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.'"

Comments

This isn't a surprise.

[Captain Scurvy]

'Companies that were considering Linux are now buying Mac OS X instead.'

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.

Re:Less is not more?

[technomancerX]

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.

10k+? A loaded dual G5 with dual 30" displays doesn't even come out to 10k. Apples are a bit more expensive than Wintel machines, but they're not THAT expensive.

Follow the Leader

[ndansmith]

I think that the example of some high profile companies (read: Google) using Mac and Linux predominantly has helped Mac OS X gain ground in the business world. For instance, if you read on Google's job opportunities pages, you find that Mac OS X skills are valued as much or more than Windows skills.

Just thought I would add: 100 computers on my network, two of which are Macs (graphic design and music recording).

2X where do you get that number?

[MushMouth]

You have to look at what companies are buying for machines. Something like a Dell Laptop (extremely popular) is comperable in price to an Apple Laptop

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)

Re:Less is not more?

[the_rev_matt]

Clearly you don't do purchasing for large enterprises. I'm in an organization known for being cheap and the 'low end' machines they buy are in the $900-$1200 range (though with bulk discounts I'm sure it's less than that). A high end machine will be $1800-$2500. Gee, that's what a G5 tower costs.

Fortune 1000 companies don't build their own boxes from parts they find on pricewatch, and they don't buy eMachines boxes. They buy mid range and high end Dell/HP/Gateway boxes and pay the same price they'd pay for an Apple box.

Re:Makes Sense

[Fahrvergnuugen]

What makes you say that browsing a windows network doesn't work well on a mac? I find that it works better with OSX than it does with windows...

I click Network in the Finder, then select the domain I want. Then I double click on the machine I want to connect to. All of my passwords are stored in my keychain so the share just mounts.

I can't count how many times I've gotten the "could not map drive because of conflicting credentials" error message in windows...

Re:+1 Informative, -1 Redundant

[plazman30]

Actually BSD is NOT Unix. The original BSD source that was released by Berkely had everything removed from it that made it UNIX, hence the stripping and lawsuits. All BSDs prior to the release of BSD under the BSD license (such as SunOS), are UNIX. All BSD after the release (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.) are all Unix-like or *nix operating systems.

These days, the only way something can be called UNIX, is if it undergoes validation testing with and certification with the Open Group, which costs a pretty penny, from what I understand.

switch 1/4 of the office

[pherein]

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.