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IBM's Pilot Program For Internal Use of Macs
geoffrobinson writes "Roughly Drafted has obtained internal IBM documents detailing the results of a small pilot program for internal use of Macs. Positive and negative results were detailed, but overall most participants were happy with their Mac experience. The pilot will be expanded this year. One advantage cited: less reliance on Windows. So it seems a mix of Macs, PCs, and Linux boxes are in IBM's future. Given the history between IBM and Microsoft, this is quite interesting."
Windows has a well-deserved reputation of being slow Zand buggy. I'm surprised it took IBM so many years to realize that employees will be more productive on an OS that respects them.
From the article: If the remote connection and Sametime issues are worked out, I think that Mac users can be productive in IBM. However, if I had to recommend a non-Windows setup, I would recommend Linux on a ThinkPad. I see the convenience and reliability of ThinkPad hardware as superior, and the Mac OS is still a proprietary OS that seems to require a Windows license for some tasks anyway. I do not see enough of an advantage in the Mac OS to be worth the incompatibility issues when collaborating with my colleagues. Take that macbook fanboys. Me and my T40 running Gentoo feel very smug. Very smug.
I am sick of everyone's smarmy afterglow about their switch to Mac after all the "terrible" experiences with PCs and Windows. It's always the same one sided comparison, " I can't believe how other-worldly the Mac experience is compared to Vista." Of course, carving your name in stone with a hammer and chisel is better than Vista. But as a network admin, I have better control and flexibilty with PCs and AD than any Mac I have handled, and I started my IT career on Macs. The latest OS for Mac is very pretty and whiz-bang, but getting integration into a predominantly Windows environment requires additional software purchases, extra configuration issues and more time/money overhead. Yes... you can access an smb share on Windows from a Mac, after you turn of digital signing and reduce your domain's security level. Nice touch. Every Mac Lover I encounter has the same story, "I use it at home and it's so easy. I must use it in the office!" Douchebag! Looking at porn at home and synchronzing data from your laptop to a domain share for redundancy while having access to Group Policy management are NOT the same thing.
And the next person who shows me how awesome Time Machine is has a three word answer from me: Volume Shadow Copy. Windows Server has had this feature since 2003. And with a few mouse click and GPO push (read: automatic) of one app, all machines in my company can pull up network data from any time without use of backup tapes. And any company worth its salt has good virus protection, spam blocking and border security in place. Now here comes the Mac which can make use of none of those office level features. 5% market share does not good anti- virus make. When there are enough of them out there, and bored German teenagers get busy, then let's talk about how secure Macs are.
You win with Vista... it sucks and blows. You're not getting an argument from me there. But XP SP2, which now has support until 2014 from MS, just works. Apple knows how to make things pretty, but they always seem to do it after other OS and PC manufacturers take the hard road.
P.S.: Hey Apple, you didn't invent the MP3 player. My Creative was rockin' long before anyone said the phrase iPod.
The cost difference between Mac and Windows PC hardware should be fairly small for IBM. While I, personal user, can equal a $2000 Mac with $500 of hardware and then load Ubuntu and/or Windows onto it, IBM buys in bulk from other vendors. I've been involved in about a half dozen bulk purchases of computers in the last seven years, and I'm always shocked that the cost per machine is always at least twice what it would cost to buy the components separately and put them together myself. Also, in the case of a recent Dell purchase of a laptop for my boss I configured a system through the large business site, or whatever it's called, and then configured an identical system through the home and home office site, and system one was $2600 while system two was $1500. That's for the same hardware prepared by the same company with the same warranty. For all the talk about thrift in the corporate world, I'm shocked at how happy giant corporations are to pay twice as much as they could if they had more flexibility (allowing reimbursement of a purchase from the home store) and less bureaucracy.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)