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Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer
Esther Schindler writes "Not just another 'why big companies should adopt Macs' article, CIO is running a piece assuming that Macs are already on the way in the door. Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm Your Enterprise Computer offers advice to IT managers about how to integrate Apple systems into the existing IT infrastructure, and offers hints from leading Mac OS X experts on configuring those systems once they've arrived. '[A] key element in corporate Macintosh adoption is the importance of third-party software and custom solutions. They can help smooth the way for integrating Macs onto the network. While specialists say they wish third-party support were greater, the openness of the Mac makes correcting issues possible. Don't discount the lure of the well-worn path that draws and then traps your IT staff into familiar habits.'"
Most of this article is pretty good, but I disagree with one of the early bits about supporting Macs in a PC-oriented office:
The article goes on to say that some of that may be because these particular Mac users whine a lot and need more help (my words), but also "... due to the nature of the tools we use on the Mac."This contradicts both my experience and the experience of an awful lot of tech support people I know. In PC-oriented offices where Macs are used, the tech support folks rarely have to fiddle with the Macs. The Mac apps don't seem to cause any more problems than the PC apps, so the support costs are about the same. Maybe Publicis Group is a bit more PC-oriented than the CIO is willing to admit?
"The Macs require a greater density of field associates. Where we have 1-to-150 PC techs to users, we're somewhere down to 1-to-100 for Macs. I think that's due partly to the technology and partly due to the users. The creatives are more demanding and you have to be more responding, because those are the people that clearly create our revenue," says Anschuetz.
That's the direct opposite of my experience (More like one Mac guy for 700-800 Macs, one PC guy for about 100-150 PCs), but I suppose a university environment is a bit different from a creative environment (at least outside the art/music/etc departments).
What do they mean by "openness" here. (Just curious - don't interpret this as troll.)
I'm not a Mac user or anything, but if they're right about this trend, I say more power to 'em. I say anyone stepping up and taking a swing at Microsoft's market share is a good thing since it will drive innovation and value rather than good ol' incumbency.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Congratulations. Now there's nothing stopping corporations from making the switch.
For all those recommending Apple remote desktop, I don't think that's what the parent was referring to. going to each and every computer over VNC or something similar is almost as difficult as making house calls. What he's looking for is something like Active Directory with group policies and automatic updates so that the configuration changes are made one place and reflected on all the machines.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
For Mac OS X 4.5+, Apple offers an emulator named Boot Camp.
I stopped reading after that. The entire article was this bad.
I think years from now many people will look back on the period of approximately 1985-2005 as a "Golden Age" for Microsoft, when they were able to rake in huge profits by illegally dominating huge chunks of the personal computer industry with the Wintel duopoly. Of course for many of us we will look back on this period as "The Dark Ages" of little or no competition in the PC marketplace. Really what we are seeing now, as Apple and other firms like AMD start to make inroads into the enterprise market, is a return to normalcy. Competition on price and competition on features is a healthy state for the computer hardware & software industry. Capitalism and our free economy is really founded on the notion that there is not a central power (be it a totalitarian system of government, or a monopolistic corporation) that can control an entire sector.
Also, please take a look other major industries that have healthy competition - Plenty of airlines -> lower airfares. Plenty of car manufacturers -> lower car prices. Plenty of restaurants -> reasonable cost of food.
The idea that there is only one group of people in the world smart enough to create a reliable and modern PC operating system is simply a falsehood.
I can throw as many stones as I wish; my house is made of transparent aluminum.
If it's a 95% windows shop, it's likely they WILL have more often and more complex issues. If there are 90 Fords and 2 Hondas, it is quite more likely that a Ford will break down first.
Not necessarily saying that it's not true your Macs have fewer problems, but the statistics and results from those statistics are skewed.
Oh, so sorry, but the answers I was looking for were:
/. Readers"
* Linux
* Linux
* Of course, but only if I load Linux on it.
Hopefully you'll fare better next time you play "Default Answers For
"Don't discount the lure of the well-worn path that draws and then traps your IT staff into familiar habits" Don't mess with your IT staff and it's paths.
Hmmm.... Okay.....
$650 for the dell.
$34.98 for a McAfee license (Enterprise)
$84.00 for a Windows XP cal to connect to a Windows 2003 server. (in Windows 2000 the cal was included)
$29.00 for a SpySweeper license
We're at $797.98 right now and we haven't done anything. Lets add a little more for the Ghost license etc if you want to image the machine.
Windows might be cheaper at it's most basic, the problem is that windows isn't much cheaper when one considers the additional stuff you need to purchase for it to be safe and functional.
To be fair, you would still need to purchase a cal for the Mac if you are going to connect to a Windows server.
load "$",8,1
"The Mac itself, the nature of the Mac, how it works and how it looks, is actually more conducive to the creative mindset. But those same things have also created a religious factor where the typical 'creative'--they can't even touch a PC keyboard. I'm being actually serious," says Christian Anschuetz, executive vice president and CIO of Publicis Groupe, which is based in Paris.
I haven't finished the article yet, but while I can believe this mindset being prevalent in years past, but I don't think I've met any designer in the past 5 years or so with such an anti-PC attitude. I've worked on a mac since my freshman year in college, but still had no problem sitting down and doing design work on a PC. And this was over a 2 year period. Using CorelDraw because my employer was Canadian and apparently Corel is a Canadian company.
Likewise, I've met plenty of PC users who are willing to sit down with a Mac if that's what the job requires. I just don't think this idea of "He's creative so he HAS to use a Mac" is valid anymore. You do the job with the tools you have. At my current job, once the IT dept. found out that I was going to be hired they immediately went out and bought a Mac. If I had been asked I would have said I could work in either platform. It doesn't matter as long as I have the tools to get the job done.
Sure, PC and Mac users like to make jabs at each other every now and again, but the few times I've met hard core Mac/PC users, they've been jackasses who weren't nearly as productive as they'd like to believe.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
--Erik
One of the things that an Apple Admin absolutely can't afford to get trapped in is the religious wars aspect of OS advocacy. The shell is a key element of remote administration and I'm glad I have it.
"The Mac itself, the nature of the Mac, how it works and how it looks, is actually more conducive to the creative mindset."
Nothing infuriates me more than this single, completely mistaken idea that there are people who, unlike "most" people, have some magical inborn gift of creativity, where in fact ANYONE can be creative. It's only this attitude that propagates an otherwise completely artificial division between "normals" and "creatives." I am a graphic and interactive designer at a small Manhattan design firm, and I witness this bullshit attitude EVERYWHERE. "Oh, that's a creative's job. I wouldn't know what that means." It's willful ignorance, just like any other kind of willful ignorance, and it goes both ways. Ever had to deal with a web designer who has no freaking idea how web pages even work? It's because they buy into this insane notion that there's a division between creativity and "everything else."
And thanks to this all-pervading, quasi-classist attitude, the cult of mac has grown up around these supposed "creatives." Ever heard of "the creative class?" The fact that someone came up with that idea blows my mind! Designers and technicians alike need to realize that the only thing keeping this sensibility afloat is common belief. Those that don't believe they are capable of creativity ought to give some time and thought to it, and those that believe they are "a creative" need to learn that they are not defined by their job title.
Limina.Log
The first time I saw the iSight built into the new Mac laptops, I said to myself, "they just lost the possibility of selling any machines to any gov't contractor or gov't office ever as well as any company with a 'no camera/camera phone policy"
There's also the goofy white plastic stuff. It may look "cool" but in an office it looks cheesy, and paying $200 extra for black? Forget it. Apple just doesn't market to businesses, it markets like a boutique PC. It would be like BMW trying to sell cars to Enterprise, they're just not worth it even if people like them.
It seems like Apple would love more business customers, but then turns around and does a whole lot of things to convince businesses that they really don't want to cater to them. I certainly wouldn't buy from Apple if they're willing to delay a major OS upgrade for a cell phone. Not a smartphone either, which would be a plus for a business, it's just a rediculously overpriced cell phone.
Go play with the dell configurator, you can get about the same amount of machine from Apple for about a thousand dollars less.
I call shenanigans. It's the low-end machines where the PCs are cheaper than the macs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When there is no mid-range system the mac pro is the only way to go and that can be over kill
Yes, I finally understand now: Windows was the reason for that, not John Roth, et. al.'s, greed and poor management. And then that bastard ran off with over $300 million while 60,000 people lost their jobs.
Although from my limited perspective, the move away from Mac to Windows may have been symptomatic of the bad management.
While I agree that the price different between black and white MacBooks is stupid, I am also a little amazed that you're suggesting that white hardware is somehow not suitable "in the office". What does that even mean? What the hell does it matter what color a computer is?
Web consulting +
Curious. IT doesn't bother wasting time replacing parts like that at my current (very large) company. They just replace the entire device (aka the laptop). It's not cost effective to diagnose a hardware problem on the fly, then replace the one faulty piece of equipment.
That's what the point of hardware support contracts are.
We're talking Enterprise, not Small Business.
It's more expensive to pay a tech the time and effort to troubleshoot and diagnose a problem with hardware than it is to simply replace all of the hardware. Particularly in a very large Enterprise environment where you have tiered IT people - the simple techs can easily walk to someone's office and swap out the whole box. Making the advanced techs troubleshoot a single piece of hardware (like a laptop or desktop) is generally a waste of time and resources.
So maybe that means that Macs are in fact MORE Enterprise ready - they discourage a tech from tinkering with an individual piece of hardware, and just replace the whole system...