. NOTHING has to be done ... OUT OF THE BOX to access Windows shares.
When was the last time you used a Mac (if ever)? Go away troll.
Do yourself a favor and see a therapist about your anger problem.
But I would love to switch our regular desktop users over to OSX, especially remote users. We could get rid of that totally cruddy and barely functional POS that is is Checkpoint, and switch to the simpler and easier-to-understand SSL tunnels. Once you see the beauty that is timed startups & shutdowns + radmind, you'd never want to go back to Windows...
As for linux... Yeah, linux is fun and all, but it ain't ready for regular people. I'd much sooner roll out a BSD than linux -- and this is why I ditched linux myself -- I am sick and tired of dealing with dependency hell. Even my 'easy' Gentoo box sucked days of my life from me...
Let's see if I understand your point.
Windows comes included with my Dell/HP/IBM/Gateway/other new system. OSX comes included with your Apple new system.
I upgrade to XP Pro. Apple systems cost more to start with. It's about a wash the first year, and I don't get another $129 hit each successive year for the latest, greatest, faster, more complete OSX.
And as far as speed goes, Apple on Intel appears to be corked anyway. It was recently revealed that OSX for PPC is compiled with the optimize-for-size option. With falling memory prices, next year Apple can release an Intel version optimized for speed on a system with double the standard memory for the same price, and then use that to claim that they made the right choice going to Intel hardware because look how much faster it runs. What a crock!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
My work environment is typical: Exchange server for email, MS Office for spreadsheets and word processing, etc. Guess what? I'm happy as a clam. Mail.app can connect to the Exchange server, Entourage handles the calendar (and mail, but I prefer Mail.app), Office for OS X works just fine and is completely seemless when exchanging documents with people on Windows, and I can connect to and mount any share on the network. I can, in short, do everything I want or need.
And I'm running OS X, not Windows, and that in and of itself is worth a lot.
There is only one application we use (our source control software, which somewhat ironically is written in Java) that does not run on OS X, and whenever I need that I just Remote Desktop in to my PC and do what I need.
Unless Macs are being used as servers as well as desktops, I don't see them doing as good a job as Windows or Linux for their respective 'corporate' environments.
I can tell you from personal (and daily!) experience that this isn't the case. Macs work quite well even in an almost exclusively Windows environment.
lol noob
Can I safely translate your comments to: Apple, it just doesn't works.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Bought an iBook in Jan.
At work we are centralizing everything on MS terminal services server.
I am fully capable of using a VPN to get on the work network then using a remote desktop to access our application servers or the work PC I was issued.
Several times I developed docs in Open Office, converted to a MS format and distributed to other users, no problem.
I think we are closer than ever to moving people away from a PC pardign to a 'use whatever' paradigm.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The Jupiter report is not accessible, but it's either worthless or being grossly misquoted by Macworld. 1 in 5?! Where are those Fortune 500 companies that have announced rollouts of Macs as replacements for their IBM and Dell Wintel machines?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
but there is just too much useful software that works in GNU/Linux w/o a compatibility layer
I don't understand what you're talking about here, you don't need to run UNIX apps in any Linux compatibility mode. They run natively on OS X, because it is UNIX under the hood. I've never had to load up a "compatibility layer" to run UNIX software on my Mac.
Firstly, I don't mean to imply that my OS is better than yours, or vice versa (unless you're running windows, then yeah, I do), so please don't mod me a troll. ;).
I currently switched to Mac from windows, because I like it better. From performance to overall ease of use.
I administer a WAN of five private practice physical therapy clinics consisting of about 15 clients + server. Currently we use Intergy Medical Manager as our medrec/billing software, which ONLY runs on windows and is client-server. It's not a bad program, but is very limited for our environment (especially costwise). The server I built for it, has been running win2k steady for almost a year now without fail or problems.
However, the costs associated with paying Intergy for licensing, upgrading, and training really add up. Now, add on top of that, time and trouble from those pesky client pcs(windows xp) and adding other workstations. Costs start adding up when you have to scrap legacy hardware to run the latest OS to keep up with the latest upgrade. We all know the drill.
Linux would be a GREAT solution to these kinds of problems for us, but my bosses are committed to this expensive investment of hardware and software . What comes to mind when I try to see it from their perspective is "you get what you pay for, no way am I taking a risk and flushing this invest ment down the drain, for something FREE." Would you risk your business on it? I certainly wouldn't. I think maybe in larger environments bean counters are starting to see more costs coming in supporting windows, bandwidth, etc. and encouraging the tech staff to find a solution. The solution being linux or unix. Well, in my mind, I can't see a PHB betting their job on "free" so will pay for an alternative, that they may feel is similar to windows (don't outcast me mac guys) and something they have to pay for gives them security, name recognition(it's a psych thing I know), and just plain works. Especially since Mac is making a name for itself as being "virus proof" in mainstream media. Linux too, but once again, it's "free, and you get what you pay for." Sure Mac systems aren't terribly cheap when placed against the PC market, but I think the savings becomes apparent when the hardware dosen't have to be upgraded as often, especially if all you're doing is running a thin client or web browser.
I look forward to tossing all the windows machines out the door once I upgrade our systems again in another year or two.
The WorldVista software something that I'm now seriously looking into to help make the switch.
Networking Macs, I discovered is terribly easy, and just as easy to secure and lock down.
Now, I've just taken and made a longer lasting and more secure investment and saved a TON of money. From Hardware on up. The best part is, the investment in our server gets paid off as it's lifetime is increased using linux (hey, if they don't need to work on it, they don't need to know
(email me if you'd like to know why they'd accept a free medrec/billing program and not OS).
I'm not in a large enterprise environment, only because of lack of employees. I'd guess that appart from the cubicals and numbers, things are about the same everywhere.
It takes a non-trivial amount of futzing to just get the god damn file and printer sharing working.
Huh? Macs support Windows file and print servers, you don't need to set up AFS or LPD servers if you don't want to.
I would have to say then that your web applications are sincerely broken. And I would say exactly the same thing if you had told me that they only ran on any other single browser.
Web applications should be standards compliant -- not browser compliant!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It takes a non-trivial amount of futzing to just get the god damn file and printer sharing working. There's no centralized management.
Strange, I just plugged one in, and network printer just showed up. I added the samba server to my shortcuts and haven't had any problems. Mail.app even works fine with the exchange server and meeting requests etc. show up in ical. The Windows only centralized password management does not work, but I don't use it for anything anyway and I've used LDAP other places and it worked just fine for centralized management of Windows/Linux/*BSDs/macs.
I guess the real question is... are you just ignorant or a troll?
For the record, when I started at this company macs were about 10% of the desktops/laptops. Now they are about 60%. We're obviously not indicative of the market as a whole, but macs are certainly taking over certain niches (like network security).
You should definitely publish your results in J. Anecdotal Evidence.
What is a year of your sanity worth?
It just seems to me that if you're frustrated with your current piece of equipment, is it really worth it to keep being that frustrated for another year? Why not get a new PPC-based Mac, get a few years of use out of it, and then upgrade at that time to a stable 2nd-gen (or later) Intel-based Mac?
However, my XP Box is now my new Amiga. It's only good for playing games. Real work gets done on the Mac now.
It says that in businesses with >250 employees, 17% of the employees used macs. So if the business did have 250 employees, 42 of them would be using macs (17% of 250). Likewise for the 21% figure.
It doesn't say that 17% of all the companies who were polled exclusively use macs, at least that's not how I read it...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Does this mean if Microsoft charged you $10,000 per desktop for Windows Next, that it would be the best operating system around?
I doubt it, and so do you. But that's exactly what you just said.
but I think the savings becomes apparent when the hardware dosen't have to be upgraded as often
Oh here we're talking about saving money now. So which is it?
And while we're on the subject of hardware not needing to be upgraded, what about Apple's entire platform shift to Intel starting next year. That hardly promises a long and happy life for your PPC based Macs.
I guess I just find your logic fuzzy, at best.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
To be fair, add up the costs of 95 + 2000 + XP + Longhorn and compare to $129+129+129+129.
Who comes out on top now?
Ever tried to share a printer connected to a Mac with Windows machines? Ever had to reboot to make your network shares re-appear? Ever had problems copying files to Windows file share due to unsupported characters and resource forks? Apple has A LOT of work to do there before they can say they've nailed the interop story.
Also, once Apple starts shipping Intel boxes, a lot more black hats will have opportunity to come up with creative ways to fuck up macs. Right now every security update closes gaping holes that would be totally exploited if more hackers had Macs. Just wait and see now.
I may upgrade to Tiger on my own desktop, a friend of mine keeps telling me how cool Spotlight is, but so far Panther has handled everything I've thrown at at, and I've only upgraded to Panther to run some Apple software that requires it... everything else runs on Jaguar.
... $130 (Retail) ... $50 (macsales.com) ... $180
... $180 (Pricegrabber.com) ... $50 (Retail) ... $20 (Retail) ... $20 (Retail) ... $270
You can buy Panther from resellers for $50 now. So if you (as I did) installed Jaguar in early 2003, your upgrade cost would be $50... which as it happens is about the same as the antivirus software I have to buy regularly to keep up my A/V updates.
OS X Jaguar
OS X Panther upgrade
Total
Windows 2000 Pro
Norton Antivirus
LiveUpdate
LiveUpdate
Total
Actually, I've found cheaper copies of Panther since.
Anyway the time I need to upgrade to Tiger, it'll be $50. Of course, by then I'll probably have had to upgrade to XP (doesn't that look like a "poison" emoticon?).
Yes, Mac OS X will only be supported on their MacTel machines. Mac OS X would probably use some sort of detection technique in order to determine whether or not the computer that OS X is running on is an "Apple Certified(TM) Machine" or not. However, there is nothing (except for possibly the DMCA) stopping some wizards from trying to trick Mac OS X into thinking that it is running on an "Apple Certified(TM) Machine," where inactuality it is really running on a $299 blue-light special Dell. They might not get any help from Apple, and not all of their hardware will work, but I'm pretty sure people will be running Mac OS X 10.5 on their Dell boxen within the next two years.
I, for one, would love to be able to run Mac OS X on a cheap x86 box. You'll have a very easy to use operating system, with very easy to use software, on a very cheap machine. Unfortuately, I don't think that Apple will ever sell a port of Mac OS X to plain vanilla x86 PCs, because it will definately cannibalize their MacTel sales.
So what you're saying is that you're happy Microsoft doesn't release major updates to its OS any more often than every 3-5 years?
Remember, the decimal upgrades in OS X are not a patches; those are major releases adding new functionality each time.
I don't get another $129 hit each successive year for the latest, greatest, faster, more complete OSX.
Stick with Jaguar.
It's still better than XP.
It was recently revealed that OSX for PPC is compiled with the optimize-for-size option.
And the problem with this is what? You'd rather they unroll loops and blow out the cache more often?
Does this mean if Microsoft charged you $10,000 per desktop for Windows Next, that it would be the best operating system around?
I'd sure hope so, that's a lot of money, or I'd be really stupid.
Oh here we're talking about saving money now. So which is it?
Saving money over time.
And while we're on the subject of hardware not needing to be upgraded, what about Apple's entire platform shift to Intel starting next year. That hardly promises a long and happy life for your PPC based Macs.
Maybe I'm way too slow, but I haven't read anything to say that they are going to abandon 2005 or earlier macs running Gx CPUs, so if/when they switch to x86, is going to be "how much is the OS Going to cost me, will it run on these older x86 boxes as well as on my G4 (it is only 1.67 ghz, those are 2ghz min...)" The investment in mac hardware is a cost savings over time, in that I could let that computer run 5 years in an office environment nearly trouble free, and people will say, "that was a good investment." If I saw a windows box operate the same way, after software updates etc.. I'd say "wow, you're lucky."
If an x86 version of OS X comes out, that would be a savings in manhours supporting/cleaning/administering windows. Not only that, but from apple's track record, their software updates tend to make things FASTER.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see managment entrusting their business to free. I like linux and am not trying to slam it, but I agree with most folks, that it's not ready for primetime like OS X is, especially compared to windows.
I guess your shortsightedness is why things seemed fuzzy.
By the way Windows XP pro (Upgrade)$200 released 20 months after 2000 (about the same as current OSX updates)
of course Windows Vista (hehehe) was scheduled for about the same amount of time(2004)...or are you saying Windows is better because they will miss there ship date by TWO YEARS. (hmmm wasn't 98 originally scheduled for 96 also)
Everytime you mention Amiga in a Mac discussion, God kills a kitten.
Please think of the kittens!
most of our internal tools require IE6 or Windows only patch-distribution systems.
It's an Own Goal! Scooooooooooore!
The games.
Why do I have PC hardware and use Linux? It's because it gets the hand-me-downs from my gaming rig. The gaming rig runs Windows of course -- not a lot of choice available to me there now is there?
I could try linux and cedega (and I did) but it's too much a performance hit for my tastes, not that stable, and doesn't free me from x86 anyhow.
I could not play the games I want to play... Not really useful either.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
So, wait because Microsoft waits five years in order to stop supporting it versus Apple's two years you're going to use Windows? Okay, it's your perogative, but you might want to consider that the $129 is for a new OS (such as Win2k - WinXP) including lots of new features and isn't an upgrade. Apple should extend it's support further back, I agree, but the $129 isn't a service pack, it contains a lot more changes than SP2 did. I'm amazed at how many smart people don't understand Apple's choice of version numbering.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
A lot of developers use ActiveX controls and thereby lock their web apps into Windows. I'm not talking about just in-house development, but major software vendors (business intelligence, ERP). Microsoft is brilliant in their lock-in strategies and developers keep taking the bait. My CIO would love to introduce Mac desktops for some users, but the Web apps are the snag.
Microsoft Entourage is not the answer.
There is a 3rd party tool that can allow this, but it does not work with Tiger and will not until at least the end of the summer.
Currently I have to RDC into an old, dying Windows box to get to Exchange using Outlook. Not the best solution, but it works.
If this overall deficiency is solved, natively from the OS would be best, then most business users would be able to do what they needed to using a $500-$700 Mac Mini or $1500 iMac.
For those with a heavy reliance on Exchange: In theory the ability to run Windows/Outlook on an Intel Mac and be able to run a virtual instance at real-time is very appealing. The problem again comes down to cost. If you have to buy a Windows OS and MS Office (assuming you can't re-use an existing license), then it doesn't make sense to switch.
I'm sure this will be labelled as trolling, but the illiterate person who submitted this item is apparently unaware that "environs" is not the same thing as "environment." "Environs" is the area surrounding something. So apparently Mac OS X is hanging out somewhere near corporations, perhaps in the parking lots.
"Environs"
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
This is like saying North Korea is about to overtake China.
To be sure, someone somewhere will find a way to do it, but... it might not be worth it. Remember, Apple is working closely with Intel, the king of Trusted(sic) Computing. We might be talking something on the order of a hardware hack, which might make your $299 Dell more like $499, at which point why not buy an Apple. Not to mention driver issues ( if you have to buy an nVidia card for that Dell because you can't use the on-board video, same deal, the price just went up ).
Then again, maybe Apple won't care as much as we think, on the theory that pirated copies of their software will only make you want the Real Thing somewhere down the road. It isn't certain that running OS X on $299 Dells will be easy to do any time soon, though... I wouldn't get your hopes up too much.
I'd love to turn my four-year-old PC into an OS X box, myself, but I'm going to have to content myself with running Linux on it, I'm afraid...
Apple is fairly friendly to open source, and the fact that it's based OSX on Darwin and shared cool technologies like launchd, not to mention collaborated reasonably well on KHTML especially lately, means good things.
Here's another interesting thing to consider: when Mac comes to Intel, hardware makers will be much more likely to release good drivers that Darwin will be able to make use of, and thouggh it can't be guaranteed that all of them will be open, they'll still be a plus for breaking away from Windows.
I'm quite hopeful that this will be all a very good thing.
OSX is the perfect replacement for Windows for companies that can afford it, but Linux desktops are definitely the future for developing nations' IT departments.
... well, about everyone has seen the writing on the wall, there (especially if the future is in clusters) ... 'nuff said.
... hope you enjoyed it.
In the U.S. and Western Europe, however, I don't think *desktop* Linux has a chance against OSX, especially if Apple decides to work with Dell or the like for some sort of business commodity PC unit. The Apple move to Intel is definitely a foreshadowing of this.
Apple knows the time is ripe to either attack Microsoft or wait to get struck back.
Now, Linux in the server room
This post had no real logical flow
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
The Latitudes are the regular business systems. The closest to your G4 example in all specs but price and CPU: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=d810sapp&s=bsd
$1270 15.4", P-M 1.73GHz, 512MB, 80GB, 3 year warranty, etc.
If your example was an iBook, then the cheaper Inspirons are a more direct comparison.
Really, it depends on the hardware you've got at your disposal, as much as anything else.
EG. Even if you own an older "vintage" mac, like a PowerMac 7300 or 7600 series, or one of the original "beige G3 towers" - you can use Linux to breathe some new life into it. You *could* force OS X onto one of these too, using xpostfacto, in most cases - but then you'd be running an OS designed for a system much more powerful than the one you're running it on, instead of an OS typically used by people with that type of hardware.
In the case of WinTel PC owners, you're not going to get OS X to run on one of those right now, and definitely not in a legal manner (even if Apple is going to Intel CPUs in upcoming Macs). So despite being an OS X fan, you still might have to step over to Linux to find anything remotely comparable that works on the equipment you already have.
I've worked with Windows and Linux, and a little bit with Mac OS. Personally I feel that Linux is really the best system to use; Windows takes forever to get the base system up and running, whereas my Linux distro I just stick in the CD, install, and in about five minutes (literally) it's all ready to use. Mac OS X is only nice because Apple does control both hardware and software; I think that the only system designed for anything other than what its creators use is Linux.
In short: Windows sucks. OS X sucks. Linux kicks ass.
Disclaimer: I am a biased Linux developer...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
I'm a sysadmin here trying to make the "switch" over to OSX, and I'm having quite a bit of difficulty. I believe that Microsoft intentionally hampers their software so that it will not work as well on the Mac as it does on the PC. For Example:
1. Entourage + MS Exchange server = Crap. Has anyone actually had a good experience doing this? I'm just about to switch my entire mailbox over to POP3 just because it is so bad compared to Outlook for the PC.
2. Remote Desktop Client. Yes I know other clients exist, but the Microsoft client only allows one instance of their (buggy) RDP client to run at a time. Very Annoying. It's also the only app (besides firefox ocassionally) that consistently crashes
3. Office documents aren't the same on the Mac versions. A lot of password protected Excel and Word docs will not open with Office 2004.
This is not a flame. Has anyone else out there had similar experiences? How have you solved them besides switching back to the PC?
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
I finally bought some AAPL stock a week ago and every time you guys post one of these stories my net worth just goes up and up. I admit I haven't made anywhere near as much money as I lost in the .bomb but any little helps.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
What company is going to fork out 2.5k just for a macbox that doesn't even include a monitor keyboard and dumbass one button mouse? Any company that wants to not save money.
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
I for one welcome our new OS X using overlords.
"When I want to tweak and hack, I can do so to my hearts content. But when I need to work, it's ready to go, no tweaking needed".
I'm paraphrasing someone else's observations, but it's always stuck with me, and it describes why I decided to plop down money on a dual G5 about 1.5 years ago. While I still like to hack Linux on occasion, or try to squeeze a few more cycles out of my box, I don't have to just to do everyday things.
In fact, what also made me see the light was realizing how many hours I'd spend tweaking together a Linux distro, or an XP installation, just to get it the way I wanted it. I multiplied that by the hourly rate I charge others to work on their PC's, and immediately realized that I'd be time and therefore money ahead by getting a Mac and just having it work.
If less than 21 percent of your employees are using OS X, you are behind!
For you Tiger users out there, there's no need to click on the "Environs" link. Point to any word on the page and press command-ctrl-D, and the definition of the word will appear. And if you keep command-ctrl held down, and you can roam over all the words on the page.
One of the great new features of Tiger that remain undiscovered by most OS X users.
No wireless, no sleep, no power management... that's as far as I got before rebooting. Oh, and I don't think Bluetooth worked, either.
That's about as stationary target as Linux can expect, they haven't come within a mile of hitting it.
My experiences with Linux/BSD have been that they're pretty damned picky WRT hardware. As an end user, I don't really care whether it's because nobody has written to my particular hardware, or the manufacturer has withheld docs. Reality is I can't run Linux on my PB with anything like the functionality of OS X, and when I try to put one of them on a PC I expect to have to buy a new NIC, new video card, or both. I have yet, in years of attempts, to get Linux installed on a laptop with support for all the hardware features - and I've not heard of anyone else doing so, either. I see a lot of CLAIMS, but they end up being heavily caveated with "but I don't use (this/that/other), so I don't care that it doesn't work". Well, I care.
KeS
He could be talking about these xServe units:
A ppleStore?family=XserveRAID
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/
$12,999 for the unit on the right hand side.
What is this talk about openness? Windows (for example) runs on any x86 hardware while Macs run only on Apple's proprietary hardware.
sun solaris servers, and 1/4 of the office was switched to mac ox, 3/4 use windows xp.
Mac os x has made a huge difference in our corporation.
Techs actually learn unix.
downtime is reduced 80%
no compatibility problems
opensource resources are outstanding
job performance increased 40%
no real security worries
wireless is almost flawless
bluetooth KB, mouse, phone work as well as windows
greatly reduced cost
the list just goes on, and we have plans to switch the entire 200 person corp. in 1 year
I got to say any director of IT who is not looking into this is just negligent. Network engineering is not a preference. You have to use what works at the time.
We estimate windows longhorn will be at this lvl in 2009.
Most users are diehard windows user, but using this OS have changed everyones opinion. Going to the apple store and people actually care about helping them, at no charge, and simple stuff like finding a file written 3 years ago in 20 secs.
I personally think that the os ranting is very childish. You ask urself what companies space suit you would wear on the moon. I guaranty most would be using the apple or sun space suit right now. Those wearing the MS space suit would die at the first freeze of the OS running the space suit. I can't bet my life or my business on what I like, I use what gives it the best chance for survival. Thats my job.
I wonder if that is 17% of actual employees or 17% of actual systems. 17% seems high...
The place I work at has 4 main offices, each with ±40 people. Of the ±40 at each office we have ±4 people in the marketing departments at each who use Apple systems exclusively. That's a solid 10% for Employees/Mac Users. But how many Apple machines is that?
Well if each of the ±40 people have 1 PC, this includes the Marketing dept, since their web related stuff is done on PC's, then the ±4 users each have a Mac, now include the ±3 PC servers in each office (Mail, Marketing, CompanyShare) we have ±47 machines in each building ±4 of which are Mac that leaves us with Macs being 8.5% of the total amount of systems in the office.
Now obviously my company isn't the same as everyone else, but I'd be willing to bet that either that number is fudged in Apples favor a bit, or the numbers reflect PC's being tossed out while unused Macs sit around in inventory for a while. Which I believe could influence the numbers since at my work we only USE 4 systems for the 4 people, but there are 4 G4's that are sitting in storage as "backups" in case one of the G5's goes down, and we don't keep old PC's at all. They get donated soon as they are unplugged.
Ave Molech Setting
I'd be interested in seeing slash-dot publish their readership percentages over time. I wonder if the overall percentage of slashdot readers that are on linux has gone down while the overall percentage on a mac have gone up.
I will preface this post by saying that I have +20 years of computing experience as both a developer and administrator. I have developed or administered almost every kind of UNIX out there (including NeXtStep and OpenStep) and every edition of Windows. While the Macintosh was not the greatest in the 1990's, Mac OS X changed everything. I have used Linux as both a desktop and a server since Redhat's Mother's Day release in the early 1990's.
Linux is perfect for background servers and special cost sensitive, in-house specially developed projects where licensing fees are important. Mac OS X is the perfect UNIX for the desktop and is beginning to make in-roads into enterprise rack servers.
The Linux community brings it on themselves. Linux will always be a niche in the desktop computing world. And while it is sometimes fun and interesting to try Linux on the desktop, Mac OS X is what Linux will always wish it could be.
Mac OS X is all the UNIX you could want with a simply brilliantly designed, fully featured, and consistent user interface, exceptional ease of use and administration with an excellent unified package management system. Everything you always wish you could have had on UNIX is now here on Mac OS X. Absolutely brilliant.
If you bash on Mac OS X it is because you have never used it before or you are too afraid to admit it kicks Linux's ass on the desktop. Linux zeolots are afraid to admit that Linux on the desktop sucks. All of the Linux zeolots I have listened to over the years all live in their own little world. And if they never realize it and never change their views, and if they don't get their act together and all work towards a common unified platform for desktop computing, Linux on the desktop will always suck. And they will continue to live in their own little world. End of the story.
And for most people, Linux is only a hobby OS and nothing more. Something to play with when you have spare time to tinker around with it.
I'm one of those people who gets "huffy" because honestly if I buy anything newer...there is a good chance there isn't a driver yet for it unless an older driver runs it
One of the other things I got really huffy is honestly things aren't always where you expect them to be, many things driver lvl options that can be done via GUI in OSX and Win are quite the beast in Linux becuase many expect you to use the CLI instead and don't focus on the gui like they should.
In fact that is Linux's biggest problem. Linux needs to be designed and tested by people who are told they can NEVER use the CLI "." CLI is forbidden, it is for an additional complimenting input and never the primary method. No avg OSX user or Win user starts out going CLI for a feature, they start going GUI.
Eventually MAC OSX will smash Linux not MS Windows...and finally ending
the Open Source OS vs. MicroSoft OS war!
Have you noticed that apple doesn't offer their extended warrantee in your state? WTF? Too many lightning strikes or gov't that they actually include stuff in the contract?
Can anyone name a Fortune 500 comapny (other than Apple) that is all Mac? Can someone even suggest a company that is more than 50% Macs? I suspect every very large company has a hidden Mac or two--maybe even a hidden Mac of 100... Macs get bought for a variety of reasons... a department needs to run some specific software, a piece of equipment bought from some vendor is driven by a Mac. Someone in a graphics department needs to check the corporate web site on a Mac...
Any Fortune 500 employees who can announce that their firm's standard platform is Macs? (even as AC).
This is actually true in my case. I started a new job and they don't allow "personal" (i.e. not company owned) computers. I left my Powerbook in my car's trunk in the parking lot for a while and finally just started leaving it at home. This would have caused a slight increase of Macs in my company's "environ", followed by a similar drop. Our "environment" still has a steady number of Macs in the marketing department.
First, a little background on my occupation. I'm a network/systems engineer. Routers, switches, firewalls, vpns, unix, linux, openvms are what I work on. 2000+ employee company.
It's been a real PITA using Linux on my desktop. I started off using Win2k with Cygwin. That sucked. Then I resized my ntfs partition and installed PCBSD. That sucked. Next I installed FC4. That sucked too. I'm now running CentOS(xfce/gnome) and I am fairly happy with Linux. My next step is to go buy a copy of NLD9. All those options still pale in comparison to using OSX.
Everything is just poorly integrated compared to OSX. Just something as simple as pasting text. ctrl+v, ctrl+shift+v, middle mouse button... I miss things like pbpaste/pbcopy, Exposé, MSOffice, iTunes, Spotlight, etc.. Sure there's "alternatives" in Linux, but they're not what I'd call close alternatives. Having Citrix for running MSOffice isn't much of an improvment. Granted, the majority of my day is spent in a terminal window, but occasionally, I have to use Word, Visio, MSIE, or others.
Oh, and what's with all these extra mouse buttons?
I also agree that the Apple move to Intel may be driven as much by developing markets as the chipmaker realities.
Don't forget the BSDs in the server room, either.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Lets get something straight. A Unix based server should last you a hell of a lot longer than 3 years. If it doesnt you should fire your entire IT staff. Keeping hardware and software up to date? I dont think you understand Macintosh. Apple keeps the same hardware platform for significantly longer than Wintel machines. Also Apples software is designed to work specifically with the current hardware standards. Keeping your hardware and software updated is a lame point to make. Apple software is integrated to work within itself. on Windows platforms you usually have to work within the vendors software suite, but Apple has so much built in to the OS its pretty much compatable with anything out of the box.
I look at Mac OS X and I see unpolished junk. Same as on every other OS I've ever seen. Same "oh yeah, that doesn't always work properly", same "yeah, it seems to sort-of freeze kinda, just wait and it comes back".
And I look at the Mac zealots, and I see crazy people who are disconnected from the real world, same as all the zealots I've met.
But, Linux is Free Software, and OS X isn't. So I'll put up with the Free unpolished junk instead of the non-free unpolished junk.
OK...here we go. I am not a 'veteran' of sorts but I do have a multitude of experience with DoD, and civilian employers. I am still learning as I probably will throughout my lifetime. Lets not troll on me because I do not try to personfiy myself as someone I am not. I am simply going to try to rationalize aa lot of the hatingthats going on in this thread.
OK first of all Macs last A LOT longer than Wintel machines. On average Mac consumers buy a new Mac 5-6 years before they buy new ones. Windows machines you typically buy every 3-4 years.
Lets be rational for a moment. The noted percentages of Macs in the corperate environment would be justafiable given Apples increase in sales over the past years. Business sales at the loal Apple store would definitley lead me to believe the percentages reported are in fact true.
Heres what you people are missing. For those who still think Mac uses Appletalk as its networking protocol please read slowley and carfully.
While Mac machines may cost more in the corperate environment but after you purchase all of the software for the Wintel machines that comes *note*, COMES STANDARD with OS X you save a few hundred dollars. Office for Mac still gives traditional Wintel users the Office environment. The Free BSD based Darwin Kernel is a hell of a lot more secure than the NT Kernel.
OK now for the meat and potatoes of what I wanted to get at. You may or may not spend more or less on a Mac pending on what amount and type of software you need to purchase additionally. HOWEVER The cost savings comes in at the support level. I would just about gaurantee that a Mac OS X network would not only require less 'administration' than a Wintel network, but I would also require less money spent on security for the network as well. Therefore the SysAdmins of the network that make 40-80k a year (ballpark) on a Wintel network can probably be reduced by 1/3. That would sure as HELL make up for the +-200 bucks that buying a mac machine MIGHT (probably WONT) cost you.
I wish a study would be done on the ratio of SysAdmins per machine for a Wintel and Apple network. Then some of the ignorance of Wintel zealots may be exposed.
OS X is fully compatable with Windows servers. Hell OS X Tiger servers in my opinion can outperform and functionally replace Windows 2003 Servers without any loss to the clients. Then again it all depends on how you configure your severs.
Uptake of the Intel Apple products will tell the story. For a slightly larger investment in hardware (easily recouped in TCO software licensing fees) companies, for the first time in a long time, will have the opportunity to transition to a non-microsoft operating systems without loosing the ability to run office... and they will have the ability to fall back on their Windows operating system old licenses should things not work out. Intersting times...
If the market does not reward Apple (+30% market share within a year and a half), I suspect that Jobs will unleash OS X for commodity intel platforms in an effort to spur it into making the right decisions.
I gotta say, since I bought my Mac with OS X, I'm much more comfortable in Linux/Shell enviroments. I'd be more likely to run Linux now than ever.
...And they'll probably find Linux is faster because of OS X's problems with 'funnels' and the BSD layer. It will be very interesting if this starts to drive more Linux adoption.
:)
And with OS X on intel, people will have an Apples-to-Penguins way to compare Linux and OS X performance.
I'm also curious if someone will be able to hack a way to run the Aqua GUI atop the Linux kernel instead of Darwin.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I really hope you're joking. Have you looked inside a Power Mac lately? I can't imagine a more easily upgradable computer.
... three open PCI slots ... everything you'd expect to be able to upgrade is there. It doesn't even take any tools to open the case; it's like the hood of a car.
You can swap out everything: hard drives, memory, optical drives, processors, AGP video card
Maybe you're thinking of the Mac Mini? But the upgradability of the Power Mac line is not a legitimate criticism.
It's nothing new either, I'm still using a Power Mac G4/400 from almost six years ago, and it's running the latest version of OS X. While I don't have any statistics to back it up, I don't know any PC users who are still using a system they bought six years ago, and does half the things I can do with mine.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I think that story and those statistics are implausible, both given how big businesses operate and given Apple's actual sales figures.
Furthermore, the suggestion that OS X is an alternative to Linux indicates a lack of understanding of what Linux is all about and why it's being adopted.
I agree completely. I started using Linux in '97 after we saw the writing on the wall for OS/2.
The linux groupthinkers will never get it, because they're told all this nonsense about choice and source code is a moral right and all sorts of other nonsense.
Your point about a common unified desktop platform is spot on...and something the groupthinkers never grok. Hell, if the LSB (Linux Standards Base) would have a LDSB(Linux Desktop Standards Base) then at least you might see a standard toolkit.
Hell, X11 is a standard, why isn't there a standard toolkit. I know why. Because Qt can never be the standard and nobody that has pull has the balls to tell the KDE fanboys to STFU.
Thing would be so much better today if someone had bought Trolltech say back in '98, LGPL'd or GPL'd + exceptions the toolkit, Gnome never had been started, and things like Enlightenment would have been experimental, research desktops.
XFree was ported back in '92 and it just took too long for people to take the desktop seriously on Linux. That's somewhat understanding considering old-time Unix geeks tended to have a bunch of xterms open and not much else, but now we have a bunch of newbies that think after they pop in a Mandrake CD that someone they're a soldier in the war against Microsoft.
It's completely evident now that being able to sell your OS (with proprietary bits), along with complete control over the entire software stack from the microkernel all the way up to the desktop has lots of merit.
The linux "community" is just too factionalized to ever make big inroads onto the desktop.
I'm typing this on a laptop with Linux installed. What did I have to do to get it running? Stick in an Ubuntu Linux Install CD, boot, and confirm that I want to install it. After the install, it automatically connected to the nearest wireless network.
The install process was easier than a fresh install of OS X (which asks lots more annoying questions). And the last OS X upgrade I did on my iBook required me doing a web search for why it was failing with an obscure message, going into the command line, and patching up the HFS+ file system manually.
I'm tired of OS X fanboys like you spreading uninformed bullshit about Linux.
You're right about blowing smoke. Your OSX next year is only going to run on Apple Intel hardware. You're not going to be buying cheap boxen from Dell for it.
I can run OSX on my AMD Athlon machine right now. It's called PearPC. The real question is, will OSX for Intel run on my machine in a usable fashion, or will it be like PearPC - pretty cool but not something you can actually use as a full time OS.
*Ahem*
"Labeled."
I will preface this post by saying that I have +20 years of computing experience as both a developer and administrator.
Red flag coming up right here...
Mac OS X is all the UNIX you could want with a simply brilliantly designed, fully featured, and consistent user interface, exceptional ease of use and administration with an excellent unified package management system. Everything you always wish you could have had on UNIX is now here on Mac OS X. Absolutely brilliant.
So it has a decent GUI, good. Is it exceptionally easy to use? Lets see. How many steps does it take to assign a static IP to a wireless connection? My experience is the task isn't simpler than with, say, Gnome. Is it easier for me to install a package by compiling from the source tarball? No. It takes just as many clicks to bring up a Web browser. So what's all this hollahop for?
Don't forget, a GUI makes it easier to do simple things and harder to do complicated things.
If you bash on Mac OS X it is because you have never used it before or you are too afraid to admit it kicks Linux's ass on the desktop. Linux zeolots are afraid to admit that Linux on the desktop sucks.
No it doesn't. The most you can assert is the GUIs for Linux sucks - which of course is very subjective, since I don't see the OSX GUI the masterpiece of work many claimed it to be. At any rate, I don't like the way Gnome and KDE is trying to imitate Explorer either - they should do something innovate. However that's another story.
I can assure you that, if you place a total newbie in front of a Mac, she will have entirely no clue what to do. You need to guide her just the same. There is as much a learning curve as using another GUI.
Parent's author displays a distinct lack of knowledge while claiming years of expertise...
I wonder what the percentage of employees in the surveyed companies worked in some type of image creation capacity.. The creative folks seem to always use Macs.
He said his "primary machine", i.e. the one he actually uses for day-to-day work. Who wants to keep rebooting to another operating system on their primary machine, and try to keep track of which files are where? Pick one and stick with it long enough to either make it work for you, or determine that it won't work for you.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
it's funny how you tear apart the parent article and call FUD on it, and then you get to your
/Applications/Utilities folder. As the name suggests it's a terminal shell, and it runs bash or csh or whatever other shell you fancy, just like any terminal in Linux. All your favorite commands are present, so I really fail to see how an OSX bash shell is any worse than a Linux bash shell.
conclusion and start spweing your own FUD.
"I'm far, far more comfortable in either KDE or Gnome than I'm likely to ever be dealing with a flakey 1-button mouse"
there's a little known procedure for getting multibutton mice to work with OSX, it might seem a bit complicated to you, but here goes:
step 1: plug multibutton mouse in
step 2: oh wait there is no step 2, it works, you don't have configure ZAxisMapping you don't have to restart your windowing system, your 3 or 4 or 5 button mouse will work just fine. So I call FUD.
"a dock that won't stay the same size or keep frequently used icons in the same spot."
now that you plugged in that multibutton mouse in (damn that was hard) you right click on the dock and select dock preferences and turn off "dock magnification" oh look this was so complicated. Guess what the dock will now stay the same size. Whew! that was hard
"And I'm a lot more comfortable doing a lot of tasks from the CLI than from any desktop. And I'm sure as hell not happy with all the parts of the filesystem that OSX hides and the UNIX commands that I'm locked out of and all the other eccentricities of the system."
oh and will you give up with the bullshit buddy? there's this thing called the terminal. happens to be in your
"And I could do without the damned genie crap and the other icandy too."
oh as you might've guessed by now, you can turn the genie effect in the dock preferences with a single click.
So really you're just full of shit and trying to get mod points by sounding smart and profound and calling FUD on others while resorting to FUD yourself. Shame on you buddy.
Would be great if and only if the OS/X had a shredder built into its file handler much like konqueror did under version 3.2.1. The newer versions took this out and by doing so made the whole system kind of worthless from a file security point of view. I mean really, huh, who wants to put confidential employee data or secret reserch data on a machine that can NOT be erased. Just avoid the hassle and stick with windows2000. Safer. Just keep an old version of linux around to wipe out the stuff like 'cookies.dat' that windows wants to heep for your corporate competitors holding secret data access licenses from micro$$$$$$$$$.
...OS X is getting noticed and purchased. Xserves and Xserve RAIDs are selling well.
I could see OS X getting used more and more on end user workstations in the future, as well. It can be locked down 6 ways from Sunday, mobile user accounts work a lot better than Windows' roaming profiles, and (even though there's less of a need for such things) patch management, network booting and machine reimaging tools are built right in-- no buying Microsoft WSUS or Ghost separately.
It's almost to the point where once you set it up, the users can take care of their own stuff. If the machine gets fuxx0red, they just hold down "N" and the machine will netboot, reimage itself, and they can log back in and resume working.
I'm a contractor and I've been to many worksites. Macs are most definitely NOT 17-20% of the total number of computers at those companies.
I think the problem on Slashdot is most of the people seem to be very enthusiastic Mac advocates. They think more emotionally than logically. The flawed numbers don't mean much to them as long as their favorite platform is getting good publicity.
The symbols you're using +/- or ± are used to show the amount of error possible, so you're saying that you have x number of people plus or minus 40. The correct usage would have a figure and then the possible error, ie 40 +/- 2 if it could be from 38-42.
There is a symbol for roughly equal to which is a wiggly equals sign or an equals sign with a wiggly mark above it.
Anyway, by now we have achieved a sort of critical mass -- if you randomly ask somebody about a virus problem, you are just as likely to get a shrug, a smile, and a response along the lines of "what's a virus?" And every time our Windows servers go down, you get a stream of sarcastic comments. The interesting thing: The Windows people don't defend Windows -- it seems they use it, but have no love for it, either.
Sooner or later, this all is going to have an effect on management. I don't think we're going to switch our main systems anytime soon -- too expensive -- but if there are secondary things that need to be installed, Apple might have themselves a bridgehead.
Our small business litigation boutique has no internal IT staff and a couple of big IP clients on both coasts. Our OS commitments are on 4 levels: solid security; up 365/24/7 for our clients & practice group; seamless interface with clients & colleagues; and limiting obstacles to leveraging of best available apps. At one point to meet those design constraints, I had XP (with emulator), Yellow Dog & OSX installed on my PB as did at least half the office. Real world result: OS10.2.4 gets 98% of our play. We bypass the GUI to take UNIX-like control in Terminal as needed. It ain't UNIX, which some prefer; some of our group still are hard-core Wintel folks. (Some also resisted getting rated in the firm's aircraft; hey, we respect that too.) But for ease of use, no hassel self-admin, and consistent focus on client service rather than CS issues (while leaving an open door for those of use who really enjoy learning enough CS to deliver max value to our IT clients) concensus has been reached on OSX as our default.
Businesses that size will most likely have in-house graphical people. So IT already knows its way around macs, networking macs and providing good storage solutions. They can judge who'd be better served with macs than PC's and convince management to do this. ...)
After all, if you can keep a graphics department happy, you sure as hell can switch AD's, secretaries, salespeople and others who don't need to run specialized software. They know that after the initial pains they'll have effectively pacified the people most at risk of infecting the network and needing most one on one support (how do I open this file, what does this icon mean, where did all these popups come from,
My bet is that most smaller businesses won't try this as fast as bigger ones, for above reason: I won't try what I don't know. And in a sense they're justified in doing this. At least with MS they know what they're in for, Apple for them is a big unknown and IT investments weigh more in smaller businesses.
Good IT people will know when it's time to switch or mix.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
>Mac OS X is what Linux will always wish it could be.
And you know why? Because when I wake my computer from sleep in the morning, I don't even know I'm running a *nix system (ok, BSD...).
I want to use my computer like I use my car: I don't %$@%$@ care how it works, I just want it to work (and yes, I can change drives and format them, add memory, etc - but that's not the kind of crap I have to care on a day-to-day basis).
You guys REALLY want to give Linux a fighting chance? Open your mind and accept this fact:
Linux needs a SINGLE GUI/interface and a CONSISTENT way of doing things for ALL THE APPS.
As long as you don't see this, you'll never beat Windows (let alone OS X).
Take care, and best of luck to you (we'd like to see Linux on par with OS X, it'd give Microsoft a run for their money, literally).
Steve, we know it's you. Stop posting here.
Unix admins are gobbling up Mac laptops like mad! They get MS Office plus all the X11 / BS-nix they need to admin any Unix system (Solaris, AIX, etc.). The old school formal UNIX is dying, we are running Solaris boxes that are more then 10 years old. We need to replace them and the cost of new UNIX servers is ridiculous, we will probably switch to Linux for the legacy stuff. But XServes have the advantage of being easy to maintain, so easy we can have our Windows LAN Center manage them with minimal training!
.NET, ASP, Notes, and Netware. The *Nix based systems scale much better and using Linux or even Mac OS X, the licensing is cheaper (XServes have unlimited OS X Server licenses!).
Most new internal systems are now web based Intranet solutions, which can be run on Linux, Unix, or Mac OS X. With the exception of
Those users not running native Windows applications to perform their job functions could be switched to Mac OS X Desktop easily. This includes most developers and Unix SysAdmins.
When the Intel switch is complete, the ability to run a Virtual Machine Windows system in near realtime native performance becomes reality.
The tipping point is rapidly approaching, I give it about 5 years, providing Apple doesn't screw it up. This relies on Apple switching to Intel and reducing the hardware cost in the process. As well as VMWare porting their solutions to Mac OS X in the event Microsoft refuses to port VirtualPC. However, if Microsoft does that they could also kill MS Office as a threatening weapon. So Apple had better have an ACE up their leave like a much better version of Keynote, Pages, and a spreadsheet and database that will kick MS Office's ass and be fully document compatible (providing MS continues to move towards and open document format).
Ha! So much for PREVIEW - 'BS-nix' = 'BSD-nix'!
Thanks for demonstrating typical behaviors and attitudes of many Macintosh users. Your posting speaks for itself.
1. Click System Preferences on the Dock
2. Click on the Network Icon
3. double-click Airport in the Interface List
4. Click on the TCP/IP tab
5. Open the "Configure IPv4" drop menu and select "Manually"
6. Enter your static IP address
7. Click "Apply Now" and you're done.
How difficult is that?
I'm typing this on a laptop with OS X installed. What did I have to do to get it running? Turn it on. After it botted, it asked some basic setup information questions and automatically configured to connect to my network and my email accounts.
The install process is considerably easier than a linux install because I don't need to know a damn thing about who made my graphics card, who made my NIC or who made my wireless system and I don't have to know anything about partitioning.
And the last Linux install I did required me trying 20 different drivers for my NIC since the ones that were supposed to work with my card was failing with some obscure error that a web search turned no hits on.
I'm tired of Linux fanboys like you spreading uninformed bullshit about OS X
I, for one, don't wish that Linux was more like OSX and am very happy using it on the desktop (hell, it's all I've used on my personal desktop for the last 7ish years, so I must like it).
I'm not saying that Linux is for everyone. OSX is an excellent OS and I don't mind using it now and then (my parents and many of my friends use Macs, so I use it on a semi-regular basis). However, after using OSX for a bit I am always happy to return to my Linux box.
OSX is wonderful for people who just want an OS that works and is stable and secure. It's an awesome piece of software and I commend Apple for the great job they did putting together. But it's not customizable. If you want your environment to look and feel different from how Apple says OSX looks and feels, too bad, you're stuck with it. Linux is completely customizable and for those of us who have quite specific ideas about how a desktop environment should look, feel and work, it is the ideal choice.
Both are correct according to Webster.