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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....
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?
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.
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
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.
The perception is that the extra money up-front is worth it in the long term especially when compared to the Virus maintenance required for Windows boxen.
Also, the perception in businesses is that it's worthwhile to pay extra as compared to running Linux on cheap PCs because they don't believe that Linux will be cost effective to maintain when compared to OS X (this may or may not be true, like I said it's a perception). While Linux has made huge strides toward the desktop in recent years, it's still got a ways to go to be as usable as OS X.
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.
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.
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.
.technomancer
Exactly. 90%+ of the cost of running my business is employees. Hardware and software, while not cheap are significantly less expensive over time.
For example:
12K Server estimated lifespan = 3 years = 4K/year
36K Support Person 1 year at 3 years runs you 108K. Not to mention the extra 6K/year in Payroll Taxes & FICA Matching or the 6K/year in insurance coverage by the company bringing the 3 year total to 144K.
Keeping hardware and software up to date to make certain your *expensive* employees can do their job is the best investment a company can make.
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.
Just thought I would add: 100 computers on my network, two of which are Macs (graphic design and music recording).
/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 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
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.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
The collective term for Unix systems is boxen.
The collective term for Windows is "crap"
I'd rather pay $129 every 18 or 36 months (it's OK to do every-other release, you know) than be on the Windows treadmill of utilities to keep the machine running properly. Don't forget that you get the functional equivalent of several commercial apps with OSX and iLife, including Ghost and the ability to run all the GNU tools natively.
We just transitioned from OS X to Windows in a department at my work, and the software licensing per machine went from about $350/year under the Macs to over $700/year for the PCs (they now need a bunch of Adobe apps since they can't print-to-pdf, organize photos, or have their machines reimaged like they used to)
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
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...
True Linux is free, but...
I don't own a Mac but the point of having closed hardware from one vendor is that the people who run the OS don't have to jump through hoops trying to find out who made the hardware, where is the driver, what is the latest version of the driver, etc.
The people who develop the software for the OS or the OS itself don't have to worry about having their software work fine on one machine only to have it flip out on another.
Look how much code could be ripped out of Linux, and how much more stable it would be if they only wrote software for limited combinations of hardware.
This is why people buy Macs. Because are stable, secure. People are willing to pay for that, especially in larger environments.
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.
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.
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.
So there's nothing wrong with the usual windows experiences like:
And you say there's nothing wrong with Windows at work!
You should definitely publish your results in J. Anecdotal Evidence.
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...
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
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!
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.
Even considering brother post.. 30" cinema displays are 3k each commercially, and the base price of a dual 2.7g5 is 3k. I'd say 9k + some options would get you well over 10k.
But I can speak from experience.
Companys buy linux because its "cheaper".
But when you figure in that you arent going to be using commodity hardware in your datacenter environment, so you buy dell/hp/sun.
Then you buy redhat AS/ES, since thats what applications specify they NEED, then you need support (which is worthless from redhat) because you can't run supportless in an enterprise environment.
You have just spent just as much money as you would on the equivilent M$ system.
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!
Resource forks? Come now! Have you not used a Mac since OS 9? Man, your complaints are *so* 1999. Give it another try.
I've been frustrated with RDC at times, although I don't think you can run multiple instances under Windows either. I believe you can run multiple instances if you make a copy of RDC. (I've not tried that so don't quote me) I frequently use VNC. It's not as fast as RDC at some thing, but at other things like scrolling is much faster for odd reasons.
Microsoft has announced a new version of Entourage that will fix all the problems. I can't speak to that nor the release date. Some people have sworn to me about Evolution, the Novell Exchange client for Linux. It is also available as a binary for OSX. You might consider trying that, although you loose some Mac feel.
I've never had trouble with Office documents, although I only use passwords occasionally. I've actually found for some things, such as versioning comments, that the Mac version is superior to the PC version. I certainly prefer Word on the Mac as opposed to Word on the PC. The sidebar on Windows for Office really bugs me.
Dude have you ever seen a rack full of apple servers?
it makes the crap from Dell,HP and IBM look like throwback toys from 1989.
The local Apple dealer had a 7 foot rack full of them with their apple flatpanel + pullout keyboard tray that also looked to be the "brushed aluminum" n their lobby as a demo... IT guys for miles were drooling and messing their pants.
if I was a CTO trying to impress my other billionare buddies, a datacenter full of apple equipment is more impressive looking than even SUN or Silicon graphics gear, Dell and HP dont have a chance when it comes to pure sex appeal of their server gear.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I would say companies are willing to spend $2500 for a variety of reasons
a) computers are 2 year depreciating assets in the US, last time I checked ($1250 a year for 2 years written off on taxes)
b) large companies offer hardware support (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc). If you build your own, your own support staff is responsible, and what if the builder leaves? Management doesn't like risks like that.
c) software support is also required - OEM Windows requires the hardware vendor to provide most support (and therefore costs less). This isn't always supplied by the hardware vendor, so I list it separately (I've worked for a hardware vendor and redirected calls for bundled software to the software vendor, so have firsthand experience on this).
d) established vendors (like Dell, Gateway, HP, and Apple) have volume discount contracts and often bundle software (like MS Office), as well (as mentioned).
I know companies that have made large purchases of Linux boxes, but always from established Linux companies like RedHat and Novell (SuSE). You'll never find Slackware because of support, or GenToo because no party is responsible for "owning" it (i.e. can't pressure vendor to make bug fixes).
"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.
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
Yes. The problems are usually on the Windows end because of lack of installed drivers. That OS X doesn't share out windows drivers is not Apple's fault. Likewise, the fact that there are several incompatible methods for sharing windows printers and that a driver may only expect a single type may cause problems. The same problems that OS X has with sharing Windows printers is shared by Samba on other Unix platforms.
Yes. Almost every time on my Win XP SP2 box when I want to use it over the network. Quite often, it can't see itself! Again, not an apple problem, but Microsoft futzing with SMB/CIFS. I've never had to reboot my Mac to make network shares re-appear, as all it takes is a netbios query. Do you know anything about Windows networking? Like the fact that sometimes it can take up to fifteen minutes for a change in sharing to propagate, or that slap-fights and hissy fits between domain controllers can take down all Windows networking on an entire subnet? Do some reading on Samba and educate yourself before you implicate non-windows OS's as problematic when it comes to Windows networking.
Nope. Can't say I've ever been bitten by this one. Ever. When you copy files that contain resource forks, the forks are stored in a hidden directory. Windows doesn't use them and OS X knows how to retrieve them as well. Now if you like to futz with things and erase these files or the hidden directories, it isn't Apple's fault. Also, this has no effect on the utility of the data in the files. Resource forks don't store the data, only metadata. If a program shoves data into a resource fork that should be in the data fork, then that's the fault of the developer for being stupid. In any case, this does not impact the way that OS X and Windows interoperate.
-- Len
The collective term for Unix systems is boxen.
The collective term for Windows is "crap"
What about Xbox? Would the plural of that be Xcrap?
If it were Apple, could it be iCrap? Then I could get a laptop and take my iCrap in the bathroom!
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
1. Entourage sucks ass. I just moved over to Mail.app in Tiger and it's a much better experience. Of course, things other than mail don't carry their way over. Oh darn. iCal can upload a .ics file via WebDAV and other iCal users can check my calendar.
2. RDC - Take a look at http://rdesktop.org/. Much more configurable. Works great.
3. I've had other issues with Office 2004 Mac. Excel likes to munge weblinks and row heights. Not to mention it doesn't save things where you think they should (i.e. saving HTML document where I opened it makes me save a new file in a new directory. YECH). I haven't found any solutions for this yet.
I've been Macified since Jan 2004 and I won't look back. I do have a PC next to it (using http://synergy2.sf.net/ so no keyboard and mouse) and I use it for the basic things... i.e. my Windows based phone software and other cranky Winapps. It's old and slow so I use it infrequently. I do use it for VNC because I have yet to find one VNC client on the Mac that Just Works.
SBC stands for Stupid Bell Company
AT&T stands for All Telephones Tapped
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.
True, but WTF are you doing giving some average corporate joe that kind of rig? Just grab an iMac with a gig of RAM and plunk it down on his desk. $1500, max, monitor included.
***
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.
---k--
</stupid>
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.