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Why Consumer Macs Are Enterprise-Worthy
cyberkahn tips us to an article in Computerworld that makes the case for Apple's consumer machines moving into corporations. (The article dismisses Linux desktops in the enterprise in a single bullet item.) With the press that Vista has been getting, is Apple moving into a perfect storm? Quoting: "There is no comparison between Apple's 'consumer' machines and the consumer lines of its competitors. All of Apple's machines are ready to move into the enterprise, depending on the job at hand. The company's simple and elegant product line, which is also highly customizable, will be Apple's entree to the business market — if IT decision-makers can get over their prejudice against equipment that's traditionally been aimed at consumers."
"(The article dismisses Linux desktops in the enterprise in a single bullet item.)" And how is this still considered a noteworthy article?
You don't get 4-hour on-site service with Macs, you get to cut in line at the nearest Apple Store. You also don't get things like group policy or centralized (to a server in your enterprise) updates.
Apple has a long way to go before Macs will be ready for widespread enterprise use.
dom
if IT decision-makers can get over their prejudice against equipment that's traditionally been aimed at consumers.
They really think that's what's holding back Macs in the enterprise? I'm pretty sure the problem isn't prejudice against hardware, but integration issues that arise when moving from an all-MS shop to a mixed environment with OS X. The ROI needs to outweigh the obstacles, and it currently doesn't.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Seriously, Apple needs to start making these if they want enterprise customers. Third party solutions that arrive months later are not a real solution.
I work in IT and do a fair it of consulting on COEs (Common Operating Environments)among other things. I see *far* more interest in Linux on the desktop than Mac OS among most of the enterprises who are entertaining anything different than Windows.
This reads like a Mac fanboy wrote it. I can't think of any compelling reasons to recommend Macs in an enterprise environment. Properly implemented (that is with proper profiles and security), Windows 'Just Works' in business, and if one wants something different then there is Linux. The latter gives the benefit of being more customizable than either Windows or OS X in fact, given that all the source is available.
ask me or any other mac bigot: the mac is many wonderful things. customizable? the consumer macs? they are not.
...now what about paying almost 2x for Apple hardware over non-proprietary PCs running Windows or Linux? And getting stuck in the Apple upgrade/repair cycle...also very expensive.
The printer-friendly version is so much nicer to read on-screen.
I want to know what the big deal is between not using Linux because it has too many options. Majority of the distros are either based on Debian or Red Hat. I haven't seen software that only worked on one distro, and things like apt-get, yum, synaptic, and all the other package managers can be installed on most of the distros. That just doesn't seem like a valid reason to automatically dismiss any Linux solution. Just use one distro throughout the whole comapny, problem solved.
622677120
Macs are not enterprise ready. The computers, save for the Mac Pro's, are not easily serviceable by IT departments, unlike, say, Thinkpads. Ever try changing a hard drive of a Macbook Pro? You don't wanna get stuck doing that. Also, Exchange dominates the corporation fields. Mac OS X has a long way to go in the aspects of group policy, and other details that Windows offers that admins need. Sure, you might be able to make hacks in the OS to make things work the way you want it, but Linux is a better option if you want a UNIX-like OS.
Apple doesn't sell "anti-consumer" (well, uh, you know what I mean) or "enterprise" computers, so why do you need to include such a marketdroid MBA word to describe it? Macs have never really been designed to be your typical boring "enterprise" desktop or notebook, so it's completely redundant to say it.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I do find it very interesting that these stories are all over the place lately. "Apple is ready for the enterprise". This makes what now, 5 or six in the past month alone? They always open with "IT managers are tired of spyware", as if spyware was a problem in large corporations (the targets of these articles), they always proceed to dismiss Linux as an alternative... could it have something to do with the release of Vista? Naaaah. Now if this were articles targetting Apple then of course Microsoft would be behind them.
Maybe it's just a big coincidence.
"I'm a Mac user. I'm as smart as a dolphin."
And its utter bullshit.
I suspect that Apple definitely does NOT want to enter a cut throat world of competition where it becomes just an also ran competing on price with a thousand corporate buyers, when it can design kick-ass product in the consumer market place.
This was written by a misguided (and severely deluded,) fan-boy.
The PC wars are long over. Get over it. Microsoft won. (So they're now tied to the office and that kind of ugly industrial design. [Think BROWN Zune. Yuck!])
Apple is a whole lot better positioned to compete in the vastly more profitable consumer arena.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
And just how is a Linux desktop different than a PC desktop (e.g. Dell/HP) different than an Apple desktop. While this article seems to talk about the hardware, the real answer is: THE OPERATING SYSTEM! With Apple, when you talk about the line-up you can't really separate the hardware from the software, yet Linux and Windows are run on current Macs, and OS-X is successfully (albeit illegally) ported to Dells. So what is special about Apple? The hardware, or the software, and why would Linux even be mentioned in any discussion of the hardware -- except that it runs on a lot more hardware than OS-X, and costs less. All this makes this article, and generally this whole discussion, hard to take seriously.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well I do. And the rate of failure is just terrible. Without exact numbers at hand, I can definitely say we've sent over 30 iBooks to the local Apple service partner.
Being an enterprise customer you definitely dont have to wait in line for consumer service, we just send the computers directly for service. Otoh, you definitely won't get 4hr onsite like all the major pc vendors offer.
As for group policy and manageability, Apple got in the game late and will definitely catch up. The question is when (and what decade).
right here. This very discussion made me wonder if the Apple is ready for the enterprise, customer-service wise.
;-) even if the organization won't pay for it. Why? Mainly Mail and Spotlight. Those two really make me more efficient, yes, to the point of buying one for work on my personal money. (the only challenge is making IT to allow this Mac on the network)
That said, I'm personally thinking of bringing my old Mac Mini from home to work (and buying a new one for home
Animoog.org
While Apple has a ways to go, I wouldn't call it a long way. You are completely correct in you listing of their corporate-important deficiencies, however these are fixable, if Apple wishes to fix them, in relatively short order. Apple has to want to fix them, and that's the real battle.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I think the new servers made everyone take notice in the business world. Now with Vista getting routinely bashed even in the pro PC press it's made everyone take a second look at Macs. This is a trend that started even before Vista was released and the release of OSX and the hardware price drops made a lot of people notice Mac. Last year saw record sales for Mac and this year is likely to continue the trend. OSX Leopard is probably going to cause a spike because from all reports it delivers on it's promises. What has never been pointed out is Mac managed record sales in the middle of a massive transition. When they launched the Intel Macs very little software was compatible. By summer that had changed and now most software has been ported. The switch to Intel did make a lot of people take notice and Bootcamp was a big help but to manage record sales during a transition with the normal chaos is very impressive. I will say there was surprisingly little chaos for such a major shift. They seemed to have learned their lesson with the early OSX mess and made the tranisition to Intel as smooth as possible. This is an amazing window for Mac and they are positioned well to take advantage of it. One prediction is Microsoft really tries hard to dump Office for Mac. Expect more problems with the Mac version and Microsoft to try to make a case for it not being practical to continue support. Microsoft doesn't like competition and Mac is likely to gain a few points of market share. I'm not sure that it'll ever pass 10% of market but that's still a huge amount of growth. The lack of the majority of software not supporting Mac, mostly lower end but by volume most doesn't where as most high end does, and a lack of options for equipment. They have a nice selection but it's a tiny fraction compared to Windows. Ultimately it's third party support that's Windows strength. If that ever changes they may be in serious trouble. Doubt it ever will though.
"The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use." Has this person ever used Linux?
From my experience, Linux isn't significantly harder to pick up than the next OS. In the end, it seems like it would be better suited to adapt it to the many different applications businesses might demand from it than something as standardized as Mac O/S.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Apple do not offer (in the UK, for a several-hundred-person ecommerce company where I work) anything that we consider enterprise-grade service. If one of the desktop Dells breaks down, we call Dell and someone shows up the next day to wherever the machine is and fixes it. If one of our Apple machines breaks down, we send it to Apple or take it to the Apple dealer who sits on it for some days, at least, then fixes it and returns it to us. That's not acceptable for the whole enterprise, especially for people who travel, which all of the upper management.
We love using Apple laptops, they are UNIX and they just work, for sysadmin and programmer staff - but we have to take account of the fact that their laptop might break and keep a spare or make sure they have other ways to work. Our web design team of 4 all work on Macs. We have to carry a spare G5 for them because Apple take so long to repair them. We can't roll macs out to everyone without the same level of service that Dell give us at the moment, which Apple Just Doesn't Do.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
They are not. just from trying to get them configured for the uni ldap, autofs, nis, it's a pita. We have to manually make changes in the nfs script because it makes 1000's of symlinks in 2 different directories. Many of the settings that can be modified with nss_ldap don't even exist on osx, for example loginshell overrides. There's no newgrp, we have to roll our own. It's going to be real fun transferring all our users from nis to open directory (slapd) when we start configuring that. Will padl's migrationtools work, I doubt it.
..wtf? we had to use fink and install 2.0.something (the apache2 monolithic build provided by serverlogistics.com has cgi bugs). The configuration files are all over the place /etc/hostconfig, /Library, /System/Library, netinfo gui while on more posix systems it's just /etc . The perl that also comes with osx is buggy (try installing Net::LDAP and all its prereqs using perl -MCPAN -e shell).
OSX server comes with apache 1.3
How do I login to an xserve with ssh -C -Y or ssh -X and run gvim or an xterm or any X app, can't have to use vnc. Then there's HFS which we have to use to support all those nasty meta files. I guess Xsan will be nice when we use it but that's after we get all the data off our huge raid array just for a couple of mac clients.
We haven't even started migrating postgres, mailman, request tracker, and sendmail yet. If it's anything like the way it has been already we're probably going to have to use fink again.
And no I don't want quicktime on my headless Xserve, thinking differently is difficulty.
I really like to buy a mac mini for work, but there is a glitch. I admit - I am a one person company, but I need a new computer for business.
There is just one little issue. I'd like to use two monitors. I do this today, with Windows and Linux. This can really increase productivity. But the mac mini has only one DVI connector. There is a hardware solution to connect two monitors, but it supports only 1280*1024 for each display. I could buy a Mac pro, but this is far to expansice. and the support for two monitors in MacOS X is not ideal, too.
Clicking office is a high learning curve?
you'll face the high cost of changing back your IT to the Windows world.
This is not true.
You can run Windows perfectly well on a Mac so if you decide to give up on OSX you can install Windows on them.
Cost of Windows licenses should you choose to go back?
You will have tons of old Windows licenses to reuse on them, in fact using Parallels, VMWare or Bootcamp you would probably still be utilising those Windows licenses .
The only real cost in changing back would be changing back from Mac hardware to PC hardware and thats hardly difficult; all you have to do is buy PC hardware as your Mac hardware reaches the end of its servicable life.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Even if we assume, just for the sake of argument, that OS X is "enterprise ready", the fact that Apple hardware comes from a single company makes Macintosh an unacceptable choice. The fact that that company also has a very limited product range makes it even less feasible.
"With the press that Vista has been getting, is Apple moving into a perfect storm?"
Uh... this would imply that Apple is about to get annihilated. While I'm sure some people are of that opinion, that's the exact opposite of what you (Mr. Article Submitter) are trying to say.
#DeleteChrome
Are we seeing any evidence of Apple machines actually making an inroad here, even coming up in migration feasibility studies? I've seen nothing of the kind in Europe, yet magazines, blogs and newspapers seem to often tout various migrations to Linux, sometimes for the purposes of case-study.
The reality is Linux is already being adopted in the enterprise, at least in Europe. Linux increases the longevity of the existing hardware installation and provides cost incentives where upgrading is concerned. Learning curves will always be an issue switching to a new OS, but for most purposes it's new applications that are being learnt, not the OS itself: one advantage of Apple in this area is that a variety of MS tools already run on the platform whereas they don't on Linux. A poor example, but I've personally seen students and teachers familiar with Windows really struggle with OS X and also a GNOME desktop whereas they're at home in a KDE environment within a few hours. I think the author has little hands-on experience in this case.
Whatever is said, if you want evidence of Linux in the enterprise look at the employment boards: the demand for Linux admins with experience in SLED or RHEL (even so specific as citing KDE and Gnome environments) is truly on the rise.
(As a note - I _am_ an OS X (and Linux and Windows) user and admin. I have dozens of Apples ranging from G4s, G5s, Mac Pros, Powerbooks, MPros, and Xserves.)
The learning curve and disparity of Linux distributions is too high for easy general office use.
As someone else noted already, dismissing Linux with a single line is a little silly. Ubunutu is starting to gather desktop momentum. But I'll ignore the Linux factor. There is also a learning curve for moving from Windows to OS X, some of which Apple refuses to deal with. Many users are very used to AND prefer keyboard shortcuts to access pulldown menus, for example. The lack of consistancy for what the green window size button does is fustrating. Even Apple's own software fails to consistantly follow their own UI guidelines. Again, for example, a few applications quit entirely when you close the window while the majorty close the window but the program continue to run.
Many corporate applications have been ported to W3-compliant Web services that are OS-agnostic
Um... yeah. Sure. Which Enterprises are these again? Most Enterprises run tons of legacy software that's connected to via local software (often written in VB) or IE only frontends. Part of being an Enterprise level business is that you have years and decades worth of IT cruft that's built up.
Because Macs work with Microsoft's directory, enterprise administrators can now more easily manage Macs alongside Windows machines.
OS X works with _some_ parts of AD. There is still no viable replacement for Outlook on OS X. Whether you like Outlook with Exchange or not (I don't), there's very little that can do everything it can, and most Enterprise scale businesses are wrapped around it. Remember, it's not just a mail client or a personal scheduler, it's a foundation that many other companies have built on top of the scheduling features.
Yes, you can add virtualization, but then you're back to the problems of running Windows, plus now you have additional administration overhead of running and managing two OSes on each system plus additional user training and problems.
I'm also unaware of a way that I can push updates and settings to OS via Group Policies without using third party software. This is a key factor to Enterprises. A huge factor in deciding whether to shift OSes is the fact that the IT staff must be trained and experienced in what they're going to move to. If they've put years into developing internal tools to manage and deal with Windows, the cost of moving to OS grows.
We find that most PCs that are sold as enterprise desktops are actually stripped-down, lightweight versions of the computers the same companies sell to home users. These machines lack the basic technologies needed in the modern enterprise. Apple, on the other hand, simply doesn't sell a minimalist computer whose predominant 'feature' is its price point, aimed at businesses or any other market."
For instance, you can't buy a Mac without at least 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth, 802.11g Wi-Fi networking, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire and even a remote control..."
My last big batch of Windows desktops were purchased nearly 3 years ago and have 1GB RAM, gigabit ethernet, and have been just fine.
Firewire? Why do enterprise desktop users need firewire? The only reason you need it is for digital video and audio or extremely fast file transfers. Not desktop use.
WiFi? I don't want desktop users using WiFi. That's why we have millions of dollars of copper and fiber infrastructure with security features and VLANs. Wireless is great for some things, but it does not scale and it is inherently less secure than hardwire. Even just having 802.11 means that every single desktop is a potential rogue WiFi station letting people inside the firewall. Great.
Bluetooth? Sort of neat, but again, desktop users don't need it and it opens up security issues.
And I can't believe they even tried to cite having a remote control
Does that sing every key you press?
I am a bit too tipsy to count, but as far as I can tell *none* of the replies here agree with the title of this post, and about half of them take the drastic (that is, drastic for a slashdot audience) stand that MS is a better choice than the Apple.
MS has made a lot of changes over the years to make their OS enterprise friendlier, it continues with Vista, and I don't think Apple has really even started down that road. I think that for a big enterprise there is not other choice than Windows, or maybe a customized, carefully designed Linux distribution. But I don't see anybody doing the latter yet.
I work for NSC/HDS, whatever you want to call it, we do a large amount of support for Verizon's internal users. I recently got an email asking if there were any consultants with previous Mac support experience. This might be be cause Verizon bought MCI which is now Verizon Business and they have some marketing department, I am totally unsure as to what they're planning.
They'll never understand: people don't switch to your favorite platform simply because it's kinda viable and it could do it, if given a chance, and you blink on a few things.
The market is overcrowded, the competition is fierce, and it has rock-solid and lightning-fast support, stability, compatibility, replacement commodity parts/hardware.
Apple has nice looking hardware, OS built to target end consumers, and Steve Jobs shouting how they're best in the world. It's not enough, people.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
This is a strange trend: I don't see that much companies switching to Mac besides... Software development companies! I start to see developers that, basically, only ever used Windows that are now buying Mac laptops. Those people still use a PC (with Windows) at work and at home, but their laptop is now a Mac.
;)
:)
Several software development companies are now even buying Mac laptops for all their developers. This "switch" is possible because many, many, developers are now writing Java apps (insert mandatory Java is lame jokes here, but Java took the real world by storm and it won't stop anytime soon) or Webapps. In any case, this is not Windows-only development anymore and they can slowly get away from the lock-in.
I see OS X usage rising at many software development SMEs and also on the blogs of "high-profiles" Java developers (James Gosling himself being a Mac addict
And you don't see this trend only in SMEs: more than a few Google employees are carrying OS X laptops around... From the "expensive toy for hip people", the Mac image is changing to "machine that mean business".
As a long time Unix user (I was lucky to discover Unix for the first time with Irix, on a SGI), I don't like MacOS X that much yet, but I've got to admit that it's because I don't know it very well. I find it very funny to see all these long time Windows-only-I'm-afraid-of-the-Unix-command-line developer now using a desktop-friendly Unix system
It's good to see those previously alienated, locked-in, developers now slowly starting to give the finger to MS. And what is really frightening for MS: you hardly ever see a Mac user switch to Windows (sure, there are a few exceptions, but most people who switch never look back).
I socialized with your mom last night. I was at the local dive. I saw her from across the room, and her brother talked me up to her (Thanks!). She came over, bumped into my shoulder when I wasn't looking, and introduced herself. We talked for a little bit, but nothing really came of it.
Later, when the bar closed, I went to a convenience store. As I was walking away, I heard someone call my name. I turned around, and it was your mom again! She was going to hang out with her brother, sister, and a few of the bar regulars, and asked me if I wanted to come. I got in the car and had a great time.
Your mom is nice, and I want to see more of her.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Yep let me triple the replacement budget this year....dream on..
Got Code?
In a small network I managed (20 WinXP PCs and a Linux server), the question came up of buying one Mac. The reason was that one person received Mac CDs from graphics shops with Quark Xpress files, and only Macs could read the font files on these CDs. Since it was not possible to educate the various graphics designers from various places and countries to send the stuff correctly, the idea was to buy a Mac and a Quark license, and be done with the problem.
The Mac + the Quark license would have cost around $3-4000, + setting it all up, etc. And it wouldn't be able to run the old MS-Access application on which the whole business relies.
I had nothing against Mac, and am not particularly fond of Windows, but all that money and trouble seemed far too much for an additional machine which could not replace the existing PC and would only run Quark a few times per week. I must say that the insane price of the Quark license was probably the deciding factor in the decision to drop the idea and just cope with the fonts problem.
-Spyware/etc. point taken, but we have yet to see how well non-MS platforms hold up in the onslaught of common users faced with a large set of attackers. I've not seen any attempts at spyware/adware under linux yet, probably ditto for Mac. Some malware attempting to run without permission may be mitigated, but a lot of malware is invited in by users implicitly or explicitly installing it by their own free will, without realizing until later the consequences.
-linux isn't actually that bad for common office use if the apps are sufficient in functionality. Start up a modern distro, and the manual install is easy and particularly brain-dead with automated network installs. Once in, it's very familiar, you click on nice menus/icons. To some extent, they mimick Windows more than OSX, so the migration may be easier to Gnome/KDE desktops than OSX, which embraces the filesystem structure with docked shortcuts more than a special-purpose menu as a means to find applications. On some level, I like the Apple approach, but most are familiar with the menu based approach.
-Just because a fair number of webapps the author likes replaces some standalone apps or have grown to support firefox more, doesn't mean that Mac would do any better than PC or that this assessment is appropriate at a wide enough scale.
-The intel chips are no more relevant to the discussion than ppc was a detractor. You are moving from one entirely different platform to another. PPC hypothetical cost difference (*if* true, only would matter if Apple were willing to pass on such savings to their consumers. Their price points really haven't budged. Well, there are exceptions. The Intel Mac Mini on release was $100 dollars more than the PPC based ancestor). In the past PPC was faster than x86 processors, but that performance delta meant little then, and now means absolutely nothing since they are just running equal with everyone else. The point on virtualization is somewhat interesting, but suspecting this comment made in the context of a desktop. Running Windows copies virtualized on desktops just means you have all the headaches of before, including license management, except you add OSX and application variants to the mesh. Not only that, but MS has taken interesting license stances on Windows running as a guest, so you may end up having to pay MS even *more* for the privilege of doing it. If they meant the PPC platform is not appropriate for virtualization in general, they obviously are not familiar with IBM's heritage of virtualization on Power servers (JS21 has a PPC970 dual core platform and includes hardware virtualization). Not with a Windows guest obviously, but it all depends on what he thought the promise of virtualization is.
-Dunno about their integration to industry-wide directory schemes and whatnot, but it won't be any *better* than their competition at this point.
-Creeping in from the home desktop is not that likely. Windows achieved it only through a combination of nearly complete home desktop market domination and a enterprise marketing/sales effort. Linux has done so more because it mimicked the featureset of expensive Unix solutions for both a reduced software cost and lower hardware investment that also happens to be a more vendor-neutral investment. The grass-roots component of the Linux growth is only because initially it had no explicit costs and the implicit costs were hidden through extra effort, frequently without extra billing, of the linux enthusiasts who wanted to make it work. More widespread adoption has required the corporate structures of the likes of RedHat and Novell, with partnerships of multiple hardware vendors. This is one *huge* area the Apple systems will probably *never* cope with. The whole point for a lot of companies going to the likes of Linux and Windows is the promise of vendor-neutrality. Dell x86 hardware or service pissed your company off, go to HP, and vice-versa. Don't have the budget for a Tier-One vendor for a peripheral project that doesn't demand tier-one support? Go
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
My own preferences for corporate desktops would be, in order, Linux, then Windows, then Mac.
In a corporate network environment, the flexibility of Linux desktops is unparalleled. You can optimize your storage needs (and not pay for 300 copies of an OS sitting on 300 hard drives, for example), and you can move applications around the network seemlessly without the users even noticing (useful when one app server gets overloaded). Sure there is a learning curve for the IT department, but on the desktop side, just make sure that for the less techie people, that everything is easily accessible. In fact, I have never found the learning curve to be an obstacle ("we depend on Quickbooks and their support" is a bigger one). In short, an intelligent Athena-style deployment of Linux systems (along with a move to diskless workstations wherever possible) could save a company a bundle on IT and improve productivity. The big issue is that the migration takes time.
Mac's have actually less flexibility than Windows despite the *nix base. You can only buy the systems from Apple, and the really nice aspects of an Athena-style deployment are not possible. Add to that the more limited choices of hardware, and you have some real concerns.
I am not saying tht Macs have no place in the corporate network. THere are places where they are probably very helpful including media production and the like. However, they would not be my first or even second choice for a corporate general-purpose desktop.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Parent poster must be either too dumb or too pissed to troll properly, so here, I'll do it for you.
The typical large enterprise doesn't service laptops of any kind today. They buy the unit with support that spans the life of the machine. If it breaks, they call an 800 number, wait for a box, put the dead unit in the box, ship it off to be fixed and wait for the return. When the support contract expires, they retire the unit and buy a new one.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I would not recommend companies get wireless capabilities they do not intend to use. THe big issue with wireless is that there is no phyisical perimeter for the intranet, so it becomes quite possible for one person to enable it and essentially open up the intranet to passers by.
If a company wants to go wireless, then Macs are not a bad option in this regard. If they don't then *don't get one.* Remove wireless cards from laptops, and the like.
I also highly recommend that companies audit their premises for wireless access both ad-hoc and infrastructure-based. Those who put up unsanctioned wireless access should be disciplined, first with a warning, and for repeat offenders measures up to and including termination of employment.
Many people don't appreciate how much of a security challenge wireless is. Having the temptation to open up the company network sitting on your workstation seems to me to be a bad idea.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
...for moving from a Windows office to an xNIX office. And by xNIX I mean Macs and Linux boxes side by side. I mean FreeBSD and/or Solaris too serving up your data. Mac OS X has a few advantages Linux does not have and never will: Microsoft and Adobe software. Adobe is even reintroducing Premiere for Mac OS X, something that the platform lost when Apple put out Final Cut the first time and Adobe got their noses out of joint over it.
I hate MS and Adobe as much as the next geek, and will gleefully point out F/OSS solutions like OpenOffice.Org, Kino and The GIMP, but let's face it, what will someone completely unhip to F/OSS rather have in front of them: the F/OSS workalike or the reassuring name-brand? Will MS and Adobe ever port to Linux? When pigs fly.
With Mac OS X, you have an xNIX under the hood, and a friendly face out in front. Give the office folks Macs, and use Linux or FreeBSD on those servers that used to run Windows Server. Heck, basically Mac OS X Server is Mac OS X plus ports of stuff like Samba and CUPS. Save your money you would have spent on an XServe and repurpose some PCs with Linux or FreeBSD.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
a less-than-infinite number of monkeys banging on them will reproduce all the works of Shakespear.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I love people who make fun of the fact that the Zune is available in brown, among many colours. Reminds me of the people who made fun of the Gamecube because it came in indigo^H^H^H^H^H^H purple, even though it was also available in black from launch.
If you don't want a brown Zune, don't buy a brown Zune. (You shouldn't buy any Zune, even if it comes in a colour never before seen by human eyes, but that's besides the point).
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
The big orange stains on the palmrest of the white Mac Books at my local CompUSA are bound to inspire confidence in any IT purchasing manager walking by the display.
That's the problem in a nutshell. Many places where I've worked kept PC hotspare parts and machines on hand to avoid even the service call, but that's not always financially feasible or part of SOP.
From a consumer perspective, I've always found Apple support to be far far better than Dell, HP, Compaq and even IBM, but then again I live in NYC and can run down to tekserve for almost-instant gratification. Every single problem I've had with my PowerBook has been repaired for free during the past 3 years of my AppleCare coverage (and I abuse the HECK out of this machine, believe me)
But from a corporate perspective, even Tekserve's turnaround time isn't always good enough. Rapid on-site support is simply a must, and if the cost of purchasing either that or hotspares becomes prohibitive, Macs won't be able to supplant PCs in the workplace.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
AFP over IP *IS* very chatty. It uses the IP broadcast address to send out Appletalk broadcasts (over IP!) then connects to the file server directly using either IP or Appletalk (if the server is antique.) The direct connection won't make any more traffic than anything else, but the broadcasts traffic is heavy. Yes, even in 2003, and indeed even in 2007. Not that that is a good excuse to deny Macs in the building, but it is true. (Of course, you can also just use NFS, bypassing the problem, or SMB, which is also excessively chatty, but if the business has Windows machines I guess they don't mind *that* chatter.)
I run my own business. I'm in business to make money, not futz with IT. I ran Small Business Server 2003. The 'Just Works' comment does not apply. One day things work, another day they don't. I haven't got time to trawl the web to find out why. I have simple requirements for IT, serving files, sharing printers, doing backups, not much.
I junked SBS and put Mac OS X Server in its place. A year later, I'm still happy.
Seth Weintraub is a global IT management consultant specializing in the technology needs of creative organizations, including The Paris Times, Omnicom and WPP Group. He has set up and managed cross-platform networks on four continents and is an expert in Active Directory/Open Directory PC and Macintosh integration.
a ting_Systems/
;-).
Tools:
Everything is not a hammer just because all you have is nails.
Operating Systems (Tools)
http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Oper
This is not a cookie cutter world, Companies are like the Circus,
circus |?s?rk?s| noun ( pl. -cuses )
a traveling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns that gives performances, typically in a large tent, in a series of different places
Circuses with really big tents (nudge, nudge, wink, wink
When we all run away to join the Circus, (I know *I* did) we end up noticing that they all do performances but have different ways of presenting the SHOW.
Now, when you take the show on the road (internet - tubes - intarwebs) you'll notice that the cages for the Beasts are functionally the same, (that's where the hammer comes in) but the animals have personalities - that unknown quantity that all the people at the SHOW have to contend with.
It's all in the way YOU (the company) wants to go about running the show and protecting your audience from the performers (man and beast alike).
Caption:
WHAT! AND GIVE UP SHOW BUSINESS?
http://www.rbgilbert.com/images/cows.jpg
~hylas
The article notes, you can buy any mac without "Bluetooth, 802.11g Wi-Fi networking, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire and even a remote control". I assume some of that can be disabled, but each one of those could be security risk in certain enterprises. I'm wondering how other /. readers feel about that? Clearly some small companies have little need for totally button down security but many larger companies feel they need total security? Security should be based on a risk analysis but any thoughts here?
It would seem a bare bones PC w/ LINUX could be built without any of this extra networking hardware with NONE of the software installed from the micro kernal to the drive level. (not even just commenting out unwanted code but totaly remove the code from the distribution.. that seems a lot more secure...?
http://www.hawknest.com/
You also don't get things like group policy or centralized (to a server in your enterprise) updates.
OS X Server 10.4 has pretty decent client-management capabilities if you have an all-Mac shop. If you want to run Mac clients bound to a Windows AD, you can put in an OS X Server to manage them or subject them to your Windows group policy whims with a third-party product.
OS X Server 10.4 also has a centralized update server built in. It works great. Apple Remote Desktop, along with some scripting, gives me the ability to immediately push updates to the Macs under my control, or just set them to automatically download and install any available updates on a set schedule. I can even have the Macs power themselves up from a shutdown state in the middle of the night to do the updates if I want.
Th Windows field engineers in my company went crazy for the last couple weeks trying to get DST updates taken care of. I took care of all my Mac clients remotely, spending about 30-45 minutes a night while I watched TV at home.
I agree 100%. OS X should have been dismissed with a single bullet item as well.
When people talk about Macs being "enterprise worthy", it reveals they have no idea what "enterprise" means, and what requirements that label brings with it.
Reasons it's not ready: 1) Single vendor lock-in 2) Mac's aren't immune to spyware/viruses they just aren't as heavily targeted... yet. 3) Price. You pay a hefty premium for that stylish apple logo and while individuals might be OK paying it most businesses won't be. Oh and having to replace your screen every time you get a new PC.. great for apple.. lousy for businesses. And Mac mini's really aren't an alternative there..and the bigger machines are overkill upwards of $2.5K each.. 4) Moves like going to OS-X love it if you want but the only reason apple got away with OS-X is because it didn't have many PC's in corporate environments. Can you imagine the uproar if Microsoft had announced vista would have been as big a departure from XP as OS-X was from OS-9? Fear of apple doing something like this in the future (see point 1) will chill many a business even thinking about it. 5) Oh and the point about new hardware being on cheaper intel pc's.. just reinforces point 4... businesses just love tracking things like that, needing to buy new copies of software because their only supplier just twisted their arm. Mike
if you run the roll call of movies that use linux systems for major parts of the productions you would have a very long list
ILM has a huge linux renderfarm
a good chunk of the workstations use linux software [-- this is in a good number of movie houses
you don't want your system to suddenly decide to go into "lockout mode" when you have a mega million dollar movie on the line
and besides if you think about it "Star Trek : Nemesis" was cgi'd on linux systems so yes it it ready for (the uss ) Enterprise
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I said it multiple times, I repeat it again: Apple has no place in Enterprise until they offer enterprise level of support. Hauling your Mac to Genius Bar, with 2 week repair turn around at best, does not qualify as such. Period. Apple offers enterprise level support for their XServes, but that's all. Nothing like that for iMacs, Mac Pros or laptops.
Apple service is HORRID in reparing machines. They have nothing worthy of a respectable computer shop standards of service and repair let alone enterprise. Even thier "pro care" left me without a machine for a week for twice the cost of Dell's 4 hour on site service.
Mind you I only use Macs at work and home... I am a HUGE fan... but thier service makes them a very poor choice for IT departments.
I still don't see any collaboration software on OS X that's comparable to that on windows.
Hell, we at least need something like CRM in a corporation.
Now what's needed in a enterprise? *cough*I actually haven't seen widespread chaos caused by spyware, malware in a corporation or enterprise yet...There is a reason why people are trained to use Microsoft office. If a firm were to change to Linux, they would train the staff that needs to be trained to use it.Woha? Where did this come from? Sources?Can still get non-Macs for less money with the components one needs, rather than unwanted extras or not everything wanted.Really? Why can't you set any policies on a windows server then? You need a OS X server todo it.What OS doesn't support this?Yes, it's usually a big mess, adding OS X into it is just going to make it a bigger mess to manage.I have to disagree, they don't work with it. There merely support some authentication features of it. No windows policies. Any policies you need, need to be set on a OS X server running open directoryAs long as they have a OS X server at their disposal at that particular time...Macs work well at home? I've only had constant hardware failures with them...Hahah.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
with DESKTOP Parts. And a 2 DVI port video card. With 1 dual or quad core cpu.
i dont know what everyone is complaining about, my p4 2.8 with 512mbs ram intel 945 chipset and ATI radeon 9600 work fine as a hackintosh. i run all the crapware with osx fine, i even have a copy of Logic and a copy of Protools running. both of which are high end audio applications. now the osx install might be illegal and not viable for corporations, but i would not say that you are locked into mac hardware if you want to run osx.
p.s.: ironically the security image for this post is: possible
as in anything is possible
whether it is worth it is a different problem.
I like the new Intel Macs and we run a ton of them at work. We were traditionally a windows shop, and still are on the back-end. The new Macs give us a choice. We can run windows and Mac OS where it makes sense.
Unfortunately if you need to replace hard drives, the new Macs suck. Sure, the Mac Pro is easy as pie. The drives just slide out. On everything else, it requires major surgery. In our iMacs, you need to pull the front off of the unit and then remove the screen (that is under a boatload of adhesive shielding foil).
Mac Minis are also a pain. It requires shoving putty knives into three sides of the unit to pry off the top and then removing a DVD drive and a plastic subframe.
The laptops have always been a hassle and still are.
Now the Dell Optiplex systems are wonderful. A couple of pushtabs to open the case and another couple of pushtabs to pull out the hard drive. It's almost as easy as opening a copier....no tools required.
Apple needs to make a mid-line tower machine based on the Core 2 processor. Most desktop users like the expandibility of a mid-tower, but they do not need dual-xeons.
-ted
Geordy, hit the apple button
Captain, are you sure, it might overload the warp-engine
Geordy, make it so
What would you do without a monitor? Sit and look stupid behind a keyboard and a mouse
I run my entire business on open source software. I use LedgerSMB for managing my books (not ideal yet but rapidly improving in part due to the absolutely amazing core development team). It is already comparable to Quickbooks (and better in some respects) an will hopefully have all the major usability issues nailed down within the next six months or so at the current pace of development.
/trunk already has RESTful web services support, and a better approach to data management than the spaghetti-code inherited from SQL-Ledger.
/).
:-)
LedgerSMB is browser-based but svn
As for Active Directory: The key thing about large Linux vs. large Windows networks is that the optimal structures are not the same. Basically, Windows works on a decentralized server/workstation model, so you need something like ActiveDirectory's GPO's.
In contrast, Linux offers some flexibilities which offer better (IMO) solutions to the policy-based management approach of AD. The basic idea of Athena-style networks is that you have the following components:
1) Directory services (OpenLDAP, FDS) with NIS schema installed (Originally HESIOD was used, but now most prefer LDAP)
2) Single-sign on w/encryption (Krb5). This allows you to run services like telnet and ftp with encrypted sessions and no passwords.
3) A shared, secure, and distributed storage layer for data and software. Usually using OpenAFS.
4) Automated updates and maintenance scripts running on workstations (though I personally prefer diskless workstations running without write access to
One of my projects has been the development of some LDAP schema extensions to support attaching maintenance scripts and URLs to binaries to LDAP records for machine, user, group, OU, etc. accounts. This took me 1-2 hours and will be available shortly
However, when properly implemented, Athena-style networks take a *lot* less administrative manpower to keep running than anything else I have ever seen. You have hardware management, and a change management of software, but the system is extraordinarily robust, powerful, and easy to manage.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
We all know how much Corporate IT hates change, yet the author failed to mention one of the biggest reasons Apple's hardware is corporate-ready: consistent configurations. Corporate PC platforms are designed with this requirement in mind, and Apple does it across their entire product lineup. A Dell Optiplex or HP Compaq DC-series desktop will be configured the same from intro to retirement. Compare that to a Dell Dimension or HP Pavilion, where you never know what you're going to get on a given week. Consistency is key for the imaging and deployment process, for pushing out new and updated applications in an automated manner, and for the Help Desk to work efficiently.
Why? Faster, easier, and we know it gets done right. If the system is really important, we can buy the part locally but if not, Gateway will next day it to us. We then fix it onsite, and get the computer set up with the software we use. Downtime is kept to a minimum. There's also an issue of competence. I've dealt with techs from vendors before and generally they are not real experienced computer people. Ok so one can argue that they don't need to be given that it isn't complicated work and they have an office they can call, but there's something to be said for having someone who's built hundreds of systems from scratch do the work, there's a good deal of familiarity. And of course let's not forget data recovery. While everyone should back up their data people don't. That's just life. So an HD fails and they want the data recovered. We can usually do that.
Also you are kidding yourself if you think enterprises want to throw away computers just because the support contract is up. There's plenty of reasons not to, including not wanting to waste money, if it ain't broke don't fix it, users being happy with a system they are familiar on and so on.
All in all, it is kinda stupid to say "Well let's just send this off for service" and not have it for a week or two when it would be easy to get a different kind of product that can just have the component easy to swap and downtime can be kept to a day or two.
Now I will give you that the article (if you even took the time to read it) was very much one sided and dismissing Linux in one line not "fair and balanced". I don't believe the intention of the article was to provide a balanced commentary. It was my take that the article was trying to express how far Macs have come in the enterprise without Apple really trying that hard.
That said let me qualify myself a bit. I currently manage 18 servers, 13 of which are running OS X Server as well as ~900 mainly OS X clients (there are a few PC clients less than 10) in addition to running the network. This over four physically separated locations.
Now a large percentage of the tasks my users work 100% on the Mac. The typical office apps, creative apps etc. There are two fairly large and important tasks that are Windows only. One of our main record tracking systems and our purchase order system. These are hosted on Windows servers and are accessed with Citrix and Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection respectively. My users have not had any difficulty with this.
I use Apples Open Directory to manage users, groups, "group policies", 10.4 Server has an included software update server that will enable you to push out locally hosted Apple software updates. This combined with Apple Remote Desktop to remotely manage, run reports, push out software or run commands on any number of systems.
My users all have network home directories or portable home directories for the laptops. This enables me to have a more reasonable backup strategy as well as gives the ability to users to login to ANY computer and have the environment that they are familiar with appear. I know you can do this with any platform.
One of the advantages that Mac OS X has over Linux is the commercial development of software for the platform. Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office are just not available for Linux. While I am sure people are going to say what about Open Office and GIMP?! Yes they work and I like them a lot. I don't know if I would deploy them in a enterprise environment... yet. Well maybe Open Office (I'm actually testing this out for my environment). So I get professional software AND open source software in one system. Wait... with Crossover for the Mac (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/) I can run Windows apps native as well. This isn't mentioning Parallels and VMware where I can run pretty much any other OS I need to all on the same system. So now I can replace my Linux box, my Windows box, my Solaris box and my OS X box with... ONE BOX! Talk about ROI.
Speaking of ROI. I replace my systems every 5 years. I have had them go for as long as 8 years. My mission critical systems hardly ever go down.
Onto support. Apple does have enterprise support (http://www.apple.com/support/products/macosxserve r_sw_supt.html) in addition to the typical AppleCare
So stop complaining that you can get support for mission critical systems already! You obviously didn't even look at their w
Apple's desire to fix the issues can be summed up in the words, "can we make money doing it?"
It's easy to write a checklist of features that would make up a dream enterprise service package. It's harder to make that package turn a profit in the market. And it's easy for companies to use checklists to justify sticking with the status quo rather than trying something new.
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned 4-hour onsite service, for instance.. for desktop machines, not xServes sitting back in the machine room. Lemme tell ya: I've worked for a couple of large companies and have never seen an IT deal that involves 4-hour onsite service guarantees for any random PC sitting on an everyday worker's desktop. Mission-critical servers, yes. Buy-em-by-the-carload boxes that let users connect to the mission-critical servers? Not a chance. Keeping those running is what the IT department's job. And even then, good luck getting 4-hour turnaround on any issue that doesn't cause significant financial losses from the moment it crops up to the moment the system is fixed and running again. For problems that can be stopped by pulling the network cable out of the wall and shutting off the machine, that's exactly as much ASAP service as you'll get. Anything else will happen later, maybe, if it turns out that we really have to.
These checklists of 'things Apple has to do to compete in the enterprise market' smell to me more like excuses not to spend time exploring alternatives than things people would actually buy if Apple made them available.
Companies don't buy Macs because they don't use Macs now. Simple as that. They already have a large and complex body of hardware and software doing mission-critical things, and it all more or less works the way it is. Adding more machines that are basically the same is known to be reasonably easy. Even if there are teething problems, those tend to get identified early and worked around. Trying something new raises the spectre of potential compatability issues in any of a million undocumented places.
Apple will gain entry to the enterprise market as enterprises move away from proprietary formats and protocols, thus making it easy to fit any standards-compliant machine into the system. And even then, someone will have to lock the beancounters out of the room long enough to explain that a low cost of acquisition does not necessarily equal low TCO.
Of course, a series of negative miracles could happen to Dell (they're in a bad patch right now, but I think they can turn it around) and make Apple look like an island of stability in a PC market that's fighting to rebalance itself.
Mac supports neither. Why would corp. buy computer with limited to no use? Even new versions of Office for Mac won't support VBA and macros. And I didn't even mention how difficult is to support two platforms with one set of IT support personnel that is comfortable only with Windows.
Linux IS too hard, if you assume that to use it you have to install it, while to use Apple or windows, you just start the machine.
Personally, I only install an OS once on a machine. (OK, I used to install Win 98 about 4 times a year, when it got too messed up. XP is better now. Mostly.) Linux on my laptop (Debian Etch) works just fine. So does Win XP. Click on an icon, the program launches. Same as Apple, same as Windows. In a corporate setting, you don't want most users to install 'random stuff' anyway. There is usually a deaprtment of specialists to install what you do want. So, the options are really the same from a usability standpoint. This far, Amiga and BSD are also 'there'. But...
You also have to get applications that you agree everyone can use, but that is a different issue. Microsoft spends a lot of money to assure that ONLY they can run most of the required applications. They also spend a lot of money on advertizing to convince people who make decisions that they are more necessary than they really are. That gap is narrowing every year, both in reality and in perception. It's still not gone though.
I looked at moving to Linux for my engineering office several years ago. CAD was the reason I couldn't do it. CAD in Linux is still not there. CAD on Mac is behind, and slipping further behind each year. More and more though, in application space, Linux is 'there'. Yes, Apple is easy to use (for many people, for people more comfortable with verbal rather than visual skills, a Mac can be a nightmare), it shines with some tasks, but there is also a lot that it doesn't do well. The article writer clearly loves his Mac, but his reasons for dominance are just fantasies. Sorry, the Mac will never have twice the market share it has now.
Better luck next time, fella.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
I see, at the current state of things, a few deficiencies that make Apple not too suitable for enterprise:
Centralized auth Sure, it can connect to LDAP, AD, and all. But why does it insist in creating home directories in non-standard (according to the Mac's filesystem hierarchy) places? Namely,nbody2002:If you can read this you may be addicted to the internet
They seem to base their decision making soley upon:
a) eye candy
c) if it works with an ipod
b) their friends mom had one and she's an artist.
I've yet to see anything unique come out of Apple besides the ability to turn an unprecedented number of people into clueless technophiles with untreatable pebkac.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Centralized auth
Sure, it can connect to LDAP, AD, and all. But why does it insist in creating home directories in non-standard (according to the Mac's filesystem hierarchy) places? Namely, /home and not /Users. And there's no caching of usernames, so if the network goes down or the servers don't work, no-one can log in in a Mac. Worse again, they tend to freeze if the domain server goes down.
It's only creating homes where you tell it to. If you have the user's home attribute set to put homes inI never deploy a 1-to-1 Mac solution without enabling mobile accounts for the users. These cache the user account on the workstation so you can work when not on the network.
The typical fortune 500 company or large government organization realized long ago that keeping people on staff to tinker with hardware failure on a PC is not cost effective, and keeping systems longer that three or four years is not cost effective. This is increasingly true over time as the devices have fewer and fewer parts which can be serviced. I saw a calculation at one of my clients which demonstrated that it was actually cheaper for them to keep a spare laptop at every site (hundreds of sites) than it was to try to fix broken laptops in-house.
Think about it. Do they keep people on staff to fix telephone handsets? Microwave ovens in the break areas? Lights? Vacuum cleaners?
No, no, no, and no.
Fixing this problem in your organization is already on your CFO's "to do" list. Tell your PC fixers to start retraining now.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I like your post a lot, but just adding to the bit about third party software, Im currently a windows user, have wanted to switch to a Mac since late 1999, but still haven't because of the costs + upgraded models. Case in point, the Macbook Pro, I was all for a PB G4 but got put off when I heard of the new "cheaper, 4-5x faster" model coming out. Typical Osbourne situation. I've found in my general internet travels a hell of a lot of great freeware for Macs! Its incredible, from things to use the Apple "extras" better, controlling the backlit keyboard better, using remotes for other things etc, to things like easier and better ways of converting movies to PSP, iPod formats. And then Sound editing, well, I've found so many great programs that I cant use on windows! I should be complain to MS that theres no market for quality Third party software on windows!
---
Well... to quote Apple:
e ment.html
Integration with existing enterprise IT infrastructures including Active Directory (with single sign-on support), LDAP, Microsoft Exchange, all with the power and flexibility to manage your OS clients and provide policy management and centralized services.
Support for access control lists (ACLs) provides flexible file system permissions that are fully compatible with the native file permissions of Windows 2003 and Windows XP. And a standards-based directory services architecture called Open Directory offers centralized management of network resources using any LDAP server -- even proprietary servers such as Microsoft Active Directory.
Software Update Server
Host Apple software updates locally and control who on your network receives them -- and when.
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/workgroupmanag
1) Write a checklist of features that would make up a dream enterprise service package.
2) ???
3) Profit!
beancounters decreed a move to PCs - even worse all the servers went to NT.
With the exception of 2003 and Vista I've used Windows since 3.x and of them NT 4, Workstation, is the only one I have not had trouble with. Then again I have it installed on a DEC Alpha PC and because I was able to get much software installed on it I haven't used it much. Still it has never froze on me or showed me the BSOD, however the first tyme I used XP it froze before it finished booting. And the PC was a brand new Dell.
Anyway I guess the points I'm trying to make are
1) Linux is not a desktop OS (if it has changed in the last couple of years perhaps I should take a second look)
Though I haven't used so I can't make an educated remark, I've heard Ubuntu is ready for the desktop. I've been thinking of getting a Live CD to try it out. Linspire Linux, I can hear the catcalls now, is desktop ready though. Heck, once booted up it even looks like Windows.
Which is ironic considering at one point the Amiga was cheaper and better than the PC... all down to marketing I suppose... I guess earlier in my rant i discounted the Amiga as a desktop system ;-) but that is ok, most other people did as well.
Commodore utterly failed in it's marketing of the Amiga. I thought that with it's resources Gateway would bring it back to life when they bought the Amiga from Escom however they didn't do anything with it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In the last years, Apple has first switched to Mac OS X, then to Intel chips. In comparison, what used to run on a Windows machine in 1999 still runs quite well on a Windows XP box, and I think it will too on Vista.
Ah but when Apple switched to OSX Macs could still run older software. And with the switch to Intels software for PowerPCs can run on Mactels as well. Though I haven't tried or seen it myself I've even heard software for Macs running System 7 can run on Mactels. That's an area Apple has been pretty good as making as painless as possible, migration.
FalconShould there be a Law?
ROTFLMFAO!
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
once you're using the "mixed environment OS X", you're bound to one supplier (Apple) once and forever.
And Windows users aren't bound to MS?
if you find out that Apple's support isn't as good as you were expecting, you'll face the high cost of changing back your IT to the Windows world.
This doesn't apply to Windows and MS also?
If I had a business, I'd prefer to have options and I'd stick with Microsoft (while as a private user, I'm using a Mac and Linux).
If I had a business, and I'm hoping to start one this year, I'd want ease of use and stability, which I get from Macs but not from Windows. As well as functionality, will it do what I want it for, and Macs do. And with Macs I don't have someone, MS, spying on what I do or demanding I Activate my OS nor do I have my OS phoning phone. For almost ten years I've used mostly Windows, 95%+ of the tyme, but because MS wants users to prove their innocence instead of MS proving thier guilt MS is driving me away from Windows. A few months ago I bought a new PC tower with Linux preinstalled for my desktop and when I get a new laptop I plan on getting a Macbook Pro.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have three three windows boxes at work, one XP box for runnning ie 7, one Win2K box running ie6, and yet another that is on a virtual lan for development work (the other two are for testing my work). Having to switch between these boxes constantly is a pain in the ass, and on top of it, something always seems to be wrong with one of them. At no point in time have all three boxes been working correctly. I got sick of dealing with this and begain bringing my Mac to work, and running XP and Win2K via parallels on it for my two testing machines, and using the Mac OS for my development work. Since I started doing this, I rarely have cause to call the IT department to fix things. The three machines I used to have to switch between are not even plugged in, stacked beneath my desk, collecting dust--my trusty macbook pro replaced all three.
I've had very few reasons to call the IT helpdesk since I started doing this. I recently had to speak to them for a password-related problem and the fellow I spoke to commented that I havent opened a ticket up with them In quite some time. I felt sorely tempted to tell him that I've had very few problems ever since I started bringing my mac into work and using that instead of the three windows boxes under my desk.
I work at a large company and have a demanding, and somewhat technical job (since we are talking about macs in the enterirpse). From my experience, anyone denying macs are not enterprise-worthy is in denial.
-JoeBoy
Adoption in the enterprise has nothing to do with the hardware... when will someone recognize that the monopoly Microsoft holds in the enterprise has everything to do with ease of application development, and not hardware?!
.NET, then vendors can produce enterprise software that IT consumers will gobble up. Then-- and only then-- will you see Apple's neon colors grace corporate desks.
As soon as Apple (or *nix, for that matter), can create an application development platform that as easy and rapid as
We've got a couple folks with macs at work, personal machines that they use to access the internet via EV-DO. I've got a Dell Latitude with a D/Dock at home and work. Its a lot easier for me to dock in with my dell than it is for them to hookup their macs. I've got an external keyboard and monitor so I run dual head in both places. I take the Dell to every meeting. Hit the un-dock button and go. Later I just push it onto the dock and I'm ready to work again. Do that 3-4 times a day and you appreciate the dock. On top of that, you actually get to make full use of your notebook.
The size of a companys it department (and its budget, of course) is partially determined by the number of problems that need to be solved daily. The fewer problems there are to solve, the less work there is for your IT department to do. The less work there is to do, the smaller the budget, and the smaller the department. Windows, with all of its regretable design flaws, inherent insecurity and constant need for patching and maintenence handholding, is good for IT budgets. Mac OS X, on the other hand, with it's relatively low TCO, and low maintenence nature, would result in a much smaller IT budget. In my eyes, that has always been the largest hurdle for apple, in getting IT deparments interested in Apple.
-JoeBoy
preceding line
Oka, I'll include the lines before it:
Hmm.. I think it's actually the other way around: While the "all-MS shop" allows you to change the (hardware-)horse whenever you want, once you're using the "mixed environment OS X", you're bound to one supplier (Apple) once and forever.
Now I'll ask again, "And Windows users aren't bound to MS?" Lockin is lockin no matter who's doing the locking.
Very few people are reliant on MS for their hardware needs.
But they are reliant on MS for thier software/OS needs, which was my point to begin with, maybe I should of said it so it was clearer. Whether it's hardware or software lockin is lockin. Apple locks users with hardware and MS locks users with software.
FalconShould there be a Law?
* Although you can, I understand, run Windows apps on a Mac, the experience is not exactly pleasent.
I want to run apps that get the job done, not specifically Windows apps.
* I have heard many complaints about the X11 architecture on a Mac. No X11, none of the flexibility
Same thing, I want to run apps that get the job done not X11 apps.
* Lack of choice of hardware.
True, however unlike MS or the various Linux distros, Apple is as much a hardware as a software business. At one tyme Apple did license Mac clones but they found out they lost more than they gained. Not only that but because Apple controls the hardware OSX runs on they can make sure it just works. Also if Apple were to release OSX for commodity hardware they'd run smack dab into and would be in direct competition with MS.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That is a beautiful twist of Bill Gates' alleged blurb that no one ever will need more than 640k.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
It's time those Brown Zune comments died already. They're funny and all, but not real... The Brown Zune actually sold more units than the white one.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
SMB is a real pain on Macs, I use Samnba on our work servers to:
a) Be compliant with the Windows users
b) It offers better security then NFS
Locally it does OK but through our VPN it crawls compared to the Linux (and most likely windows), In fact as of 10.4 it seems to have gotten worse (part of it I think is spotlight trying to index everything it sees.)
While I think there are many compelling issues to use Macsa in the enterprise (ease of use, apps) I think I would placce Linux higher, mainly because it communicates way better and is getting a very good app library itself which is very important.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
why when the same thing (vendor lock-in) is said about microsoft it's modded insightful, but on the mac it's modded troll? fucking slashdot is the biggest bunch of faggot shitballs.
Don't forget working with exchange. Exchange is pretty much the corporate standard...and while the web interface is ok, it's still a second-class citizen compared to the PC version.
Actually, a working IMAP client for the mac would be nice. The included apple mail client is broken for imap.
It's pretty easy for corporate IT managers to derail Mac purchases outside of creative and other special purpose applications.
First of all ask about integration with MS Project. Zippo. If you use Project for scheduling or project management you're completely out of luck on the mac.
Second ask about Visio. Same thing. No Visio or visio-compatible mac apps.
Third ask about Excel macros. If your company uses any moderately complex excel macros for budgeting, forecasting or modeling they probably don't work on the Mac. Same if your macros depend on integrating external data. Not on the Mac (at least not very easily). Ask about excel speed on mac.
And finally just point to any Mac ad and ask if this is the kind of applications we need in a coporate environment. When was the last time Joe in accounting or Sally in finance needed to author a tune at work with something like Garage Band. Or edit and print photos of their vacation with iPhoto? Same with the mac-on isight? Most of the mac applications just scream consumer. (Ok the PCs come with a couple of lame games...these just scream time wasters.)
Apple isn't close to a reasonable business machine.
Can you install Pro/E or SolidWorks on a Mac? If I've got to install Windows on the computer first, I might as well just buy a PC. The Dell they've currently got me on at work is adequate (silly-shaped keyboard aside), but I really liked the HP xw8200 at my previous job.
Also, look at your co-worker's keyboards and consider if you really want to see them use white keyboards (a year later: ick). They'd probably work out alright at Gattaca, though.
-Rich
So, I'm calling shenanigans. You are committing the crime you accuse others of committing - you are unfamiliar with the real marketplace and you are comparing your Apples to imaginary oranges.
Linux on commodity hardware is cheaper, faster, and more capable. Macs are more expensive than comparably equipped commodity machines, you are paying extra for a particular interface and particular pieces of software that you presumably enjoy. There's nothing wrong with that, if that's how you want to spend your money, but don't try and blow smoke up my butt.
... after 20 years, can we please move on a bit? I don't care what you run, really, I don't.
Once again: run whatever the hell you want. I don't care.
I mean jeez - vi versus emacs, anyone? VMS versus Unix? Criminey...
sloth jr
And there's no caching of usernames, so if the network goes down or the servers don't work, no-one can log in in a Mac. Worse again, they tend to freeze if the domain server goes down.
Switch the account type to mobile in the AD plugin it'll cache the login credentials, and not freeze if the login server goes down.
1. Windows does legacy software support fairly well. Apple simply doesn't do legacy software support at all.
Many corporations run run software that is 10, 15, 20 years old. Strong legacy support is a must for many enterprise desktops. Today, many companies run apps built for Win95 that still work on XP and would likely even work on Vista. Apple never had to give the kind of legacy software support Microsoft provides simply because their computers aren't in an enterprise environment. For Apple, there currently isn't a need for a consumer to run a 10 year old app to justify the kind of expense it would take to ensure that the next OS can do that. Windows developed subsystems so that Win 3.1 programs would run natively in Win95, despite the fact that Win95 was a completely different OS. Similar thing happened when Win98 turned to Win2k/XP and now again with Vista. Apple's approach to legacy software is to say "fuck it, let's emulate it." They make so damn many changes to their OS that older software has problems running on newer OSes and newer software has problems running on older OSes. To run in a real enterprise environment Apple would have to rethink the way they develop their OS.
2. Apple isn't currently able to provide the tech support that would be required.
Bitch all you want about Dell's support, but Apple is currently unable to provide anything close to what Dell does for corporate clients. Even if Apple were to go balls out in pitching to corporations, it would still take years to get to where Dell is now.
Legacy hardware and app support is hard stuff. If Apple had to do the kinds of things that Microsoft has to do for their enterprise customers, the cost and time to develop their OS would grow exponentially. Despite MS' billions of dollars, tremendous market demand and very smart people, enterprise migration from an older Windows to a newer one is still incredibly expensive and painful. MS has spent the last 10 years getting better and better at this and all things considered, they are somewhere between mediocre and decent at it.
Apple just doesn't do that kind of support. To be "enterprise-worthy" they will have to. And right now they have zero expertise and zero budget for it.
So yeah, the guy who wrote that article is correct. Apple computers as enterprise computers are just around the corner...I mean, Apple computers are spec'ed out like PCs now. That's all you need, right?
There are a few barriers to macs' entry into the mainstream workforce.
0- (The biggie): enterprise support is crap. Really it is, especially for laptop. Where I work, *every* vendor proposes same-day, on-site support for desktop and laptops alike, except for Apple (which propose it only for desktops). There is absolutely no way any reasonable executive will put up with that complete and utter crap. Who can wait for a 15 days turnaround for their laptop ? Who will accept actually going to an accredited Apple repair store ? Apple needs to work on this fast if they want to get any traction at the enterprise level. Almmst everybody is working with laptops now.
1- Apple doesn't sell a wide enough range of machines, especially at the bottom. Where is the $400 mac, good enough for most office tasks (ie : running a browser, word and excel, full stop) ?
2- No native microsoft office. I hate that stuff, mind. However, everyone requires it, and it runs extremely poorly on Rosetta : a mere office mac requires almost 1GB to run it. This is insane ! OpenOffice is even worse.
3- To run well, Macs require a lot more resources (Video, RAM *and* HD) than the equivalent Windows-XP PC (see Rosetta, but OS/X is also incredibly memory-hungry). This may change with Vista, but probablly will get still worse with Leopard.
"Most businesses don't need red hot gaming machines on most desktops: what they need are consistent, reliable, and interchangable computers. Apple's pretty good about that all the way to their low end, so while their low end machines are anemic by home PC standards they're plenty beefy enough for business."
The article isn't about "why Mac instead of Windows", so much as "why Mac mini or Macbook instead of Mac Pro or Macbook Pro".
AppleCare Premium Service and Support Plan
AppleCare Premium Service and Support for Xserve or Xserve RAID covers onsite hardware repairs within four hours during business hours and next-day onsite response when you contact AppleCare after business hours. Up-and-running support and basic troubleshooting are also available by phone or email 24 hours a day.
Minis work great with a KVM and an existing PC set-up.
"Form should follow function...unless it's just plain ugly."
Which is why enterprise has enterprise class gateways. Enterprise doesn't need to worry about this, so if that is your main reason to switch you need a new reason.
I am not an enterprise, I AM an individual! Why should I have to buy a massive volumn license just to avoid having to Activate my OS and prevent it from phoning home?
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you want to stop vista from phoning home you can always get a cheap, consumer class firewall.
And how long will it be before Vista stops working if it's not allowed to phone home?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why not? http://www.apple.com/server/support/