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Apple's Macworld Looking To Corporate Users
coondoggie writes to mention a Network World article about a focus on corporate users at the upcoming MacWorld Expo. Along with the consumer announcements (iTV, iPod stuff), there will be several elements dedicated to introducing IT pros to Apple hardware. From the article: "The show has really evolved. For a long time it was a consumer-oriented show and those of us who are from the enterprise space - there weren't very many of us - would use it as a place to meet and compare notes ... Now Macintosh in the enterprise is becoming more recognized and there are tracks that are specifically for us enterprise people. We don't have to sneak off anymore."
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/
$499 for 10 users, $999 for unlimited.
http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/
Very competitive pricing.
I don't have experience in running it in the Enterprise, but it's a very solid choice for running a SME off of - at a far lower cost than Microsoft. We had around 200 users running on OSX and Windows with roaming profiles, centralised user management, 5TB of network shares, network printing all on a couple of Tiger servers.
Yes, the hardware costs are greater - but the software costs are much much lower.
The problem in your argument is the assumption that Apple does not have something that competes in all of those spaces. But Apple has actually had centralized management for much longer than it has been available for Windows, and it is generally an easier-to-administer system. And system imaging is much easier on the Mac side.
m l
Now for the details:
For the AD/GPO side you have MacOS X Server's OpenDirectory and Workgroup Management. The later product stared out in the MacOS 7 days as "Macintosh Manager" and was available as part of AppleShare IP product. You can do an awful lot of locking down on the computer with the point-and-click components, including setting the users to use network home directories (pretty much the same avrients as are available on Windows). A good begining point for this would be Apple's page on MacOS X Server: http://www.apple.com/server/desktop_management.ht
For imaging you have a number of choices: You can make up a computer as you would like it imaged, then use the free imaging tools that are included with the OS (Disk Utility has absorbed this capability, it used to be part of ASR). Then you can either push it back onto the computer using Disk Utility again, or use the image to NetBoot computers from a MacOS X Server (technically you don't need server, but it makes it easier), use the free NetBoot/NetRestore system to allow you to cause network-based imaging to happen, use the free tool Radmind to keep the image in sync (complex settings possible, and you can update one computer then let the rest follow it automatically), or use any of the other techniques that are out there (LANRev, NetOctopus, etc).
Oh... and an image you make of one computer will boot all computers that that OS supports (computers much older, or newer than the OS won't work), there are a few tricks and traps to that, but not many that matter. And there is currently the caveat that you need 2 images: one for PPC and one for Intel.
And on the remote software install party, Apple Remote Desktop does this wonderfully. It even allows for broadcast installing and leaving a package on a server so that disconnected users will get it the next time they connect.
Oh, and then you can also use AD servers to do all of this management if you would like, either through schema modification or adding a MacOS X Server on the side.
You need to reimage computers each time? My god!, is this the dark ages. Get radmind you silly sod. Oh wait, it's mac only.
Hun, I hate to break this to you, but as a Mac admin watching over hundreds of heavily abused workstations, the tools for OSX are far better.
I gloat to our windows admin every day about how much better my tools are.
No floppy drive... you crack me up.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
AD Integration has been there for a number of years. You use the Directory Access application in /Applications/Utilities, and there's an AD tab where you enter the relevant information. It provides authentication and full single sign-on. You can also change the password on your Mac and it propagates to AD. So what's the issue?
You can also manage the Macs via AD, if you want to lock them down. This requires a schema extension -- extensions that Apple has registered with the IANA. This historically has made some AD administrators nervous, especially back in the day when you couldn't reverse schema additions. These days, the scripts are fairly widely available -- install them on a test or staging server and see how it works.
So this provides very good management, the main limitation at this point is it's necessary to use Apple's Workgroup Manager application to do the management of the Macs, and point it to AD. Most Windows administrators are used to using GPOs for management and are reluctant to use another tool. If this is too much of a hurdle (you know, that whole "learning new things" thing which may be scary to people whose brain filled up getting their MSCE certification), then look for 3rd party tools like Centrify's Direct Control (http://www.centrify.com) which allow you managemetn of the Macs totally via GPOs.
Pretty much any way you WANT to manage Macs from AD, you can. Each option has a few caveats, and is not 100% like using AD to manage Windows machines, because they are different machines. But all solutions WORK, and in fact they WORK QUITE WELL.
As far as MVL, it does apply to copies that run in Parallels. So you're covered there -- the expense is the copy of Parallels... which is $79 list, and I'm just betting if you asked them for 500 copies that they'd negotiate a bit.
Regarding Entourage... you're right, it's not as good as Outlook. But for many folks, it's sufficient. As far as Excel... I've never personally had an interop issue between Windows and Mac versions of Excel or Word. Then again, I'll freely admit I don't get many documents that are loaded down with large numbers of VBA macros. Whenever I get a "enable Macros?" dialog I say no -- so that point is moot anyway. With the main use of VBA being to transmit viruses... it's a wonder they're really still prevalent on the Windows side. And I say this having written a few custom decision support systems based in Excel and Access, that used custom OLE controls no less, back in the day.