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."

Comments

We just need customers

[Soong]

to start using Macs and then my company will port our software to Mac. Or is it the other way around, where we port and then our customers can switch to Macs?

Re:We just need customers

[FellowConspirator]

If the software was well-written, it would be platform independent. There's no excuse in this day an age for anything other than system software and utilities to be platform-dependent. Platform independence was hard years ago, but not today. Not only do you have Mac and Linux (particularly on the server side) gaining market share (and Windows slowly decreasing), but you increasingly have situations outside the US where government mandates preclude the use of Windows for many purposes.

You company is reducing it's potential customer base.

I work for a big biotech company and we definitely give preference to vendors that are platform agnostic. Research users are given a choice of Mac or Windows platform, so we've got 1:4 Windows Mac at the desktop with all computational chemists and biologists have an additional Linux workstation. We no longer purchase applications that require Windows servers. We no longer purchase apps that are of general interest to research unless they support at least Mac and Windows. Linux is preferred for instrumentation control. All compute-intensive, modelling, and simulation software is expected to run on Linux. All web-apps have to work with Firefox on Windows/Mac/Linux.

There's some historical reasons for those positions (UNIX and its variants is more or less the exclusive platform for modern biology and chemistry, for example), but I see similar situations appearing in other fields where Linux and Mac are dominating in academia today.

Re:It's hopeless

[Ignignot]

Unless those apples cost less to keep up / maintain / their software is cheaper / they use less power.
 
By far the largest cost in IT is man hours. If you drop those by a little, you can save more than an apple will cost you.

Re:It's hopeless

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs also last longer and require less day-to-day maintenance which negates the increased upfront costs.

My last job, I admin'd a network and supported over 100 users at an all-Mac shop, by myself. This was in the late 90s, so it was pre-OS X. Most of my day was spent reading and surfing the web in my office. I dealt with the occasional hardware failure. Once in a while a Mac would get cranky and I'd have to go run Norton Utilities on it to fix it up, which it very seldom failed to do. Most of my support calls were to help people deal with Office documents sent from Windows-based clients/vendors/etc, because this was before the antitrust stuff really kicked into gear and Microsoft was merrily using their ever-changing Office file formats to force upgrades and keep competitors at bay.

Eventually the company decided to migrate to Windows "to be compatible with the rest of the world." Fantastic choice. The IT staff quickly tripled, and we really needed a fourth because of all the shit that went wrong with Windows and the crappy Dells the company settled on. I very quickly got tired of it and left.

Apple has made great strides since then with OS X, and would already be a force to be reckoned with in the enterprise if it weren't for empire-building PHBs who must preserve their big budgets and staff of minions to tend to temperamental Windows boxes.

Re:It's hopeless

[armada]

Macs are more expensive. A lot more expensive, when you consider you can buy a basic Windows box that is more than sufficient for most business uses for around $500.

The vast majority of "business apps", especially custom stuff, don't run on MacOS.

Macs don't have anything to really compare with Active Directory, and especially GPOs.

So...why would a business run on Macs? Unless they are a pre-press or video-production house, of course.

You gotta love the nay sayers that speak authoritatevly about something they have done zero research on. The more expensive macs are more expensive. You can buy a Mac Mini for $599 and it is a much better quality machine than the equivalent pricepoint pc. There is a Mac version or equivalent of the most important "business apps" and most of the "custom stuff" get's rewriten quite often and normaly relies on core technologies (SQL, PHP etc..) that thrive on the Mac platform. Mac's do have something to compare and completely integrate with Active Directory it is called Open Directory Research = good. Hiperbole = weak. /steps off soapbox

Where's the Windows AD Integration?

[Nutsquasher]

The thing is, unless Apple can seamlessly integrate their desktop OS into Active Directory like how 2000/XP (and soon Vista) already do, they're not going to be considered as a major player in corporate IT land. They need to be able to plug into currently existing infrastructure, be centrally managed, and offer an improved Net Present Value over PC's.

I just don't see that happening for a number of reasons, asides from having to wait for Samba-4. It's going to be really tough to convince a CFO to buy new $2,000 MacBook Pro's for its users, plus copies of Parallels/VMWare Fusion, plus a Windows OS (not sure if MVL applies to Apple-based hardware - anyone?), and any other number of pieces of software that they need.

With bulk-licensing programs, it's much cheaper to replace old PC hardware with new while not having to worry a whole lot about licensing (so long as you did your homework when you spent the money). That's because you're moving from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, per say. There are very few vendors that'll let you move a license across different OS's.

Also, you have to re-train end users on how to use a different OS with its own quirks, provide HelpDesk support for dual-OS's (unless you ditch windows entirely; good luck with that), and you can't centrally manage them like you can with 2000/XP boxes in a properly implemented Active Directory environment.

Exchange support in Entourage is crap too since it relies on WebDev (IMAP/POP are your other options, which aren't good corporate solutions). Mac Excel != PC Excel. You get the point.

I do see Apple making inroads in the SoHo (Small Office, Home Office) area. Here you don't need a Domain infrastructure, workers are their own help desk, and so long as your work doesn't rely on some PC-only software, you can get by. The problem here is these customers are very price sensitive, so a Dell $500 special is much more appealing than what Apple offers.

On the IT side of things, I use a MacBook Pro with OS X, XP, and Gentoo Linux loaded on it, running in Parallels. It's my main box, and I love it for a few reasons:

1) 3 OS's on one machine instead of 3 OS's on three machines. Wonderful!
2) I personally like OS X as my main desktop environment over XP and Gnome.
3) I need access to all 3 OS's to do my work, which is pretty rare.

On the downside:

1) No docking station support.
2) No Serial/Parallel/Modem cables - all needed by IT Pro's to hook into existing networking gear, and to provide legacy support.
3) The battery sucks relative to previous PC laptops I've had (2-3 hours use vs. 5-6 on a PC laptop).
4) No floppy drive.

Ready for Corporate IT land? It still has a long ways to go. For a power user like myself? Yeah, it fits nicely.

Re:Where's the Windows AD Integration?

[SlamMan]

Not going to dispure your #1, I'd love a docking station for Apple's portable line (yes, BookEndz makes something they call a docking station, but those are rubbish).

#2 is a no issue, you can get USB serial adapters for $10. Modems (when necessary), can be handled via USB adaptor. I'm scratching my head on why you'd need to worry about needing a Parallel connection though.

3) I'm in the 4 hour range on my laptop with moderate energy savings set up (dimm the screen a bit, no cd in the drive).

4) My office hasn't bought a laptop with a floppy drive in it in something like 5 years. There's a few USB one around if someone needs it, in the IT office near the old Zip drives.

Re:Where's the Windows AD Integration?

[CatOne]

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.

Re:Great strategy

[Bemopolis]

Okay, it's a slow Friday and I'm bored enough to feed the troll...

Run ads making fun of spreadsheeting, budgeting and other IT tasks and promote the ability to do video, photo and music. Then go the IT shops and try to sell a brand identified photo video and music to do spreadsheets and budgeting.

Because we all know the way to get an IT shop to shift platforms is to run ads on broadcast TV. "Hey boss, don't get Macs — their ads mocked my fiefdom of valuable spreadsheeting." *Cue sad violins*

Wow! Apple's strategy is not comprehendable to mere humans like us.

Yes, all of us "mere humans" in IT and on Slashdot can't comprehend why Apple would target consumer Macs with consumer apps to consumers. Why aren't they advertising their exciting BUDGETING SOFTWARE on their U1 SERVERS!! THEY'RE CRAZY!!

Look at all the DRMs it is pushing in iPod.

All of which were forced on it by content providers. Of course, you can always rip your CDs into one of a few DRM-free formats and add them at will. It's not like iTunes ever, say, defaults to add DRM to CDs you rip, or tacks it onto files you *shudder* "squirt" to your friends. Either that or you misspelled Zune.

Look at how they stymie interoperability. Look how cavalierly they ignore all my settings and repeatedly install iPodhelper and other junk in the start up tray.

Yes, because Apple's strategy is to make using an iPod on a Windows machine difficult and pedantic. Or maybe, just maybe, this is symptomatic of the inherent byzantine shittiness of making things work with Windows. I have no relevant experience, really, as I am not a spreadsheet budgeting monkey and hence not a target of their blatantly IT-offensive advertising.

Look how aggressively they try to associate Apple executables with every damn file type there is. Make no mistake, Apple is just a Microsoft wannabe that failed miserably to be Microsoft.

Yes, if only it were possible to, say, set all files of a given type to open by default with a different app. And if only it were as simple as using a pull-down menu in a Get Info box. And if only I could travel back in time 10+ years or so I could come up with that idea before Apple incorporated it into their OS. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!

This post seems a bit longer than my inital reaction, which was to suggest that you go FUD yourself. But as I said, slow Friday.

Re:It's hopeless

[larkost]

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.

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.htm l

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.

Re:It's hopeless

[norkakn]

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.

bah

[Gary W. Longsine]

"It doesn't matter at all because the vast majority of business applications are not available for the mac. Period. "

It's not that simple, and you probably know it. Most business transactions are apparantly still conducted by COBOL applications so I'll see your Windows Server and raise you a mainframe: Windows will never be accepted in the Enterprise market because everybody knows most business apps are COBOL apps on the mainframe.

Most new application development in the Enterprise market seems to be web based and can work fine with Macintosh clients. This nonsense about "most business apps are Windows-only" is based on the erroneous assumption that just because there are lots of tiny little companies pooping out their custom apps (which nobody else uses) in visual basic that the Macintosh can't play in the Enterprise market. That's definitely wrong in both the server and the client desktop/mobile markets. There is a Macintosh in the Enterprise future.