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Will Apple's Lion Roar For Business?
An anonymous reader writes "Apple has long had a troubled relationship with IT departments. Any creative professional will testify just how hard it can be to convince IT managers to allow the use of Macs in Windows-dominated environments. And, despite the fact that the Mac OS is now quite a well-behaved client on Windows LANs, Apple sometimes does little to help its own cause. The decision to release OS10.7, or Lion, for download only is hardly going to endear Apple to IT managers who need to conserve network resources. Most of all, IT departments would want to see the Mac OS offering full support for virtualization, on the desktop and on the server. There are rumors that Apple will, itself, run a virtualized version of Mac OS under VMware as part of its iCloud product. Allowing OS X to run as a guest on non-Apple servers, and even on the desktop under VDI, would bring enormous administrative benefits to companies using Macs."
The decision to release OS10.7, or Lion, for download only is hardly going to endear Apple to IT managers who need to conserve network resources. Most of all, IT departments would want to see the Mac OS offering full support for virtualization, on the desktop and on the server.
before reaching a coclusion, read a better researched article, written by someone who really knows macs firts: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars (warning, 14 pages article)
lion can be burned to a DVD after download, also, in the near future, apple will ofer lion on thumb drives for $69.
the EULA also mentions virtualisation. the hypervisor probably needs to run on a mac OS host, but it is supported as guest, if the EULA is true.
What ? Me, worry ?
Apple has pretty good enterprise tools, directory support, image deployment. What I have noticed in my organization is that Windows admins simply don't want to investigate. We have an Apple rep (engineer) that gives free classes on anything we want and still the Windows admins complain Lion needs a 3rd party (expensive) full disk encryption, special programs to integrate with Active Directory and can't be imaged.
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No, any creative professional who uses a Mac, or who knows other people who use a Mac, or who has talked to IT managers about the possibility of using a Mac. Or, as the original writer said, any creative professional.
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But I thought the whole point of Lion was to bring the mobile OS market and the desktop OS market closer together?
No, that's not the point at all. The point was to learn from other platforms ideas that they can bring back into the desktop. That's why the WWDC Lion theme was "Back to the Mac" not "assimilation".
Apple has always maintained people want different UI on a desktop vs. a mobile device, and they are absolutely staying there with Lion. Yes they have a full-screen mode (and a real full screen mode too, not just a Windows style Maximize button). But that lives off in a separate space (virtual desktop) and is a full parter with all other running apps. They also have got rid of permanent scroll-bars (which you can re-enable if desired) but that's only in the case where the pointing device you are using support gesture based scrolling.
Indeed, Apple has stated repeatedly they thought touchscreen desktops made no sense. It's Microsoft that is showing us new Windows versions oriented to using a touchscreen, Apple is keeping Mobile and Desktop UI separate and distinct.
That being said, I don't see how that would be compatible with administrative requirements in the business world.
Even if that were true you would be wrong here too. Businesses LOVE devices that are more locked down because they introduce fewer paths to user security issues. Lion has a lot of new features to appeal to IT security that are brought back from Mobile devices - like whole disk security (that is actually reliable unlike FIleVault of old) and real application sandboxing (though that will take a long time to get picked up by the larger applications).
Apple is moving in a direction IT security departments love, not hate. And really that is better for overall user security too, because users at home have no IT department to worry about a system being secure so it has to do as much for the user as possible.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So he thanked you for pointing out the network infrastructure was horribly broken, right?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley