No subscription iTunes at event; Macs high priority in enterprise

[AppleInsider]

Hopes for an all-you-can-eat iTunes music service should be dashed this time around, according to purported insiders. Meanwhile, the corporate world says in a new study that integrating Macs into their businesses is one of their top priorities.

Apple said turning down iTunes subscriptions

While the hype surrounding Apple's "Let's Rock" event is building quickly, at least one often-discussed possibility is being dismissed before it gains traction.

Alleged sources of CNET tell the site that there will be no subscription service announced when Apple officials take the stage next week. The iPod maker has only negotiated deals for by-the-track downloads and so wouldn't have rights to let users download bulk amounts of iTunes.

The tip also shoots down content-related announcements as a whole and instead turns the attention back to new iPods widely predicted for the Apple event.

Rumors of a subscription service have surfaced periodically but gained momentum earlier this year when it was suggest that Apple make take a page from Nokia's Comes With Music business model and charge a per-iPod premium in return for a set period of unlimited access to iTunes Store songs.

Mac seen as a top priority in enterprise

Of the immediate IT-related problems in enterprise-class business, the highest priorities involve harmonizing the Mac with a Windows-dominated work environment, according to the results of a new Group Logic study.

Questioning of about 350 technology pros at US workplaces revealed that three out of the top five concerns involved Mac integration and were headed up by supporting Macs on Microsoft's Active Directory system, which was cited as a concern by about 38 percent of the entire group. Roughly 35 percent of the group was concerned about handling help calls from Mac users, while 24 percent were worried about maintaining the "full 'Mac experience'" for clients on the network.

Also, the majority of all the businesspeople polled claimed a Mac influence on their respective companies, with 70 percent having at least some of the Apple computers at their workplace. A remaining six percent said there were immediate plans to add Macs to their corporate networks where they weren't before.

"There is no doubt that companies are increasing the size and scope of their Apple Mac networks," Information Technology Intelligence Corp.'s Laura DiDio says.

[markspain]

>> Rumors of a subscription service have surfaced periodically but gained momentum earlier this year when it was suggest that Apple make take a page from ... <<

was suggest

should be:
was suggested

Apple make take

should be:
Apple may take

No charge! : )

[Matthew Yohe]

The fun part is setting up Active Directory and Open Directory to create the 'Golden Triangle'

[Ireland]

I'm not believing or dismissing anything until I see the event with my own eyes.

[J-Shea]

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen. Essentially, this would be an expandable Mac Mini. (Remember the design of the IIci and IIcx machines?)

I imagine Apple would be concerned that this Enterprise Macintosh might cannibalize sales of iMacs in the consumer space -- but I recall how Apple initially restricted the eMac to educational institutions. They might consider restricting an Enterprise Mac to corporate users who buy in volume.

[amerist]

There is still no comparison between an all-mac environment and squeezing macs into a workplace that is primarily PC-centric.

I should know. I happen to be one of two people who uses a mac at work at my company which employs over 2600 people. The IT director hates macs so that has a lot to do with it. The rule around here is if you are going to use your own mac for work you are on your own. We officially only support PCs but I, personally, will always lend a hand to a fellow mac user. Kerio FTW.

[J-Shea]

There are at least two key attractions of the Macintosh for many businesses:

1) The Mac can run multiple operating systems (OS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux), and

2) The ongoing expenses and hassles of virus and spyware protection are diminished.

[guest]

Originally Posted by J-Shea

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen. Essentially, this would be an expandable Mac Mini. (Remember the design of the IIci and IIcx machines?).

Which kind of business really requires such customizable machines? Replaceable video card?? Are you talking about part by part upgrading? What kind of an IT department has time for that? And nowadays this doesn't make any sense anymore, not even for a small business.

[Booga]

Originally Posted by J-Shea

There are at least two key attractions of the Macintosh for many businesses:

1) The Mac can run multiple operating systems (OS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux), and

2) The ongoing expenses and hassles of virus and spyware protection are diminished.

I work in a huge company, and neither of those are any advantage here. Symantec antivirus is very good and relatively hassle-free, and the infrastructure for it (the auto-update stuff) would have to be there as long as there are any Windows machines in the company anyway. And if you have to boot into another operating system you've probably lost and productivity gains anyway.

The reason Macs are picking up here are because we're hiring more designers. The engineers were picking them for awhile, but we do a lot of Java so that'll probably go back to Dell. (And the latest mobile rich client stuff was done in flash so the iPhone's out, too.)

[hittrj01]

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen.

Holy cow, this just in! Apple has made available a computer that has ALL of these features readily available! Can you guess what it is?

.... It's called a Mac Pro.

[mstone]

Originally Posted by Booga

Symantec antivirus is very good and relatively hassle-free

Not that Macs are immune to viruses but don't be lulled into complacency about Symantec being able to protect Windows machines from infection. There are some recent viruses in the wild that can infect XP, Server2003, and Vista which require nothing more than visiting a web site with Javascript turned on to start downloading trojans. And although Symantec can detect the virus, it can often do nothing to quarantine, delete or in any way prevent the infection. Just a word to the wise.

[Haggar]

Ha ha, the best way to "integrate" Macs into enterprises is to make them all run Windows exclusively.

[Haggar]

Originally Posted by guest

Which kind of business really requires such customizable machines? Replaceable video card?? Are you talking about part by part upgrading? What kind of an IT department has time for that? And nowadays this doesn't make any sense anymore, not even for a small business.

Well then, Apple should discontinue the Mac Pro immediately since nobody wants it, let alone a smaller, lower priced version with similar ease of internal access.

[Haggar]

Originally Posted by J-Shea

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen. Essentially, this would be an expandable Mac Mini. (Remember the design of the IIci and IIcx machines?)

I imagine Apple would be concerned that this Enterprise Macintosh might cannibalize sales of iMacs in the consumer space -- but I recall how Apple initially restricted the eMac to educational institutions. They might consider restricting an Enterprise Mac to corporate users who buy in volume.

Considering that Steve Jobs had the courage to admit that "AppleTV 1.0 was not what people wanted", why can't Apple do the same when it comes to their Mac computers? But instead of admitting that the Mac Mini was not what people really asked for, Apple will try to spin it as "we made the Mac MIni and people didn't buy it, which 'proves' that nobody wants a Mac minitower".

[AlphaBob]

Well, then, all I can say is a non-event as far as iTunes is concerned. Sounds more like it should be iTunes 7.7.1.1 than 8.0.

Apple, get off your butt and get subscriptions going. Somehow Rhapsody has been able to equal your library and they have done it for years.

[KindredMac]

I hate Active Directory.

Our company forced our art dept over to AD last year and we have more issues now than we ever did before. They've locked us totally out of our machines to the point where we cannot run Disk Utility without an admin password from IT.

We now have more server glitches where we get locked out of certain servers and when trying to move folders on the server prompts us to say we do not have permissions. Don't even get me started on all the temp files that get created now that were never there before.

It takes my PowerMac G5 almost 3 minutes to just get to the log in screen from a cold start now where before I didn't even have enough time to put my keys and lunch away before it was waiting on me.

[dasein]

Originally Posted by Haggar

Well then, Apple should discontinue the Mac Pro immediately since nobody wants it, let alone a smaller, lower priced version with similar ease of internal access.

I think what he means is most companies see their needs differently than either home users or even small business users. They have VPNs and such and a good machine is primarily a reliable connection to their network, reliable hardware (no having to wrench the thing constantly) and ease of use (no having to call the IT guys constantly). Enterprise users usually can do with a lowly 1.6GHz CPU and a 250GB HD (unless you're into nuclear simulations or graphic renderings). Anything over that will last a respectable 3 years until the next purchase time comes. In fact, many companies probably DON'T want anything too capable, otherwise people will start loading and using stuff (3D video games) rather than doing work!

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Haggar

Considering that Steve Jobs had the courage to admit that "AppleTV 1.0 was not what people wanted", why can't Apple do the same when it comes to their Mac computers? But instead of admitting that the Mac Mini was not what people really asked for, Apple will try to spin it as "we made the Mac MIni and people didn't buy it, which 'proves' that nobody wants a Mac minitower".

He did the spin the AppleTV a bit saying that "nobody got it right." I don't think the Mac Mini is a failure for Apple. The dropped the price of the Shuffle and increased the Flash after sales started to fall, why haven't they done that with the Mac Mini if sales were so bad. I'd think they would have quietly gotten rid of it by now. I guess they could have built too many, but that seems little farfetched to me.


As for an Apple business computer, I think they would need a seperate business computer department for Enterprise. They need a completely new line for the bulk of the large companies and would not be sold on in the Apple Stores. I also think that Apple's fancy keyboards, mice and monitors are less important for bulk business sales. What I'm envisioning is black or charcoal designs in the old NeXT "pizzabox" style design, not all-in-ones. Any consumer-based Macs could still be had, but the main reason why you'd want that number of Macs is for the OS, not for the aesthetics.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by J-Shea

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen. Essentially, this would be an expandable Mac Mini. (Remember the design of the IIci and IIcx machines?)

I imagine Apple would be concerned that this Enterprise Macintosh might cannibalize sales of iMacs in the consumer space -- but I recall how Apple initially restricted the eMac to educational institutions. They might consider restricting an Enterprise Mac to corporate users who buy in volume.

The important part of your post was the first half of the first sentence.

When Jobs came back to Apple, one of the first questions he was asked in a press conference, was what Apple was going to do to get corporate customers back.

His answer:

"The enterprise is not our customer."

What makes anyone think that anything much has changed here? The iPhone?

For Apple to care about the enterprise customer, it will take far more than the xMac. They need an enterprise division, with its own sales force. It will need to coddle those customers. When is Apple ever known for coddling customers? This is seperate from good customer service.

They need deep understanding of major corporate needs.

They need Sun for that. The OS's are getting closer, the hardware is close, and that would take care of the enterprise division.

Would that happen? Probably not. But it should.

[wheelhot]

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen. Essentially, this would be an expandable Mac Mini. (Remember the design of the IIci and IIcx machines?)

I don't get it, why corporate need to upgrade? if they want upgrade just get a MacPro. If Apple creates a cheap fully upgradeable PC, it will effect iMac sales and bring more Windows Users hence attract the attention of hackers more. Apple do not want that, that's why they are aiming toward the enterprise rather then the home market.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by wheelhot

I don't get it, why corporate need to upgrade? if they want upgrade just get a MacPro. If Apple creates a cheap fully upgradeable PC, it will effect iMac sales and bring more Windows Users hence attract the attention of hackers more. Apple do not want that, that's why they are aiming toward the enterprise rather then the home market.

Two problems.

One is that in a number of corporate surveys over the past three years, business executives have said that they want monitors seperate from the computer itself.

Secondly, most business computers cost about $1,000. The Mac Pro is too expensive for a general purpose business computer.

[russellgreenwood]

Maybe someone could mention that Snow Leopard is scheduled to have Exchange support - which is probably 90% of what these business want no?

[coolfactor]

Originally Posted by Haggar

Considering that Steve Jobs had the courage to admit that "AppleTV 1.0 was not what people wanted", why can't Apple do the same when it comes to their Mac computers? But instead of admitting that the Mac Mini was not what people really asked for, Apple will try to spin it as "we made the Mac MIni and people didn't buy it, which 'proves' that nobody wants a Mac minitower".

The Mac mini is a great computer, and I'm sure they sold a ton of them. Where are you getting your information?

[melgross]

Originally Posted by russellgreenwood

Maybe someone could mention that Snow Leopard is scheduled to have Exchange support - which is probably 90% of what these business want no?

90% of businesses want that, but it's not 90% of what businesses want.

[JasonBee]

Originally Posted by mstone

And although Symantec can detect the virus, it can often do nothing to quarantine, delete or in any way prevent the infection.

I've seen viruses and trojans making their way through gateway, mailserver, AND desktop scanners from time to time. That's several situations where a group of major enterprise antivirus vendor failed to detect an infection which required a custom AV definition to fix. Every single time that occurs it sets the whole IT unit on alert and causes major overages - staff time and $$$. That's just to keep the threat contained. Ergo just to maintain normal service functions.

The products in question still successfully caught the other 900 or so new infections that we never saw, but when simple small SINGLE failures have such a large impact there is indeed a fatigue factor that the IT establishments may see mitigated by a move to heterogeneous desktop mix - including Macs for general Office productivity and creative users.

Consider now the insanity of having windows users "self support" or be left "on their own" by IT - even a CIO. Once the mac users start to become more than a tiny fraction within the user community do you think they'll remember that they were left "on their own" but pay for new support services? Do you think that senior management will forget that they didn't require as many IT support staff to cover? Or for that matter none? Senior managers think in gross generalizations and believe you me the idea of self-supporting clients will NOT be forgotten when negotiating that new budget.

IT support staff should see the need to support everyone, and I see a day coming soon where Mac-friendly IT staff will be asked to manage an enterprise desktop rollout of "those crappy" macs. I don't think they'[ll be so keen to involve their Mac-agnostic (whatever the hell that would mean) peers in the development plans. In fact it's a good way to finally take back from desktop support services from all those windows admins pretending that Macs were "toys" - while sitting next to their AIX boxes, sheesh.

I sense a conversion of the masses when jobs are at stake. It'll be interesting to watch.

[jrs74656]

I am GLAD they are not going to a subscription service. I don't buy enough music to make it pay. I'd have to go elsewhere.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by jrs74656

I am GLAD they are not going to a subscription service. I don't buy enough music to make it pay. I'd have to go elsewhere.

1) This wouldn't mean that the sale option would be going away if a subscription model was in place.

2) The rumour that it was coming and this was that it's going away are still just a rumours.

[jdovejr]

important: I USE A MAC AND AN IPHONE AND LOVE THEM. EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE THIS PERFECT COMPUTING PLATFORM.

im am a realist, unfortunately.

and reality does set in.

first:

hittrj01:

base mac pro (lowest cost mac with easily changeable parts and no monitor):$2299
cheap 20" monitor:$220
office 2008(standard):$399
1 year warranty

total:$2918

dell optiplex 330 (standard business machine)
includes microsoft office
adobe acrobat 8.1
20" monitor
3 year on-site service

total: $998

this will not be used in the discussion
Wyse Viance:
20" monitor
keyboard and mouse
centralized citrix server
complete centralized management

total (for 20 including server cost): $1150

ok, lets buy 20 of em....

this means either an smb gets all new ones or an enterprise gets them for payables at the main office.

should i, as a business owner/cfo pay $58,360 or $19,960?

you can pay the computer guy easily for $38,400.

or even buy a new kick-butt phone system.

serviceability and interchangeability means everything in the enterprise market. it means the system is either up or down. a low cost employee is $150/day and downtime is lost money.

os x is the best os out. i am a huge apple fan. in order for apple to be adopted in the enterprise they must be able to justify the cost. they cant support thin client. as a business owner, im not paying an extra $1920 for everyone to experience os x.

as a cfo, i'm not authorizing it.

why? because mas 250 runs fine on my windows machine and what is good enough for me is good enough for you.

don't even bring up service. apple does not provide on-site service and that is crucial. no company is going to make a trip to the apple store when dell will come to you.

if your company has money to burn (as most do )....buy the mac pro. it is a much better computer.

That is not my point though....

second:
Active Directory

I shouldn't have to say more. but i will for all the people out thre who do not manage networks for a living.

there is no better way to manage computer users available.

period.

opendirectory? redhat directory service? NIS? OpenLDAP?

are you kidding. microsoft controls this and apple is working on it. they will make an adequate connector.

unfortunately that doesn't help me push a group policy. It does not help enforce my acceptable use policy (EUP).

third:
training.

microsoft made this easy. we have to retrain everyone on office 2007's ribbon interface and vista anyway so this is a wash.

-jdovejr

[aaarrrgggh]

Apple: Just buy Pandora already. Thanks.

[J-Shea]

Originally Posted by hittrj01

Holy cow, this just in! Apple has made available a computer that has ALL of these features readily available! Can you guess what it is?

.... It's called a Mac Pro.

Do you believe that businesses are going to buy $2,800 Mac Pros by the bushel? If Apple is serious about catering to corporate I.T. departments, they need to offer them an expandable version of the Mac Mini at a price no higher than a Mac Mini.

[J-Shea]

Originally Posted by guest

Which kind of business really requires such customizable machines? Replaceable video card? Are you talking about part by part upgrading?

Not part by part upgrading, per se, but corporate customers generally want to be able to easily replace a failed hard drive or add a PCI card to a desktop computer. Although the Mac Mini is elegant and has adequate performance specs for basic office applications, it is not designed to be opened, modified or upgraded.

[nvidia2008]

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

Apple: Just buy Pandora already. Thanks.

YUP. AND MAKE IT WORK outside of the US.

[Haggar]

When South Park was criticized for having poorly drawn content and cheap toilet humor, the South Park creators responded to the critics by introducing Terrence and Philip, who are even more poorly drawn and even more crude. In the same way, the Mac Mini is Steve Jobs' own Terrence and Philip. The Mac Mini was created out of spite, and not really meant as a serious effort to address people's demand for a Mac minitower. The Mac Mini is Steve's way of saying "Fuck You" to all those "minitower whiners".

Steve: "You guys want a minitower? Here's something that I pulled out of my ass. I call it a Mac Mini. Take that!"

[Haggar]

Originally Posted by J-Shea

Not part by part upgrading, per se, but corporate customers generally want to be able to easily replace a failed hard drive or add a PCI card to a desktop computer. Although the Mac Mini is elegant and has adequate performance specs for basic office applications, it is not designed to be opened, modified or upgraded.

Even Apple's "professional" laptops require total disassembly just to replace basic parts like a hard drive or dvd drive. Right now, IT departments who have no Mac experience are thinking that Macs can be taken apart just like any regular Dell PC. But if businesses start buying more Macs, then the IT departments will see what a pain Mac repairs really are. When Mac users start complaining about long repair times and technicians start complaining to IT managers, it will give the IT directors and CIOs even more reason to not support Macs. They will use every excuse they can find, and they have the power to carry out their anti-Mac agenda. And Apple will have only itself to blame.

[bloggerblog]

Apple has the potential of grabbing the IT industry by the balls if only they make the platform more dependable, provide bug-fixes on time, and provide arrogant-less support.

[themoonisdown09]

I work at a software company and we are thinking of replacing all the sales and training people's laptops with Macbooks. I really hope that soon after that, we can start getting some Xserves in here to replace our Dell servers.

[jeffharris]

Originally Posted by J-Shea

If Apple cares to be a serious contender in corporate I.T. departments, they ought make an expandable Macintosh that suits the needs of business users. Such a Mac would be designed to permit easy replacement of the hard drive and video card, provide space for one or two PCI cards, and not have a built-in screen. Essentially, this would be an expandable Mac Mini. (Remember the design of the IIci and IIcx machines?).

To the naysayers who cry "but there's already the MacPro". I can tell you, while the MacPro is a fantastic machine, it's complete over-kill for a lot of users. It's also physically HUGE and expensive. Most users simply do not need the expansion capabilities of a MacPro. Actually, the sheer SIZE is the biggest issue. For me, there's simply no room for a MacPro in my office.

As far as headless Macs go, there's a gaping chasm between the Mac mini and MacPro that could easily and profitably be filled.

The Mac mini is a joke. The iMac is too limited and glossy screens in a graphics intensive environment doesn't work. The MacBook Pro isn't flexible enough (that's my machine).

Basically we're talking about Half a MacPro with 2 PCI slots, 2 internal drive bays (RAID?), same processor and number of RAM slots and less than half the size (or smaller).

Apple would absolutely benefit from a machine of this class in it's lineup. The Mac IIcx and Mac IIci are the perfect example! A compact and powerful machine that will fit ANYWHERE. And it's not just in corporate business. There are many designers and design studios who would LOVE a machine of this caliber. Switchers would gobble these things up. Speccing YOUR choice of video cards and monitors would be fantastic. Upgrading the video card isn't the point, it's SPECCING the card of your choice when you buy the machine that's most important.

Anyway, it's an old saw, but I'd love to see Apple offer something of this nature.

[wbrasington]

Originally Posted by Haggar

Even Apple's "professional" laptops require total disassembly just to replace basic parts like a hard drive or dvd drive.

You sound like a total stupid idiot, I just upgraded the disk drive in my laptop by taking out the battery, removing 4 screws, sliding out the old drives rack, replacing it with a 250 gb that I picked up at Micro-Center, and put it back together.

I used free software from the internet, to back the entire old drive image onto a USB drive.
I rebooted from the USB external drive after the new drive was inplace.
I then copied the image from the USB external drive onto the new internal drive.
Then I rebooted from the internal drive and my Leopard is completely functional without even reinstalling the OS!

Took one screw driver and about 5 minutes to replace the drive.

I don't know just how little you know about Apple products PC-Fanboy.... but it's clear it's so little that it can't be measured.

[wbrasington]

Originally Posted by Haggar

When South Park was criticized for having poorly drawn content and cheap toilet humor, the South Park creators responded to the critics by introducing Terrence and Philip, who are even more poorly drawn and even more crude. In the same way, the Mac Mini is Steve Jobs' own Terrence and Philip. The Mac Mini was created out of spite, and not really meant as a serious effort to address people's demand for a Mac minitower. The Mac Mini is Steve's way of saying "Fuck You" to all those "minitower whiners".

Steve: "You guys want a minitower? Here's something that I pulled out of my ass. I call it a Mac Mini. Take that!"

If you really think a MAC mini is such a failure, go try to buy an old one on eBay.
You will pay more for a 2 year old mac mini than you can buy a much more powerful brand new PC. The point is, the mini is built better, has a better OS, and is desirable enough for people to pay up to get it. The fact that you want to put a card in it to do something is silly. The average corporate company could take 1000 small dell boxes and replace'em with mini's. Keep the monitor, keep the mouse, plug the thing in and go. The small number of people that need to do the custom video card crap just shows a lack of understanding of the business world in commenting about it.
The fact of the matter is, the one area in business that the MAC is actually dominant, are functions that are heavily graphic in nature. Instead of adding a better graphics card to a DELL, what they REALLY do is get rid of the dell and us a real graphics machine.

[irnchriz]

removed