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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."
It's really not that strange-- it's not like the old days were Microsoft's OS is talked about as running on "IBM compatible computers". These days, Apple hardware isn't that different from anyone else's, so it's just a question of which operating system they want to run. Since IBM is so tied to Linux/Unix these days, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they're considering moving away from Windows.
I think the more ironic thing is that they're probably considering the move because Macs have become more popular since moving from PowerPC architecture to Intel's chips. To spell out the irony a little bit more, IBM started considering using Apple's computers (partially) as a result of Apple ceasing to use IBM's chips.
We have a whole building of Macs here using Active Directory. I won't say it's trouble-free, but it works fairly well.
True, but if IBM's consultants start showing up at client offices with MacBook Pros instead of Thinkpads, the clients will notice, and start thinking "hey, if it works for IBM, maybe we should look at using Macs too"
I am sick of everyone's smarmy afterglow about their switch to Mac after all the "terrible" experiences with PCs and Windows.
It is, however, very understandable. Users try OS X, realize some of the problems they've ben working around for years and no longer even think about are no longer problems. They get a bit crazy and try to understand why most people still use Windows and in the process can be very loquacious and annoying. It calms down after a few months or a year.
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.
So you're saying your IT department standardized on solutions that locked you into one vendor, and now that users are demanding support for other vendors, your lack of foresight is biting you in the ass. Umm, maybe next time you should consider the future and flexibility as a feature so you don't have to purchase new software that handles the use case you did not consider.
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.
It's called NFS. Any OS can use it. Why did you ignore the possibility of Mac or Linux or Solaris workstations when you picked a network file system?
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!
Well why don't you just ask Microsoft to improve Windows. You're they're customer, surely any company you chose to do business with is responsive to your concerns as a customer, right? Oh wait, you chose to do business with an entire organization of douchbags you have repeatedly been convicted of crimes against their customers. Good choice there.
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.
No they're not. Your job is to implement a solution for the latter that actually works for what your users want to do. You do realize IT is supposed to be about facilitating user needs, right?
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.
Congratulations. You fundamentally misunderstood the ways in which Time Machine is innovative. I don't even use it, but I read the whitepaper. What kind of IT geek are you if you don't actually read up on new tech?
And any company worth its salt has good virus protection, spam blocking and border security in place.
What does this have to do with anything? Since when has border security stopped malware problems anyway? You seem about four to six years out of date when it comes to business security models.
Now here comes the Mac which can make use of none of those office level features.
The Mac can make use of plenty of those office level features, if you implemented a cross platform solution instead of locking yourself into one vendor. Man am I glad I haven't had to deal with vaguely incompetent IT people with Windows only skills for many years. Maybe you should take some courses at the community college or something.
5% market share does not good anti- virus make.
Maybe, maybe not. But whatever Apple has done, it works so far. Realistically, malware is not a problem for Macs at this time. In future that might change.
When there are enough of them out there, and bored German teenagers get busy, then let's talk about how secure Macs are.